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Nonfiction book proposal template

A nonfiction book proposal sells a book before it is written. It has eight sections: an overview, the book itself, the author, the market, comparable titles, marketing, a chapter outline, and sample chapters. The sample is what decides it; the rest makes the case for reading it.

An author presents an eight-section proposal with sample pages, comparable books, and audience research.

When to use it

  • You are pitching a nonfiction book to agents or publishers.
  • You have the idea and a chapter, and need the business case around them.
  • You want the proposal and the book in one place as you write both.

The 8 chapters

  1. Overview The book in a paragraph, written to be quoted back to you.
  2. About the Book What it is, how long, and why it works as a book.
  3. About the Author Why you are the one to write it.
  4. Market and Audience Who buys it, and how many of them there are.
  5. Comparable Titles Books it sits beside, and what yours does that they do not.
  6. Marketing and Platform What you can do to sell it, concretely.
  7. Chapter Outline Every chapter, a paragraph each.
  8. Sample Chapters The writing itself. This is what decides it.

A worked example

The Keepers, a history of the people who ran lighthouses until the lights were automated.

  1. Overview. For two centuries a family on a rock kept ships off it. Then a machine did. This is who they were.
  2. About the Book. Eighty thousand words in twelve chapters, each built around one keeper's logbook.
  3. About the Author. A maritime archivist who has read four hundred logbooks and lived in two lighthouses.
  4. Market and Audience. Readers of popular maritime history, and the visitors who climb forty lighthouses a year.
  5. Comparable Titles. Two recent sea histories that sold on character, and where this one differs.
  6. Marketing and Platform. A lighthouse newsletter with twelve thousand readers, and three museum partners.
  7. Chapter Outline. Twelve paragraphs, one per keeper, from 1790 to 1989.
  8. Sample Chapters. Chapter one, the keeper who kept the light for sixty days after her husband drowned.

Open this template in Tabularia

Tabularia opens a new Book on the Book Proposal shape: its acts and a chapter for each section, named for it, with each note pinned beside the chapter it belongs to. You name the Book before anything is created.

Open in Tabularia

Or take it away

The Word file has every chapter with its note and mark, a line under each for your own plan, and the example above. It opens in Word, Google Docs, Pages, and LibreOffice.

Download for Word