10 Reasons Your Book Proposal Got Rejected
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We’ve been talking about book proposals and I covered five main components: your project, positioning, platform, promotion, and your sample materials. But even if you do everything “right,” book proposals get rejected every day for all kinds of reasons. Publishing is a complex, subjective process based on volatile, often-changing market conditions.
There are so many variables that impact a book’s possible chances of success, and many of them are outside of your control. But there are some variables within your control. If your book is rejected for one of these reasons, you might be able to fix it for re-submission to the same or another publisher.
So let’s do a pre-mortem. Let’s take a look at 10 specific reasons your proposal might get rejected, and what you might be able to do about it.
Side note: If you have an agent, your agent should be able to help you avoid some of these common missteps!
1. You pitched the wrong publisher.
I used to work at a K12 education professional development publisher. It’s a VERY small niche, and you couldn't even get my work email to submit a proposal unless you went to the publisher’s website and found our proposal guidelines. It was abundantly clear what type of books we published and who the audience was (educators). And yet… I still got proposals for books of poetry, children’s books, sci-fi, memoir, history, etc. All of these proposals got rejected immediately, regardless of their merit, because the author wasn’t paying attention. I’m clearly not the right editor to pitch those books to - if the author had bothered to look.
The fix: Make sure that you’re submitting your proposal to a publisher that has published in your genre before or who specializes in your genre. Take a look at your competition and/or books for the same audience and find out who published them. Try starting with those publishers first.
2. You’re not a credible authority on your topic.
Publishers aren’t going to publish a book on economics from a car salesman, or a book on oncology from a software developer - unless they can prove they have some other source of expertise. It’s important that authors are seen as credible authorities on their topic. Keep in mind - this is for nonfiction primarily. Fiction has much more flexibility, and fiction authors can and do come from all kinds of backgrounds!
The fix: Write what you know! Think about what your areas of expertise are. What credentials do you have? What do people come to you for help with? What are you known for? Focus your energies where you have proven experience and expertise.
3. You don’t have a strong enough platform.
As I wrote in my post on platform, publishers want to see some kind of evidence that you have an established system for reliably reaching your audience and a demonstrated ability to engage your audience with your content.
The fix: If you’re still working on building your platform, look for a smaller publisher, self-publish, or take a break from pitching your book proposal to focus on building your platform.
4. Your audience is too broad.
I can’t tell you how many times I have given this feedback. Often authors (especially first-time authors) want to write a book to appeal to absolutely everyone and solve all of the world’s problems. Unfortunately, that’s impossible. Even within very niche fields, it’s difficult to effectively serve multiple audiences well. For example, in my field of education, I often have to convince authors to focus their books for either teachers or school leaders. Better still is if they can narrow their audience further to, say, elementary teachers or instructional coaches.
The fix: Ask yourself, Who would benefit MOST from my content/topic? Who is going to see your book and think, “YES - this is the answer to my problems!”? That is the audience to focus on.
5. Your audience is too small.
Sometimes you have a very concrete idea of who your audience is, but that audience is simply not a lot of people. For example, if you want to write a book of support for people who suffer from a very rare disease that only affects a handful of people. While that would be a worthy book, the audience is so small that a publisher might be unwilling to take it on.
The fix: Look for a niche publisher who specializes in your field, or change the approach of the book to broaden the audience. Look for the threads of human connection that would be relatable to a much broader audience. Rather than writing a book of support for people suffering from a rare disease, you could shift the approach to tell an interesting story of someone who overcame that disease or fought to bring more awareness to it. Now you’re tapping into more universal themes of resilience, health, determination, fighting unfair systems, etc.
The book Radium Girls is a great example of this. This book tells the story of a unique experience that only affected dozens of women in the U.S. Although I’ve never suffered from radium poisoning, I was deeply invested in this story because I related to the girls’ fight for justice, the fear and unknown they faced, and their brave persistence in the face of death and decay.
6. A book is not the right solution to the problem you’re solving.
Not every problem needs a book to be solved. For example, the world probably doesn’t need a book on how to digitize old recordings or learn a manual process like how to type on a keyboard. Technology is a particularly tricky area to publish in because it is constantly changing and evolving - by the time a book comes out, the book could already be outdated. Kids still have to learn how to type on a keyboard, but there are software programs and online courses that help them much more effectively than a book could.
You’ll know that your problem might not be worth solving in a book if there aren’t many competitive titles or the competitive titles that exist are very old. This is a clue that your potential readers are finding other ways of solving their problem.
The fix: Do some research and find out where people go when they have the problem you’re addressing. If you’re set on solving that problem, consider a more effective product that would be more successful at meeting your audience’s needs.
7. Your idea isn’t new.
This is unfortunately quite common as well. There are a lot of great ideas out there, and it’s likely that someone else has already thought of what you’re doing. Unfortunately, I see many authors simply repeat what other people are saying or build on ideas that are already well known. Those books get rejected because that audience is already getting that need fulfilled by someone who is probably doing it better.
The fix:
- Study your competition and the thought leaders who have come before you. Map out the areas where there are gaps. Note new questions that people have on that same topic. Research your topic on Reddit or Quora - forums where people come with questions - and notice where people are still struggling or need insight. Make sure that you are offering something unique that they are not finding elsewhere (but that they desperately want). James Clear isn’t the first (or last) person to write about how to form better habits, but he offered an interesting framework that makes the process easier.
- Offer a unique spin to make a difficult topic more accessible. Stan Tatkin wasn’t the first person to write a book about marriage, or even a book about attachment theory, but his analogy of “islands” and “waves” was so powerful that people needed it explained in his unique way.
8. Your writing isn’t up to par.
Writing is a difficult skill to master. People go to school to get degrees in writing. Many authors feel like they are always on a journey of learning how to be a more effective writer, and there’s no such thing as “mastering” it!
If a publisher tells you that the writing isn’t up to their standards, I would recommend asking them (if they’re willing) for a few more details. Is the structure poor, or the concept not developed enough? Is the problem simply with grammar and sentence structure? Hopefully, the person who sent the rejection can give you some ideas of where you need to focus your improvement efforts.
The fix:
- Hire a really good editor. If the publisher doesn’t have time to tell you where to improve, a freelance editor with experience in publishing should be able to analyze your proposal and tell you where the weaknesses might be.
- Study great writers. Read the books that you love most and analyze what makes them work.
- Take a writing class where you will receive regular feedback on your writing.
- Read any of these books for writers and take their advice.
9. Your proposal and/or samples showed a lack of sensitivity or knowledge in your field.
Sometimes I get proposals from authors who are obviously out of touch with what’s currently going on in the field. In education, a good example of this is when authors promote the idea of learning styles - even though that theory has been thoroughly debunked by the research. That’s probably going to be an automatic rejection from me because it shows that the author isn’t aware of the most up-to-date ideas and evidence in the field.
The fix: Read widely in your field. Stay on top of new advancements or discoveries in research so that you’re providing accurate, helpful knowledge to your audience.
10. The publisher already has that book.
While this isn’t a problem you can control for from the beginning, it is something you can take action to address. It often occurs that a publisher already has a similar book in the works that would compete with the book you’re offering. A publisher doesn’t want your book to interfere with the sales of the book that they’re already committed to.
The fix:
- Before submitting to a publisher, take a look at what they’ve published recently to make sure your book isn’t a direct competition. If they have similar books published, add those to your competitive titles section and talk about what your book offers that is unique so that the publisher can position your book as complementary, rather than competing.
- Offer it to a different publisher.
What do you do when a publisher rejects you without explanation?
A lot of editors will try to give you a specific reason for the rejection, but honestly, editors are incredibly busy and sometimes they’ll send a stock rejection letter without any additional explanation. What do you do when that happens?
If you have an agent, the agent can usually give you advice or an idea of what might have been the reason. I also recommend hiring a freelance editor who has experience in publishing and can point out any possible missteps.
But ultimately, the best thing you can do is move on! Don’t dwell on it; keep your momentum going and submit to other publishers, or look at self-publishing. You have options, so take them!
Last thing: Rules are made to be broken.
Honestly, there are times when I’ve accepted proposals that have committed one of these mistakes (except #1 - that’s an absolute no-go). I’ve taken chances on books from authors with a small platform but a great idea. I’ve hired development editors to help authors with a great platform and great idea, but terrible writing. I’ve helped authors expand their audience when I thought they had something really valuable to contribute to more people than they imagined. I’ve sent authors research articles when I thought they needed to brush up on new information.
What made it worth it for me to make those efforts were two things: a great platform, and a great idea. If you have one or both of those, then I’m much more likely to work with you to make your book something that would be successful. But when you make these mistakes, I have to weigh whether investing that additional effort into you is worth it. That’s not a question you want editors to have to ask, so if you can avoid these mistakes altogether, that’s so much better. Make it easy for editors to pick you by delivering the best possible proposal you can!
