Book Proposal Tips for Christian Authors: What an Acquisitions Editor Actually Wants to See

This post was adapted from Writing Off Social: The Podcast, Episode 89. You can listen in here!

If you’ve ever spent hours crafting a book proposal — agonizing over every word of your synopsis, second-guessing your marketing plan, wondering whether anyone on the other end is actually reading it — we have good news and some tough love for you.

We recently sat down with Jane Daly, traditionally published author and acquisitions editor at Elk Lake Publishing, who also happens to live and work full-time from an RV traveling the United States (so fun, right??). Jane pulled back the curtain on exactly what happens when a proposal lands in her inbox, and her answers were both encouraging and a little convicting.

The Very First Thing an Editor Notices

Before Jane even reads a word of your writing, she’s checking one thing: did you follow the submission guidelines?

“The first thing that we look at, all of our team, is has this person actually read the submission guidelines on our website and have they followed them?” Jane explains. “Is it formatted correctly? Have they included all of the different things that we asked them to include — bio, tagline, synopsis, marketing plan, and the first three chapters?”

This might sound like a low bar, but you’d be surprised how many submissions miss it entirely. Elk Lake is a Christian publishing house, and Jane notes they’ve received multiple recent submissions involving spiritism, explicit language, or sexual content — none of which they publish. A five-minute visit to their website would have made that clear.

Following guidelines signals something deeper than rule-following. It tells Jane that you’re a professional, that you’ve done your homework, and that you’re likely to be someone she can work with through the entire publishing process.

“Why Us?” — and How to Answer It Well

One of the questions your proposal needs to answer is why you’re submitting to this particular publisher. It’s easy to write something generic here, but Jane gets genuinely excited when a writer has clearly done their research.

She couldn’t help sharing a recent example: a writer who cited her own book, Lipstick and Gunpowder, in explaining why Elk Lake felt like the right home for his manuscript. “He said, ‘Elk Lake’s Lipstick and Gunpowder line demonstrates a unique commitment to high-octane fiction that doesn’t sacrifice faith for thrills,'” Jane recounts, laughing. “I was just like, OK — you are so in.”

It doesn’t have to be that polished. A personal connection works too — mentioning that you met an editor at a conference, that your agent recommended the publisher, or simply naming a book they’ve published that feels like a natural shelf-neighbor to yours. The point is showing that you looked.

The Writing Matters More Than Your Platform

Here’s the thing that might genuinely surprise you: Jane skims the proposal components, then goes straight to the writing. Not the marketing plan. Not the social media numbers. The writing.

“If the writing catches my attention, I can go back and review the proposal,” she points out. And she means it — that same proposal she raved about for its “why us” answer? It had almost no marketing plan to speak of. But the opening paragraph was so arresting that she recommended it to her team anyway.

For fiction, Jane wants to be dropped into the action. No prologues (she’s firm on this — “just start with chapter one”), minimal backstory, and a character she can connect with immediately. For nonfiction, she’s looking for a felt need, a unique angle, and evidence that you’re writing from a place of genuine expertise or lived experience.

What About Platform? Here’s What Actually Impresses Her

We had to ask, because this is Writing Off Social after all. And Jane’s answer reframed the whole conversation in the best possible way.

Rather than thinking about platform as a social media follower count, she encourages writers to think about it as a question: what opportunities do you have to share your work?

“Even if you’re writing fiction, are you involved in any professional organizations, speaking-related or not?” she asks. “Is there some way you can share your message, your books, just your personality — with Rotary, Kiwanis, women’s professional organizations?”

For nonfiction writers especially, there’s often a natural community around your topic. Jane wrote a book on grief and is speaking at a grief support group. That’s platform. That’s reach. And it will outsell Instagram any day, because — as Jane reminds us — the best way to sell books is from the back of a room.

“Truly, you make about a dollar a book” through traditional distribution channels, she notes. “Whereas when you sell books in the back of the room, you can set your own price, and that’s profit to you.”

Ideas for Writers Who Don’t Love Speaking

We know not everyone wants to stand at a podium. Jane has thought about this too. A few of her suggestions for showing up for your book:

• Approach local book clubs — especially in retirement communities — and ask if they’d consider featuring your book. You may not even need to attend; sometimes they just want a good recommendation.
• Carry postcard-sized cards with your book covers and a QR code, and hand them out at the hair salon, the doctor’s office, anywhere. Jane does this herself, despite being an introvert. (Her tip: don’t ask “do you like to read?” — ask “do you know anyone who likes to read?” It opens more doors.)
• Connect your content to interest communities online — not necessarily social media, but places like Pinterest or niche forums where readers already gather around a theme in your book.
• Think about what’s naturally woven into your writing that could extend into another medium. Jane is planning to add recipes to the backs of her books and post them on Pinterest, since cooking keeps showing up in her fiction. That kind of organic connection draws readers in.

The thread running through all of it is what we’d call a holistic marketing mindset — looking at your whole life and asking where the opportunities already exist, rather than trying to build a following from scratch on a platform that may not even suit you.

Don’t Count Out Small and Mid-Size Publishers

If traditional publishing feels like an impossible dream, Jane wants to reframe that too. The path isn’t necessarily through the biggest houses — it’s through finding publishers who are willing to invest in debut authors.

“If God gave you the vision for this book,” she says quietly, “He will help you find a home for it.”

At Elk Lake, the contract requires authors to sell 100 books a year. That’s it. As Jane puts it, “that is not an insurmountable goal for a debut author.” Do your research, find publishers whose catalog genuinely aligns with what you write, and don’t disqualify yourself before you’ve even submitted.

The One Thing to Remember When You Submit

We asked Jane to leave us with a single piece of advice for writers preparing to send a proposal. She didn’t hesitate.

“Go to the publisher’s website, read the submission guidelines, and follow the rules. Because that shows that you are willing to follow through — that you’re a professional, that you are thinking professionally about your work.”

It really is that foundational. Before the writing, before the platform, before the marketing plan — show up prepared. The rest of the conversation can follow from there.

This post was reformatted from our original transcript by Claude and edited for accuracy by Mary K.