I Think I Made a Boo-boo

Are book proposals even used for fiction manuscripts anymore? Is this something that's outdated? Because the more research I do for literary agencies, the more I find book proposals are only requested for non-fiction books.

Or is it possible book proposals are utterly useless for fiction books and simply used by literary agencies as an extra hoop to jump through so they can avoid getting too many bad manuscripts from less than serious authors?

It would explain why numerous fiction authors find book proposals so difficult. I tried writing one for Eden Fell and it was a disaster. For my next novel, I actually found it fun and a useful writing exercise.

Oh well. I don't regret writing the proposal. If nothing else, it made the story clearer in mind. I guess only time will tell whether book proposals are useful for fiction...