How to write a book proposal
If you've read your primers on getting a book published, you'll know that the whole process has changed greatly; that you will almost certainly need an agent to place a book, especially if you're a new writer; that if you're seeking a publisher for a novel you'll probably have to write the whole thing first (to show that you can pull it off); and, if you're writing nonfiction, that you don't write the whole thing first, but sell from a book proposal (indeed, sell from a book proposal even if you have already written the book).

Here are some books to help you think through the process:
· Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction – and Get It Published, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato, explores how to think through a serious nonfiction book (and to understand an editor).
· The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, by Betsy Lerner, is good on the whole process of publishing.
· Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody can Write: How to Get a Contract and Advance Before Writing Your Book, offers a template for writing the proposal.
· Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why, by Jeff Herman and Deborah M. Adams, shows and tells.

Among other things, what publishers are interested in are: the title (some books have sold on the title alone; if yours isn't great, the publisher may change it), how good an idea you have (and how easy it would be to sell in 25 words or less), your "brand" (how recognizable your name is), your platform (the size of your fan base, or potential fan base, and how easily you can expand that fan base), your track record (sales on previous books), the quality of your writing (which you demonstrate in the proposal itself), how timely the topic is (for nonfiction), and how you plan to promote the book (including how promotable you are, which includes how you come across personally). If you have a video of yourself giving a dynamic talk, you might include that, or a few minutes from it.

HOW TO FIND AND CHOOSE AN AGENT
Agents vary on many counts (including how much and how well they help you shape your proposal, how aggressive they are in finding publisher, how well they know how many publishers, and how reliable they will be about protecting your interests after the book is published), so finding one through another writer friend is perhaps the best way, especially if the friend can also recommend you.

To find an agent without leaving home, check the online database, Agent Query (link below). Check the Association of Authors' Representatives to see if a particular agent is a member (link below; you want them to be). You can find also contact information on agents in the reference book Literary Marketplace, available in many public libraries. In Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Agents, you can get a good sense of the tastes and track records of the agents and editors listed. There are similar guides to agents by Writer's Digest, Kathryn S. Brogan, Joanna Masterson, as well as How to Get a Literary Agent by Michael Larsen. You can learn a lot about an agent through Publishers Marketplace, a subscription website that tracks book deals (by $$ size), with agents listed and provides a wealth of information, including a contact database, hosted web pages, a rights and proposals board, a book review index, a book tracker. Publishers Lunch is a sampler of the same thing.

There's one agent (BD we'll call him) who routinely sends out calls for writers for projects that require a good deal of research on often complex topics. His requests typically end with "This will be a work for hire for a low four figure advance; no royalties; with a 15% commission deducted by the agent." I'm sure he finds authors, but this is an atrocious deal on every possible basis (rights, lowball $, no royalties). This is not an agent you want representing you.

Lynn Chu: Agent Unplugged, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's informative interview with this principal of Writers' Representatives LLC, appears in the public part of the January 2010 issue of ASJA Monthly (the confidential section goes to members only). This is as helpful an analysis of what authors should know about their rights in the new electronic world as you are likely to read. It starts on pp. 6-7 of this PDF file,then jumps to p. 13. Print those pages out and highlight them! Her most valuable comments are on book publishers trying to becoming licensing agents for e-rights while taking a print publishers' share of income and without doing what a licensing agent ought to do, and since authors will very quickly learn how much they can do without the publishers, they are playing a dangerous game. Authors: there IS no standard on e-publishing terms, so do your homework. At a minimum, read this article.

QueryFail. In March 2009 literary agents Lauren E. MacLeod and Colleen Lindsay hosted “QueryFail” on Twitter, an exchange of rants in which agents and editors shared worst query lines from their slush piles. Tara Lazar did a roundup of lessons learned (without the quoted lines) on JacketFlap.com, which you can read at the entry called QueryFail: How Not to Land an Agent. Literary agent Janet Reid brought up the prospect of a parallel "AgentFail" in her blog column The agent bubble (incidentally, she says that one of the few places agents get to hear what writers think is AbsoluteWrite), and the BookEnds Literary Agency hosted a forum for writers: Agentfail Right Here.

In essence, here are the lessons for authors submitting to agents: Do your research on the agent, follow their submission guidelines, address your query to the right agent (and spell their name right), and copyedit your query so it contains no grammatical or spelling errors. That alone will bring your query to the top. As for agents: Be sure the guidelines on your website are up to date. Respond! Everyone: be courteous and remember, we're all human. One side effect of this exercise was that some agents came across as "Mean Girl."

In this curious age of blogging, you can pick up many tips about agents, book proposals, and how best to market your book to a publisher by skimming these agent blogs: