Giving prescriptive advice about scholarly-book proposals can be tricky, because there truly isn’t one right way to craft a great pitch. Acquiring editors are, above all, interested in creative ideas that push scholarly conversations forward in ways that will connect with, and intrigue, readers. A fantastic book idea can take many forms, so there isn’t a single path to success in scholarly publishing.
There are, however, a number of well-worn paths that lead away from the destination of a successfully published book. Experienced editors have seen hundreds (perhaps thousands) of bad proposals. They are the easy ones to reject because an editor knows they won’t result in an appealing book or are several years away from reaching that point.
As a publishing consultant for academics and author of a new guide on the scholarly-book proposal, I steer Ph.D.s away from six types of proposals. Once you know what they are, you can avoid the pitfalls and write a pitch that will stand out from the crowd.
No. 1: The Topic-Without-a-Point Proposal. You might have what you think is a provocative topic. You might assume that readers will want to pick up any book written about it, especially if few books exist on the subject. But scholarly publishers will want to know not just what your topic is, but what intellectual contribution you’re making about it. All scholarly-book projects are subject to peer review, and a topic in itself can’t be evaluated for contribution. You have to have a point of view and a coherent approach in order to convince people that this book needs to exist and that you should be the author of it.
Look at your table of contents and chapter summaries. Is there something that unites your book’s content, other than a common theme? Could these chapters just as easily be published as journal articles in separate venues? If so, you may have a topic — but not a point.
Stating a clear purpose or takeaway about your topic makes your book more marketable, because it provides a “unique selling proposition” that the marketing team at your press can use to pique the interest of readers, librarians, and retailers who might choose to stock your book.
A strong thesis also makes your work portable. Readers can apply the takeaway to other examples and topics. It helps them move forward in their own scholarship, which is why most academics will be reading your book.
No. 2: The Idea-Without-Evidence Proposal. Perhaps you’re ahead of the game and you’ve already articulated a strong central point for your book. That’s not necessarily enough. You also need to show how the book is going to come together to support that point over a couple hundred pages or more. I sometimes read proposals in which the general topic and even the thesis are quite compelling, but the author gives me no idea of what will actually be in the book.
This is the kind of proposal that a scholarly editor may initially be very excited about but, upon closer examination, will say “come back when you’ve got more material.” Or worse, the editor may send it out to peer reviewers who point out all the holes, resulting in the editor’s support for the project cooling considerably and you feeling demoralized.
A key component of any book proposal is the overview. In that section, you need to clearly explain the evidence and analysis on which the book’s argument is based. Also take great care with your annotated table of contents — another key component of a book proposal — and make sure each chapter listed has a clear argument and evidence of its own in support of the overall thesis. (Besides an overview and a table of contents, here are the other typical components of a book proposal: intended audience, comparable books on the market, biographical information about you, technical specs such as word count and number of images, and expected timeline for completion.)
No. 3: The Still-a-Dissertation Proposal. Thanks to guides like William Germano’s From Dissertation to Book and Beth Luey’s Revising Your Dissertation, early career scholars now tend to understand that a book publisher won’t accept an unrevised dissertation as a book manuscript. But recent Ph.D.s may not know how to persuade editors that the project they’re submitting is significantly different from a dissertation. It’s easy to get frustrated when you genuinely feel that you’ve substantially revised the diss but you still receive comments from editors that your proposal has the aura of dissertation around it.
You might think that your book needs to be more ambitious than your dissertation. In some ways that’s right — you need to be asking a big, important question with your book that might be broader than the one you tackled in your thesis — but you also shouldn’t try to do too much. A proposal that seems to contain multiple potential book concepts within it will (perhaps paradoxically) feel underdeveloped if it doesn’t commit to one main claim. Your book doesn’t need to cover everything that could possibly be said about your topic.
In your proposal, look outward to the broader world and show how your research illuminates something important about it. Talk about your methods and research objects, but in a way that makes clear how they are connected to something bigger. And don’t get too bogged down at this point in the literature and what others have argued. Your perspective and conclusions should be the star of your proposal — and your book for that matter — because you are now about to become the recognized expert on your topic.
No. 4: The Too-Unique Proposal. Authors frequently claim with pride that “I’m writing the first book on X,” but first is not always a virtue if there are no readers waiting for a book on X. The reason a too-unique proposal doesn’t work is partly for sales reasons — it’s hard to predict that people will buy a book if there are no known precedents for it. But it’s also because university presses are interested in having their books contribute to — even push forward — vital scholarly conversations. Be wary of pitching a book that is so wildly different from everything else out there that it’s not poised to become a key part of ongoing academic debates.
In your proposal, identify your book’s intended audience and offer evidence that readers have an appetite for what you’re bringing to the table. Use the “market analysis” or “comparable works” section of your proposal (different publishers call this section different things) to lay out the books that your target readers are currently buzzing about. Explain how your argument finds common ground with those books yet also complements them by offering something important and different. Don’t be afraid to be explicit: Spell out what that something is and why it’ll be useful to the audiences you’ve identified.
No. 5: The Proposal That Belongs at a Different Press. This is the easiest kind of proposal for an editor to reject. Luckily, it’s also the easiest one for an author to fix.
It can be tempting to submit to a big press with prestigious name recognition, but it’s important to make sure the presses you are submitting to actually publish books in your area. Otherwise, even a stellar proposal by an accomplished scholar will meet with rejection, and you could lose months while you wait around for a response.
The fix here is to do your research on scholarly presses. Get familiar with their recent catalogs and the subject areas their editors acquire in. Try to get a sense of which audiences a press is speaking to by evaluating the tone and pitch of their marketing materials (such as the copy on their websites). Make sure you can articulate what makes your book a strong fit for this particular press, and make that case explicitly in your cover letter and prospectus.
Clearly, there’s a lot for authors to think about when crafting a book proposal. But I don’t want you to come away from this feeling like you need to hold back from talking to publishers because you fear your proposal isn’t perfect yet. This brings me to a sixth type of proposal that’ll never get you a book deal:
No. 6: The Proposal They Never See. At some point you really do have to just show people what you have and see how it lands. If you’ve tried to avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve mentioned here, you already have a leg up. The only way to get a book published is to open yourself up to the vulnerability of the publishing process.
Sure, you might be rejected — that’s just part of the process. But you need only one editor who sees the potential in your project and is willing to give it a chance. Aim for your dream presses (so long as you can make a strong case for fit), and also be ready to consider presses that might have come on your radar only recently. There may be a publisher out there looking for a book just like yours right now. You’ll never know if you don’t stop tinkering with your proposal and send it in.
