Pragmatic Bookshelf Book Proposal

Thank you for your interest in writing with us.

What happens next is that you complete the appropriate sections in this document. We then discuss it among our proposals team. The outcome is sometimes an immediate “yes,” but will only be a definite “no” if we don’t feel we’re the right publisher for you. The rest of the time, this document will be the basis of a discussion between you and us where we work to better understand your ideas.

We tell you this because we understand that there are a lot of unknowns here for you and some of these questions will be difficult to answer. This isn’t a test, so just give us your ideas and we can work from there.

About You

1. For each author, please give us your name, email, and timezone

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2. For each author: please tell us a little about yourself:

   • Write a third-person bio that tells us who you are and what you do. Imagine that this bio will be displayed next to your book on pragprog.com.

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Tell us about your experience and relation to the topic, including: * Your relationship to the community (how active you are) * Public speaking about this topic (podcasts, talks, classes taught) * Other content you’ve written on the topic (articles, books, tutorials) * Ways readers can connect with or follow you: - Twitter handle - LinkedIn address - Blog - Github page

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What is This Book About?

1. Imagine you were writing the one or two paragraphs that people would see on your book’s Amazon page. You’ll want to get the essence of the content across in a compelling way. What would you write? (Don’t worry, we have people who’ll do the real marketing blurb.)

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2. What overall style do you envisage? (building a sample application, cookbook style recipes, short exercises, anecdotes from real-life stories, …)?

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3. When you think of the final book, how thick will it be (inches, mm, or rough page count)?

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Why Is This Book Needed?

Our books are not just a bunch of facts. Instead we want them to take the reader on a journey where they will come to master some particular topic. So tell us, in one or two paragraphs each:

1. What will readers be able to do after reading this book that they couldn’t do before?

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2. Who will benefit from this book?

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3. How are these people currently getting information about the subject of the book (other books, YouTube, online docs, …)? In what way will your book serve them better?

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An Outline

This might be the trickiest section. We’re not asking you to commit to a table of contents, but we do want you to think about the structure and the reader’s journey. Every author will start with some kind of plan, and every author will find that that plan changes as they start writing (and as our editors get involved). So what’s yours? Just give us a list of major headings and a sentence describing each. There’ll probably be from 8 to twelve sections here. You don’t need to include things such as the preface and bibliography.

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Promotional ideas

What can you do to help promote the book? List anything you can participate in to promote your book, such as:

• Webinars
• Podcasts
• Courses
• Conference talks
• Blogs and articles
• Meet-up groups

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Writing sample

We need to see an example of your writing. If you’ve written any other books, please link to them here and, if possible, send us a sample chapter from somewhere in the middle of your most recent book as a separate attachment. If you’ve never written a book but you have written online tutorials, blog posts, or anything else designed to teach people how to do something technical, please point us to where we can see those writing samples ourselves. And if you’ve never done any sort of public writing before, that’s okay. We may ask you to send us a five-to-seven-page example draft that might appear somewhere in the middle of your book.

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