How to write a (successful) book proposal
For newly graduated PhDs, and likewise for established scholars, developing a solid publication track record comprises an essential component in the academic career for numerous reasons. First, they contribute to establishing your reputation in your discipline as an expert and influential voice in a given subject matter. Second, they leverage your academic profile and employability potential. Moreover, given the fact that higher education institutions are frequently subjected to the assessment of independent external bodies regarding their research productivity, each faculty member’s publications contribute towards this assessment. Finally, when applying for external funding bids, if you display robust publications track record, it testifies to your solid knowledge or expertise in your discipline and the capacity to complete the proposed project.
Therefore, given this sample of relevant aspects, it allows us to notice the benefits of fostering a strong publication track record. Within that, in this article, I want to address specifically how newly graduated PhDs can develop a strong book proposal to have their first manuscript published.
Here, a natural starting point to develop your proposal is the final version of your PhD thesis after you have implemented any minor or major corrections suggested by the examination panel (if this is your case, of course). However, do not let yourself be fooled into thinking that it will be just a matter of copy and paste to turn your PhD thesis into a publishable manuscript.
In reality, being honest with you, preparing your manuscript will demand a great amount of rewriting, cutting out several parts of your original thesis, editing and reorganising chapters, adding new material and references, and so forth. Nonetheless, the big advantage is that you are not starting from scratch but rather from a previously reviewed and positively evaluated solid piece of research.
Initial market assessment
As said, you are not starting from scratch regarding your manuscript. However, it is important to take into consideration that publishing companies are private enterprises (even if they are linked to universities). Although it can eventually happen, depending on your research topic and other factors, it is unlikely that your manuscript will become a sort of New York Times bestseller title, for example.
Thus, it means to say that usually, the publisher approach manuscripts as a product, which should have at least a reasonable sales potential to allow them to recover the investment. In other words, they are indeed concerned with the quality of your manuscript, its analytical depth, robust and well-articulated argumentation, and so forth. But if they foresee that the market potential is not good enough, they might give it a second thought before accepting the proposal.
Consequently, to overcome this initial challenge, there are two main tasks that you should engage in. First, you must identify which are the potential publishers for your manuscript. Make a list of them, starting from books you are already familiar with whose topics shown some degree of similarity or overlap with your research. This aspect represents a good indicator of the potential chance of successful acceptance of your proposal.
Nonetheless, you must pay careful attention while analysing their catalogue because if, for example, you identify one or more titles that are highly similar to yours, this aspect might reduce their interest in taking you on board. Remember that for the publisher, your manuscript is a product and, as such, they might not be interested in holding very similar products in their catalogue because one could, eventually, affect the sales of the other.
In the second place, once you have prepared this list of potential publishers, check if they are fostering any call for book proposals, which eventually, your manuscript could represent a good fit. It is not a guarantee that your proposal will be accepted because it will depend on their internal evaluation, among other factors. However, the chances tend to be higher than spontaneous submissions, given the fact that the publisher is proactively requesting proposals. Furthermore, another considerable advantage is that in this case, it means that the publisher already sees a market potential for manuscripts in the discipline concerning the call.
Choosing your potential publisher
In line with the discussion developed in the previous section, choosing which publishers to approach is oftentimes the subject of debates. On the one hand, there are voices advocating that, ideally, you should approach primarily top renowned publishers (e.g. famous and large private publishing houses or internationally prestigious university presses). On the other hand, some voices defend more flexibility in this regard.
It is a fact that having your manuscript published by an internationally renowned publisher might, indirectly, provide an implied seal of quality to your work, given the fact that such publishers enjoy the fame of being more rigorous in their evaluation process of submitted book proposals. Secondly, it is also possible that they might have a well-established commercial structure that will be able to provide authors with strong marketing support to make your book known among its target audience. Moreover, chances are that influential and well-established scholars in your field might have already been published by them.
However, it does not mean that you cannot find an equivalent level of both academic rigour and marketing support from less famous academic publishing houses. They might not enjoy the same level of prestige and share of mind among the target audience of your book, but this aspect is not indicative that their catalogue is less qualified. Furthermore, I am sure that you will be able to identify that even influential and well-established scholars in your field have also published good books with less famous publishing houses.
Therefore, from my perspective, there is nothing set on stone and neither there is anything wrong with approaching and publishing your manuscript with one of these two groups. By the end of the day, it is more of a personal choice. However, prior to making your decision (especially if you are unsure), my suggestion is that you make a checklist of important points to consider. Analyse their catalogue of titles in your discipline and examine how will your manuscript eventually fit in there. Will it be just a number amidst many others, or does it have the potential to stand out from the crowd? How does their overall evaluation process differ and what is their average timeline between acceptance and publication? How is their respective peer-review process? Are there substantial differences regarding their royalty’s policy? How important is in your discipline being published solely by renowned publishing houses? Make a list of some influential and well-established authors in your discipline and check which publishers they have chosen.
In summary, these are some of the important questions that you will need to reflect upon before making up your mind regarding which type of publisher to approach. Use this checklist as your compass to guide you through the array of potential publishers to approach, identify the pros and cons of each one of them and, finally, make your ranking.
Know your audience and the competition
Another crucial component in your book proposal encompasses the capacity to demonstrate to your potential publisher that you have clarity regarding the target audience of your manuscript and who are the potential competitors of your title. While you do not need to come up with a robust monography-like report, you should at least demonstrate that you have reflected on these two important aspects (i.e. audience and competition), because they will contribute towards the market positioning of your manuscript if the proposal is accepted.
On the development of this important task you should address the following main aspects:
a) Who is the target audience of your manuscript: graduate and/or postgraduate students, postdoctoral researchers, established scholars, marketing practitioners, policymakers, business people, leaders of non-governmental organisations, social activists, advocates of human rights, historians, health professionals, politicians or members of congress, etc. Moreover, do not simply come out with a long list of the potential target audience, but also succinctly explain why they would be interested in your manuscript.
b) Explain whether your manuscript is targeted towards a specific geographical region or if it is aimed towards a broader national or international audience.
c) Which disciplines does your manuscript fit in, and how it can contribute towards the expansion of knowledge in the area? This specific reflection proves to be important not only to provide elements to an appropriate market positioning of your manuscript but also to its future marketing and communication strategies.
d) Finally, regarding the competition, identify something like 10–15 similar or relatively convergent titles concerning your research topic, which you consider highly relevant and influential. Moreover, my suggestion is that you focus on titles published maximum within the past two decades. Not that older titles might not be relevant or influential but just because their sales might have already reached their peak. Obviously, if your research topic encompasses an extremely new and emergent area, eventually, there might be less than 10–15 titles to analyse. In such a case, just adapt to a lower quantity. Either way, you must analyse aspects such as publication year, authors’ institutional affiliation, publisher’s name, manuscript language, the main methodological approach and argumentation raised, geographical or social context, and their strengths and weaknesses.
The aim behind this task is not to demonstrate to the publisher that previous titles are bad and your manuscript is better than what is out there (especially because, chances are that some of these titles may have been published by them and it would be impolite to argue that). In reality, the focus is to identify any relevant gaps left by previous publications and how your manuscript can contribute to filling that gap.
Only for the sake of clarification, let us suppose, for example, that your research topic addresses domestic violence against women and most of the existing titles exploring this subject matter have done so either in the US or Western Europe social contexts. However, your manuscript addresses the same topic but in the South-East Asian social context. Then, you are demonstrating to the publisher the existence of a relevant gap that will entice their commercial interest in your project.
Providing an overview of your book
Even if a publisher advertises call for book proposals, it is uncommon that you also send your full manuscript, and even less in the case of spontaneous submissions. Indeed, what they expect from you is an overview of your manuscript (in addition to the market assessment previously discussed), in such a way that they can have a fair idea of what your project is about.
Therefore, to provide them with this overview, you must prepare at least an abstract, a statement of purpose of your manuscript and a provisional title alongside a table of contents. Additionally, if you feel appropriate or relevant, you can also incorporate a sample of key references that you will use in your manuscript. This initiative will provide the publisher with an idea of the main scholarship you are relying on to support your argumentation.
Moreover, I also suggest that your proposal (ideally, less than ten pages long) should address the following aspects: a) the estimated completion after the proposal acceptance (i.e. how many months will take for you to prepare the manuscript), b) the estimated length of the manuscript either in the number of words (preferably) or the number of A4 pages, c) the estimated number of figures and tables and whether they are black & white or colour (this aspect impacts directly in the book’s final retail price, so think carefully), d) the overall organisation of the book’s chapters, e) a brief author’s biography and f) a preliminary list of three to four potential endorsers of your book who, if requested, can write a couple of sentences in praise of your book.
However, while these items comprise my suggestion, you must always check the publisher’s website for any specific recommendations and guidelines regarding book proposals formatting. In case they provide such guidelines, their instructions will certainly prevail, and you should abide by them.
Finally, regarding the payment of royalties for your manuscript, I consider it as a more sensitive topic and, in my opinion, not strategically appropriate to be addressed in your book proposal. Therefore, I would not include this topic in the report. Moreover, most publishers already have well-established royalty’s policies on their websites while others do not. It varies. However, in any case, once you are offered a publication’s contract, this topic will certainly be addressed in the document. If for any reason, you understand that you have solid arguments to negotiate a different arrangement, I consider that they will be open at least to talk about it and you progress from there, if that is the case. Nonetheless, if this negotiation does not apply to you and you are satisfied with the proposed arrangement, celebrate your achievement and just get started to work. You have got a manuscript to deliver in a few months.
