FreakyCat
I have just finished writing my first novel. (160,000) words. I have experience writing add copy, publishing local tabloids and have written for local publications and my own enjoyment, but I have never tried to deal with large national publishers. I have no idea what to expect. Now I feel like I just fell off the banana truck, because I was really impressed with S.T. Literary Agency's website, but when I ran a search, wow! it looks like a scam. It is really discouraging. None of the other things I have found look very promising either. Submitting directly to a publisher looks discouraging because they want you to submit your work to them alone, and they will reply in a few months, meanwhile you just wait... and wait??? What is this with no multiple submissions? I planned to just submit over the Internet in mass, but they want hard copy?? How primitive! I really thought S.T. was on to something with e-mailing your work to them. It seems so logical, and simple. I am really feeling like a babe in the woods here!:cry
Everything here looks like it is warning what not to do, but I am wondering what is left to do. I see endless lists of publishers and agents on the web, but other than a few well known names, I don't know one from the other.
Self publishing would be easy enough, but marketing and distributing a novel is out of my league. My book is interesting, but doesn't fit in to an easily defined slot. It is also a little sexually explicit. It is romance, fantasy, horror, set in the early18th century. It is complex, and can be interpreted on a lot of different levels. It is Jungian, Freudian, even spiritual and very different from anything I have ever read. I don't read a lot of romance novels, but I don't think it is like mainstream Harlequin material. I wouldn't know how to begin to market such a thing.:shrug
I'd like to have an agent, but I have no idea how to obtain one. I agree that I don't want to pay a fee up front, simply because I want results, not fees.
Everything here looks like it is warning what not to do, but I am wondering what is left to do. I see endless lists of publishers and agents on the web, but other than a few well known names, I don't know one from the other.
Self publishing would be easy enough, but marketing and distributing a novel is out of my league. My book is interesting, but doesn't fit in to an easily defined slot. It is also a little sexually explicit. It is romance, fantasy, horror, set in the early18th century. It is complex, and can be interpreted on a lot of different levels. It is Jungian, Freudian, even spiritual and very different from anything I have ever read. I don't read a lot of romance novels, but I don't think it is like mainstream Harlequin material. I wouldn't know how to begin to market such a thing.:shrug
I'd like to have an agent, but I have no idea how to obtain one. I agree that I don't want to pay a fee up front, simply because I want results, not fees.