Sample Acquisition Proposal

Acquisition Process article | The Purple Crayon home page

A typical acquisition proposal includes a cover sheet with several standard pieces of information. Various supporting materials will be attached. What follows are the main sections in a typical AP.

Details about the book:

Author, illustrator (if any), editor, imprint, title, possible season of publication, category/genre, projected price, projected print run, trim size, number of pages, etc.

Author:

Information about the author, focusing particularly on publishing history. This may consist of a short bio., like that seen on the back flap of a book, including previous titles, especially successful ones.

Illustrator:

Included if the book is to be illustrated: usually a proposed illustrator only, or an example of the type of illustrator to be sought out. If the editor has a particular illustrator in mind, there will be a short bio. and some sample titles.

The Book:

A brief description of the book, and a somewhat longer statement of the rationale for publishing it:

Additional Materials: Some optional, some required, depending on the publisher

Distribution: A typical list--this varies greatly

Copies of the approved AP will be distributed to a similar list.

Acquisition Process article | The Purple Crayon home page