Book Proposals

I've tried learning how to write book proposals before, but never finished one. I've also never needed to have a finished book proposal. Now that I've finished the manuscript for my next novel, I've decided to try my hand at writing a book proposal again. Even if I don't need it for this book, I do believe it will come in handy.

So far (I'm about halfway done), I've learned several important things.

1, writing a book proposal helps me understand the story I've written more, and makes it more clear in my mind. This is a very good thing since it will enable me to cleary talk about the story to potential agents and/or publishers. (Still undecided on that front, one thing at a time).

2, summarizing the story and individual chapters have helped me realize tiny inconsistency errors and clean up the manuscript even more. I'm elated about this one. It's very hard to be objective as the author of the story, so having this tool at my disposal to provide objectivty is wonderful.

3, book proposals aren't as hard as they seem if you've got a good story. And I don't just mean a story that's original enough or anything like that. It's the accessibility of this story that allows me to actually enjoy writing a book proposal. I strongly feel this is my best work yet, and if I find it easy to summarize and explain, and even enjoy it (!), hopefully this means others will as well and I won't encounter too many problems getting the book published. Of course, I might be getting a bit ahead of myself with the one. Regardless, I'm feeling pretty good about this book. Which makes me wonder if the difficulty of book proposals is measured by the level of accesiblity of the story. Hmm, food for thought.

So, I'm going back to writing the proposal and continue editing the manuscript. Hopefully I'll be able to make it as polished as possible.

My conclusion is if I'm downright loving writing this proposal, I must be on to something good. Only time will tell...