Book proposal: Draft no. 6?
A small update on a big step
I’m sure the whole world noticed that I took several months off. Relax, everyone, I am back.
Nothing momentous happened in those three months since my last post that would live up to the expectation of taking a whole bunch of months off. I was just busy preparing for the holidays, trying to get a promotion at work, and starting new agility classes with my dog. Nothing major, nothing bad, just busy.
I share this piece of nothing-burger because that in itself is worth remembering: when you feel the need or desire to write but you can’t find the time, despite how much a writing project means to you, it still might have to take a backseat to other things in your life. That’s ok and that’s normal. I continually have to come back and remind myself of this, but it does make me feel better when I do.
The reason I came back today, this very day, to post on Substack is that I have an actual book proposal draft!!!
I still don’t know what kind of press I want to send it to—university, commercial academic, trade, indie (if you don’t know the differences, see this post by Laura Portwood-Stacer)—but I used Edinburgh University Press’s guidelines since I’m also considering sending them a manuscript based on my dissertation and because they have some really helpful notes on what they are looking for in a proposal. If you choose to do this, keep in mind that you will likely have to tailor your proposal to the specific press you want to send it to later on. But it was a great template to help me get started.
The current version of my proposal is probably draft number 5-7…I stopped counting. Here are a few things I am thankful for at this point in the process:
1. Start with the proposal
For some, it might not make any sense to start a book proposal before beginning to write the actual book. But for me, it was crucial. The fact that proposals have to be air-tight, with no fluff or flubber, makes drafting one early on in the idea development stage a real challenge that yields big results if you stick with it. I used the genre of the proposal to push me to be as concise and clear as possible with my thoughts, and work towards even more precision with each iteration. I think I started drafting it in November. I let it sit there judging me for weeks until I was ready to fill in another section (sometimes that only meant something like the bio part!). But sticking with it has given me a great boost of confidence now to say—out loud—that I’m writing a book, partially because I have a document to back it up.
2. Don’t be glued to the original idea
One of the toughest parts for me at that early stage, trying to pull a full proposal out of thin air, was the annotated table of contents. Edinburgh called this section a “Chapter-by-chapter description of content and form” and gave these notes with it:
The table of contents.
Make sure that all chapter titles – including the introduction and conclusion – have keywords that describe the chapter, so that the chapter title stands alone without needing any more information to say what it is about.
The main sub-headings, where appropriate.
A paragraph outlining the content of each chapter – including the introduction and conclusion.
A list of the key authors, texts, case studies or examples covered by that chapter.
The estimated word count for each chapter.
That’s a lot of detail when you barely know what your theoretical framework is. Thankfully, I already knew what my main objects were and a big-picture idea of the framework. I had a vague idea of what could work as a structure, what information and set-up needed to come first to lay the groundwork for the “case study” chapters, so I typed it up. I spent the next few months thinking about how much of that set-up was necessary and what absolutely needed to stay vs. what definitely needed to go.
All of this made me question, what is this book actually about? (again). Differentiating the answer to that question from the answer to, what could this book include?, is in all honesty the secret to good editing. Any book could have been a very different book from its published version. The deciding factor is, which version of the book do you want to write? Maybe you have a different question that looks more like, what version of the book has to be written? Or, what version of the book has to be read by my audience? What ended up changing was almost everything. Except my objects (and to be quite honest, those might be tweaked too once I start writing those sections).
3. Get outside advice
By mid-April I had a version of the proposal that I thought I could show someone whose opinion about me won’t be swayed by how messy it was. I sent it to that person, he was too busy to read it just yet, so I kept working. There were still several ideas that I had included but that were not essential to the argument and themes of the book. And that bothered me because I couldn’t decide if they should be reduced in size—demoted to a section within a chapter rather than a whole chapter—or cut altogether. As I waited, I started rearranging the same way you might a living room when it’s gross outside and you have nothing else to do. I started to play “what if” with those pieces that I wasn’t sure about and by earlier this month—2 months after the initial feeling like I could share the proposal—I had a significantly more streamlined and cohesive book idea.
The moral of this is not to say, don’t show your proposal to someone—you definitely should. But there might still be another version lurking underneath the one you think is ready for the eyes of a trusted reader. Had I known that, I would have waited to send something to the first reader. I hope he just forgets about it until I have the first chapter done!
P.S. I will share the proposal after I have sent it or possible after it has been accepted somewhere. The next post will talk about the edits I made following this first reader’s suggestions.