| Kathryn
Lance - Book Proposals The
following discussion of book proposals is based on my own experience.
Follow the links to see how I handled each part in a successful
proposal.
A nonfiction book proposal
is basically a selling tool. Although there is no standard format,
most proposals consist of the following parts:
The Proposal itself,
which must include:
Overview or what the book is about (this should
be on the first page—maybe even the first paragraph)
A statement about why the
book is needed (it is unique; it addresses a brand-new
or neglected topic; it is more up to date than similar books;
etc.) This is often presented in the overview. In the present
proposal, it is combined with the marketing section.
Who the book's audience
is and why they will buy the book. In the present
proposal, this section is included in the marketing section.
Why the author is the best person to write this book
Market Analysis: Why the book is better
than the competition (this marketing section should be thoroughly
researched)
Approach: Although this needn't be
a separate section, as it is here, you need to give editors an
idea of such things as the length and general content of the book,
the voice that will be used, and any extras That'set the book
apart, such as the "Heartskills" at the end of each chapter in
the present book.
The author's credentials and (increasingly important)
media experience
Table of Contents (No
more than 1 page. Not included here.)
Detailed Chapter Outline That'should include
interesting samples from the book as well as an indication of any
sidebars, quizzes, important lists, etc. This may be in the form
of an outline, mainly in prose, or a combination, as in the present
example. In this sample I'm presenting the full outline, as submitted,
for Chapters One and Four only.
Sample Chapter or Chapters.
Usually two or three sample chapters will help sell the
book. Often an introduction plus one of the most interesting
chapters will make a good package. (Example not included
here.)
More information on book proposals
HEART
AND SOUL
A
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL GUIDE TO
PREVENTING
AND HEALING HEART DISEASE
by
Bruno Cortis, M.D.
Book
Proposal
Overview
Heart disease is the number-one killer of Americans over the age
of 40. The very words can sound like a death sentence. Our heart,
the most intimate part of our body, is under siege. Until now, most
experts have advised victims of the disease, as well as those who
would avoid it, to change avoidable risk factors, like smoking,
and begin a spartan regimen of diet and exercise. But new research
shows that risk factors and lifestyle are only part of the answer.
In fact, it is becoming clear that for many patients, emotional,
psychological, and even spiritual factors are at least as important,
both in preventing disease and in healing an already damaged heart.
Like Love, Medicine, and Miracles by Bernie Siegel, which
showed cancer patients how to take charge of their own disease and
life, Heart and Soul will show potential and actual heart
patients how to use inner resources to form a healthy relationship
with their heart, actually healing circulatory disorders and preventing
further damage.
The author, Bruno Cortis, M.D.,
is a renowned cardiologist whose experience with hundreds of "exceptional
heart patients" has taught him that there is much more to medicine
than operations and pills.
Dr. Cortis identifies three types of heart patients:
--Passive Patients, who are unwilling or unable to take
responsibility for their condition. Instead, these patients blame
outside forces, withdraw from social contacts, and bewail their
fate. They may become deeply depressed, and tend to die very soon.
--Obedient Consumers, who are the "A" students of modern
medicine. Following doctors' orders to the letter, these patients
behave exactly as they are "supposed to, placing their fates in
the hands of the experts. These patients tend to die exactly when
medicine predicts they will.
--Exceptional Heart Patients, who regard a diagnosis of
heart disease as a challenge. Although they may have realistic
fears for the future, these patients take full responsibility
for their situation and actively contribute to their own recovery.
While they may or may not follow doctors' orders, these patients
tend to choose the therapy or combination of therapies that is
best for them. They often live far beyond medical predictions.
It is Dr. Cortis' aim in this book to show readers how to become
exceptional heart patients, empowering them to take responsibility
for their own health and well-being.
Although Dr. Cortis acknowledges the importance of exercise, stress
management, and proper nutrition--the standard staples of cardiac
treatment--he stresses that there is an even deeper level of human
experience that is necessary in order to produce wellness. Unlike
other books on heart disease, Heart and Soul does not prescribe
the same strict diet and exercise program for everyone. Instead
it takes a flexible approach, urging readers to create their own
unique health plan by employing psychological and spiritual practices
in combination with a variety of more traditional diet and exercise
regimens.
While seemingly revolutionary, Dr. Cortis' message is simple: you
can do much more for the health of your heart than you think you
can. This is true whether you have no symptoms or risk factors whatsoever,
if you have some symptoms or risk factors, or if you actually already
have heart disease.
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Market
Analysis
Heart and Soul could not be more timely. Of the 1 1/2 million
heart attacks suffered by Americans each year, nearly half occur
between the ages of 40 and 65. Three fifths of these heart attacks
are fatal. While these precise statistics may not be familiar to
the millions of baby boomers now entering middle age, the national
obsession with oat bran, low-fat foods, and exercising for health,
shows that the members of the boomer generation are becoming increasingly
aware of their own mortality.
This awareness of growing older, coupled with a widespread loss
of faith in doctors and fear of overtechnologized medicine, combine
to produce a market that is ready for a book emphasizing the spiritual
component in healing, especially in reference to heart disease.
Most existing books on the market approach the subject from the
physician's point of view, urging readers to follow doctor's orders
to attain a healthy heart. There is very little emphasis in these
books on the patient's own responsibility for wellness or the inner
changes that must be made for the prescribed regimens to work. Among
the best known recent books are:
Healing Your Heart, by Herman Hellerstein, M.D., and Paul
Perry (Simon and Schuster, 1990). Although this book, like most
of the others, advocates proper nutrition, exercise, cessation of
smoking and stress reduction as the road to a healthy heart, it
fails to provide the motivation necessary to attain such changes
in the reader's lifestyle. Without changes in thinking and behavior,
readers of this and similar books will find it difficult, if not
impossible, to follow the strict diet and exercise program recommended.
In Heart Talk: Preventing and Coping with Silent and Painful
Heart Disease (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), Dr. Peter F.
Cohn and Dr. Joan K. Cohn address the dangers of "silent" (symptomless)
heart disease. While informative, the book emphasizes only one manifestation
of heart disease, and does not empower readers with the motivational
tools needed to combat that disease.
The Trusting Heart, by Redford Williams, M.D. (Times Books,
1989), demonstrates how hostility and anger can lead to heart disease
while trust and forgiveness can contribute to wellness. While these
are important points, the holistic treatment of heart disease must
encompass other approaches as well. The author also fails to provide
sufficient motivation for behavioral changes in the readers.
The best book on preventing and curing heart disease is Dr. Dean
Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease (Random House,
1990). This highly successful book prescribes a very strict diet
and exercise program for actually reversing certain types of coronary
artery disease. This still-controversial approach is by far the
best on the market; unfortunately, the material is presented in
a dense, academic style not easily accessible to the lay reader.
It also focuses on Dr. Ornish's program as the "only way to manage
heart disease, excluding other, more synergistic methods.
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Approach
Heart and Soul will be a 60--70,000-word book targeted to
health-conscious members of the baby boom generation. Unlike other
books on heart disease, it will focus on the "facts of the connection
between the mind and the body as it relates to heart disease, showing
readers how to use that connection to heal the heart. The book will
be written in an informal but authoritative style, in Dr. Cortis'
voice. It will begin with a discussion of heart disease and show
how traditional medicine fails to prevent or cure it. Subsequent
chapters will deal with the mind-body connection, and the role in
healing of social support systems, self-esteem, and faith. In order
to help readers reduce stress in their lives, Dr. Cortis shows how
they can create their own "daily practice" that combines exercise,
relaxation, meditation, and use of positive imagery. Throughout
the book, he will present anecdotes that demonstrate how other Exceptional
Heart Patients have overcome their disease and gone on to lead healthy
and productive lives.
In addition to a thorough discussion of the causes and outcomes
of coronary artery disease, the book will include tests and checklists
that readers may use to gauge their progress, and exercises, ranging
from the cerebral to the physical, That'strengthen and help heal
the heart. At the end of each chapter readers will be introduced
to an essential "Heartskill" that will enable them to put the advice
of the chapter into immediate practice.
Through example and encouragement Heart and Soul will offer
readers a variety of strategies for coping with heart disease, to
be taken at once or used in combination. Above all an accessible,
practical book, Heart and Soul will present readers with
a workable program for controlling their own heart disease and forming
a healthy relationship with their hearts.
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The
Author(s)
Bruno Cortis, M.D., is an internationally trained cardiologist
with more than 30 years' experience in research and practice. A
pioneer of cardiovascular applications of lasers and angioscopy,
a Diplomate of the American Board of Cardiology, contributor of
more than 70 published professional papers, Dr. Cortis has long
advocated the need for new dimensions of awareness in health and
the healing arts. As a practicing physician and researcher, his
open acknowledgment of individual'spirituality as the core of health
puts him on the cutting edge of those in traditional medicine who
are beginning to create the medical arts practices of the future.
Dr. Cortis has been a speaker at conferences in South America, Japan,
and Australia, as well as in Europe and the United States. His firm,
Mind Your Health, is dedicated to the prevention of heart attack
through the development of human potential. Dr. Cortis is the cofounder
of the Exceptional Heart Patients program. The successful changes
he has made in his own medical practice prove he is a man not only
of vision and deeds, but an author whose beliefs spring from the
truths of daily living.
Kathryn Lance is the author of more than 30 books of nonfiction
and fiction (see attached publications list for details). Her first
book, Running for Health and Beauty (1976), the first massmarket
book on running for women, sold half a million copies. The Setpoint
Diet (1985), ghosted for Dr. Gilbert A. Leveille, reached the
New York Times bestseller list for several weeks. Ms. Lance
has written widely on fitness, health, diet, and medicine.
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HEART
AND SOUL
by
Bruno Cortis, M.D.
Chapter Outline
Introduction: Beating the
Odds: Exceptional Heart Patients.
SEE SAMPLE CHAPTER.
Chapter
One. You and Your Heart.
Traditional medicine doesn't and can't "cure" heart disease. The
recurrence rate of arterial blockage after angioplasty is 25--35%,
while a bypass operation only bypasses the problem, but does
not cure it. The author proposes a new way of looking at heart disease,
one in which patients becomes responsible for the care and well-being
of their hearts, in partnership with their physicians. Following
a brief, understandable discussion of the physiology of heart disease
and heart attack, further topics covered in this chapter include:
Heart
disease as a message from your body. Many of us go through
life neglecting our bodies' signals, ignoring symptoms until a crisis
occurs. But the body talks to us and it is up to us to listen and
try to understand the message. The heart bears the load of all our
physical activity as well as our mental activity. Stress can affect
the heart as well as any other body'system. This section explores
the warning signs of heart disease as "messages" we may receive
from our hearts, what these messages may mean, and what we can do
in response to these messages.
Why
medical tests and treatments are not enough. You, the
patient, are ultimately responsible for your own health. Placing
all faith in a doctor is a way of abdicating that responsibility.
The physician is not a healer; rather, he or she sets the stage
for the patient's body to heal itself. Disease is actually a manifestation
of an imbalance within the body. Medical procedures can help temporarily,
but the real solution lies in the patient's becoming aware of his
own responsibility for health. This may involve changing diet, stopping
smoking, learning to control the inner life.
Getting
the best (while avoiding the worst) of modern medicine.
In the author's view, the most important aspect of medicine is not
the medication but the patient/physician relationship. Unfortunately,
this relationship is often cold, superficial, professional. The
patient goes into the medical pipeline, endures a number of tests,
then comes out the other end with a diagnosis which is like a flag
he has to carry for life. This view of disease ignores the patient
as the main component of the healing process. Readers are
advised to work with their doctors to learn their own blood pressure,
blood sugar, cholesterol level, and what these numbers mean. They
are further advised how to enlist a team of support people to increase
their own knowledge of the disease and learn to discover the self-healing
mechanisms within.
How
to Assess Your Doctor. Ten questions a patient needs
to ask in order to assure the best patient-doctor relationship.
Taking
charge of your own medical care. Rather than being passive
patients, readers are urged to directly confront their illness and
the reasons for it, asking themselves: how can I find a cause at
the deepest level? What have I learned from this disease? What is
good about it? What have I learned about myself? Exceptional heart
patients don't allow themselves to be overwhelmed by the disease;
rather, they realize that it is most likely a temporary problem,
most of the time self-limited, and that they have a power within
to overcome it.
Seven
keys to a healthy heart. Whether presently healthy or
already ill of heart disease there is a great deal readers can do
to improve and maintain the health of their hearts. The most important
component of such a plan is to have a commitment to a healthy heart.
The author offers the following seven keys to a healthy heart: respect
your body; take time to relax every day; accept, respect, and appreciate
yourself; share your deepest feelings; establish life goals; nourish
your spiritual self; love yourself and others unconditionally. Each
of these aspects of heart care will be examined in detail in later
chapters.
Heartskill #1: Learning
to take your own pulse. The pulse is a wave of blood sent through
the arteries each time the heart contracts; pulse rate therefore
provides important information about cardiac function. The easiest
place to measure the pulse is the wrist: place your index and middle
finger over the underside of the opposite wrist. Press gently and
firmly until you locate your pulse. Don't use your thumb to feel
the pulse, because the thumb has a pulse of its own. Count the number
of pulse beats in fifteen seconds, then multiply that by four for
your heart rate.
This exercise will include charts so that readers can track and
learn their own normal pulse range for resting and exercising, and
be alerted to irregularities and changes that may require medical
attention.
Chapter
Two. Your Mind and Your Heart.
Chapter
Three. The Friendship Factor: Plugging into Your Social
Support System.
Chapter
Four. Opening Your Heart: Learning to Make Friends With
Yourself.
In addition to enlisting the support of others, for complete healing
it is necessary for the patient to literally become a friend to
himself or herself. This may entail changing old ways of thinking
and responding, as well as developing new, healthier ways of relating
to time and other external stresses. In this chapter the author
explores ways of changing Type A behavior, as well as proven techniques
for dealing with life's daily hassles and upsets. An important section
of the chapter shows readers how` _ to love and cherish the "inner
child," that part of the personality that needs to be loved, to
be acknowledged, and to have fun. Equally important is the guilt
that each of us carries within, and that can lead not only to unhealthy
behaviors but also to actual stress. The author gives exercises
for learning to discover and absolve the hidden guilts that keep
each of us from realizing our true healthy potential. Topics covered
in this chapter include:
A positive approach to negative emotions
Checking yourself out on Type A behavior: a self-test
Being assertive without being angry
Keeping your balance in the face of daily hassles and
major setbacks
Making a friend of time
Identifying and healing your old childhood hurts
Letting go of hurts, regrets, resentments, and guilt
Forgiving yourself and making a new start
The trusting heart
Heartskill #4: Forgiveness
exercise
Chapter
Five. Identifying and Eliminating Stress in Your Life.
Chapter
Six. Your Faith and Your Heart.
Chapter
Seven. Putting It All Together: How to Develop Your Own
Daily Practice for a Healthy Heart.
Chapter
Eight. Learning to Smell the Flowers.
Recommended
reading
Appendix
I. For Friends and Family: How to Support an Exceptional
Heart Patient
Appendix
II. On Finding or Starting a Self-Help Group
Appendix
III. About the Exceptional Heart Patient Project Author's
notes
Acknowledgments
Index
For more information
on book proposals, I recommend Write the Perfect Book Proposal,
by Jeff Herman and Deborah M. Adams (Wiley, 1993), which analyzes
10 proposals That'sold (including Heart and Soul). Click
here to visit Jeff's Website.
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