You should always send agents a brief "query letter" before sending a full proposal. Every agency has a different set of specialties (which may change from time to time), and an agent can determine from your query letter whether your book is one he or she would be likely to represent. For example, The Robert E. Shepard Agency never represents novels, so it would be a waste of your time, effort, and postage to send a fiction manuscript here. Send your query letter either by regular or electronic mail. If you use regular mail, be sure to enclose a postage-paid return envelope, without which agents can't respond. If you send your query by email, try to keep your message to the equivalent of a page, and never attach documents without being asked (they will usually be deleted unread, for security reasons). No matter which format you use, your query should describe you and your credentials, your subject, your book's intended audience, and why the book will be interesting to editors, agents, and the reading public. You should emphasize what's new and different about your work, your approach, or both (more on this below). Remember: Your writing is of paramount importance to recipients of your query letter (which is one reason why agents frown on queries by telephone). Your query letter should be informative, interesting, succinct, and well-edited.
If an agent is interested in your work, he or she will respond to your query letter within a few weeks' time (usually faster if you query by email, although some seasons are exceptionally busy at every agency!). The agent will advise you to send a more complete proposal if your work is appropriate for that particular agency. For more information on different agencies' subject areas of interest, we highly recommend a paperback book called Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents. Issued annually, it also provides additional useful background about writing book proposals, the processes of publishing, and more.
If The Robert E. Shepard Agency asks you to send along a proposal, we usually like to see the following elements:
But there's much more to it than that, and what's in the back of your mind as you create your proposal is at least as important as the structure. Let's think about what a proposal has to do. . .
Proposal content will vary from project to project and author to author. What's consistent is the proposal's mission: It not only has to represent the work with some degree of accuracy, it also has to sell the work to agents and acquisitions editors. Editors are usually intellectually curious people, but they can't be experts on everything. So your proposal must not only explain its subject succinctly and well, it must also put your work in context--and be very convincing! An editor will ask herself questions like these, which means you should ask them of yourself first:
The last one, incidentally, is often the make-or-break question be honest with yourself as you reread your proposal and ask yourself this question. Acquisitions editors also try to put themselves in the shoes of the reading public. They will ask themselves whether they'd buy your book if they were an average consumer shopping in a bookstore. And the selling doesn't stop there: since most publishers make their acquisitions choices at least partly by committee, a sponsoring editor must often "sell" projects she likes to her own colleagues. Your proposal must therefore supply the editor with marketing "handles." Proposed works are regularly declined, with regret, by editors who really wanted to acquire them. Why? Because the proposal didn't give the editor enough ammunition to sell the book to her colleagues.
The chapter(s) that are submitted as part of the proposal must be chosen carefully; they must not only be well written, but also intriguing and fresh. Choosing the right chapters to submit sometimes means choosing chapters that don't seem, at first glance, to reflect all of the book's content. Rather, they're the chapters that are going to "grab" editors who are considering the work and get them interested in reading more. Usually, it's wise to submit the introductory chapter--the one that sets up the subject, parameters, and "agenda" of the book--and one other chapter that gets to the heart of the matter. The two chapters submitted should answer different questions an editor might have. For instance, if one chapter deals with the author's personal experiences in an anecdotal way, the other should be more straightforward and instructive. If one deals with a very specific subtopic, the other should be more general in outlook. The two chapters should give an idea not only of the range of the subject, but also the range of the author's "voice."
Separately, you should draft an overview of the work--ten to fifteen pages in essay form that summarize the subject and answer a few key questions: Why did you decide to write this book? What credentials do you have to do so? Who is your intended audience? What are the key lessons you want your readers to carry away from reading the book? What tone will you use in writing "to" that audience? Why do you think people will be interested? What kind of experience do you have as an author and with the media, and how might you be able to assist a publisher in marketing your book? Why is the book unlike anything else that's out there? In fact, I consider it essential for prospective authors to visit a major bookstore to look at the competition. It is a cliché and not acceptable for book proposals to contain the words "There is no other book on the market like this one." That is simply never true. Even if no one has written on your particular subject for many years, even if there is no work that's perfectly identical (in which case you'd be guilty of plagiarism), there will always be works to which yours can be compared. A strong proposal will describe perhaps a half dozen other works, pointing out the similarities and differences. In some cases, you'll be able to say that a competing work is "fine as far as it goes, but mine gets into new areas." In other cases, you'll want to debunk a competing work outright, showing how yours is a rebuttal. Perhaps, on the other hand, you especially admire a book whose subject is different from yours, but whose style or structure is similar. In that case, it's very helpful to make the comparison. Editors like to know that their authors are aware of the market, and by citing similar works or authors you help place yourself and your book in context.
Speaking of the market, it's also essential that you describe any prior experience you have in writing and publishing, as well as with the media. Do you appear regularly on television or radio? Make sure to say so. Have you been interviewed on a national program? Have you written op-ed pieces for a major newspaper, or contributed to a magazine? Have you actually won prizes for your writing? It is more essential than ever for authors to have have a "platform" appropriate to the kinds of books they want to write and publish. Don't be shy about your accomplishments, experience, and awards. And if you haven't been "present" in the media lately, consider calling your local radio station or sending some pieces to newspapers before you query agents. You may find editors and producers receptive to your work, and prior experience marketing yourself and your work will be invaluable as you set about selling your book. As always, other authors will also have loads of advice and contacts. Consider attending writers' conferences and other venues at which you can interact with and learn from people who have already published books.
You should outline the work by drafting a table of contents. This is not cast in stone; it can change later on, but it's essential to include as representative a TOC as possible with your proposal. It will show us, and editors, that you've thought about what should and shouldn't be included in the book--its "agenda." The outline requires quite a bit of thought, but you may find it an instructive and enjoyable process. Once you've settled on the chapters that will make up the book, you should write a few lines about the contents of each chapter. We usually discuss the proposed contents with the author prior to sending out the proposal, to see if adjustments should be made.
It may sound silly, but proposals that are riddled with typos and grammatical errors do not pass "Go!" You owe it to yourself to double-check everything you write. Run a spell- or grammar-checker if you have one on your computer. If not, don't hesitate to consult your dictionary or a good grammar reference. Either way, reread your work and edit it manually at least once (computer spell-checkers make mistakes, too!). It's always a good idea to share your writing with someone you trust--like a close friend or family member. He or she may give you important suggestions for improving your proposal, or catch embarrassing mistakes. Remember: If you don't respect your work enough to edit it carefully, others won't respect it, either!
Many authors are concerned about copyright issues when sending their
proposals to agents. In particular, we're sometimes asked whether proposals
are at all protected by copyright laws. The answer is yes, to a point. As
soon as you set words down on paper, the current copyright law says that
you are the copyright holder. Your protections, however, are limited until
you register your work with the U.S.
Copyright Office, whose website contains a wealth of useful information
on the subject. You can also find good copyright information in a book called
The Writer's Lawyer, by Ronald L. Goldfarb and Gail E. Ross (Times
Books, 1989) and in Kirsch's Guide to the Book Contract, by Jonathan
Kirsch (Acrobat Books, 1999). The
Authors Guild, a national organization, provides its members with excellent
legal advice and other information on writing and publishing. Like all reputable
agencies, The Robert E. Shepard Agency considers your material yours alone,
and we will destroy any proposals we don't either return to the author (because
we've turned them down) or agree to represent (in which case we enter into
a written agreement with the author).
Don't forget to include in your proposal a copy of your resume or c.v.,
photocopies of any relevant articles you've written, and information on
previous works you've published, even if they were on other subjects or
intended for other audiences. And in your cover letter to us, be sure to
include any facts that may have slipped through the cracks. If you are about
to appear on a PBS special or recently won a Pulitzer Prize, now is the
time to mention it!
If you send your proposal by mail, don't forget to enclose a postage-paid, pre-addressed return envelope large enough to hold your material. We regret we can't return your material without one. Do not send any material as an attachment to email without asking first; if you do send an attachment, you should compress the file or files if possible. We can read proposals best if they're sent in MS Word, but can usually open attachments sent in other formats.
Writing a successful book proposal can be hard work. So can waiting for responses from agents and (it must be said) dealing with the rejection letters that are nearly inevitable at some point in every writer's career. Like most agencies, The Robert E. Shepard Agency accepts fewer than one percent of the book proposals it considers each year. The point isn't that agents try to be callous; rather, we try to assess not only our personal interest in a potential project but also the likely interest of acquisitions editors--whose decisions, of course, hinge in part on the market and in part on their own passion for a subject. The good news is that so much of the book business remains subjective; we are all looking for books that "feel" right, that are fresh and different, and that can have a profound effect. The bad news is that many authors ruin their books' chances for the wrong reasons: by rushing out poorly edited proposals, or by sending wonderful proposals to agents who don't happen to be interested in their particular subjects.
We encourage you to do your best and to keep at it!
© 2001-2005, The Robert E. Shepard Agency