Inside every nonfiction book proposal you will find two table of contents. The first one appears on the second page of the proposal; it helps an agent or an acquisitions agents find the different parts and sections of the proposal. The second appears as the first part of The Outline, the second section of the book proposal. It functions as a table of contents for your actualproposed book or book idea and is called the “List of Chapters.”
Seems simple enough right? Basically it is.This part only needs some attention to detail on your part.
On this page you will place the heading, “List of Chapters.” Follow this with your actual table of contents for your book.
Now comes the tricky part. For each chapter title in your table of contents, create a tab that is flush right and include the page number within the proposal where the agent or acquisitions editor can find the chapter synopsis for that particular chapter. Obviously, to complete this section you will need to complete the next section of the nonfiction book proposal, called Chapter Summaries. You will then need to go through your proposal and be sure you have the correct page written down here.
Then, if and when you make changes to the Chapter Summaries (much like with the first table of contents for the whole proposal), you will need to update the List of Chapters to reflect any changes in page numbering. Proofreading the two table of contents should be he final thing you do before submitting your proposal.
photo courtesy of jiggoja
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