Margret McBride Literary Agency

We appreciate your interest in our agency. We are not accepting new clients at this time. Please check back at a later time to see if this has changed.

Our Agency welcomes the opportunity to review your book ideas, and encourages you to submit a query letter. In your letter, please provide a brief (one to two pages) synopsis of your work, as well as any pertinent information about yourself. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to enable us to respond to you.

We read through your letters, scanning for ideas we believe the reading public will have great interest in and will be instantly successful in marketing to publishers. If we believe we will have success with selling your work, we will request that you forward either a complete proposal, complete manuscript, or the first fifty pages of the manuscript for further reading. Please make sure your manuscript or proposal follows the below formatting preferences:

12 point font Palatino, Times or Times New Roman
1 inch margins (minimum)
unbound
single sided
double-spaced
indented paragraphs
consecutively numbered pages

If your work is a work of non-fiction or you are a previously published author, please include specific information about your credentials and/or previous publications. The information you will be sending should be helpful to us in making our decision about your projects’ potential, and you as our client.

We represent commercial fiction and nonfiction, business, health, self-help. We do not have an interest in representing poetry or romance.

Please address and mail all query letters to:
Margret McBride Literary Agency
PO Box 9128
La Jolla, CA 92038

Please enclose an SASE so we can respond to you. If you'd like your material returned the SASE should include enough postage for the materials to be returned. Queries are not accepted by telephone, fax or e-mail.

Due to the volume of query letters we receive, we ask that you allow six to eight weeks for a response to queries and requested pages.

PROPOSAL GUIDELINES

Non-fiction book proposals typically consist of the following information:

Overview: this is a synopsis of the book and typically “pitches” the idea to
the publisher; it is a brief statement (1-4 pages) of the project’s overall concept

Marketing and Promotional Plan: the author should explain how he/she plans to market or promote the book, whether through speaking engagements, seminars, videos, television appearances, radio, advertisement, etc. Today viral marketing and social media are very important parts of any promotional plan, so please also include these.

Competitive Title Analysis: this is a list of other published books (no more than 5) that cover similar subject matter; the author should be convincing about how his/her book is unique in its approach, style and subject, and why it is important enough to be published

Author Bio: an extended résumé, this shows the publisher that the author has the research, background and/or credentials to write this book

Introduction to the book: should be written as you would like it to appear in a published book.

Chapter Summaries: give the publisher a glance at how the entire book will read, especially if only a few sample chapters are provided in the proposal. One paragraph per chapter is adequate. This lets the publisher know you have the book planned from beginning to end.

Sample Chapters: the chapters should be in chronological order and begin with
Chapter 1; at least two or three sample chapters should be provided to give the publisher a true sense of how you write. Not counting the introduction and sample chapters, a proposal typically runs 20-25 pages. It should be unbound, double-spaced throughout and have one-inch margins.

Attachments: the author should attach any relevant, supplementary information he/she has about the book project, including speaking and seminar schedules; sales figures for audio, videos and/or previously published books; clientele list if applicable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional information, most writers’ guides - the LMP, Writers Market, Jeff Herman’s Guide to Editors, Publishers & Agents - include sections on how to write a book proposal. You might also do a search Amazon.com or Barnes&Noble.com for “book proposals.”