Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal
    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal
    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal

    By Brooke Warner

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal offers memoirists an easy-to-follow formula to create a winning book proposal that will attract agents and editors.



    Brooke Warner is a former acquiring editor and current publisher who breaks the nonfiction proposal into three editorial components and three marketing components. This ebook includes a section about platform—and an explanation of why memoirists need one and how they can build one—as well as real samples from authors who have sold their memoirs to traditional publishers off their proposals.



    Find easy-to-follow templates and smart tips for navigating agents and publishers, along with best practices memoirists can’t afford not to know!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShe Writes Press
    Release dateOct 25, 2013
    ISBN9781938314889
    How to Sell Your Memoir: 12 Steps to a Perfect Book Proposal
    Author

    Brooke Warner

    Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Green-light Your Book, What's Your Book?, and three books on memoir. Warner is a TEDx speaker, weekly podcaster (Write-minded with co-host Grant Faulkner of NaNoWriMo), and the former Executive Editor of Seal Press, as well as the Chairperson of the Independent Book Publishers Association. She writes a monthly column for Publishers Weekly.

    Read more from Brooke Warner

    Related to How to Sell Your Memoir

    Related ebooks

    Composition & Creative Writing For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Second Opinions

      Feb 14, 2022

      New rules. New strategies. New paths to success. While we may see those images of a solo writer in a coffee shop or room, the truth is that no book is a solo endeavor. One of the most important parts of the writing process is getting feedback on an e

      4 min read

    • Article

      Nonfiction Book Proposals

      Oct 13, 2021

      FOR years journalist Chloé Cooper Jones, who was born with a rare congenital disorder called sacral agenesis that affected the development of her hips and legs, had been filling free moments between assignments by writing journal entries on how stran

      8 min read

    • Article

      From FACT to FICTION

      Jun 20, 2020

      American literary critic Leslie Fiedler once wrote: “Henry Miller wrote novels, but he calls his protagonist Henry, often Henry Miller, and his books are in this gray area between memoir and novel.” If you’re a novelist considering writing a memoir,

      12 min read

    • Article

      An Author’s View of Publicity and Marketing

      Dec 13, 2023

      I HAVE always been afraid of publicity and marketing. When I was a new college grad, I turned down an offer to be a publicity assistant at a large publishing company despite being in dire need of a job. As an introvert, I felt incapable of promoting

      12 min read

    • Article

      On Writer’s Block: Advice from Twelve Writers

      Mar 19, 2018

      Our Writers at Work series, which spans sixty-five years of interviews with nearly four hundred writers, offers no shortage of advice. Should this multitude seem daunting, fear not! The editors of The Paris Review have combed through the series and s

      4 min read

    • Article

      Ursula Pike

      Oct 13, 2021

      Ursula Pike
      2 min read

    • Article

      Getting Creative With Reality

      Oct 1, 2020

      What do H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald, Notes on a Small Island by Bill Bryson and Tall Stories and Wee Tales by Billy Connolly have in common? They all belong to the increasingly popular genre of creative non-fiction writing. When creative non-fic

      6 min read

    • Article

      Inspiration Everywhere

      Jun 19, 2021

      Inspiration Everywhere
      7 min read

    • Article

      Becoming a Mother-Writer

      Feb 16, 2022

      MOST of us, at some point in our writerly lives, have read with hunger the canon of books on writing, meaning how-to books about the process of becoming a writer penned by the Great Authors, white and/or male. Stephen King’s On Writing, Ray Bradbury’

      14 min read

    • Article

      Writing The End of Your Memoir

      Oct 10, 2022

      … and I lived happily ever after. If only writing the end of your memoir was that easy! But life doesn’t always resolve neatly. What if you didn’t make it to the top of the mountain or your child is still an addict? Writing about loss? Chances are yo

      7 min read

    • Article

      Megan Culhane Galbraith

      Oct 13, 2021

      Megan Culhane Galbraith
      3 min read

    • Article

      How Surrealism Can Bring A Spark To Your Writing

      Oct 18, 2021

      In one of my first undergraduate writing workshops, our professor informed us that she was only interested in “normal” fiction. When we asked her to specify, her response boiled down to “no orcs.” I have deep sympathy for my professors’ fears of rece

      6 min read

    • Article

      True Stories

      Feb 25, 2023

      True Stories
      8 min read

    • Article

      Healthy Helping

      Oct 18, 2021

      Healthy Helping
      4 min read

    • Article

      How to Get Paid

      Apr 10, 2019

      LAST year James Wolf, a retired insurance agent making his first foray into literary fiction, sent portions of his unpublished novel, “No Good Day to Die,” to a handful of agents and publishers. In their responses the industry experts all told Wolf e

      9 min read

    • Article

      Essays in Strange Forms and Peculiar Places: ‘The Shell Game’

      Jun 8, 2018

      The term “hermit crab essay,” coined in 2003 by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola in their book Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction, refers to essays that take the form of something un-essay-like—such as a recipe, how-to manual, or m

      5 min read

    • Article

      A Starter Kit For Writing Memoir

      Jun 20, 2020

      Sorry, are you writing an autobiography? If so, you’re right – you should tell us all about your childhood, your middle-grade years, your high school experience, etc. But unless you’re famous – and we mean really famous – your odds of selling an auto

      9 min read

    • Article

      Your Nonfiction Book Proposal

      Mar 16, 2020

      A New Yorker cartoon published in 1999 by Mick Stevens shows Adam and Eve sitting together under a tree in Eden. Adam says to Eve, “I can’t help thinking that there’s a book in this.” Adam had a great idea. Do you? If you’re uncertain, this article w

      4 min read

    • Article

      Literary MagNet

      Feb 14, 2024

      In the late 1990s, protagonists Taline and Valerie meet in college and become best friends. During the following two decades, they move to different cities, attend graduate school, explore careers, have kids, and fall in and out of love. Their lives

      3 min read

    • Article

      An Author’s View of the Editorial Process

      Jun 14, 2023

      ONE of my most vivid writing workshop memories is of novelist Paul West saying to a roomful of undergrads that immediately after typing “The End” on a manuscript and mailing it off to his editor, he began to write a new book. In graduate school no on

      12 min read

    • Article

      Vinod Busjeet

      Oct 13, 2021

      Vinod Busjeet
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for How to Sell Your Memoir

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      How to Sell Your Memoir - Brooke Warner

      cover.jpgimg1.pngimg2.jpg

      She Writes Press

      Contents

      Introduction

      Get Oriented

      Book Proposal FAQ

      Your Platform

      The Steps

      Step 1: Proposal Front Matter

      Step 2: Overview (aka Summary)

      Step 3: Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries

      Step 4: Author Biography

      Step 5: Marketing/Publicity

      Step 6: Target Audience

      Step 7: Competitive Titles

      Step 8: Sample Chapters

      Step 9: Query Letter

      Step 10: Tying It All Together

      Step 11: Shop It!

      Step 12: The Waiting Game

      Conclusion

      Brooke’s Offer

      Glossary of Terms

      About the Author

      Introduction

      Congratulations. If you’re reading this ebook, you are ready to take a critical next step in your publishing journey. You may be wondering what all the fuss about the nonfiction proposal is, or you may just be looking for a few good tips on making yours better. This book is going to cover that ground and more.

      I started working in book publishing in 2000, and over my twelve-year career as an acquiring editor at two different publishing houses, I’d estimate that I reviewed somewhere in the range of 10,000 nonfiction book proposals. Now, as the publisher of She Writes Press and the founder of my coaching and consulting company, Warner Coaching Inc., I continue to review, edit, consult on—and sometimes ghostwrite—proposals on a weekly basis.

      I decided to write this ebook at the prompting of some of my clients. I get requests all the time for proposal tips and best practices, and I regularly post suggestions to my Facebook page. Many of the sample materials I’m sharing in this book come from authors I’ve worked with over the years, most of them Seal Press authors. My goal is to help you to create the best memoir proposal you can possibly create, and to understand its value in securing a book deal.

      Here are several important points to understand about your book proposal:

      It will make or break your chances of getting an agent or an editor.

      Writing one requires you to engage two parts of your brain—the creative part you’ve used to write your memoir, and the sales part, which has possibly never been activated if you don’t have a background in sales and marketing.

      It needs to be robust, covering each of the twelve steps this ebook outlines, in order to wow the agent or editor you’re hoping to woo.

      Writing a proposal is an opportunity and a responsibility to represent yourself well and to equip your future agent or editor with the ammunition they need to sell your book (agents to editors and editors to their editorial boards). 

      Even agents and editors who take on books without proposals (because many do) will never say that the book proposal isn’t a helpful tool. Please don’t skip or skimp just because this feels like hard work. (I have suggestions peppered throughout this book to make the whole process fun and easy.)

      img3.png

      As you work on your book proposal, keep focused on its function. A book proposal is like CliffsNotes for agents and editors. They will skim your proposal looking for key points, so you want to make it easy to read. The proposal, above all else, is a selling tool. You get to brag (without being obnoxious), tout your accomplishments, and talk about why your book should be published. The proposal is necessarily repetitive—and that’s okay. Remember, agents and editors are skimming it.

      In this ebook, I am your partner in executing the best possible proposal. If you have any specific questions for me, please contact me directly. I encourage you to sign up for my newsletter on my website, www.warnercoaching.com, and to follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/warnercoaching. Also, I invite anyone reading this book to take advantage of a special offer I have to review your proposal at a discounted rate. Check out the details. By the time you’re finished with this short and easy read, you will be excited and ready to tackle your own proposal, or to put some finishing touches on one you’ve already started.

      Ready? Let’s do this!

      Brooke Warner

      www.warnercoaching.com

      www.shewritespress.com

      www.facebook.com/warnercoaching

      @brooke_warner

      Get Oriented

      The twelve simple steps laid out in this book will help you to execute one component of your proposal at a time. I highly recommend not taking on more than one step in a given sitting. And some sections—like Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries and Marketing/Publicity—will require a little more time and effort than others. I also recommend creating each proposal element in its own Word document for the sake of easy access and simplicity. It’s a good practice to name and number your working Word documents (1_frontmatter.docx; 2_Overview.docx; 3_AuthorBio.docx) and place them in a folder on your computer called PROPOSAL IN PROGRESS. Once all the components are complete and edited, then you can conflate all of them into one long Word document ready to shop to an agent or editor.

      Though there are twelve steps to follow, there are only six key components you need to write to finish your proposal (assuming you already have the necessary Sample Chapters completed):

      Overview

      Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries

      Author Biography

      Marketing/Publicity

      Target Audience

      Competitive Titles

      img4.png

      Review the six proposal components you are about to create and you’ll see that they can be divided into two identifiable categories: editorial and marketing. The first three are the editorial elements: Overview, Chapter-by-Chapter Summaries, and Author Biography. The second three are the marketing elements: Marketing/Publicity, Target Audience, and Competitive Titles.

      If you know you love marketing, consider starting with the marketing components. If you’re in the thick of your memoir and engrossed in your narrative and voice, start with the editorial components. I’ll repeat this throughout this book: the editorial and marketing sides of a proposal require you to engage completely different parts of the brain. So don’t think you have to go in order. Start with the part that feels most exciting and most accessible.

      img5.png

      Book Proposal FAQ

      Q: How important is a nonfiction book proposal to your success in landing an agent or a publishing house?

      A: According to Paige Wheeler at FolioLit, it’s critical, though she expressly states that she wants to help authors shape the proposal before shopping it to editors at publishing houses.

      According to Maria Gagliano, Senior Editor at Portfolio/Penguin, "I would not consider a full-length work without a proposal. The quality of the proposal is crucial when trying to get my ed board to sign on a project. It shows that the author is able to write well, and with authority, about their subject. A great proposal also ensures that an editor will pitch a project to their ed board in the way the author wants it to be represented. If the proposal is too short, or it’s a mess, the editor is left to make a case for the book despite the proposal, which is a major strike against the project already. If the proposal is thorough and offers a clear idea of the book’s message, it arms editors with the information they need to make a solid case for it. When deciding what to include in a pitch letter or proposal, just picture the editor in a boardroom, pitching the book to his/her company. What do you want them to say? Give them the talking points so they represent the book in

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1