Book Proposals – The Marketing Study

A major part of a book proposal is the Marketing Study. The goal is to convince the prospective publisher that there really is a market for your book. So two things are needed:

1. A survey of existing books and how well they’re doing
2. Detail why your book is different from existing books, and how it will appeal to the existing market.

I start with a search on Amazon. First I search for the working title of my book. This lets me know if there’s already a book out there with that title. Although titles can’t be copyrighted, I really don’t want a duplicate title if I can avoid it.

Next I do a search on the key words or basic concept of my proposed book. When I find a book that addresses my market, I list it, including the title, author, publisher, date published and Amazon sales rank. If I know the book, or can figure it out based on the book description, and reviews, I do a brief description and show how my book is different and needed.

I continue this until I have several books listed – six to ten seems about right. I then order them by popularity, usually based on Amazon’s ranking.

It’s really that simple.

Write well, and often,

How to Write a Non-Fiction Book Proposal that $ells! is an eBook that tells you exactly how to put together a book proposal. The system works for me and it’s worked for others.