For non-fiction authors

What a book proposal actually looks like.

We can't show you a client's, and we'll explain why. What follows is more useful anyway: every section of a proposal written twice — once the way they usually arrive, once the way they should — on a single worked example.

Why we're not showing you a real one.

The proposals we work on are unpublished manuscripts belonging to the authors who wrote them. They are commercially sensitive, they are often years of somebody's life, and keeping them private is something we commit to in writing. That holds whether or not a name is attached — an anonymised proposal for a distinctive book is not anonymous to anyone in the industry.

There's a second reason, and it's the more useful one. The proposals that do circulate publicly tend to be a decade old, or to have sold on the strength of a name the author already had. Reading one teaches you what a successful proposal looked like in a market that has moved, written by somebody in a position you're not in yet.

What helps is seeing the same section done badly and done well, and understanding what moved between them. So that is what this is.

The worked example

One invented book, all the way through.

Everything below is written for this page. The book doesn't exist, the author doesn't exist, and no part of it comes from anyone's real proposal.

It's a non-fiction leadership book for newly promoted technical managers — people who were excellent at the work, got promoted for it, and are now measured on something nobody taught them. We've used that example because it's the same one our own one-pager form shows authors as a placeholder, and because its failure modes are the ones we see most.

Seven sections, twice each.

In the same order as the structure guide, which explains what each section is for.

1. The hook

As it usually arrives

“This book is about leadership. It explores the many challenges facing new managers in today's fast-paced workplace and offers practical advice for overcoming them.”

Stronger

“Most companies believe management is a promotion. It's a career change — and one nobody is trained for. Which is why they lose their best engineers twice: once to a job they were never taught to do, and again when they quit it.”

What moved: the first names a subject. The second makes a claim you could argue with, and attaches a cost to being wrong. An editor can repeat the second one in a meeting.

2. The target reader

As it usually arrives

“Managers, team leaders and business professionals interested in improving their leadership skills and advancing their careers.”

Stronger

“Engineers, designers and analysts in their first people-management role — typically three to eight years into a technical career, promoted within the last eighteen months. They were hired for judgement about systems and are now assessed on judgement about people, with no training and usually no mentor.”

What moved: from a category anyone might belong to, to one person a marketing department could actually go and find. Specificity here is not a stylistic preference — it's what makes the rest of the proposal checkable.

3. Comparative titles

As it usually arrives

“Readers of Radical Candor and Dare to Lead will enjoy this book, which covers similar ground but with a fresh approach.”

Stronger

“Radical Candor (Scott, 2017) gave managers a vocabulary for difficult feedback and is still the reference point for the conversation. It assumes a reader who already identifies as a manager. This book is for the eighteen months before that — when the job is new, the technical work is still where confidence lives, and the reflex is to do it yourself rather than delegate.”

What moved: the first lists books it hopes to resemble. The second makes an argument about position — what that title does, who it assumes, and the gap left over. Note that no sales figures appear; they're never required, and guessing at them is worse than omitting them.

4. Author bio

As it usually arrives

“[Author] is a passionate leader and lifelong learner with a proven track record of success in technology. They have a large social media following and are dedicated to helping others reach their potential.”

Stronger

“[Author] spent twelve years as an engineering manager across three companies, promoted into the role at twenty-six with no training and, by their own account, handling it badly for two years. They now run a practice that has trained more than four hundred first-time managers, and the framework in this book is the one they built after watching the same failure repeat.”

What moved: adjectives became specifics, and a throughline appeared — experience, the problem it exposed, and why this book follows from it. The follower count left, because it belongs in the platform section where it can be counted.

5. Chapter outline

As it usually arrives

“Chapter 3: Communication. This chapter covers communication skills for managers, including active listening, giving feedback, and running effective meetings.”

Stronger

“Chapter 3: The meeting you're actually running. New managers inherit meetings designed for the person they replaced and keep running them unchanged for months. This chapter takes a real weekly stand-up apart and rebuilds it around what the team now needs to decide — which sets up Chapter 4, where the same question is asked about one-to-ones.”

What moved: the first is a topic label. The second makes a claim, shows what the chapter does with it, and hands off to the next one. An outline of the second kind proves the book has a shape; an outline of the first kind proves only that the subject has parts.

6. Sample writing

As it usually arrives

“Leadership has been studied extensively for decades. Researchers have identified numerous frameworks and models, and in this book we will examine what the evidence says about which of them work in practice.”

Stronger

“Three weeks into the job, Maya was still fixing the bugs herself. It was faster. It was also the reason two of her engineers had stopped raising their hands, and it would be another four months before anyone told her so.”

What moved: the first clears its throat — a literature review as an opening. The second starts inside a specific moment. Editors decide about voice within a paragraph, which is unfair and entirely real, so lead with the writing that earns the next one.

7. Marketing and platform

As it usually arrives

“I have a strong presence on social media and an engaged professional network. I plan to promote the book widely through my channels and would be happy to do podcasts and speaking events.”

Stronger

“Newsletter: 4,200 subscribers, 41% open rate, growing roughly 200 a month. LinkedIn: 11,000 followers, the management posts consistently the best performing. Speaking: nine engineering-leadership conferences in the last two years, typical room of 150. Two named podcasts in the space have had me on before and would again. I'll run a launch series to the list, and I'm committing to a twelve-stop podcast tour in the first quarter.”

What moved: every line of the second can be checked, which is the entire function of this section. Note it isn't an enormous platform — 4,200 subscribers is modest. It argues well because it's specific, engaged and growing, and because the commitment at the end is something the author can be held to.

The one nobody looks for

The failure that isn't in any single section.

Every section above can be strong on its own and the proposal still fall apart — because the sections contradict each other. It's the thing an experienced editor notices first and the thing authors almost never check, since nobody reads their own proposal straight through in one sitting.

It looks like this. A bio claiming two decades at the centre of an industry, beside a platform section with no speaking history and no media. Comp titles aimed at a general readership, beside a reader section describing a narrow professional niche. An outline promising original research that the writing sample shows no sign of. A hook about urgency attached to comps that are all eight years old.

None of those is a flaw in the section it appears in. Each is a flaw in the argument, and the argument is what's being bought. When we assess a proposal we look for exactly these — a pass over the whole document asking which claims don't survive contact with each other.

The cheapest fix is to read yours end to end, once, out loud, asking a single question at each section: does this still agree with what I said earlier?

Find out where yours stands.

Answer five questions, send a one-pager, and a working agent reads it and writes back with notes on your book specifically. Free, about twenty minutes.

Start your one-pager → Or read the structure guide