A 30-Second Test to See if You’re Ready to Write a Book Proposal

When someone applies to work with me, the first thing I do is check to make sure their book is how-to nonfiction. The second thing I do is a quick 30-second test.

I put that person’s name in my search bar and hit enter. Now it’s your turn.

What comes up when you Google yourself?

I’ll wait.

When I Google myself, the results include my website, my LinkedIn profile, and a couple of other places I show up — like Facebook, Publishers Marketplace, and Medium. That’s pretty good for search results.

The reason I do this test is because it’s exactly what literary agents and editors at publishing houses will do when I send your proposal. These obvious metrics are the easiest to verify because they are public. Publishers are not the FBI. No one in publishing is going to ask you to sign an affidavit proving the number of subscribers you have on an email list, or how many courses you’ve sold, or whether the results you claim to have are true.

And they don’t need to because these public metrics — your social media following, your searchability, your podcast reviews — are actually better indicators of how many copies of your book will sell. As a general rule, if followers can find you then readers can too.