How to write a book proposal
If you've read your primers on getting a book published, you'll know that the whole process has changed greatly; that you will almost certainly need an agent to place a book, especially if you're a new writer; that if you're seeking a publisher for a novel you'll probably have to write the whole thing first (to show that you can pull it off); and, if you're writing nonfiction, that you don't write the whole thing first, but sell from a book proposal (indeed, sell from a book proposal even if you have already written the book).

Here are some books to help you think through the process:
· Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction – and Get It Published, by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato, explores how to think through a serious nonfiction book (and to understand an editor).
· The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, by Betsy Lerner, is good on the whole process of publishing.
· Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody can Write: How to Get a Contract and Advance Before Writing Your Book, offers a template for writing the proposal.
· Write the Perfect Book Proposal: 10 That Sold and Why, by Jeff Herman and Deborah M. Adams, shows and tells.

Among other things, what publishers are interested in are: the title (some books have sold on the title alone; if yours isn't great, the publisher may change it), how good an idea you have (and how easy it would be to sell in 25 words or less), your "brand" (how recognizable your name is), your platform (the size of your fan base, or potential fan base, and how easily you can expand that fan base), your track record (sales on previous books), the quality of your writing (which you demonstrate in the proposal itself), how timely the topic is (for nonfiction), and how you plan to promote the book (including how promotable you are, which includes how you come across personally). If you have a video of yourself giving a dynamic talk, you might include that, or a few minutes from it.

How to find and choose an agent
Agents vary on many counts (including how much and how well they help you shape your proposal, how aggressive they are in finding publisher, how well they know how many publishers, and how reliable they will be about protecting your interests after the book is published), so finding one through another writer friend is perhaps the best way, especially if the friend can also recommend you.

To find an agent without leaving home, check the online database, Agent Query (link below). Check the Association of Authors' Representatives to see if a particular agent is a member (link below; you want them to be). You can find also contact information on agents in the reference book Literary Marketplace, available in many public libraries. In Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Agents, you can get a good sense of the tastes and track records of the agents and editors listed. There are similar guides to agents by Writer's Digest, Kathryn S. Brogan, Joanna Masterson, as well as How to Get a Literary Agent by Michael Larsen. You can learn a lot about an agent through Publishers Marketplace, a subscription website that tracks book deals (by $$ size), with agents listed and provides a wealth of information, including a contact database, hosted web pages, a rights and proposals board, a book review index, a book tracker. Publishers Lunch is a sampler of the same thing.

In this curious age of blogging, you can pick up many tips about agents, book proposals, and how best to market your book to a publisher by skimming these agent blogs: