Free Download for Instructors
Textbook Proposal Template & Checklist
Everything a publisher needs to evaluate a textbook idea, laid out as a fill-in document — so you can write your proposal in an afternoon instead of guessing what to include.
What's Inside
Nine sections, one afternoon
- Overview — working title, the one-paragraph pitch, and why now.
- Audience & course level — who the book is for and the courses that would adopt it.
- Table of contents — a chapter-by-chapter outline with one line per chapter.
- Comparable titles — what students use today and what yours does differently.
- Your background — the teaching and research that qualify you to write it.
- Manuscript status — from "idea and syllabus" to "complete draft", and your timeline.
- Interactive ambitions — simulations, checks, media: what would help students learn by doing.
- Sample-chapter checklist — what to send with a proposal so an editor can say yes faster.
- Final review checklist — the ten questions every acquisitions editor asks first.
Delivered as a Word document plus a print-friendly web version. It mirrors the questions in our own online proposal form, so your answers carry straight over.
Send me the template
We email you a download link right away.
Next Steps
Already know what you want to write?
Skip the template and tell an editor about the book in a sentence or two — or start the full online proposal.