Ever written a book proposal before? 

Writing a book proposal is a lot like writing a dissertation for graduate school. Think 40-80 pages of goodness that argue why your book (idea) is salable and marketable in today’s market.

If that sounds easy enough…well…the first time I wrote a book proposal, I thought I would lose my mind. Unpleasant didn’t even begin to cover it.

All these years later, I’ve learned to do the job well. I got good at proposal writing by working with innocents who’d made a first-stab attempt and hated the results. As in, not a single agent would bite. (More on that next.)

Cost to have a proposal written for/with you? Typically, between $15k-$25k.

Oh, and 6 months of your time.

That means 6 months on top of the time necessary to write the book itself, then run it through the agent query process, the proposal shopping, the big book deal, and production…. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Authors in a hurry don’t like this much. 

Reread that penultimate sentence if you want a book out now or next quarter.

If you’d like to better understand the traditional publishing industry, rife with pitfalls, check out our free resource, 12 Horrific Things About the Publishing Industry You Need to Know to Safeguard Your Wallet.