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The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors
The scholarly book proposal may be academia’s most mysterious genre. You have to write one to get published, but most scholars receive no training on how to do so—and you may have never even seen a proposal before you’re expected to produce your own. The Book Proposal Book cuts through the mystery and guides prospective authors step by step through the process of crafting a compelling proposal and pitching it to university presses and other academic publishers.
Laura Portwood-Stacer, an experienced developmental editor and publishing consultant for academic authors, shows how to select the right presses to target, identify audiences and competing titles, and write a project description that will grab the attention of editors—breaking the entire process into discrete, manageable tasks. The book features over fifty time-tested tips to make your proposal stand out; sample prospectuses, a letter of inquiry, and a response to reader reports from real authors; optional worksheets and checklists; answers to dozens of the most common questions about the scholarly publishing process; and much, much more.
Whether you’re hoping to publish your first book or you’re a seasoned author with an unfinished proposal languishing on your hard drive, The Book Proposal Book provides honest, empathetic, and invaluable advice on how to overcome common sticking points and get your book published. It also shows why, far from being merely a hurdle to clear, a well-conceived proposal can help lead to an outstanding book.
Laura Portwood-Stacer, an experienced developmental editor and publishing consultant for academic authors, shows how to select the right presses to target, identify audiences and competing titles, and write a project description that will grab the attention of editors—breaking the entire process into discrete, manageable tasks. The book features over fifty time-tested tips to make your proposal stand out; sample prospectuses, a letter of inquiry, and a response to reader reports from real authors; optional worksheets and checklists; answers to dozens of the most common questions about the scholarly publishing process; and much, much more.
Whether you’re hoping to publish your first book or you’re a seasoned author with an unfinished proposal languishing on your hard drive, The Book Proposal Book provides honest, empathetic, and invaluable advice on how to overcome common sticking points and get your book published. It also shows why, far from being merely a hurdle to clear, a well-conceived proposal can help lead to an outstanding book.
204 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 13, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
September 29, 2022
Exactly what I needed.
August 28, 2024
Read this one for work! Really accessible and a great tool if you’re a scholar looking to publish at a university press.
February 16, 2023
I've always wanted to write. And to write to publish. And I have done some of that in highly specific, academic journal settings. But even the experience that I have with that process is, I know, not quite enough to tell me everything I need to know about making the move (one day) to the realm of books--especially academic, scholarly books. I'd heard rumblings about the usefulness and clarity of The Book Proposal Book for a while, and when I reached the stage of finally having some time and an appropriate level of distance from my dissertation project, I decided to finally give it a go. Overall, I found the book to be very, very helpful, primarily for the way that it makes complicated, ambiguous elements of the academic publishing world clear and concise. The casual, almost offhanded advice that gets passed along throughout the book also seems invaluable, and seems to me like it may be the part of the book that pays the most dividends in actually putting together a book proposal (time will tell, though). There were, of course, some things that I wish the book gave more detail and information about, things like negotiating about covers and art and design and things like that, but the fact that those highly specific questions don't get as much coverage as I might have wanted is, in all fairness, a relatively minor complaint.
May 6, 2026
Another book likely to be on the syllabus for the class I am due to teach next year. This one focuses on scholarly manuscripts. I can see the value of having such a book on the syllabus, though I think it would be more valuable for grad students than undergrads. But then again, some undergrads will go on to graduate degrees, so why not? The book itself is a great tutorial for folks unfamiliar with the publishing process who are looking to get their text published by a scholarly press—most especially folks coming out of graduate degree programs, with perhaps a dissertation to adapt for publication to help them along in the career development and attempt to get tenure. I took notes as I read, so this is essentially a summary of my notes.
The real reason anyone should write should be for the reader, even if you might have other objectives. It's really the reader for any given piece of material you're looking to publish you should have in mind.
The author differentiates between the prospectus (the formal proposal document) and the proposal (the package in which that prospectus appears (along with all the other materials that make up a proposal). It's a useful distinction, though I don't think I'll likely be so exacting in my notes here. The prospectus includes the title; a project overview; description of the audience, competing titles, how your book fits among them; a table of contents with summaries of each chapter; author qualifications; status of manuscript, word count, and number of illustrations.
Chapter 1, on knowing the process: The first step in getting ready to submit a proposal is to identify your target presses. Research and evaluate them to prioritize them. Gather the submission guidelines and summarize how your book fits the press's publishing program. Meanwhile, become knowable—get your name and work out there.
Chapter 2: In writing, show that your book will make a contribution to scholarly discussion and attract a sizable audience.
Chapter 3, on finding how you fit among other words: Your discussion of comparative titles should note what recent books are like yours and how yours is different (not better—just different).
Chapter 4, on audience and market: The are four audiences for a scholarly book: other scholars, students, practitioners, and general readers. That last audience is sort of a myth. What is a general reader? Instead of thinking of the general reader, focus on a specific type of reader (e.g., birders, athletes, etc.).
Chapter 5, on the thesis: If you don't have a thesis, some ways to get one include (1) imagining one change you'd like your book to bring about; (2) imagining something you don't want people to think ever again; (3) asking what lesson you want to impart; (4) asking what one thing you learned from your research that you most want people to know. Now try boiling that down to a one-sentence hook.
Chapter 6, on the descriptive overview for the book: This overview should involve the following things: (1) the hook (the one-sentence takeway); (2) the thesis (the main argument and conclusions); (3) the stake (why it matters); (4) the work's relationship to other works; (5) the basic evidence; (6) the general structure—how the story will be told (this is not the annotated table of contents, which comes later); (7) a description of the audience. This overview is ideally 1200 to 1500 words.
Chapter 7, on the annotated table of contents: Try for one to two paragrphs per chapter. Aim for roughly equal chapter lengths in the final book.
Chapter 8, on titles: Don't get too clever with titles. Titles are a marketing tool and should give away the book's subject so that people will be able to find it when searching for works about that subject.
Chapter 9, on voice: Use your own. Avoid jargon, overly extensive quoting and referencing, passive sentence structure,and hedging.
Chapter 10, on the bio: Aim for two paragraphs, one with public-facing stuff, like your publications and title, which will go out with marketing copy, and one with press-facing stuff, like media contacts and social media accounts and other things you have that might be of aid in getting word about the book out to the public. Also include a CV.
Chapter 11, on other stuff: You'll need to include an estimated word count, illustrations count (and eventually illustrations themselves and permissions), suggested reviewers (scholarly presses will often use these contacts for the blind review process that all books go through), time line for completion of the book, and sample chapters.
Chapter 12 is on tips for getting ahold of an editor. Chapter 13 is one the review process and contracts. And chapter 14 is on production and marketing. In other words, these latter chapters are really about the publication process, once the proposal has actually been accepted. The author suggests working on the marketing questionnaire you'll eventually receive early, before being asked, and provides a list of the things that are usually in those questionnaires. She also notes that well-placed promotional opportunities to the target audience do more for a book than big generic marketing. If you write a book on birding, go to where the birders are, like a birding newsletter, in other words, not to one of the biggest circulating popular magazines, where only a small fraction of the readers are birders and most other people won't care. The book closes with appendices of checklists and examples of prospectuses, introductory letters, reviewer reports, and so on.
Like I wrote: an excellent resource for someone looking to publish with a scholarly press. She covers not just the basics of getting through the initial stages but in those latter chapters what will happen throughout the rest of the publication process. Any given author will learn this stuff as the process unfolds, but so many want to know more up front, and this book gives that information.
The real reason anyone should write should be for the reader, even if you might have other objectives. It's really the reader for any given piece of material you're looking to publish you should have in mind.
The author differentiates between the prospectus (the formal proposal document) and the proposal (the package in which that prospectus appears (along with all the other materials that make up a proposal). It's a useful distinction, though I don't think I'll likely be so exacting in my notes here. The prospectus includes the title; a project overview; description of the audience, competing titles, how your book fits among them; a table of contents with summaries of each chapter; author qualifications; status of manuscript, word count, and number of illustrations.
Chapter 1, on knowing the process: The first step in getting ready to submit a proposal is to identify your target presses. Research and evaluate them to prioritize them. Gather the submission guidelines and summarize how your book fits the press's publishing program. Meanwhile, become knowable—get your name and work out there.
Chapter 2: In writing, show that your book will make a contribution to scholarly discussion and attract a sizable audience.
Chapter 3, on finding how you fit among other words: Your discussion of comparative titles should note what recent books are like yours and how yours is different (not better—just different).
Chapter 4, on audience and market: The are four audiences for a scholarly book: other scholars, students, practitioners, and general readers. That last audience is sort of a myth. What is a general reader? Instead of thinking of the general reader, focus on a specific type of reader (e.g., birders, athletes, etc.).
Chapter 5, on the thesis: If you don't have a thesis, some ways to get one include (1) imagining one change you'd like your book to bring about; (2) imagining something you don't want people to think ever again; (3) asking what lesson you want to impart; (4) asking what one thing you learned from your research that you most want people to know. Now try boiling that down to a one-sentence hook.
Chapter 6, on the descriptive overview for the book: This overview should involve the following things: (1) the hook (the one-sentence takeway); (2) the thesis (the main argument and conclusions); (3) the stake (why it matters); (4) the work's relationship to other works; (5) the basic evidence; (6) the general structure—how the story will be told (this is not the annotated table of contents, which comes later); (7) a description of the audience. This overview is ideally 1200 to 1500 words.
Chapter 7, on the annotated table of contents: Try for one to two paragrphs per chapter. Aim for roughly equal chapter lengths in the final book.
Chapter 8, on titles: Don't get too clever with titles. Titles are a marketing tool and should give away the book's subject so that people will be able to find it when searching for works about that subject.
Chapter 9, on voice: Use your own. Avoid jargon, overly extensive quoting and referencing, passive sentence structure,and hedging.
Chapter 10, on the bio: Aim for two paragraphs, one with public-facing stuff, like your publications and title, which will go out with marketing copy, and one with press-facing stuff, like media contacts and social media accounts and other things you have that might be of aid in getting word about the book out to the public. Also include a CV.
Chapter 11, on other stuff: You'll need to include an estimated word count, illustrations count (and eventually illustrations themselves and permissions), suggested reviewers (scholarly presses will often use these contacts for the blind review process that all books go through), time line for completion of the book, and sample chapters.
Chapter 12 is on tips for getting ahold of an editor. Chapter 13 is one the review process and contracts. And chapter 14 is on production and marketing. In other words, these latter chapters are really about the publication process, once the proposal has actually been accepted. The author suggests working on the marketing questionnaire you'll eventually receive early, before being asked, and provides a list of the things that are usually in those questionnaires. She also notes that well-placed promotional opportunities to the target audience do more for a book than big generic marketing. If you write a book on birding, go to where the birders are, like a birding newsletter, in other words, not to one of the biggest circulating popular magazines, where only a small fraction of the readers are birders and most other people won't care. The book closes with appendices of checklists and examples of prospectuses, introductory letters, reviewer reports, and so on.
Like I wrote: an excellent resource for someone looking to publish with a scholarly press. She covers not just the basics of getting through the initial stages but in those latter chapters what will happen throughout the rest of the publication process. Any given author will learn this stuff as the process unfolds, but so many want to know more up front, and this book gives that information.
February 25, 2022
Someone recommended that I write a book proposal and start finding a publisher this year, but I neither felt ready nor knew how to write a book proposal. It’s a genre that we are not trained to write in graduate school – frankly, not really trained to write period. After I fumbled my way through a first draft, a colleague and a mentor both recommended Portwood-Stacer’s guide. Portwood-Stacer shows that writing a book proposal can help us write a strong book itself. While some academic presses list sections that ought appear in up proposal, others give little guidance, and it is a daunting task. She breaks the process down into manageable steps and gives plenty of examples throughout the chapters as well as sample proposals, a sample letter of inquiry, and a sample response to reader reports. This is especially helpful for steps like making a list of comparable titles, a section of the proposal that had stumped me. There are even checklists at the end! The book also gives an overview of the process of publishing academic books. I now feel much better prepared to tackle the task of writing a proposal and communicating with editors about my project. Overall, I’d highly recommend this book to others who are about to write an academic book proposal, especially for the first time.
January 1, 2024
I’m a former professor and an academic editor. I’m developing a course called the “6-Week Book Proposal Challenge.” The material is from my own experience in publishing and editing, but I enjoyed reading this book to make sure I’ve covered all the main points. It’s a great resource for those wanting to write a proposal on their own. If you need a bit more guidance or structure, check out https://acadiaediting.com/bookproposa...
September 29, 2021
Absolutely essential read for anyone who is confused about or seeking guidance on scholarly book proposals. The most practical and concrete advice I've seen collected into one volume. Demystified the process and made proposal-writing seem so much less intimidating. Spread the word of this book to anyone who might benefit from it!
November 26, 2024
I felt very unsure of myself navigating this process. This book REALLY helped me understand the underlying norms of academic publishing, how editors think, how to pitch a book, and how a book is different from a journal article. It's very practical, with lots of examples. I highly recommend it for first-time academic authors who feel lost or overwhelmed with the process.
August 10, 2021
The book has good information. I found Getting it Published to be a better guide for my purposes.
Also the audiobook narration is not the right tone for this book so I highly recommend reading rather than listening.
Also the audiobook narration is not the right tone for this book so I highly recommend reading rather than listening.
September 3, 2021
Love this book! Not only is it essential for anyone writing a book, especially in the humanities or social sciences, it is a great read for those of us who work with those scholars. It helped me to think through their process and how I can best facilitate it.
October 22, 2022
Such a helpful book! I wish I had this right after I graduated with my doctorate. I’m just glad I have it now. It’s helped me plan out my book project and helped me with how to talk and write about my project.
Read
July 6, 2025DNF. Not great for audio. Seems useful. Will likely come back to it some day in print if I ever get that far with my scholarly book idea. A bit too much of an infomercial for the author who is an editorial consultant for would-be authors.
August 12, 2021
I learned a lot from this. Highly recommend.
September 12, 2021
Concise, up-to-date, and includes examples.
February 14, 2022
This is in excellent resource for anyone interested in scholarly publishing.
Read
May 28, 2023This is a great book for folks writing book proposals for scholarly presses.
August 12, 2023
Five stars, hands down - quite instructive and also an exciting read
August 20, 2023
Delivers on its premise.
October 24, 2023
I’ve read several books in the process of working on revising my dissertation and getting ready to submit it to publishers and this was the most practical and easy to follow guide out of them all.
August 14, 2024
I’ll up it to 5 stars once my book gets published. Very helpful.
Read
August 5, 2025Very helpful. Well structured. Informative. Clear. Concise.
November 20, 2021
Helpful guide to publishing with academic presses. Hope to put the suggestions to the test someday soon!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews