The Proposal
My book began as an idea. That idea slowly but surely grew into a proposal; and that proposal is what—eventually—landed me an advanced book contract. So what, were the steps that took me from idea to proposal? I imagine that they are different for everyone and may even vary from book to book. (I know that my next book is already more thought through than the one I’m currently working on for instance). At any rate, my initial idea was pretty vague when I look back at it. I knew that I had a longstanding interest in sports, race, gender, and society, yet I couldn’t quite articulate just what it was I wanted to write about. So I talked about it. I talked about it with friends, with mentors, with colleagues, with family, with anyone who would listen really. Then I wrote about it. I wrote in my journal, on note cards, on post it notes, on scraps of paper, and eventually in notebooks where it began to take really form. From there, I talked about it some more. Then, feeling all talked out, with the advice of my mentors, I sat down and outlined my ideas in a clear and concise way.
After that, I reached out to people I knew, in real life, and via Twitter, to ask them about their book writing experiences. I read other book proposals. I read websites of presses that I was interested in to get ideas about what they expected their proposals to look like—and my own proposal really began to take shape. I submitted original proposal to a few presses, mainly hoping just to get general feedback, wanting to be validated that I was on my way to an idea of sorts. This process took months. Writing back and forth, making changes, getting flat out rejections, starting from scratch and trying again.
Eventually, I narrowed my choices down to three presses that seemed the most serious about my work, and built my proposal based on their expectations. Then after careful consideration, careful conversations, sleepless nights, strange dreams, I narrowed that list down to two. I wrote sample chapters, revised my proposal and waited for feedback and hopefully (fingers crossed at least one offer). Though I had received an earlier offer from the press I had decided not to work with previously, I was hopeful that the two still in the running would make similar (if not better) offers—they both did.
That was the quandary. Both were good presses, great in fact, especially for a first book. Both were interested in me and my work, and both seemed to be offering me a level of support that made making the decision that much more difficult. In the end, following weeks of negotiations, anxious evenings, and even more anxious days, I decided to take an advanced contract with Rutgers University Press. So now it begins. The draft of my manuscript is due in a little over a year, which means lots of writing, reading, and research to make it as strong as possible. This project is a personal and professional one, as I infuse a lot of myself into it. Proposals are only part of the process…Stay tuned for more.
