The purpose of a book prospectus (also called a book proposal) is to whet a prospective publisher's appetite to add it to her line-up of new titles. In many cases, the manuscript is still a work-in-progress but is enough to demonstrate the author's sense of style, originality of concept, delivery mechanism and a specific identification of the market to whom it will most appeal.
Instructions
1. Identify the genre of your book and your target demographic. In the broadest sense, you must be able to delineate your manuscript as fiction or nonfiction, categorize it (adventure, fantasy, feminist, juvenile, sci-fi, historical, educational, literary, etc.) and specify the age range/gender/social status of readers with whom the content will best resonate. Example: "This historical biography will appeal to 9 to 12 year old girls who want to become archaeologists."
2. Identify the publishing houses that publish the kind of book you are writing. These can easily be found in annual resources such as "Writer's Market" and will provide you with comprehensive submission guidelines, names of editors and whether the publisher accepts queries and manuscripts from new writers who do not have agents.
3. Compose a professional cover letter to the correct editor. Per the publishing house submission guidelines, the letter can either contain the prospectus within its content or simply be the cover sheet to an attachment that discusses the project in detail. If you are writing a cover letter to the prospectus, keep the content as short as possible. Introduce yourself, the title of your proposed project, respectfully request a review of your attached material and provide your full contact information. If you are embedding the proposal within the letter itself, it will follow the same hierarchy as follows in Steps 4 through 9.
4. Identify the proposed title of the book, the subject matter, your rationale for creating this particular text and a brief listing of some of the key features that you believe make it a unique project. Under key features, for instance, you might want to list sample chapter headings to give the editor a sense of the book's organization and progression. If the book contains photographs, pull-out maps or interactive exercises, mention those as well.
5. Identify the target audience for this book. Briefly describe how the book could be effectively marketed to reach this audience.
6. Describe books that you consider to be both competitive with and complementary to your own project. A how-to book on emergency preparedness, for example, would cite recent titles that address the same topic but would also emphasize how you have taken a different approach to the material and/or covered scenarios not discussed in existing manuals.
7. Provide specifics regarding the estimated length of the finished product, how many chapters you have already written and an estimated date of when you expect to be completed.
8. Explain your unique qualifications and credentials for writing this book. If you have won awards for your writing or professional accomplishments, don't be shy about mentioning them. Likewise, prospective publishers will want to know if you have already published other titles or have additional projects currently in the works.
9. Include a synopsis and one to three sample chapters but only if you have specifically been requested to do so in the submission guidelines or at an editor's request.
