The Book Proposal Book

Writing a book? Read this.

No one told me how to write a book proposal.

In my profession, the book publishing process is something talked about in general terms — “You can write a book someday” — but the actual steps to publishing a scholarly book remain opaque.

One big part of publishing a book is the book proposal. But how does one write a book proposal? It’s new territory for many of us, even tenured scholars, especially in an article-centric field like philosophy.

Portwood-Stacer (2021) is a great manual for authors who don’t know where to start She’s talked to countless academics confused about the book proposal process. Her book really demystifies the process. I highly recommend it for anyone even thinking of publishing a monograph.

References

Portwood-Stacer, Laura. 2021. The Book Proposal Book: A Guide for Scholarly Authors. Princeton: Princeton University Press.