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Book proposal questions (and examples?)

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

In the mid-term future, I'm planning to write a book that will synthesise material from ~4 or 5 articles I've published in journals. I have some draft material for the manuscript, feel good about the book's place in the market, and am excited about writing it, but I feel somewhat confused about the whole book proposal process. I don't know very many people who've recently published books on the choosier presses to ask for advice, either.
I know that there has been some general book proposal advice given on here before, but does anyone know if anyone has ever publicly shared a successful book proposal they wrote for one of the big presses in philosophy? And does cold-emailing really stand a chance of success for e.g. OUP?

Do any readers have any helpful tips and/or successful proposals they can link to or are willing to share?

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5 responses to “Book proposal questions (and examples?)”

  1. Bill V.

    I highly recommend Laura Portwood-Stacer, The Book Proposal Book. She also offers various workshops on the process of writing a proposal for an academic book. LPS answers all those questions with more detail and nuance than we can here. But briefly, yes, cold emailing an academic press with a proposal is the standard way to get a academic book published. (For the so-called trade presses, you need a good proposal to first get an agent who will then try to get publishers interested.) Each publisher will have guidelines on their website about what they expect in a proposal, and sometimes links to advice about how to write a good one. Simultaneous submission is allowable and the norm, though you should say you are doing it.

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  2. an author

    You should definitely reach out to a publisher (including, or even, Oxford). Most of the time that is how book contracts are made. I contacted two publishers about a proposed book idea I had. One was Cambridge, and they then asked for a proposal (which has a formal structure). Then they asked me to send along the full manuscript when it was complete. That was sent out for the reviews, and then on the basis of the reviews I was asked for revisions and a contract was issued. I have since published a number of books with CUP. I would gladly share a sample proposal with you (but Marcus would have to mediate this … he can give you my e-mail, if you are interested). I do not want to post my e-mail here.

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  3. Links

    Eric Schwitzgebel has shared a copy of one of his book proposals here: https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/BookProposal-200401-SAMPLE.pdf
    And he wrote an accompanying guide to getting a book published in philosophy, which you can find here: https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-publish-book-in-philosophy-guide.html
    I found it very helpful to listen to interviews with philosophy editors at good publishers discussing what makes for a good proposal.
    Here’s a link to an interview with Rob Tempio (a philosophy editor at Princeton University Press):


    And here’s a link to an interview with Jennifer Banks (a philosophy editor at Yale University Press):


    And finally, here’s a link to a Daily Nous article in which multiple philosophy editors (including from OUP) answer questions: https://dailynous.com/2015/05/28/answers-from-academic-publishers/

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  4. Don’t get caught

    Just one piece of advice. Publishers will be scared if they think you’re mainly rehashing published work. Please downplay the overlap a bit. (Otherwise, I second the advice to read Laura Portwood-Stacer.)

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  5. CW

    Portwood-Stacer’s book helped me. I followed her advice, wrote a proposal, and cold emailed 10 presses with the proposal attached. One expressed interest and asked for sample chapters. Another told me they don’t publish much in my area nowadays, but that they’d really like to see the finished ms. A third offered me a contract, basically promising to send the ms to reviewers once finished. The others offered polite “no, thanks.” Except for one, who, not satisfied with “no, thanks,” took pains to state that my proposed book was not a good fit for their press. Lol, wrong. But I think what they really meant was that “I” was not a good fit. 🙂

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