Every week we read proposals that describe a good piece of research and still fail to make the case for a book. The gap is almost never the scholarship. It is that the proposal answers what is this about without ever answering who needs this and why now.
Start with the reader, not the field
A literature review tells us where your work sits. It does not tell us who will pay for the book. Name the reader precisely: the second-year graduate student entering your subfield from another discipline, the policy analyst who has to brief a minister, the lecturer looking for a set text that students will actually finish.
Say what the book argues
Not what it covers — what it argues. A book that only covers a topic is a handbook, and handbooks are commissioned differently. If you can write your argument in two sentences without hedging, you are ready to write the proposal.
Be honest about the competition
We will find the competing titles whether or not you list them. Listing them, and saying plainly what yours does differently, is the single fastest way to persuade an editor that you know your market.
Give us a chapter list we can believe
One paragraph per chapter and an estimated word count. If three chapters carry most of the argument and five are context, we would rather know that now than discover it at peer review.
