Day One: What’s a book proposal? Get an idea for
Task One: Look over four non-fiction books
Take your notebook and visit a bookstore. Skim four non-fiction books of the kind
which you hope to write. Check the number of pages, the table of contents, and
chapter length. How are these books written? Are they written in a casual, tongue-in-
cheek style like the For Dummies series? Do they include lots of anecdotes and
personal information about the author?
In your notebook, write down each book's title, author, publisher and year of
publication. Also write down anything you find interesting about the book. Scan the
acknowledgements page to see whether the author thanks her editor and her agent.
Make a note of their names if she does. (These people may be interested in your
proposal if it covers a similar subject area.)
Task Two: Work through the Idea Generator exercises in this
Read the Idea Generators, and do at least three of them, even if you've already got an
idea for your book. Working through this material is important because it will give
you confidence that you it's easy for you to find as many ideas as you need.
Task Three: Create a computer folder to hold your working files
Create a folder on your computer to hold all the files for your book. As you work,
you'll generate many files. Create sub-folders as you need them.
