Michael Larsen is an American literary agent, author coach, and the author of How to Write a Book Proposal, the standard nonfiction proposal reference now in its fifth edition (with co-author Jody Rein) and one of the most-recommended books in the publishing industry for first-time nonfiction authors. The book has sold more than one hundred thousand copies. He was born and educated in New York City and worked in promotion for three major New York publishers (William Morrow, Bantam, and Pyramid, later folded into Berkley) before moving to San Francisco in 1970.
In 1972 he and his late wife Elizabeth Pomada founded Larsen-Pomada Literary Agents, Northern California's oldest literary agency. The agency sold hundreds of books to more than one hundred publishers and imprints, with a focus on first-time nonfiction authors, before closing to new clients in 2015. Larsen was a charter member of the Association of Authors' Representatives (AAR) and represented adult nonfiction across how-to, self-help, business, personal finance, popular culture, biography, current affairs, history, health, spirituality, inspirational, and other categories of practical and social value.
How to Write a Book Proposal walks the nonfiction author through the working structure publishers expect: hook, target reader, comparable titles, table of contents and chapter outlines, sample chapters, the author's platform and promotion plan, and the author bio. It includes the Top Ten Proposal Killers, examples drawn from real proposals that earned six-figure deals, and updated guidance for the digital publishing era. His other books include How to Get a Literary Agent (third edition), Literary Agents: What They Do, How They Do It, and How to Find and Work With the Right One for You, and Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work (second edition), co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and David Hancock.
He is co-founder, director, and emcee of the San Francisco Writers Conference, held every Presidents' Day weekend, and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference. He now works as an author coach for nonfiction writers through his Larsen Author Coaching practice.
