With the precision of an accomplished poet—which he was—Paul Valery (1871-1945) captured an important truism about any form of writing in only six words:

A poem’s never finished, only abandoned.

Words like “article,” “essay,” “nonfiction book” or “novel” and other categories of writing can easily be substituted for “poem” in Valery’s spot-on observation. In other words, a poet or a prose writer could always improve his or her work. And there’s always more to say about something than a writer has space or time for.

That’s why I included a link to this website at the end of 7 Million Words: Writing and Selling Nonfiction. In the book, I promised to post an example of a nonfiction book proposal that worked for me and other samples of tools or techniques I’ve explained in the book, and that’s what this section is about.

From time to time, I’ll also be posting new text, from short riffs on this or that nonfiction-related topic to recommended resources for nonfiction writers.
This page includes three sections:

• Samples
• Resources
• More on Writing and Selling Nonfiction