totally obvious neophyte question

[jwallace]

I'll just ask for a link to the (I'm sure) already published info somewhere out there...

I'm prepping a collection of short stories to submit to an agent for representation. I want to land a deal somewhere for a book of short fiction.

What I don't know is the accepted submission routine for a book of short stories to an agent-same as with a novel? Send in the whole damn thing? I would ASSUME so, but we all know what THAT will get you...

Many thanks in advance for any shove in the right direction somebody can offer...

J.

[triceretops]

In my experience, short story collections are horrendously difficult to place without a name tag. There certainly are small presses around that handle them, but it is a very "Iffy" market. Do your research first, locate them, see if they have a website and guidelines that specify. Other than that, I believe you would send aprox the fist fifty pages or so (without cutting a short in two, of course).

Triceratops

[Mike Coombes]

Unless you're a household name, you are extremely unlikely to get representation for a collection. For representation check http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm, but don't hold your breath.

[Jamesaritchie]

For submission, you should usually send the first fifty pages, or as many complete short tsories as you can send that come close to fifty pages.

It is darned near impossible to sell a collection of stories unless you either have a name, or unless most of the stories have been previously published in pretty good magazines.

Even the short stories big name writers publish in a collection have usually been previously published in good magazines.