As I embark on this new project, I thought chronicling the process would be a fun way to stay I touch with my dozens of fans.
In case you missed my last post, I’ve been inspired to work on a non-fiction middle-grade book about the process of storytelling. This book will be a practical guide, showing young people how storytelling is a uniquely human activity but also a tool that gives them the power of self-expression, abilities to discern meaning from the world, and a way to develop empathy.
The outline of this project came together pretty effortlessly, and as I researched the non-fiction world, I realized that the next step should be a book proposal.
Rather than writing the book on spec, like a fiction project, non-fiction apparently follows a different path. Who knew? A book proposal walks a potential agent or publisher through the project outline, target audience, why I’m the author to write it, and an overview of the contents.
My background in marketing sets me up pretty well for developing a compelling proposal, I think, so I sally forth into this whole thing, digging in one what is needed.
At first, this was a daunting prospect, having never done a book proposal before. I didn’t know exactly what needed to be in one, didn’t know how long it needed to be, didn’t know what makes one good or bad (honestly I still don’t really know these things). But as I sat down and started answering the questions that needed answering, I found them flowing out of me. Sure, I had to think about some of them. I had to tweak and polish. I had to do some outside research. But by and large, the answers were in there.
In the “this feels like I’m doing the right thing” department, the ease of all of this coming together was pretty promising.
So I put the proposal together and even drafted a sample chapter. And now to the next step: getting it out there. The dreaded querying process. If anyone has any tips for querying middle-grade non-fiction, please send them my way.
If you’re an agent looking to represent a somewhat successful middle-grade author (I have a fairly well-received trilogy out in the world as of 2025 through a small publisher), please connect with me.
I can’t wait to see what happens in the next chapter!