Now that you have a fabulous idea for your non-fiction best seller, Step 2 is to write the proposal. It took me exactly nine weeks to write the first draft of my proposal and the reason I know that is because I took a class to do it.
The class was one quarter long at UCLA Extension (where there are three quarters per year), i.e., the class was ten weeks longs. Although the specific class that I took was called Writing Non-Fiction That Sells, they have since changed the names of their classes and now also offer more weekend workshops. Plus, the course offerings vary from quarter to quarter, so it’s impossible for me to post a link to a specific class. Here is the UCLA Extension web site though.
The good news about many of the classes offered in the Writer’s Program is that you can take them online. The bad news is that they can cost upwards of $500. Because I was also teaching archaeology for Extension, I was able to take one class gratis for each one that I taught. That made the online class pretty affordable.
So, in the first nine weeks of the class, while I was working full-time (and then some), I developed a book proposal for a non-fiction book about tattoos. Although I had begun with an idea that was more the archaeology and history of tattoos, I quickly changed my mind after the overwhelming feedback that I received from the instructor and other students was a collective digital yawn. I moved instead to a topic that was more about how tattoos communicate messages, and proceeded to run with that.
Each week of the class, we worked on a specific part of the proposal (overview, style, a detailed outline of each chapter, the audience, competitive books, about the author, marketing and promotion plan). At the end of nine weeks, I had this proposal (PDF, 120KB).
There are, however, a couple of caveats about this proposal. First, this is not the proposal that was sent to publishers. That version comes later. This is the version that I sent to literary agents, when requested. Second, virtually all of the data is now completely out of date. And even though parts of it make me cringe in hindsight, I offer it as a real world example of what an online course on writing non-fiction book proposals can produce, even if you work full-time.
As always, I like to emphasize the bite-size nature of each step in the process of getting a book published. Even writing the proposal was done one section at a time, but also on a deadline. To look at the entire list of steps to be accomplished can be daunting. My own experience was much more plodding and short sighted, just concentrating on the step ahead of me. In hindsight, that really worked in my favor.
Next post: Step 3. Writing A Query Letter
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