Writing a Great Book Proposal - Part One

When I prepared to write a great book proposal, the first step I took was to write a book proposal that would pique a publisher's interest. My book proposal consisted of 9 parts. In order to limit this article to the requested length of 500 words, I'll focus on the first, second, and third parts:

The Proposal Proper

Annotated Chapter Outline

The Market

The Proposal Proper

In the Proposal Proper, I give a general idea of what I am going to write about:

Biographies blending with history.

Introduction to the three protagonists in the book.

Then I explain why my book will make a unique contribution to a market already flooded with books and manuscripts about China.

The three protagonists in my book actually played their parts in the central political events of their day. The historical details provided are unknown in the West, or even in China. New details shed new light on events. Therefore I write from a special vantage point and fill quite a few gaps in the history of one of the most vital periods of modern China.

Annotated Chapter Outline

The Annotated Chapter Outline offers me an opportunity to demonstrate my control over the material, my ability to organize it, and my writing style.

To begin with, each chapter title should promise a reader that I'll lead him to a place where he has never been to, and where he'll meet fascinating characters he has never known.

I cite some chapter titles as an example.

I end each chapter summary with a titillating hint about the next.

When a reader finishes reading the outline, he will have a bird's eye view of a vast mosaic of historical events and human behaviors.

The Market

A publisher wants to buy a salable manuscript and makes a profit, so it is important for me to provide the information.

This book, I believe, has a broad appeal.

Here is why.

Yuan-tsung was born in China, and immigrated to USA in 1972. Her first book, THE DRAGON'S VILLAGE, (was published by Pantheon, and) its Penguin paperback sells an average of 3,000 copies per year since 1981. Her latest book (nonfiction), RETURN TO THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, is now available through the Union Square Press of Sterling Publishing. For more information, please visit http://www.yuantsungchen.com

Writing Ebook Bestsellers - Low Cost Ways to Test Your Idea Before You Write an Ebook

It always amazes me when a reader of mine sends me an email asking me why their ebook is not selling as well as they thought it would. I ask them if they tested their idea before they wrote their ebook and 100 out of 100 times, the answer is no.

Do not let this happen to you, especially since testing whether there is a market for your ebook before you create it is cheap, easy and quick. Here is how you do it:

Select Your Market
This is the first step in the process. In the beginning, I like to tell first time ebook writers to focus on a market (also called a niche) that they are passionate about and familiar with. When you are passionate about something and know a lot about it, writing ebooks about the market will be that much easier.

Product Brainstorming
Once you have the market selected, you need to figure out what kind of product you want to create. The best and easiest way to do this is to go to one of two places - Amazon or ClickBank.

You can search Amazon by category and see what the bestselling books are about. You can even use their Search Inside feature and look at the Table of Contents fro the top-selling books. This makes it easy for you to create a list of topics for your ebook. But I am getting just a little bit ahead of myself here.

Is The Competition Selling?
ClickBank will rank the bestselling ebooks in each sub-category by their "gravity score" which is a complicated formula, but the higher the number, the better.

If you find a number of products in your niche that have high numbers (greater than 4 or 5 is best), you will probably have a hot niche on your hands and the likelihood of success is pretty high.

If the gravity score is lower than a 4 or 5, you might want to look at a different niche. Once you have confirmed that the market is good and there are enough competitive products selling, you move onto the next step - Creating Your Product.

Create Your Product
If you have a winner on your hand, the next step is to create the product. If you have a loser on your hands, no big deal. You just start back at step one and go from there. At this point you might be frustrated, but at least you have not wasted your time and effort behind creating a product that no one wants to buy.

Be an Expert - They Capture Names
I almost forgot this one, but it is a "must do" when it comes to testing your ebook ideas.

One more tactic you should use, but most people overlook - creating a list. Using an email management program like Aweber, you should have people sign up for a "waiting list" and give them a free gift (ecourse or e-report) for giving you their name and email. This page is called a name squeeze page. While you are working on your product, you send them informative information on your topic and niche.

Why set this page up? Easy. While you create your product, you are building your list. When the product is done and ready for sale, you can send out one tiny little email to your list and make money from day one. Pretty cool, huh?

Now all you have to do is get to work on coming up with ideas to test.

Fabio Marciano is the author of over 40 ebooks and 2 print books.

Visit his site for a FREE Report on how to create best-selling ebooks. Grab it now at: http://www.TheOneMinuteEbook.com While you are there, read the dozens of free articles about starting your very own ebook publishing empire.