Hi there, Do you submit a Manuscript or a book Proposal when you are a first time writer? – I am reading mixed articles on this. Some strongly say Manuscript and others say only Proposal's. Any advice is appreciated.
I'm assuming you're talking about nonfiction, right? I don't think fiction requires proposals (they may require a synopsis, however). Either way, you still need a query letter. That's what you send to an agent/publisher before anything else. You don't want to send the whole manuscript unless the agent's/publisher's guidelines explicitly say to do so. Here's a good link that shows you how to write a query letter. Good luck, and let us know if you have any other questions.
For fiction, you don't even start contacting agents or publishers until you have what you think is a finished manuscript. Proposals are for non-fiction projects like textbooks.
and whether you're a first-timer, or not, only a query letter is sent... sample chapters or the full ms are submitted only if requested after the query has worked, or if required in the agent's/publishers query guidelines... and any other kind of non-fiction, including how-tos, self-helps, biographies; etc....
