How To Get a Book Published: A Step-by-Step Guide with Links to FREE Information for the New Author

The Interwebz can provide a wealth of information for new writers. In fact you can find pretty much everything you need to know to become a professional, publishing writer here on the Web, absolutely free.

But you'll also find a bunch of time-wasting bad advice that can lead you astray. When you’re a beginner, it’s hard to know who to listen to.

We decided we'd devote a page on the blog to some info for the writer looking to know the basics about how to get published. Thanks much to Janice Konstantinidis, the webmaster of the SLO Nightwriters for the suggestion!

This is not meant to be a comprehensive list: just a jumping-off place.

A new writer has a whole lot of options–and more are springing up daily. Nobody can say which publishing path is right for you. But we can steer you toward some blogs and websites that might help you decide and suggest some posts from our archives you might find useful

We’d love for readers to add their own recommendations to this list in the comments. We’ll incorporate your suggestions into a permanent page on this site.

OK: How do you get a book published?

Follow these steps and click through the links:

1) Learn about the publishing business

First, remember there is nothing wrong with writing as a hobbyist. You do NOT have to get a book published to call yourself a writer. (Do you have to join the PGA tour to call yourself a golfer?)

But if you do decide to publish, you need to be aware you are entering an industry. Whether you self-publish or traditionally publish, it's important to know how the business works.

We recommend reading Galley Cat, the publishing news round-up site.  It reports both traditional and indie news, and posts a self-publishers bestseller list.

Publisher’s Lunch, the newsletter for Publishers Marketplace, is the place for up-to-the minute news on what’s going on in traditional publishing. You can subscribe here. It’s free (Publishers Marketplace is not.) No matter how you publish, it helps to know what is selling right now, and who the players are.

We also are avid readers of the Passive Voice, which gives a round-up of some of the most important publishing stories of the day (and occasionally runs excerpts from this blog—thanks Passive Guy!) But be aware the comments tend to be weighted toward indie publishing.

2) Get short pieces published first 

Think outside the (full-length) book.  If you don’t have any stories, poems, reviews or essays in the archives, start writing them. It’s very, very hard to sell one book when you have no track record, no matter what publishing path you choose.

Then when you're working on your opus—or you’re editing it—you can also be sending stories, poems and essays to journals, local newspapers, blogs, anthologies, contests and websites in order to build your reputation as a professional writer. Again, this is important whether you self-publish or go the traditional route.

A great place to find vetted journals, anthologies and contests is C. Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers. Poets and Writers magazine also has an excellent list of contests, grants and awards.

But do check to make sure you’re not being taken in by bogus contests and fake anthologies. Always check them out at the Writer Beware blog. Bookmark that one. It's a must-read for all writers.

For more info about why you should be writing short pieces, check our archives:

Why You Should Be Writing Short Fiction
Short is the New Long

3) Finish your book 

Don't waste time worrying about publishing until you've got something to publish. Preferably several things.

Beginning authors are urged by some marketing people to start marketing long before they’re ready. Some seem to think authors should start “building platform” in the womb.

We think this is dumb. Learn to write, read informative blogs where you can network with other authors, and let yourself build up a body of work before you start trying to market yourself.

When you're starting out, it's better to read blogs than to write frantically on your own. Commenting on high-profile blogs is one of the best ways to get your name known.

Unfortunately, social media is writer’s block’s best friend. Not only is it endlessly distracting, but all the information on writing can also turn you into a perfectionist who keeps rewriting chapter one and never gets on with the story.

There are more great blogs on craft than we have room to mention here. It will depend on your book, genre and writing style which ones will resonate. One of my favorites is Janice Hardy's The Other Side of the Story. 

Some of our more popular posts on craft are:

10 Things Your Opening Chapter Should Do: A Checklist
12 Signs Your Novel isn't Ready to Publish

If you’re blocked and having trouble finishing and it’s anywhere near November, try barreling through during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.) You can get lots of support from these folks. They help you let go of your perfectionism and get that book onto the page. There are now NaNos in the summertime, too.

4) Get your work critiqued 

And polished.  And critiqued some more. Then have it proofread. If you can exchange proofing with other writers, that can save you a lot of money.

A real-life critique group is great, because authors tend to be solitary and we need some human contact, but there are excellent critique groups online. We recommend  CritiqueCircle.com,  SheWrites or networking through My WANA, QueryTracker.net, AgentQuery.com, or Nathan Bransford’s forums.

But take care of yourself as you’re being critiqued. Realize there’s a little bit of the “blind leading the blind” going on with peer critiquing.

Also, your first critiques can feel like going through a meat grinder. For some self-protection techniques you might want to read these in our archives:

Bad Advice to Ignore From Your Critique Group
Should you eliminate “Was” from Your Writing? Why Sometimes “the Rules” are Wrong

5) Visit lots of blogs, online groups and forums to explore your options.

But avoid groups or forums where everybody tells you you’re a moron if you self-publish/Big 5-publish/small press-publish or whatever. People who believe in one-size-fits all are, um, morons.

You need to choose the right path for yourself and your work, and that’s going to be different for every writer.

Start with this post by Jane Friedman on how to get published. Jane is the former publisher of Writers Digest books and one of the most savvy people in the business.  This was pretty comprehensive when she wrote it in 2011, and most of the info still stands. Jane doesn’t post as much as she used to, but her blog is still one of the best. I love reading the insider publishing scoop from CNN's Porter Anderson there every Thursday in his Writing on the Ether.

A great blog for writers leaning toward the trad route but wanting to keep options open is agent Rachelle Gardner’s blog

Former agent Nathan Bransford's blog is one of the friendliest and most helpful place for newbies, and his archives are gold.

If you’re pretty sure you don’t want to go with mainstream corporate publishing, you’ll want to read Joe Konrath’s Newbie’s Guide to Publishing and David Gaughran.

If you’re leaning indie, the Writers Guide to Epublishing  (WG2E) is friendly and helpful with nuts and bolts issues, and welcomes trad-pubbed authors as well. (And Ruth Harris posts there once a month.)

A free site that's great for Romance writers is RomanceUniversity.

A great place to find blogposts that answer your specific questions is the Writers Knowledge Base, compiled by mystery author  Elizabeth Spann Craig. And if you're on Twitter, follow @ElizabethSCraig for the best links to writerly blogs on the Web.

If you’re pretty sure you want to go for that Big Publishing contract, Agent Janet Reid’s blog is great. Ditto Kristen Nelson’s Pub Rants. Also, the archives of Miss Snark are full of valuable information. And if you're looking for an agent, Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents blog is a must-read.

For YA and children's writers, you can read comprehensive agent profiles from Casey and Natalie at Literary Rambles and you'll also get lots of great info at Adventures in YA and Children's Publishing.

The Savvy Author's Newsletter also has excellent advice and it's free. They have a nice, friendly community as well.

6) Get yourself on social media...slowly

My personal recommendation: start a blog first. But don’t go nuts posting. Once a week or even once a month is OK to start, but the sooner you start one, the better. Search engines take a while to find you and you want Google to know who you are by the time you finish that opus.

A new writer's blog shouldn't be about marketing something you haven't published yet. It should be for networking and making friends. For information on what to blog about you might want to check my post on What Should You Blog About? 

For all social media advice, I highly recommend Kristen Lamb's Blog  (She also has great info on craft, presented in a fun, humorous way.) Plenty of bestselling authors owe their success to Kristen.

I also love Molly Greene’s blog for social networking tips.

In our archives: How Not to Blog (and the rest of my How to Blog series)
And Twitter for Shy Persons

7) Network with other writers

The writers you meet on your way up are probably also on their way up.  This is a business where who you know matters.

A person in your critique group today may be an agent or a bestselling author a year from now. I know many, many successful authors who got their agents through online networking. I know even more who found their designers, publishers, and most avid readers through social media.

You can network on blogs, forums and the many, many booky websites like RedRoom.com, LibraryThing.com, Goodreads.com, Shelfari.com, Reddit.com, Kindleboards.com, etc. and writers groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, plus the hundreds of writing forums.

BUT: Beware any group where you see snark or groupthink. There is horrific bullying going on in some of these sites. The nastiest seem to be the oldest. See my post on Gangs of New Media.

Absolute Write, some LinkedIn and Goodreads groups, and the Amazon forums are NOT recommended for that reason. I especially warn against the Amazon forums. They are rabidly anti-writer. The self-appointed enforcers will punish you for breaking their murky rules of conduct with all the self-righteous sadism of the Taliban slaughtering a schoolgirl. Don't go there.

The Amazon forums are not to be confused with the Kindleboards, where writers are welcome as long as they don't do any promotions.

The most friendly and safe forums are the personally moderated ones like Nathan Bransford’s forums, SheWrites (for women writers) and Kristen Lamb’s WANAtribe

Do NOT join more than two or three forums or groups. If you don’t find simpatico folks, move on. This is for making friends, NOT selling books.

Remember you are looking for friendship, moral support and an exchange of useful information.

8) Cultivate a patient attitude

This is a marathon, not a sprint.  I know you’re dying to get published, but believe me, it takes time to learn to be a writer. Malcolm Gladwell said it takes 10,000 hours to learn to do something well, and that sounds about right.

And I’m not just talking craft. You need to learn to take criticism with grace and never let them see you sweat.

If you think your critique group is bad, wait until the Amazon Forum Taliban hits you with 2 dozen one-stars because one of them knows your stalker ex-girlfriend who says you ditched her a week before the prom.

And you DO NOT WANT TO PUBLISH TOO SOON. It's the number one mistake new writers make.

That includes putting your book on your blog. Blogging is publishing. Lots of impatient newbies decide to blog their rough drafts. You don’t want to do that if you have any aspirations to being a traditionally published writer. Here’s Rachelle Gardner with a great post on the subject.

9) Learn to write a great query, synopsis and hook

Anybody wanting to traditionally publish needs to learn to write a query and a synopsis.

And sorry, self-pubbers, you do too. You’re going to be querying reviewers, bloggers, bookstore owners, etc throughout your professional life.  You have to be able to tell people about your book in three sentences or less.

Learn this now.

Best place to learn how to query: Janet Reid’s Query Shark blog.

Another is Nathan Bransford’s archives. Here's his great post on How to Write a Query Letter.

For an overview of Hooks, Loglines, Pitches check in our archives.

10) Decide what publishing road you want to take and start your career.

If you want an overview of your choices, check out my post on "Who are the Big 6? Answers to the not-so-dumb questions you were afraid to ask"

Then you can take one of any of a number of paths:

* Send out queries to agents if you want to try for a Big 5 contract. Find the right agent to query through AgentQuery.com and QueryTracker.net. And always, always, always visit the agent's own website to read the guidelines before you query.

or

* Query editors at small and independent digital presses if you want a publisher but prefer not to go corporate. You can find a list of literary small presses at Poets and Writers. I'd love to have a list of small and indie digital presses for genre fiction but they pop in and out of business so often it's hard to keep up. If anybody knows of a good list, please let us know!

or

* Submit to digital imprints of the Big 5 that do not require an agent (but before you sign a digital press contract, read Writer Beware on the new digital imprints and their contracts.) 

or

* Hire an editor and get your book polished up to self-publish. For nuts and bolts info on how to do that, read the archives of David Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital. For a list of vetted editors try the Editorial Freelancers Association.

If you’re not tech-savvy and need help in self-publishing, we’ve heard good things about BookBaby.com and Draft2Digital.

Smashwords is also a great way to get on a number of platforms. And CEO Mark Coker has lots of great info on his blog. He's super-savvy and 100% pro-author. And people tell me Mark Coker's FREE book on formatting is a must read for every self-publisher.

11) Learn that rejection is part of the process

Scathing critiques, agent and editor rejections, terrible reviews: every single author who's ever lived has had to endure them.

Right now, go to the Amazon bestseller list. How many books do you see that you really, really want to read right now? Be honest.

Not that many, right?

Does that mean the other books aren’t good?

No. It means you personally didn’t feel like reading them today.

That’s what an agent does every time she looks through her queries. She has to choose what she personally likes. You could be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald, but if she’s in the mood for vampire erotica, you're getting a rejection.

From her. There’s always somebody else.

For some great insider info on what rejection really means, check in our archives:

11 Reasons Why Writers Get Rejected—And Why Only 3 of them Matter by Ruth Harris
Rejection: Why it Doesn’t mean What You Think it Means by Catherine Ryan Hyde

If you want more info on the care and feeding of the writers’ soul, as well as lots of in-depth information about the publishing process, you might want to spring for a copy of How to be a Writer in the E-Age by Catherine Ryan Hyde and yours truly. Not free. But a bargain at $2.99 for the ebook.

And don’t forget to have fun. Publishing is a journey. It’s important to enjoy yourself along the way.

Oh, and what can you do right now, this minute? You can write your author bio. It will make you feel like a professional and you can have it ready and waiting the first time one of those stories gets accepted.

Here's our post on How to Write an Author Bio Even if You Don't Feel Like an Author...Yet.

OK, Scriveners: What can you add to our list? Any must-read blogs that helped you on your road to publication? Any forums where you found BFFs? We welcome all your suggestions. 

BOOK DEAL OF THE WEEK

Food of Love--a comic thriller about dieting, chocolate, and a small nuclear bomb

Usually $2.99, now only 99c on Amazon , Amazon UK and NOOK 

"This hilarious page-turner packs a profound satirical bite. It's a Hollywood romp that provides romance, mystery, and an honest confrontation with the human condition. Food of Love is a funny and powerfully healing book." ...Lucia Capacchione, PhD, bestselling self-help author, Recovery of Your Inner Child

OPPORTUNITY ALERTS

1) Quirk Books "Looking for Love" contest.  They offer a $10,000 prize for the best quirky love story of 50,000 words or more. Visit the Quirk Books website to download the entry form or for further information. Quirk Books was founded in 2002 and publishes around 25 books each year. Their bestselling titles include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Entries close October 1, 2013

2) A site for KOBO READERS: TrindieBooks.com This Canadian site is the KindleNationDaily for Kobo. Really nice folks, affordable rates, and their ads are FREE if your book is free for Kobo. Reach some of those voracious Canadian readers. Kobo is the most popular ereader in Canada.  Submit your book here. 

3) Escargot Books is expanding its catalogue and are now accepting submissions. Crime fiction (dark thrillers to cozies), women’s fiction, wealth and fitness, children’s, sci-fi and dystopian. All books will be published in digital format. Some books will be chosen for print and/or audio as well. Escargot Books does not offer an advance, but they offer higher royalties than traditional publishers, especially for direct sales from our website, as well as editing, formatting, promotion, and the company of bestselling authors. They have some big name authors and a good track record. Here’s their online submission form

4)  A Room of Her Own contest for women writers. Entry Fee: $15. Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Los Angeles Review. Submit a poem of no more than 36 lines, a short short story of up to 500 words, a story of up to 1,500 words, or an essay of up to 1,500 words. Visit the website for complete guidelines. Deadline: July 31, 2013

5) Advertise to British readers with EbookBargainsUK. Listings will be half-price through July and August and anyone listing then will get a credit for a free listing for September onwards (excluding the Holiday period December 20 – January 10). ALSO: They will be launching Ebook Bargains Australia, Ebook Bargains New Zealand, Ebook Bargains Canada and Ebook Bargains India soon, offering authors a chance to target their ebooks at readers through local stores in those countries. Inclusion in these international email newsletters will not cost you anything extra! The one small listing fee will get your ebooks in all five newsletters, reaching five of the biggest English-speaking markets outside the USA.

If you're in any of those countries, do sign up for their newsletter. It brings links to free and bargain ebooks—at the bookstore of your choice—in your inbox every morning. You can subscribe here.

We love your comments! If you can't get through Blogger's hoop-jumping, send me an email at annerallen dot allen at gmail dot com and I'll post it manually.

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I’ve Written a Book. Now What? 22 Steps to Getting Published.

I’ve had a number of people ask me that "now what" question in the last few months. There’s tons of info out here in Cyberia, but not everybody knows how to access it. And along with the good info, there’s plenty of bad—especially from predatory vanity publishers and bogus agents.

So here are some basics for the newbies around here.

You’ll see I don’t get to the self-publishing option until #22. That’s because I think the query process is the best way to learn about the publishing business as well as hone your writing and sales skills. Learning to sell a book to an agent prepares you for selling your book to readers. Because promoting and selling books takes at least 50% of your writing time, I think you should write and polish at least two novels before you think about self-publishing. 

Plus a good agent can help the self-publisher as well as the author who wants to be traditionally published. Most of the self-publishing gurus like J. A. Konrath, Barry Eisler and John Locke have agents. (And Eisler is married to one.) 

NOTE: Don’t sign any agency contracts without having them looked at by a lawyer or somebody who knows intellectual property law. Some agencies have pretty bad contracts these days, and you don't want to sign one that gives them a cut of your profits even if you terminate the relationship.

So your book has been critiqued, edited, and polished to a glittering sheen. What do you do next?

1) Celebrate!

Break out the champagne, chocolate, fireworks, old Prince CDs, or whatever puts you in a festive mood. Contact a few people who remember who you are after your time in your writing cave, and toast your accomplishment. 80% of people in the US say they want to write a book. A fraction of a percent actually do. You’re one of them. Woo-hoo!!

2) Make sure you know your genre.

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds, but pick one to three genres as a tool to help agents and publishers—and especially, readers—know what kind of book they’re dealing with. When you’re querying, make sure you use established categories like “paranormal romantic suspense” not “vampire bunny western.” Creativity doesn’t work in your favor here.

But you are allowed change genres according to who you query. Genre boundaries are oddly flexible these days. Both Charlaine Harris’s “True Blood” vampire books and Lisa Lutz’s dysfunctional-family comedies are categorized as mysteries. Women’s fiction is an umbrella that covers everything from Danielle Steel to Margaret Atwood. And anything with a protagonist under 19 can be YA (the most sought-after genres are in YA these days.)

Two caveats here: 1. don’t call it “literary” unless the writing is to-die-for gorgeous (an MFA helps.) 2. Never use the term “chick lit” unless you’re querying a small press that specializes in the genre. You’ll find it listed on most query websites, but it’s still the kiss of death in New York.

3) Research and read the latest books in your genre(s) if you haven’t already.

It’s important to have an idea of the market. A query letter is more effective if you can offer “comps”—similar titles that are selling (but not blockbusters—that looks like bragging.) Also, the authors of these books may blog or Tweet and you can follow them and get advice. Network. Find out who represents them. Eventually you might even get a recommendation, which is a golden ticket out of the slushpile.

4) Write your synopsis, hook, author bio and a basic query letter template.

You can find helpful guides in any number of places. AgentQuery provides solid basics. Most agents have similar information on their websites.Nathan Bransford’s blog gives the info in a fun and friendly way, and Janet Reid's Query Shark Blog is a boot camp for query writers. A number of forums and agent blogs provide critiques of queries—as well as Public Query Slushpile I give the basics for writing an author bio here.

5) Start a blog or build a website if you don't have one already.

Don’t spend a lot of money on it. In fact, a free blog like this one makes a fine author website. If you want to blog, I’ve got all the skinny on how to start a blog here. On some blogging platforms you can even have a static first page just like a formal website.

But if you don’t want to deal with the responsibility blogging, and you don’t have a lot of money, you can build a simple website on a shoestring at GoDaddy, iPage , HostBaby or dozens of other hosts.

Even if you have the money for a drop-dead gorgeous design, this isn’t the time to do it. And you don’t want anything you can’t update yourself. Waiting until a designer is free to change things can make your site look dated very quickly.

All the site needs is a professional-looking photo and a simple bio, with your contact information and something about your book and/or other publications. Nothing fancy. No bragging. Nothing is sadder than a pretentious website for an unpublished writer. And don't post any excerpts from your work that you're trying to sell. You'll be publishing it and making it unmarketable.

Facebook, Goodreads or other social networking sites that require membership aren’t a substitute for a website. Be Googlable, reachable and professional.

6) Start researching agents.

You can do this by subscribing to WritersMarket.com, but you can also get free information at AgentQuery.com, which has a searchable database. You can put in your genre and immediately find what agents represent your work. Then check QueryTracker.net for further information on the agents you’ve chosen and get valuable comments from other queriers.

Then start Googling: look for interviews and profiles of agents to fine tune your queries.

If you write YA, a lot of the research has been done for you by the wonderful Casey McCormick and Natalie Aguirre. They have a blog called “Literary Rambles” that is a treasure trove of profiles of agents who rep YA (worth a check even if you don’t write YA, since many agents rep a wide spectrum of genres.)

Literary Rambles was named one of the top 101 Sites for Writers by Writers Digest! Very well-deserved!!  Casey has been doing these profiles for a number of years and last year Natalie joined her on the blog. (Congrats, you two!)

7) Send out your first five queries.

You only do this after your book is finished, honed and polished. You knew that, right?

8) Start your next book.

Yes. Right now. Don’t sit around waiting to get rejected and depressed. Start writing when you’re feeling great about yourself for sending those queries.

9) Get rejections. Mourn.

Yup. You now are officially a member of the professional writing community. The one thing we all have in common? Rejections. For more on rejections, read Ruth Harris's great post on exactly what they mean: nothing

10) Send out five more queries.

Tip: If you join QueryTracker’s premium membership, you can track your queries on their site. It’s a useful service. And their forums are a great place to network. (No, I'm not affiliated with QueryTracker in any way. I'm just impressed with their great work and up-to-date information--most of which is free.)

11) See if you’ve had any silent rejections.

Go to the websites of agents who don’t send rejections. Under submission guidelines, it will say “if you haven’t heard from us within two months, it’s a no.” There will be some silent “no’s”.

Mourn. Fine tune your query. But NOT your book. Not yet anyway. Chances are your book is just fine. Queries, on the other hand, are worth taking a second (and third and fourth) look at.

12) Sent out five more queries.

Yeah. This time you think you really nailed that puppy. You’ve got it down to three paragraphs and your synopsis is 250 words of distilled brilliance.

13) Maybe get a request for a partial! (The first few chapters of your book.)

But before you send it, go to the agent’s website and double check guidelines for formatting and sending documents. Most formatting is pretty standard, and they will probably ask you to send it as a Word (.doc or .rtf) attachment. But some agents are quirky and will request something like “no italics” or “number your pages on the bottom of the page.” Do whatever they say, no matter how silly.

Celebrate.

14) Get the partial rejected.

Nobody gets their first partial accepted. This is part of the process.

It may come with a note. This will say something like “I couldn’t connect with these characters,” or “the protagonist wasn’t strong/sympathetic enough,” or “the plot is too complex/simplistic” or even “this is perfect, but I have no idea where to sell it.” DO NOT take these too seriously or start rewriting your book.

They’re mostly just polite words to say, “It didn’t give me screaming orgasms, so it’s not worth the energy it would take to sell it.”

Mourn.

15) Get a request for the full manuscript!!

Remember to check those guidelines. Some agents still want to see a ms. on paper. If so, put a big rubber band around it—do not bind—and mail it in a flat-rate box from the P.O. with a #10 stamped, self-addressed envelope inside for their reply. NEVER send it in an annoying way that requires a receipt. 

Celebrate. Get the really good chocolate this time.

16) Send out more queries. Don’t wait for that full to be read. It may take a year. It will probably first be read by a young unpaid intern. If she likes it, she’ll give it to the busy agent, who will put it on her pile of 150 TBR manuscripts.

17) Get another partial rejected. And another. Start building calluses on your soul.

But—if the rejections start to sound the same—like everybody says the same thing about your unsympathetic, wimpipotamus hero, this is when you might give your ms. another once-over to see if you can figure out how to tweak things without doing serious damage to the book.

18) Get the full rejected.

You may get some more detailed feedback on this one. Pay attention, but don’t despair. It may not be your book that needs a rewrite. Maybe you’re targeting the wrong agents or pitching your book wrong. Maybe it turns out you’ve written a domestic drama (women’s fiction) not a romance. Try changing your query and hook before you change your book.

Mourn.

19) Finish book #2.

Woo-hoo! Don’t forget to celebrate. It may not feel as momentous as your first ms. But it’s a triumph. You’re now acting like a professional writer. That means you ARE a professional writer. Even if nobody’s paying you quite yet.

20) Start all over again with #2, but keep sending out #1 until it collects at least a few hundred rejections.

If you’re luckier than me, you may…

21) Land an agent somewhere along the way here.

22) If you don’t, you may want to consider a small press or self-publishing.

This isn’t “settling” or giving up. All this means is you’ve discovered your work isn’t part of the predicted trend curve at the moment and may not be what corporate marketers think is the hot item for next season.

This is the point at which people like Amanda Hocking, Saffina Desforges, and John Locke jumped into self-publishing. And look where they landed. 

Some agents consider the successful self-pubbed ebook the best query these days, so if you’re good at marketing and you know you’ve got the best books you can write, go get yourself Kindlized. You could be the next self-pubbed millionaire. Just make sure you have some inventory before you start (Amanda Hocking had eight books completed before she self-published.)

Or if you’re a little more traditional like me, you might start querying presses that don’t require agents.

Even some bigger presses still take unagented work. If you write SciFi, you can still direct-query Daw (Penguin) or Tor (MacMillan). And for romance writers, a few Harlequin lines also take unsolicited manuscripts. There are also a number of mid-sized mystery publishers that welcome writers without agents. (Alas, Midnight Ink now requires an agent.)

Or start researching the smaller presses. There are hundreds of them. Here’s a list of presses that don’t require agents. Be sure you talk to other authors, though, and check Writer Beware and other watchdog sites before you query. They operate on shoestrings and can often go under, leaving your book in limbo and your royalties unpaid.

But I’m working with two small presses, and it’s working very nicely for me.

Just don’t let that book languish in a drawer!

What about you scriveners? Do you have advice for new writers who are beginning to learn the publishing ropes?

RUTH HARRIS NEWS!

Ruth has another new book coming soon!  

It's something completely different: 

Africa. An orphan. A love story. 



INDIE CHICKS: There's one more post! Melissa A Smith's heartfelt piece about how losing her mother prompted her to become a writer. WRITING OUT THE GRIEF is on the Indie Chicks page.

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