Overview: The Features and Benefits of Your Book

Now that you have a pitch, it’s time to actually write the overview of your book. Typically, an overview begins with a paragraph or two that hook the reader. This isn’t much different from an article; the beginning of the overview could be considered your “lead.”

Next, insert your pitch. This is followed by a statement that includes how many pages your book will have and how much back matter it will include. Since your book’s “form” is comprised of blog posts, think of your pages as posts. How many posts will you write? Each posts will be 200-500 words in length. A short book has about 25,000 words. If you assume the average post will be 350 words in length, that means you will have to write about 72 blog posts. Your back matter might be some extra blog pages with resources or something like that.

Next, you must write a page and a half or two pages that describe the features and benefits of your book. In other words, what will the reader gain by reading your blog each time you write a post? Once they finish reading the book, what will they have learned? Why should they read the book?

The overview should read like a short synopsis of your book. Consider this your promise to your readers, and as you write the book, you deliver on that promise.

In my next post, we go on to the next part of the proposal: Markets. Be read to wear your business hat.

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