Yeah, it was pretty robust in the end! I think I cut down the final manuscript to just under 80k words plus the references (there was actually something in my contract about a max word count). I definitely think having the structure helped, both for the publisher and for me to have a sort of blueprint to follow.

It's not always a dealbreaker, I didn't have any social media following or anything -- the way I pitched it was by figuring out a bunch of conferences, niche podcasts, etc. and highlighting that there was an audience there I could activate (and marketing is a big part of the book process I've learned).

My bio has my email now!