📙 How to Sell a Book Before You Write a Book
Save your energy... and your word count!
In all the books I’ve sold — including the ones I crowdfunded — not a single one was fully written when I pitched it. Not one. And here’s the good news: you don’t need a finished manuscript either.
Selling a book before you write it isn’t cheating. It’s smart, strategic and perfect for time-poor humans with real lives (hi, all of us). It gives you validation early, lets you pivot before you waste months drafting, and — if all goes well — buys you 8–12 glorious months to actually write the thing.
Here’s exactly how I’ve done it, multiple times, and how you can too — no gatekeeping.
📙 This is a breakdown of how I’ve sold multiple books before I’ve written them — a insider look behind the curtain.
My first book, Wife Interrupted, I sold with a book proposal and three chapters.
My second book (ghost-written for one of my clients), I sold with a book proposal and three sample chapters.
The third book, a novel, I sold off the back of a 800-word article that I’d written for a national newspaper.
My next book The World is a Nice Place I sold off a book proposal which ended up being completely changed because wanted a new angle. So, I actually sold off a book from a phone conversation with a publisher about the new idea.
My latest book, Wise Child, I sold to Hay House off the back of an email and two short sample chapters (about 4000 words in total).
This is not to mention all the books (💫 it’s close to 100 now!💫 ) I’ve helped to birth as a writing coach, editor and consultant (you can read a list of some of the book babies I’ve helped to surrogate here — just scroll down!)
If you’re reading this with the spark of an idea but a lot of fears, let’s start by addressing the three common fears about book writing that I hear through my course and writing mentoring service (and what I’ve felt myself!).
Three frequent fears of writing a book:
Is my story unique enough?
Do I have the skills to write it?
Do I have the times to write it?
I’ll break each of these below …
Is my story unique enough?
First let me say, for me, uniqueness is overrated. Sure, there is a place for the unique story that has never been read before. But, also, there is a place for the relatable; the stories you hear that touch your soul because you have lived them too. Even if you are writing about a breakup or losing a child or motherhood, that has been told a thousand times in different ways… but there is a reason it’s been told so many times, because it’s relatable to so many. You won’t have overcome it in the same way.
Putting my ‘editor hat’ on, you do need to have a new angle that makes you stand out. If I was writing an article on you, what is the new twist you are putting on it? My first book was about grief and being widowed. There are so many books on grief, but my unique selling point was my honesty in how I dealt with it — being promiscuous. There’s chapters of my first book which are samey but the unique angle was – here’s this 23 years old saying, I’m dealing with grief in this messy, unorthodox way and I’m happy to share it.
I always get my writers to ask themselves: Why you, why now? Why is your story important? Why could it only be told by you? Why does it need to be told now?
I’ve had book publishers before, quite rightly, tell me I had a good idea but it wasn’t good timing, or there are better people to write about it than me. It’s not fun to hear but, in every case, it was true.
This is also what you’ll outline in your book proposal, which we go into in my course in detail.
Do I have the skill to write a book?
I’m not going to lie, some people don’t, even though they have amazing knowledge or a story. That’s why I offer a ghost writing service. But, a lot of people do have the skills — even if they don’t see themselves as a writer.
Writing a book isn’t about writing in a really complicated, academic (unless you’re writing an academic book) way. The best advice I’ve ever been given, when I was a 20-year-old journalist was: write exactly as you speak. Write as if you’re speaking on the phone to your mum or your best friend.
Hopefully, one day you get to record the audiobook version of your book, and then this tip will really pay dividends. My books read like my podcast interviews — my words and my voice are the same.
Do I have the time?
It can take a lot of time to write a book (although my record for writing a memoir is 14 days). But, once you sell a book it gives you time to write the book. Hopefully, a publishers gives you a nice little advance. Plus, the confidence boost to give you the motivation to churn out that book. You’ll have either a publisher waiting for your manuscript or, if you did pre-sales, 2000 customers waiting for you.
For procrastinators, this strategy of selling a book before you write a book is perfect. Just be honest: tell your publisher the rest of the book is written or tell your pre-sale customers (I did this in my crowdfunding campaign and it worked out great for me and my customers).
So, now we’ve unpacked some of your fears, let’s talk about how to get your book idea out there.
📙 Psst! Quickly interrupting this article to let you know, my new writer offer is live! Click here to get 40% off my Lightwriter mentoring sessions — and discover how empowering and joyful the writing process can be. All the info here. Thanks for reading, now you can keep scrolling! 🙏
Routes to market:
There are three main ways I’ve sold a book before I’ve written a book before, and I’ll break them down for you here. This is only top-line stuff — if you want to know more, I go deeply into writing a book proposal in my book writing guides.
Route one: Sending a book proposal to a publisher.
A book proposal in its simplest form is a summary of your book. The proposal is about 2 pages long and sums up the main story, the story arc, why it matters, why you're the one to tell the story.
Why You, Why Now?
For ‘Why now’, a publisher will want evidence. If you’re talking about infertility, how many people experience infertility in your country/ the world. But, also go wider. Even if your story is niche, what are the common themes that people can relate to. Why is there a strong audience right now who are desperate for the answers you can supply.
For 'Why you? you don’t need to have a degree in your topic to have an impact, although if you do, then big that up. School of life counts for a lot in publishing now. If you do have a huge social media following it helps, of course, but if you don’t what network do you have _ are you linked in with charities, with childcare centres or entrepreneurial networks. Big up what you do have — an incredible real life experiences.
When you send your book, proposal, you also need to send sample chapters. A publisher would love you to send a whole manuscript in an ideal world. But, the minimum is 3 sample chapters. You will need to send a chapter breakdown – this is a list of the chapter in your book, with a one-paragraph summary of what chapter is about (I share an example in my course). Side note: your chapter breakdown can change later, within reason. I don’t think I’ve ever had a final book perfectly match my chapter breakdown. Generally, I send my introduction and chapter one, plus a chapter from later in the book that shows the progression of your character (you!).
📙 Ready to write your proposal? I go through the whole process in my course, The Book Writing Remedy. (Currently on sale!)
Side note: In Australia, you generally don’t need a literary agent as you can send proposals straight to book publishers. In the UK and America, you generally need a book agent first, as most publishers won’t take an ‘unsolicited’ proposal from an author (e.g you need an agent to pitch it for you).
Your book proposal doesn’t have to and may not, replicate your final book. You’re really enticing a publisher, showing you have a story to tell, and you’re the person they want to tell it. I share my chapter breakdown for The World is a Nice Place in my course and give people the chance to compare it with my final book — you’ll see the difference!
Route two: Selling an article on your story to use as leverage.
This is something I’ve done twice — writing a highly successful, widely circulated article, then sending that to a publisher instead of a book proposal.
You can see an example below… I interviewed Philippa for an article for an Australian newspaper, then I pitched her story to Allen & Unwin who bought it, and we worked on creating the book version together.
It’s great because you get to gather evidence early that your story has impact. A few years ago, I ghost-wrote an article for someone in the public eye which had a lot of feedback. After seeing the impact of the article, I sent it to a publisher: ‘I think this story could make an amazing book’. And, they bought it.
I already had evidence that this topic had a hungry audience who were desperate to read it. As long as you have more to say, and not everything has been put in the article, this is a great way to pitch a book to a publisher or agent.
Publishers want to have the least risk in signing you up. They want evidence that what you are writing about will sell and have commercial weight, so the more evidence you can produce that you are a sure-bet, the better.
Route 3: Crowdfunding a book
For my children’s book, How to Recycle Your Feelings, I decided to crowdfund and self-publish a book as an experiment to see how hard it was, and whether I’d like to do it going forward. For me, the main benefits were financial (this is a big conversation, which is usually why I work one-on-one with writers to put a plan in place).
Crowdfunding a book is really the equivalent of selling pre-orders — people pay in advance and, if you hit your target, you deliver the book on a certain date. Producing a children’s book is more expensive than a black-and-white memoir because they’re usually hard cover and full-colour, so crowd-funding was a great option as I covered all the expenses of my illustrator and printing, plus admin like getting a barcode and ISBN number.
You can see my crowdfunding campaign here.
For me, I still love working with a publishing house with my adult books, especially when it comes to a certain category like self-help and spirituality (which is why I’m currently with Hay House). I’m happy to take a hit financially for the benefits of being one of their authors — it opens so many doors for me.
In Summary:
Selling a book before you write it isn’t a loophole — it’s a smart, strategic move. It lets you test your idea, gather evidence, build momentum and make sure your story has a home before you pour months of your life into drafting.
Yes, your proposal still needs effort (and sparkle). Yes, you need a “wow” angle. And yes — you’ll need to stay open to feedback. But it’s a far lighter, faster and more joyful path than grinding through 60,000 words in the dark.
📣 Want to nail your book pitch with confidence and clarity?
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From mastering your chapter breakdown to my magic formula for structuring chapters, you can choose exactly what you need — starting from $29.
Good luck — and trust your idea.
The world needs more powerful books. There’s no reason yours can’t be one of them.
Amy x
p.s. want to write with me 1:1? You can grab your 40% off discount code here!
Or sign up to my course The Book Writing Remedy, also on sale - just click here.
