Your chapter outline
You've already been working on a major part of the book proposal --- the chapter outline. If
you like, you can begin today's work by spending an hour or two with that. If your chapter
outline still has major holes in it, don't worry too much about it. Today we'll complete an
initial draft of the complete book proposal, and you can fill in the gaps later.
Your background—why you're the person to write this book
Next, we'll work on the background section.
The first piece of info to include in the background section is a brief bio.
Every book you own has a bio of the author, so take a few books off your shelves and
study the author bios. Most are short. Novelists' bios mention the writer's interests, partner,
children and pets. The bios of nonfiction writers (that's you) emphasize the writer's
academic credentials if it's important to the writer's credibility, or the writer's experience in
the field the book covers, or any other relevant information.
Here's an example of a bio, which I wrote as part of the book proposal for:
Copywriting Success Secrets:
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Quick Bio.
Australian author and journalist [ Author's Name ] has been writing successfully for
25 years. She writes about business, technology, women's issues, and creativity. Her books
include: LifeTime: Better Time Management in 21 Days, Home Sweet Office: Your Home
Office, Improve Your Memory in 21 Days, and Making the Internet Work for Your
Business. Her feature articles have appeared in magazines like Energy for Women, The
Australian Women's Weekly, Woman's Day, New Idea, Vogue, and numerous other print
and online magazines.
She's also a working copywriter, writing copy for businesses ranging from
international corporations to small businesses with less than five employees.
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You must slant your bio so that it relates to those experiences that make you the
perfect person to write the book you're proposing. For example, let's say that in your daily
life you're a doctor. The book you're proposing is a gardening book: how to grow your
own organic vegetables. In your bio, you might call yourself "Dr. Jane Smith,” but for this
bio, you'd mention that you grew up on a farm, have grown organic vegetables for ten
years, and write a monthly column for Eat Your Organic Veggies Magazine. Your
experiences as a doctor wouldn't be appropriate for this book.
On the other hand (just to
confuse you), if you intended to cover the health and nutritional benefits of organic
vegetables at great length, then your credentials as a doctor would be important, and you'd
include them.
Please remember that there is no way you can do any of this wrong --- something
either works, or it doesn't. You can always make changes later, when you get feedback .
Many of my writing students focus so much on the "correct" way of doing something,
that they never get anything done. Join any writing group, and discussions of correct
formatting abound. If you start to get nervous about anything you're doing, wondering
whether you're doing it "right,” simply tell yourself: "this is the way I choose to do it. I may
choose another way at some other time, but right now, I do it this way, and it's the right
way for me."
In addition to your bio, if you have publishing credits, you'll want to mention them
here. Your publishing credits should be paid credits, rather than work you've done for
promotional purposes, or material for which you weren't paid.
What if you don't have any publishing credits? Everyone has to start somewhere. If
you don't have any credits, don't worry about them. If your proposal is excellent, and a
publisher wants to commission the book, then your lack of credits won't count against you.
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