Here is a small, slightly maddening truth about traditional publishing: for most nonfiction books, you sell the book before you write it. Not with a finished manuscript, but with a proposal. And if the phrase “book proposal” makes you want to lie down in a darkened room with a cool cloth on your forehead, you are in excellent company. The good news is that writing a book proposal is a craft, not a dark art, and craft can be learned. That is precisely what my live online Autumn Term course, Writing a Nonfiction Book Proposal That Gets You Published: A Step-by-Step Course for Writers of Narrative Nonfiction, is for.

So, What on Earth Is a Book Proposal?

Think of a proposal as the business plan for your book. Your literary pitch deck. Your charming, faintly audacious “here is why this book deserves to exist” manifesto. In thirty to forty persuasive pages, it answers the four questions every agent and editor is quietly asking: why does this book matter, why are you the person to write it, where does it sit in the marketplace, and — whisper it — will it sell? It does this through an overview, chapter summaries, a list of competitive titles, an author platform section, and a polished sample chapter. Sorcery, meet strategy.

Why Writing a Book Proposal Is Far Less Terrifying Than It Sounds

Most writers freeze because they try to build the whole intimidating thing in one heroic sitting. We don’t do that. We build it the way you would plant a garden, one considered section at a time, in a rhythm designed for people with actual lives. The course opens in February, just as the first daffodils push their hopeful heads through the soil, and ends in late spring as the first roses unfurl — by which point your proposal, like the garden, is in full and glorious bloom. We meet for two hours every other week, because creativity needs room to breathe, and so, frankly, do you.

Inside the Course: Writing a Book Proposal, Section by Section

In this upcoming autumn course, I teach you step-by-step, with detailed editorial feedback, how to write a narrative nonfiction book proposal. Each session takes on one core piece of the puzzle. You will craft a market-wise overview and chapter summaries that capture scope, tone, and narrative arc. You will learn to position your book and build a comparative-titles section that radiates confidence while neatly sidestepping the dreaded “there is nothing else like my book” trap. (There is, and that is a very good thing.) You will develop an author platform that shows you are the right writer for this project, and you will learn how agents and acquisitions editors actually think, which turns out to be enormously useful to know before you pitch them.

The Best Part: Feedback That Helps Rather Than Haunts

Here is what I care about most. Writing a book proposal in isolation is lonely, and often quietly misguided. So every step comes with detailed, publishing-calibre editorial feedback from me, drawn from thirty years of teaching and a working life in nonfiction. Expect thoughtful notes that blend developmental editing, stylistic coaching, and real encouragement, alongside a warm and focused cohort of fellow writers who will become some of your most trusted readers. It is the kind of editorial relationship usually reserved for writers already under contract, offered to you while your idea is still finding its feet.

Ready to Start Writing a Book Proposal?

If you are carrying a nonfiction idea — about nature, travel, food, memoir, place, cultural criticism, biography, or something gloriously impossible to categorise — consider this your invitation to give it a shape agents cannot ignore. By the time the roses bloom, you will have a complete, submission-ready proposal and the quiet swagger to send it out into the world. Truly. You can do this.

Writing a Nonfiction Book Proposal That Gets You Published: A Step-by-Step Course for Writers of Narrative Nonfiction runs September 6-December 6. Meeting every other Sunday, I guide your step-by-step in the process while you gain a valuable community of writers along the same proposal path. Register here.

You may also book a free 15-minute course consultation with me to discuss this course here.