The Deliberate #50: Book Proposal
Check out a draft of my book proposal and help me make it better
Issue number 50 of this here newsletter — how about that? This auspicious occasion deserves an equally auspicious topic: progress on a book!
Well, sort of.
As you all undoubtedly know, or maybe you don’t, I’ve been on sabbatical from my day job since the beginning of July. I’ve had month after glorious month to recharge, think, and fret over whether or not I’m using this once in a lifetime opportunity well. Mostly, I think I have. I’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding both of the most likely failure modes by a.) not being a total Netflix monster and sloth-ing my way through endless days, and b.) not being a total productivity maniac and treating my sabbatical like an opportunity to just do more, but different, work.
As part of my sabbatical navigation I did manage to sit down and coalesce some of the ideas that have been hanging out in my head for the better part of a decade. These are the same ideas that motivated me to create this newsletter a couple years ago. And, somewhat fittingly, I now have a complete (first) draft of a book proposal that packages those ideas into something that I hope is interesting and coherent for the general public. Or, at least is on the path of getting to that point in the relatively near future.
I’m under no illusions — this proposal draft is barely two clicks beyond “shitty first draft” status — but the only way to iterate on something is to actually have something to iterate on, right?
So, here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LM9EJJnbfOnHLDS3KsDTs1T4MDnd5uE311XQwgkn7I8/edit?usp=sharing
If you click that link you’ll be taken to a Google Doc where you should have commenting privileges. I would be privileged if you’d hop into that doc and ask questions, make suggestions, and generally give me advice about how to make it better. What’s missing? What doesn’t make sense? What seems cool?
I would be especially grateful for advice from those authors among you (I know there are at least a few of you on this mailing list) who have fought and won the trying-to-sell-a-book-idea battle. I’ll happily take reactions and advice from everyone else, too. As subscribers to this newsletter y’all are kind of my ideal audience, so if this doesn’t resonate with you it probably won’t resonate with anyone else.
It’s scary to share these ideas, despite all the equivocating I’ve done in the previous paragraphs, with other people. My vision of what this should become isn’t yet accurately captured by this proposal, but it’s certainly closer and better formed than it has been at any other point. That itself is both terrifying and really motivating.
Anyway, enough bloviating. Read my thing and let me know what you think?