What is an Annotated Table of Contents?

The difference between comparable and competitive titles?

How do I build an author platform?

Is it possible to write a query letter without having a nervous breakdown?

How do I create a blueprint for a book

that doesn’t exist (yet)?

How do I build an author platform?

So you want to write a book.

  • You have a nonfiction book idea.

  • You want to write the book, but know traditionally published nonfiction is mostly sold on proposal, not complete manuscript. This fact makes you feel kind of excited but also overwhelmed.

  • You don’t know where to start—but you really want to start.

  • You’re afraid about how hard the agent thing is going to be and you want to write a query letter without spiraling.

  • And you don’t want to read a how-to that takes a War and Peace-length approach to the topic.

We’ve got you.

Based on critically acclaimed author and former Big Five acquiring editor Ashley Shelby’s popular online course of the same name, Book Proposal Boot Camp (If You Want to Write #1) is a short, practical, and engaging guide that will get you from idea to proposal in eight steps, or “assignments,” which form all the elements of a professional book proposal, including:

  1. Overview

  2. Annotated Table of Contents

  3. Marketing and Publicity

  4. Comparable and Competitive Titles

  5. About the Author

  6. Sample Chapter

  7. Revision

  8. The Query Letter and Submission Package

Full of inside information about the traditional publishing world, including the habits of editors and agents, the changing expectations of authors’ roles in publicity efforts, secrets of the business of books, and much more, Book Proposal Boot Camp offers the aspiring or seasoned nonfiction writer with an eye toward traditional publication—and a need to get past the literary gatekeepers who guard the way in—an easy-to-follow primer on crafting a compelling book proposal sure to catch the eye of an agent or editor.

No matter your subject—from history, biography, and self-help to narrative journalism, how-to, health, and other subject-based nonfiction—Book Proposal Boot Camp will be an accessible resource you’ll return to again and again.