The Book Proposal Kit

A 24 page fill-in-the-blank guide to the proposal that sells your nonfiction book, with prompts that do the heavy lifting and a complete sample chapter from a real proposal that went out on submission. A book proposal is the document that sells a nonfiction book. Not the manuscript, which feels unfair, because surely the manuscript has put in the hours. But no. The proposal is the thing agents and editors read first, and often the thing that decides whether the book gets a serious look at all. This is why most people approach a proposal with the expression of someone asked to assemble patio furniture without the little Allen key. A good proposal asks you to be three people at once: the writer with the idea, the marketer who understands the reader, and the analyst who can explain why the book belongs in the world now. This kit makes that much less awful. It walks you through every section a strong nonfiction proposal needs, in the order you need to understand them. Under each one, you get three things: a plain-English note on what the section is actually trying to prove, because publishing has a gift for making simple things sound like paperwork; a prompt you can paste into your favourite generative AI tool to get a first draft moving in your own voice, instead of staring at a blank page as though it has personally betrayed you; a worked example pulled from one real proposal, so you can see the level of specificity, polish, and nerve you're aiming for. Then there's space to write. You type directly into the document. The dotted lines are yours. WHAT'S INSIDE The Overview — the two-page heart of the proposal, and where an agent decides whether to keep reading Comparable Titles — the books yours sits beside, learns from, and quietly elbows for shelf space The Market & Audience — proof that real readers are waiting, not just the three friends who love you The Promotion Plan — how the book reaches those readers, with your help and without fantasy math Your Bio — why you're the person to write this book, not merely a person with a LinkedIn profile The Chapter Outline — the whole book at a glance, with enough structure to reassure everyone involved The Sample Chapter — the part where you stop promising you can write and simply do it