How a book proposal is made (VIDEO)

My experience honing my book idea, writing a proposal, and finding an agent.

I originally published this post and video for paid subscribers only a year ago, but am removing the paywall and re-publishing it in anticipation of this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made podcast in which I’m sharing more about the process of writing and publishing a book.

Many people who’ve known me primarily as a podcaster aren’t aware that I started my career as a writer - and, in fact, wrote and published four books by my early 30s, the last in 2011. Writing books was a huge part of my identity as a freelance writer, and while none made me rich, they all contributed to my success in numerous ways.

All the books I wrote then were in the parenting genre, with a focus on pregnancy and early parenting - since I was completely immersed in both. It was a very different time in my life, but also a very different time for book publishing. Social media was in its infancy and even Amazon wasn’t the unmatched powerhouse it is today. The way books were pitched, proposed, published, and promoted was simply different then.

So when I finally decided it was time to write another book - more than a decade after my last was published - in many ways, I had to start from scratch and learn how the process works all over again. I’m excited to be looking forward to my second act career as a published author - and to share what I’ve learned with you.

This post (and the accompanying bonus video) detail what I’ve learned, how my new proposal came together, the misconceptions I had to let go of, how I found an agent…and what happens after the proposal is done.

Writing The Proposal:

No surprised, honing my idea and shaping my proposal was by far the hardest part of this process. Here’s how I got started:

With a vague idea rattling around in my head but no real urgency to shape it into a marketable idea, I decided I needed a motivator - and a deadline. On a whim, I signed up for

Beth Kempton

‘s Book Proposal Masterclass, a hybrid live/self-paced virtual class that started at the end of February 2023. The information was incredibly detailed and helpful, and the end of the “live” element of the class felt like a deadline of sorts, which I find helpful for manufacturing urgency to force me to get moving on a project.

To be fair, I could have written my proposal without taking a full-on course. After all, I wrote and sold several proposals in the early 2000s, and today there is even more information available online about how to put together a book proposal. But the course gave me a (gentle) kick in the pants and plenty of validation that I was on the right path, which proved to be invaluable. Just a warning, though: while a course, workshop, or writer’s community can be super valuable, waiting around for the “perfect” course or coaching program to appear can also be a stalling tactic—so if you can’t find one or it’s not in the budget, don’t let that stop you.

Book proposals can look very different depending on the genre of book, format, and what the author is wanting to highlight most, but they all do have some things in common. Publishers are going to want to know the concept of the book itself, obviously, but also its target audience and how you plan to reach them - aka a marketing section. And they’ll want to see evidence of your abilities as a writer. I go into all of this in the video below.

One thing I was reminded of via Beth’s course, and then re-reminded of after my agent recommend I completely overhaul my proposal’s structure, is that there’s no one right way to format a proposal (and searching for that One Right Way can also be a stalling tactic!) I talk more about that in the video, too.

Getting An Agent:

Once my proposal was complete, the next step for me was finding an agent (note: you don’t HAVE to have an agent to pitch a book, and I have published several books without agents. I’ll talk about why I chose to pursue an agent this time in the video.)

I did the majority of my agent research through PublishersMarketplace.com. I highly recommend signing up for a membership, even if just for a few months, so you can get full access to their database of deals, publishers, and agents. This was invaluable to me as I did my research (plus it’s just fun to get a peek at the deals other authors are making.)

Another tactic is to read the acknowledgements section of books that are in the same genre or reach a similar audience, and see if the author thanks their agent. Google can be surprisingly effective at tracking agents down. I used both of those methods to find my initial list of agents, then I queried (pitched) them via an email synopsis of my idea and myself.

Querying an agent is not as scary as it sounds. Remember, agents are out there actively looking to represent authors and their works, including not-yet-published authors. They need you as much as you need them! I got kind and encouraging responses from most of the agents I queried, even those who passed on my idea. A few responded and asked to see the full proposal. In the end, I decided to move forward with one who had a collaborative style I appreciated (more on that in the video.)

The Publishing Process:

When I initially recorded this video last July, my proposal was circulating to my agent’s list of 30 editors. Based on some feedback we got from a couple of the editors, I quickly revamped the proposal and circulated it to a smaller list in August. In September, I accepted a publishing offer from Sourcebooks. And nearly a year later, the bulk of the writing work is done, and we’ve shifted into edits and other prelaunch tasks (more on that in this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made.)

The video is below, and I’d love to hear any questions you might have about the proposal process - or, questions you’d like me to answer in this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made.

And don’t forget that paid subscribers will get ad-free, advance access to new episodes of The Tea’s Made podcast starting this Wednesday. So this is a great time to upgrade your subscription!