By Allan Wallace  »  If you are writing a novel will you be expected to create a book proposal? - No.

If you are writing your first novel will a book proposal help get it published? Probably not directly. Then why are you even considering a book proposal, particularly an online book proposal, when you need to once again re-edit that third chapter?

Your online book proposal is part of a journey. The goal is to build enthusiasm over time, so that when your efforts are recognized you have a running start on marketing your book to readers that are eagerly awaiting its publication. Particularly with your first novel, you are going to be doing most of the work to make it popular, not your publisher. This reality leads us to our first reason to create an online book proposal for your novel.

1. Seth Godin, a marketing genius with many best selling marketing books, says that ideally you should start marketing your book three years before it is published.

That gives you three years to make mistakes and sharpen your presentation;.three years to expand your network using social marketing and relationship building. When a publisher is considering your manuscript or proposal, they will be aware of your following, and the protection your fan base provides against the risks they face in publishing a first work. Your online book proposal can be the first step along the marketing path to success.

2. An online book proposal will help you organize your novel. All those little snippets and ideas you have scattered about need to be woven into a nest. A novel alone is like an egg, it needs warmth and care if it is to hatch into an eagle that will allow you to soar on its wings.

Pull out quotable phrases from your book. grab pieces of conversations to shuttle warp and woof into a more coherent project. I am using Squidoo for a book proposal I'm building. The Squidoo tools let me experiment, move things around, highlight ideas and inspire emotions. I also get feed back from other lensmasters, sharpening my presentation. The forum and support structure of these fines folks and those I communicate with on Twitter are making my writing more accessible in tone.

As an aside, if you frustrated by a cumbersome, run on sentence - forcing it into the 140 characters of a Twitter tweet can make it succinct.

3. You just might get some leads to a publisher or a literary agent might become interested in your work. This is the overt goal of your book proposal - to get your novel published.

Most of the largest publishers have been slow to embrace new technologies, but their sources are rambling about and may find your proposal and writing compelling. Pull is still better than push, and one fan with access to the proper ear may be all you need. The best case is that many find your work compelling, forwarding your proposal to others, and a viral explosion of enthusiasm results.

There are millions of people with a story to tell, many of them can tell their story well, and a huge number have already completed a novel. Do everything reasonable to open more doors leading to your works.

Let me know when you are published. My twitter page is BFuniv. You may want to get twitter, Squidoo, facebook, etc. pages in your book's name and your lead character's names.

To take a look at an online book proposal, go to ComplicitSimplicity.com. The prologue to Complicit Simplicity is there for your review, as well as an evolving playground of author's toys for our mutual enjoyment.

• Allan R. Wallace is Rector at Bastiat Free University, Rector Emeritus at Junior Partner Ministries, author of Speculation Rules, and Director of Development for the Netcohort Institute.