What can an outstanding book proposal do for your book manuscript that the manuscript itself cannot do?

If you prepare an outstanding book proposal for your manuscript, fiction or non-fiction, you put your work head and shoulders above writers that fail to do this important step. From beginning to end, an outstanding book proposal shows editors that you have thought about your book beyond the writing of it.

Think carefully about and answer these important questions while you are beginning to plan, scope out, and write your first draft of your book:

1. “What is your book about?” If you can answer this question for your non-fiction or fiction book in 14 or fewer words interestingly and compellingly, you have helped move your ideas forward.

2. “Who is your book for?” When you answer this question you have settled on the audience, your target readership, whether male or female or both, whether old or young or both, and the genre you are preparing for your readers: Is it fiction? If so, is it a mystery? Romance? Family story?

3. “Tell about your book (story).” You can respond to that request quickly if you have already thought about and prepared a clear summary, in 150 words or less, about your book for a publishing house and its editorial staff. Your proposal’s summary can also influence, perhaps, what copy writers put into catalogs and other places, such as the Internet, about your book.

4. “What other books is your book like?” This is the question you answer in your book proposal in a section called “competition.” These are five to seven published books by other authors for the same genre and audience. Somehow your book must be similar to them yet distinctive from them. Why is your book different? What does it give the reader that readers expect from a book in your book’s genre? What makes your book special? Include title,author,publisher, and year published for each title in your competition list, with a brief statement about each telling its scope and mentioning what it does not do that your manuscript does.

5. An editor wants to know the answer to these questions: “How will you tell people about your book; in other words, how will you stir interest in it, get word out about it?” Your answer must include a web site or author page you’ll set up, book signings that you will arrange, speaking engagements, and other things you are ready to do–or are getting ready to do–to promote your book.

6. “What qualifies you to write this book?” This is part of your author biography, which shares things about you that relate the book’s focus or topic to your life experience. It also includes writing experience and published works (if any), even if they fall into genres different from the present manuscript.

7. “May I see your manuscript?” This includes the first three chapters or the first two plus the final chapter of your book. Or, an editor may want you to include the entire manuscript to complete your book proposal. Include a Table of Contents and insert page numbers that correspond to the page numbers you inserted on the manuscript. Include a header or footer with your name, the manuscript’s title, and your copyright information.

After those seven points, what will help your book proposal most? After a highly interesting non-fiction book or an intriguing, well-told story, your writing must have correct spelling and grammar. Watch for typos in the copy. If you have been asked to send a book proposal, that means that your query e-mail or letter caught the attention of an editor. Do not disappoint the interested editor.

Submit a complete, professional book proposal that anticipates all of those sections above. Those sections will help you later. They will have prepared you to deal with editors and the public.

Before I go, I have one more question for you: What do most of those questions above have in common? If you answer: “marketing!” then you have answered correctly. Marketing is at the top of every publisher’s and editor’s mind, along with outstanding writing.

That’s about it for now. Take whatever time you need to prepare a really outstanding proposal for your book so you will be ready when one or more of your queries hits gold.

Jane Bullard is the author of a true story, Not All Roads Lead Home: A story of renewed love. Jane wrote the foreword for The Mourner’s Comforter by C. H. Spurgeon. For her pen name, Jane borrowed one of her grandmothers’ family names. You can learn more about Jane’s book at OpineBooks.com and read her articles on SearchWarp.com and some of her short essays at Opinari.com, a unique blog.