Announcing the Next Book Proposal Accelerator

Some changes are coming

Hi there Manuscript Workers,

I hope you’re holding up ok out there. The past few months have been such a hard time for so many. Fingers crossed that things start looking up for us all.

Today I’m going to share some details about the next session of my Book Proposal Accelerator. I’ve planned a few changes to the program so I want to make sure everyone who was thinking of doing it this summer has the info they need to make a final decision about it.

For those who are new here, the Book Proposal Accelerator is my signature online program. I’ve now offered it seven times, helping nearly 500 prospective authors develop their book proposals for scholarly publishers. The core curriculum of the program walks you step by step through preparing your pitch, with tips, templates, worksheets, and sample documents to smooth the drafting process. I also hold weekly live Q&As, respond promptly to questions online, and provide close feedback on all aspects of your proposal that you are comfortable sharing in the group platform.

Past participants have placed their books with competitive university presses (including Oxford, California, Princeton, and MIT, to name a few). At least one person described the Accelerator as “the most valuable professional development experience I've done in my academic career,” while others have expressed appreciation for the humane approach the program takes, setting it apart from other experiences in the academy at large.

You can read more about the Book Proposal Accelerator, including additional testimonials from past participants, here. In the rest of this post I want to do a quick rundown of the aspects of the program that are changing this time around.

The time frame of the program is expanding.

The past few sessions of the Accelerator have run for 6-7 weeks each. This is definitely enough time to finish a proposal draft, BUT. We’re living in Covid Times now. Unexpected obstacles seem to arise every week. And even if you’re able to draft your proposal in a few weeks, the process of sending it out to publishers and navigating their responses could take much longer.

So the Book Proposal Accelerator is becoming a year-long program. We will still have the core 6 weeks during June and July, designed to help you knock out that proposal draft as quickly as possible with super-prompt feedback and group support. What’s new is that I will continue to be available for feedback on your proposal materials and to support you in your publishing journey for a full year, from June 1, 2022, to May 31, 2023.

I will also hold live monthly office hours for the full year of the program. These sessions will be opportunities for you to bring up issues that arise as you continue to work on your proposal, start sending it out to presses, navigate the peer review process, and even field offers from publishers. I’ll provide strategic perspective so you can feel confident that you are making the right decisions for yourself and your career.

Attendance at office hours is always optional. The office hour sessions will be recorded and made available to those who can’t attend live. I’ll also be available privately to provide guidance on any publishing situations that emerge for you, if you’d prefer to email rather than talk something through during office hours.

I’m adding regular co-working sessions.

I started offering weekly co-working sessions via Zoom in the last session of the Accelerator, as an experiment, and the reception was positive. People liked having a designated place to show up each week for company and accountability, so I’m going to continue to provide that in the next session.

The co-working sessions will happen at least once per week during June and early July. I will also poll enrollees to see if additional days and times would be helpful. I will try to accommodate different time zones if possible. And if demand continues, we’ll keep up the co-working sessions throughout the whole year of the program. Again, these sessions are always optional so you can drop in and out as your schedule allows.

The cost is going up.

As you might imagine, it will require a greater investment of time and resources on my part to provide a year of feedback and support to all participants, so the enrollment fees will be increasing accordingly. I know that this will put the program out of budget for some, but I have tried to keep the price at a level where (I hope) it still feels like a bargain for all that it will help you achieve.

The cost for scholars who have institutional funding to support their enrollment will be $1800. I will continue to offer a significant discount for those who do not have institutional funding support — the cost will be $1200 for those scholars.

I will continue to offer my Book Proposal Shortcut for Busy Scholars (a self-paced program that includes all the curricular material from the Accelerator + the monthly office hours, but no feedback) at a lower price point.

There’s also always an entirely self-study option in the form of The Book Proposal Book and the free worksheets I provide to accompany it.

I’m now offering pre-enrollment options.

General enrollment for the next session will open on Monday, May 2, 2022, at 9am Pacific time.

If you’ve been with this newsletter for a while, you may remember that the previous two sessions of the Accelerator filled to capacity within an hour of enrollment opening. I haven’t been able to figure out a perfect solution to this issue (which I know is frustrating for those who can’t be at their computers right at the time enrollment opens), but this time around I will be offering pre-registration under two circumstances.

First, previous participants in my online programs (the Book Proposal Accelerator and Book Proposal Shortcut) will be able to sign up early. If you're in this category, you will receive email reminders with enrollment links and further information. You can also email me directly at any time between now and May to let me know that you’d like to enroll in this session of the Accelerator.

Second, a block of spots will also be reserved for institutional pre-enrollments. If you are an administrator who wishes to purchase enrollments in advance for a number of your faculty, you can contact me directly at laura@manuscriptworks.com to set that up.

If you are an individual scholar who will be using institutional funding and your institution cannot pay by credit card on the registration date of May 2, 2022, you may also arrange your enrollment in advance by emailing me directly at laura@manuscriptworks.com.

The cost for pre-enrollment by institutions will be $2000 per person. All paperwork for institutional pre-enrollments must be completed and submitted with payment in process by May 2, or your spots will not be guaranteed.

I think that covers everything that’s new. Did I miss any information you’d need to know to make your decision about enrolling?

What questions do you have about the Book Proposal Accelerator?

I’m happy to answer via email or in the comments on this post. And I hope to work with many of you in the coming year!