How to Sell a Nonfiction Book
Monday, May 11
7 - 9:30 p.m. EST
Led by ALIA HANNA HABIB
$110 ($80 until April 3)
Please register with the email to which you’d like to receive class correspondence and readings.
Can you sell a memoir on proposal? What is the market for essay collections and how do I go about selling mine? How do I know I’m ready to start querying agents? These are some of nonfiction publishing's most vexed questions, but they do have clear answers––if you know where to look.
This one-day course offers a comprehensive overview of how to develop and then sell a literary nonfiction book in today’s challenging market.
As a literary agent who specializes in nonfiction, I work directly with writers and publishers to bring nonfiction books to readers. This is a challenge: I must balance the demands of the market with the desire to publish high quality writing of enduring value. Our discussion will be honest about what agents and publishers actually look for when seeking new talent and voices and how to make your book’s potential legible to publishing professionals without compromising your own values.
We’ll learn from example by looking at different paths to publication taken by recent authors, with a particular focus on those writing in the notoriously “tough category” of memoir and those without a significant online presence. We’ll talk about how to research agents that are best suited for your book and how to make your query more appealing. We’ll also discuss some book proposals do’s and don’ts as well as ways to make what seems like the most daunting of genres into a piece of writing that will interest agents and editors, while also helping you better understand your own work.
By the end of this one-day course, we will have covered:
What your query letter should contain
What publishers mean by “platform” and whether or not you need one to sell a nonfiction book
Whether or not you need to publish essays to sell your memoir
How to make your book proposal––no matter the genre––less of a burden and NOT BORING :)
Anything else that's on your mind and that you want a real-life agent to demystify!
About the Instructor
ALIA HANNA HABIB is a literary agent and Vice President at The Gernert Company, which she joined in 2017 after starting her publishing career as a publicist at HMH and working as an agent at McCormick Literary. She is the author of Take It From Me: An Agent’s Guide to Building a Nonfiction Career from Scratch, published by Pantheon in January 2026 and of the publishing-themed Substack Delivery & Acceptance. Among the New York Times-bestselling and prize-winning clients she represents are Clint Smith, Merve Emre, Stephen Vladeck, Nathan Thrall, Lauren Oyler, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Hanif Abdurraqib. She was profiled by New York Magazine for their special issue on “The 49 Most Powerful New Yorkers (You’ve Never Heard Of).” She lives in Brooklyn.
Details
This course will take place on Zoom on Monday, May 11 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. EST. Participants will receive a Zoom link prior to the course as well as a recording of the course afterward, available for two months after the end of the course.
After you take a course with Off Assignment, you’ll be invited into our private writing community for alumni on Slack. It includes channels for publication opportunities, reading recommendations, meet-ups, and more—not to mention literary companionship that outlasts the course itself.
There is a 10% cancellation fee if you cancel your enrollment more than 1 week before the start of the course. No refund will be given if cancelling within less than a week of the course start date (or after the course has begun).
Payment plans are available at checkout via ShopPay.
Please email courses@offassignment.com with any questions.