I'm Finished, Now What?

[Shagy1186]

I don't mean finsihed as in I will no longer continue to make any more corrections on it before I ever get it published. What i mean is I have everything I want in it. The story for the most part is finished. I have been through a couple revisions but I dont know what to do next. How do i get my book out there and get publishers reading it?

[James D. Macdonald]

First, make sure it's as good as you can possibly make it. You get one shot per publisher with this manuscript.

Then -- go to a bookstore. Find books like yours. Find their publishers. Write to them (with SASE) for their guidelines.

Follow those guidelines to the letter.

Meanwhile, write your next book.

[Julie Worth]

The best thing to do now is to kill yourself. Or, if you still want to do this, start writing your next novel. Your goal should be getting number five published. Then you can start working backwards.

[icerose]

First of all I would suggest classifying your novel by genre, then searching for publishers you know and see if they are open to unsolicited manuscripts. Then follow their guidelines and submit. If they are not open, then you have to start at the agent level (which is a pretty good place to start anyway). But knowing what your book is will make it easier for you to target the publishers and agents alike as many of them specialize. Query letters are a good thing to do unless of course the guidelines ask for more such as 3 chapters and such.

Good luck :D

Sara
P.S. newbie too!

[JerseyGirl1962]

What Jim said.

Plus, you might want to consider buying Writer's Market. The 2005 version has been out, obviously, but I see on Amazon that the 2006 version isn't out as yet. It's up to you if you want to wait.

One caveat on Writer's Market, as others have remarked on different threads: Don't think that every publisher listed is legit; do your research via the Internet (like this board, for example).

For agents, try Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents 2005. There's another guide to agents but I can't remember the title nor the person's name. Oh well.

As with Writer's Market, do some more research. As I've seen in other threads, never assume that everything is as it seems.

Good luck! :)
~Nancy

[Garpy]

Forget publishers....find an agent, that's my advice.

Get a list of agencies, or the Writers and Artists Handbook 2005, which lists the agents and more importantly, their clients. Look for clients whose books you consider to be similar to yours and make the agents they belong to, your priority. Follow their guideline submissions of course.

Get an agent...that's your number one priority. It's also the biggest hurdle. Once you've got an agent, finding a publisher is much less of an ordeal.