Last Sane Man Standing - Blog of Corey Deitz

"Book Proposals and Query Letters"

December 1, 2007

I started this website, my official blog, back in May. And every month since then, I have posted less and less times. In November, I posted only once.

Why is that?

If you ask my wife, she'll tell you summer is my most productive time and that's when I'm my most creative. I forgot why she believes that but it's deep-rooted in something someone once told her about a person's birthdate, what their best "colors" are, etc.

If you ask me, I would tell you it's because I've been putting most of my extra attention into finishing a book I started over a year ago. I sort of finished it - at least enough to call a book. I could probably write more if I had to but it's at the point where I'm really more interested in shopping it around.

But, let me tell you what a pain-in-the-ass it is the try and get someone to publish your book! If you want to approach publishers directly, you need to write a "book proposal" which is practically a small book within itself about your book. Publisher wants to know all sorts of stuff like you're not interested in writing about:

Who is the demographic the book was written for?
What are their psychographics?
What's your marketing plan?
What books are your book's competition?
Why are you qualified to write this book?

Writing a book proposal is almost harder than writing the damn book!

Maybe you want to find an agent to help sell your book. Good idea! Except if you decide on that than you'll most likely have to write a "query letter".

Query letters are like small versions of "book proposals" except now you have even less space to prove to someone you don't know and who has never heard of you why they should devote some of their professional time to helping you sell a book they haven't read.

And, if your "query letter" is good enough, a literary agent might just let you send them a "book proposal".

So, that's what I've been doing: a book, a book proposal, and lately I've been trying to put the polishing touches on a basic query letter.

No wonder Hemingway killed himself.