Tips on Book Proposal Development

A Good Proposal is a Must

This guy posts his rejection letters?

http://www.everyonewhosanyone.com/agus1.html

Types of Hooks

Problem/Solution Hook
This hook defines a problem or situation common to readers, then proposes an article that can help solve that problem.

The Informative Hook
Start with 2-3 lines of facts and statistics, followed by how this applies to the target audience.

The Question
- Did you know?
- Have you ever wondered?
- What would you do if?

Attention Grabber
Example: "As I jumped off the edge of the Grand Canyon, I wondered if my life would truly flash before my eyes -- or if I could ever stop screaming long enough to notice."

Overview of Publishing Process with Tips for Queries

http://www.nelsonagency.com/faq.html#6

Be Your Own Editor: 10 Ways to Hook a Literary Agent

http://www.beyourowneditor.com/query-letters-ten-ways-to-hook-a-literary-agent

Third formula for "The Hook"

An edgy quote from your novel that speaks to the climax and leaves the reader wanting to know how the situation is resolved. This works best in the first person but can also be effective for a third person narrative.

Source:
Kimberly Dawn Wells

Another version of "The Hook"

What if *something* happened? How would you react? Would you be able to get through it? In this book, the protagonist is faced with the same challenges.

This invites the reader to personalize the experience. The reader is placed in the center of the action. What might the reader do in this tricky situation?

This is to elicit the reader to wonder how your main character handles the same situation. Do NOT answer these questions in your query letter. The answers will be found in your manuscript.

Query Letters and "The Hook"

The Hook is a concise, one-sentence tagline for your book. It is meant to hook your reader’s interest, and reel them in.

One formula: When such and such event happens, your main character—descriptive adjective, age, professional occupation—must confront further conflict and triumph in his or her own special way.

Sample fiction hooks: (See if you can guess the title of this published manuscript!)
- An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present

- A murder in the silent after-hour halls of the Louvre museum reveals a sinister plot to uncover a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ.

- With only a yellowing photograph in hand, Jonathan Safran Foer—both author and meta fictional protagonist—sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis.

Here's one from a memoir:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - The memoir of Dave Eggers, who at the age of 22, became both an orphan and a "single mother" when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers, leaving Eggers the appointed unofficial guardian of his 8-year-old brother, Christopher.

You might start your hook by:
1.) Giving an era and location
2.) Setting up your main character
3.) Outlining the conflict faced by your character

Author! Author!

http://www.annemini.com/?cat=32

Memoir and Typical Word Count

http://resourcesforwriters.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_long_is_a_book

Interview with Rita Rosencrantz

http://writersontherise.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/an-interview-with-literary-agent-rita-rosenkranz/

Rita Rosencrantz on Writing the Perfect Pitch

http://www.bksp.org/secondarypages/articles/agentseditors/RRosencrantz.htm

Links to Literary Agent's Blog

Nathan Brandford has written certain blog entries that I found particularly helpful:

Formatting Your Manuscript: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/02/formatting-your-manuscript.html

How to Write A Nonfiction Book Proposal: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-write-nonfiction-book-proposal.html

Anatomy of A Good Query Letter Part I: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2006/11/anatomy-of-good-query-letter.html

Anatomy of A Good Query Letter Part II: http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2007/05/anatomy-of-good-query-letter-ii.html

Writing Resources Online Suggested By A Friend

Associated Content is a paying site. They will pay $3 and up depending on the content of the writing. The best way is to go non-exclusive, though that pays less, as it allows you to publish elsewhere as well. Personal stories they will not pay for but will publish: http://www.associatedcontent.com/

Triond.Com is a paying site, I have not used them as yet: http://www.triond.com/

Authorsden is a place where you can place your writings and get feedback from others. They have an upgrade program besides the free one but I don't think the upgrade is worth it: http://www.authorsden.com/

Adoption.Com publishes articles as well, but do not pay. Articles are sent to: editor@adoptionweek.com

Resources provided by:
http://prairieguy.wordpress.com/
http://www.larrya.us/

Nonfiction Book Proposals

Additional tips on writing book proposals from Peter Fedorko. Please note, this is just a summary of information that was especially helpful to me; you will want to contact him directly to purchase a copy of "How to Prepare A Nonfiction Proposal."

Overview
Provide the agent with a sense of the book’s purpose and its significance. The language you use in this section should be engaging and non-academic and non-technical if possible. It should be a simple narrative treatment describing the book.

Author Profile
Tell the agent about yourself, listing any and all previous writing credits.

Marketing Opportunities
What are the book’s key selling points?

- Provide a brief snapshot of the target audience and subsidiary audiences.
- Current list of any and all media appearances you may have made, including radio, television, the internet, newspaper and magazines as well as speaking engagements.
- List of books on your subject. Where does your book fit in?
- Any other marketing opportunities you will bring to the publisher.

Supplementary Materials
To “beef up” your proposal, include any of the following:

- Magazine or newspapers articles on your topic— written by you or not.
- Articles, stories, profiles about you— anything to show that you are qualified to write your book

Sample book proposals

I found this one particularly helpful:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/book_proposal1.htm

Here are two more samples; they are more academic in focus:

http://www.writing-world.com/publish/samples.shtml

Reviews of Memoirs

"Motion perfectly conveys the 'new faster time' of adolescent thinking and subtly conveys us back to his mother's tragedy with a new understanding of its importance to his entire life" - In the Blood: A Memoir of My Childhood (Andrew Motion)

"The stories of these women are wrenching and real, and now they plan to travel and speak publicly together" - Face to Face (Audrey Kishline and Sheryl Maloy)

"Feraca knows the power of a well-chosen word. She grew up attuned to language, with her father defiantly reciting poetry to her mother's cold criticism... Most remarkable, however, is her account of that pivotal moment when she took a creative writing seminar. Ignoring her disastrous marriage, she became Rapunzel, spinning straw into gold." - I Hear Voices: A Memoir of Love, Death and Radio (Jean Feraca)

"Robinson's thoughtful and thoroughly memorable account of living with Asperger's syndrome.... is much more fully detailed in this moving memoir, beginning with his painful childhood."
- Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Aspergers (John Elder Robison)

"The memoir begins with the question of why, in spite of her black sheep, wanderlust, hippie sensibilities, Hampl never left her hometown of St. Paul, Minn. In the end, the reason is clear." - The Florist's Daughter (Patricia Hampl)

A critique of one memoir read: "There is much cooking and eating but little tasting, reading but little reflection, historical markers but little involvement."

Kudos for another reads: "The author stubbornly conveys harrowing loss and hunger for renewed life with measured matter-of-factness that allows his ordeals to speak for themselves."

Source: Publishers Weekly

Sample Pitches from Fiction Debuts

"Pitched as a cross between Watership Down and The Clan of the Cave Bear, the novel will tell the story of how wolves became dogs, from the wolf's point of view." - Promise of the Wolves (Kerri Kolen)

"He has a singular, brilliant literary voice - he gets energy on the page like no one else can. IN short: more than worth the wait." - The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz)

"When I first read the manuscript, I thought, this guy is a natural. The writing is spare and evocative, and intensely lyrical in places. It's a very strong work of literature, and to have that combined with the representation of an expereince that is, sadly, increasingly common for young people, makes the novel very powerful." - The Farther Shore (Matthew Eck)

"Diane's novel gives readers a looking glass into a little-known world. Its exotic location, intrepid protagonist and intriguing mystery offer a riveting exploration of Chinese culture, history and politics. She's China's answer to Alexander McCall Smith!" - The Eye of Jade (Diane Wei Liang)

"Within reading the first few pages of Steven's book, I knew I had something extraordinary on my hands - that rare debut so adventurous, so smart, so effortlessly hilarious and fearlessly orginal that it defies classification." - A Fraction of the Whole (Steve Toltz)

"Tahmima has this gift of of writing about a place which is totally foreign and yet makes the reader feel at home. It's rare to find a writer who can balance the story of a nation and its tumultuous birth against that of a woman who struggles and survives." - A Golden Age (Tahmima Anam)

"Terry has a very clear and clean style. He doesn't waste words that the pace is blindingly fast. He knows how to assemble the right elements, weaving plot and back story together seamlessly." - The Way Life Should Be (Terry Shaw)

Source: Publishers Weekly

Foster Care Organizations and Statistics

Foster Care Alumni of America estimates that there are 12 million alumni of foster care and 800,000 foster care professionals in the United States. There are 513,000 kids living in foster care across America.

"A review of child welfare data and various social work textbooks indicates that there are roughly 12 million American adults who experienced foster care at some point in their childhood. The foster care system currently provides service to nearly 800,000 children per year—with approximately 532,000 children and youth in foster care at any given point in time. The alumni group is estimated to be growing at a rate exceeding one-quarter million (250,000) per year."

Foster Care Alumni of America was created in direct response to the growing number of people who have experienced, or are currently experiencing, the foster care system:

"It is the only national organization that provides opportunities for alumni to use our experiences living in the foster care system to change the lives of children and youth in foster care, as well as the foster care system itself, for the better. We believe our experience is our expertise. We have lived in the foster care system. Our views, opinions, and perspectives are vital to improving the practices, policies, and approaches of today’s foster care system."

The Band Together campaign is driven by several youth organizations and led by FosterClub, the national network for young people in foster care.

FosterClub’s goal is to provoke a young generation to demand improved care and services for their peers who have experienced abuse, neglect or abandonment and are living in the U.S. foster care system.

To quote from Band Together: "Over 513,000 American children are in foster care, taken away when their families are in crisis and can’t take care of them. But there aren’t enough foster families to take them in. There isn’t enough money to provide them the things every child needs. There aren’t enough people to help them, mentor them, or to simply cheer them up and give them hope for the future."

If nothing changes by the year 2020:
> Nearly 14 million reported cases of child abuse and neglect will be confirmed;
> 22,500 children will die of abuse or neglect, most before their fifth birthday;
> More than 9,000,000 children will spend some time in foster care
> More than 300,000 children will age out of our foster care system, some in poor health and many unprepared for success in higher education, technical college or the workforce; and,
> 99,000 former foster youth, who aged out of the system, will experience homelessness.

According to the Orphan Foundation of America every year, 25,000 young people "age out" of the foster care system. OFA connects foster teens with virtual mentors, supports their post-secondary education through ETV funds and initiates endeavors such as care packages and the Red Scarf Project. They also offer summer internships for young people in and from foster care.

According to the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, "Every day in the United States there are more than half a million children and youth living in foster care because their own parents can't take care of them. Nearly half of this population is over the age of 10."

Nearly 20,000 young people leave or age out of the foster care system every year. Foster care teens and alumni have low high-school graduation rates and little economic success. Only half of them finish high school. Only 20 percent who are qualified for college go on to postsecondary education. And only 5 percent of those in college will complete their degrees.

One of the underlying principles of Youth Communications is that "Teens who read little else are more likely to read and heed stories which accurately reflect their experience and concerns."

The Art of Web Writing

http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2006/12/victoria-strauss-associated-content.html

I agree with the final comment on this post, made by "Demented."