Believe it or not, we once had someone write and say that forcing an author to follow our guidelines when submitting a proposal is the height of arrogance. An artist should be allowed artistic freedom of expression, and cramming ideas into a preprescribed format is squelching that creativity.
While I understand the frustration and the amount of work involved in creating a proposal, there are reasons why we ask that writers follow the guidelines.
Definition of “Guidelines”
We use the word “guidelines” instead of “rules” intentionally. They are designed, in part, as a help to writers who don’t know where to begin when putting together a proposal.
You could say that rules are meant to be broken, but guidelines are meant to be followed. But even then, some get caught up in the details of the guidelines and miss the point. We get questions about font size, preferred font, whether to include an author photo or not, how many pages equal a chapter, page margins, what sort of salutation to use, what to say in the cover letter, etc. They are all legitimate questions; but accompanying the question is a fear that if the writer does it wrong, they will be rejected.
Standardization
When working through our considerable number of submissions, it quickly becomes obvious which writers have taken the time to review our guidelines and try to follow them. It is also obvious that some are oblivious to the help that ours, other agencies, books, and online resources provide.
The advantage of a general format is that we can quickly find the parts of a proposal that help our review process. If I have to dig to find a half-page summary of the book or a section about the writer, I can get frustrated. I’ve seen proposals that lead with chapter one, page one, and bury their cover letter at the end of the document. Please don’t do that.
Treat It Like a Job Application
Writing a proposal is like applying for a job in the technology sector. There are certain things that you know are going to attract Apple, Alphabet (aka Google), Facebook, or X. Those are a “standard” part of every application. But if you are wise, you will have gone to each company’s website and followed their guidelines. If they want a one-page resume, you don’t send two. If they ask for two, you don’t send one. In other words, you should customize your application to meet the interests of that particular company.
Try to stand out as a professional. Artistic rebels can still be professional about their rebellion!
Standing out as a “Grumpy Gus” or worse suggests that working together might be difficult.
The Underlying Reason for Guidelines
One thing to remember is that it isn’t anyone’s arrogance that requests following a guideline. Our guidelines are based on what the publishers ask of us. The publisher wants certain information because the bookselling outlets (online and physical) ask for certain information when being presented with a new book. The store wants that information because they know that you, the consumer, are asking for that information when making a purchasing decision. It is ultimately your fault that we have guidelines! (See me smiling when I write that?)
The bottom line is that we all want to sell books.
The consumer wants to know what the book is about and why they should buy it.
The store wants to know what the book is about and why they should stock it.
The publisher wants to know what the book is about and why they should publish it.
And the literary agent wants to know what the book is about and why they should represent it.
Artistic Freedom
Therefore, the writer, if they want a reader to buy their book, needs to consider what the reader is looking for and put that in the proposal. That doesn’t change what you write in the book. It merely wraps the entire concept into a package that can ultimately be presented to a reader and which says, “Buy me. Read me.”
I’m thinking that the person who complained obviously doesn’t want to be successful. Whether they believe themselves to be right or not, there is always more to learn, and learning to play well with others is primo in this life. If you are always playing defensive strategies…how will you ever get to present your offensive? It is always interesting to see the arrogance of others…I wonder how it is working out for them?
Mr. Laube:
Several months ago when I finished my first fiction ms, I decided it was time to look ahead to the next step, so I started googling. Wow…what a confusing, overwhelming, conflicting introduction to the journey of publishing! I was fortunate that I found your website early in my learning process. The blog and resources are invaluable…guidelines included. It was so helpful that you spent time clearly defining what should be included in each part of the proposal as well as providing some examples. I used the guidelines to write a “practice proposal” and was amazed how the process clarified my story for me. I remember thinking, “I wrote this story…how can I not know these things about my own story?” Writing the proposal was an act of discipline, but the guidelines helped me better understand my story, my writing, and even myself as an author. Maybe the more artistic types don’t need that experience, but for me it is invaluable. Thank you!
I have only written one proposal so far in my writing life, and I have to agree with you Karen, the process of writing the proposal itself was enlightening beyond anything that I could have ever imagined. There were questions that I simply didn’t know the answers too. The process taught me much about myself and my writing, as well as potential future manuscripts. I am always thankful for the experience of others!
Karen, what a great, articulate response! It’s right on!! Your experience needs to be used as an example on the guidelines page of every agency and publishing house!
Can I share it with my writers group?
Please I have been following your comments through your emails, and I have a book that is already published at AMAZON, can you help me with the marketing, I mean reach prospective buyers?
Steve, great post. Thanks for your thoughts.
Like Karen, I found your your guidelines to be clear. And as you mentioned in your post, if the author can’t follow instructions, how well will she/he cooperate in the journey.
Thanks!
I would be lost without guidelines to follow. I appreciate not only that your agency has guidelines, but some examples to help clarify what you want.
I admit that writing my first proposal was a painful experience. Very painful. However, since then I have grown in my appreciation of the proposal, and keeping the proposal in mind has helped me stay focused as I write my next book.
The biggest challenge for me, when trying to follow “Agency Guidelines,” is honestly just being humble enough to submit to what another person thinks is best instead of what I think is best. I like to do things my own way, you know!
Biggest challenge when putting together a proposal: I had the most difficulty writing the short plot summary. Though writing a bio is definitely difficult, too. To make a plot summary that truly carries as much of the essence of the story as possible is very difficult. And to make it show some of your unique voice without getting bloated? It took quite some time for me to get close.
As far as guidelines go, I heard my dad say once, “What’s a picture without borders? Or a song without a beginning and an end? Art isn’t art without boundaries.”
“An artist should be allowed artistic freedom of expression.” I absolutely agree, as does the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States (speaking of guidelines). But as soon as one takes the first step into the world of publishing (that first step being to secure the services of an agent), one steps out of the world of art and into the world of business. And in that world, freedom of expression runs headlong into freedom of the market, which means others are free to buy or not buy what one is selling. Turns out the buyers in the world of publishing have lots of options and limited coins to spend. So they naturally incline toward products they can quickly understand, meet the needs they wish to have satisfied, and conform (at least in the business sense of that term) to the conventions of doing business. Bottom line (to use a term from the word of business): you can exercise as much artistic freedom as you wish, but if you want to play the game of publishing, you play by the established rules. Or you can stay home. (BTW, even Jasper Johns and John Cage have agents.)
Nothing is more valuable when preparing a proposal for business or research than having clear guidelines. How can you write a winning proposal when you don’t know the content and format that the funding organization or potential customer wants to help them make the decision? If you want to win at any sport, of course you follow the rules. Why would anyone expect the publishing business to be different? Your agency guidelines are very clear, and I plan to be following them in a few months when my web platform is in place and growing well.
The hardest part for me is knowing what to include in the bio. I’ve been quite successful for many years in a field totally unrelated to writing fiction. Although I’ve published a lot in my profession, I don’t have any formal credentials in the literary arena. The formal writing style of scientific publishing is nothing like the relaxed, fluid style of a good story. I can flip back and forth between the two, but nothing in my bio would suggest that I can. Just how does someone write an appropriate bio as an author of romantic historical fiction when your past is more suited to a curriculum vitae than a warm introduction to you as a person? What would an agent think might make me “qualified” to write fiction? Or, for that matter, make anyone from any background qualified to write fiction?
Carol,
Like you, my background is in academic science, and my papers and books for most of my life were written in that (as you say) very particular style. While I don’t write fiction (at least not for publication) my non fiction Christian books are completely different in style and tone from my scientific writing. Yet all three were published traditionally, with the help of this agency. So don’t despair, you can do it too.
God has set some guidelines
He’d rather that I follow,
but I must say there are some times
I’d really rather borrow
from the hedonistic book
of the Romans and the Greeks
to give a modish cultured look
way too cool for Bible geeks,
and God says, fine, if that’s your thing,
I’ll follow close behind,
and I will make sure that I bring
a can in which to place your mind
when you receive that which you wish,
for culture’s just a Petri dish.
Brilliant! Thanks for this.
Thank YOU, Sy!
Oh, Andrew, you certainly went right to the core of the matter! So well expressed, as always!
Thank you so much for this, Linda. Didn’t know I could be here today; bad fall and a minor depressed fracture in the temple, just behind the eye’s orbit. No need for trephine, but boy do I have a woozy headache!
Andrew!!! BAHAHAHAHA!! I’m thankful your sense of humor is still intact.
Thanks, Pam!
Barb’s sense of humour is intact, too. When I fell I had a pencil clutched in my hand, put my hand under head to break my fall, and the eraser end was driven into my skull. The indentation in the bone, well, you’re not supposed to be able to put your fingertip that far into your temple.
Now to Barb’s humour. She said that if I had landed on the sharp end, it would have gone further in and been a great picture for Facebook.
Gracious, Andrew, I’m sorry for your fall and glad you didn’t land on the sharp end of the pencil. I wish you well as you recover. Blessings.
Carol, thank you!
Thanks Steve! This really helps reframe the proposal guidelines from an arbitrary set of hoops to jump through to satisfy an agent, to a framework for presenting necessary information about the book, author and platform with a publisher and reader in mind. I especially appreciate the reminder at the end that a proposal is about selling the book. I would personally find it easy to get caught in the weeds of font and margins, and potentially leave out a crucially important angle of my book’s marketability, just because the proposal guidelines didn’t specifically ask for that.
Thank you, Steve and Sy. Well said.
Guidelines are a gift.
Steve, I’m not lobbying for “artistic freedom.” What I want is for agents to have a standard form for book proposals. I’m sending my tenth agent submission today. Except for the two agents that directed me to “Query Tracker”, the information and format are each different.
Three agents said, “No.” Two agents nibbled for a bit, then thanked and encouraged me. I’m waiting for responses for four more, one dating back to March.
One agent asked for information that took eight pages. (Similar information was required on four questions.) A couple of the agents asked for no more than one page.
Do book agents have a professional organization? If so, how about having a discussion about the information wanted and create a common format? It would help authors to not have to build a different proposal for each agents.
Can it be a copy and paste operation for the author? “This question? Okay. I have that information. So, I’ll paste it in.”
How about this?
1) Author’s name.
2) Contact information.
3) Book title. Is it set in concrete, or are you willing to change it?
4) Fiction or non-fiction?
5) Genre, if fiction? (Romance, fantasy, thriller, mystery, detective, literary, etc.
6) Subject, if non-fiction? Bible study and commentary, parenting, family, apologetics, church growth, missions, biography, etc.
7) A summary of the plot for fiction.
8) A summary of the idea or subject for non-fiction.
9) Hook, if you have one.
10) Back cover copy, if you have it.
11) Previously published articles in publications.
12) Previously published articles in a collection (devotional, etc.)
13) Social media followers: email contacts on a regular basis; blog; podcast; Substack; Facebook; etc. [Are agents interested in this more than anything else?]
14) Proposal or plan to promote the book.
15) Three chapters of the book.
There you go. I hope you won’t put me in the category of a “Grumpy Gus.” Agents say what they need, and I’m doing the same.
I think my proposal would help us both.
Proposals can be a tool for the writer to plan and create a better book–possibly before they even start writing it. Like creating a blueprint before building a house. It’s better to notice stupid design errors on drafts of the blueprint than when parts of the house don’t fit together or when it fails final inspection.
That said, good proposal guidelines empower the writer to write a better proposal; poor guidelines force the writer’s attention onto avoiding land mines. I suspect the best organizations to work with have empowering guidelines compared to rigid, Byzantine, tendentious ones.
I’m relatively new to the Christian writing and publishing world. I have a strong background in R&D, analytics, quality, and process development. I’m applying this to figure out an efficient way to write high quality materials. One decision I’ve made is to use an empowering set of proposal guidelines to plan non-fiction books using a proposal as a tool akin to a business plan, blueprint, or flowchart. This is in some ways like testing a prototype of an idea before committing the time and resources into a full-blown product line.
It is our fault that there are guidelines! Ha ha ha! Well played, Steve. Well played! Actually, guidelines fuel my creativity, so I’m not complaining.
Steve, as one who is about to write her first proposal, I am very grateful for guidelines to help me direct my words to those who will read it, to their needs, to business results. I find it hard to imagine that people say “Don’t give me guidelines; let me do my thing.” Don’t imagine that works well for them in the long run.
I find the comments from authors learning more about their own books through the proposal process than they knew before. That will likely happen with me as well.
Thank you for your clear explanation of why guidelines are needed, and how to follow them.
Steve, as one who is about to write her first proposal, I am very grateful for guidelines to help me direct my words to those who will read it, to their needs, to business results. I find it hard to imagine that people say “Don’t give me guidelines; let me do my thing.” Don’t imagine that works well for them in the long run.
I find the comments from authors learning more about their own books through the proposal process than they knew before enlightening. That will likely happen to me as well.
Thank you for your clear explanation of why guidelines are needed, and how to follow them.