Ready to send your book proposal to a publisher? They are more likely to take notice of your proposal if it includes a strong Book Marketing section. This section should be the biggest part of your proposal and detail your ongoing book marketing efforts. As an example of what to include in a book proposal, here’s one author’s book proposal contents.
Contents of a Book Proposal
- Overview
- About the Author
- Target Market
- Marketing and Book Promotion
- Competitive and Complementary Books
- Contents of the Book
- Chapter Summaries
- Sample Chapters
This author’s Marketing and Book Promotion section is 10 pages long with several specific sections.
Marketing and Book Promotion
- Introductory paragraph
- Networking
- Global Vision
- Social Media
- Public Relations
- Outreach
- Specialty Venues
- Presentations
Social Media Section
The social media section of this nonfiction author’s book proposal includes reference to his website and blog and the purpose of his website. He states, “It serves as a platform to support the author’s brand. It is updated regularly to keep it fresh and interesting.”
This section also includes a chart showing quarterly numbers for website page views, Twitter followers, Facebook Page fans, Facebook page reach, Facebook page engagement, Instagram followers, and LinkedIn Pulse followers. He provides percentages of increase for each social media platform for the past year. He also details the LinkedIn groups in which he is active.
A screenshot of the results of a Facebook promotion are included at the suggestion of a publicist. This particular promotion was done of a blog post that is a book excerpt to show a publisher that the book is already garnering interest.
Thanks for this useful post, Sue. When I evaluate authors’ book proposals, I focus heavily on the marketing section because that’s where authors can really shine. Even when authors don’t have large platforms, there are many ways to strengthen this section and show their ability to reach their target readers. In the case of an author you and I have both worked with, the chart you created to show percentages of his social media growth over several quarters was quite impressive and helped to make him look active and engaged with his potential readers.
Highlighting successful Facebook promotions are another great idea for a book proposal. One thing that makes writing proposals so challenging is that there is no one “correct” way to write them. Each proposal is unique because each book and each author is unique. The marketing section can be a great place to embrace your creativity and show publishers that you’re already engaging with your target audience and have concrete ideas for doing so that will sell books.
Thank you for your comments Candace! You are so right that a book proposal is a great place to show publishers that authors are engaging with their audience. Authors need to remember that interacting with their audience is important if they hope to maintain engagement and sell more books.