Hi, first timer here. My novel is done :)

wolfee · Mar 31, 2008

Alot of people have told me that the fact I've even finished a novel is a great achievement but the day I finished was a sad day. I felt empty. It was over, or so I thought. I'm married with two kids and have worked on it for about 15 years. It's 200 pages in MS Word 8 1/2 x 11, so that equates to about 400 pages I think. I've done four of my own edits and just finished reading through the whole story again last week. My first big mistake was Writer's Literary but luckily I decided to google it before I sent any money. That was a depressing first experience to say the least.

So I did some research on how to write a summary or synopsis and off I went down the path of trying to summarize my story. Well that ended up being 26 pages and I figured I was ready to hunt down a publisher or two, after a copyright of course. I've submitted to Mundania Press and Penguingroup so far. What surprised me was the two completely different means of submission. One wanted me to summarize in ONE PAGE. Summarize a 400 page novel in one page, ouch! That was hard. I also needed to submit the manuscript in .rtf and to remove all chapters. Ok that wasn't too bad. The other one just wanted the first ten pages of my book included in the body of my email. That wasn't too hard either but talk about being nervous hitting 'Send' and watching your first ten pages head out for review.

I was looking into trying to get a literary agent but I just seemed to be going around in circles trying to determine if one is legit or a scam. Well I just wanted to say hi and let you know there's another confused first time writer out there.

bluntforcetrauma · Mar 31, 2008

Never, I repeat never, pay anyone to have your story published. Would you pay your boss for the privilege of working yourself to death?

While you're learning about reputable publishers, start on your second book. That post partum depression is an awful feeling.

Welcome to the madhouse!

heyjude · Mar 31, 2008

Hiya wolfee! Welcome to AW!

And congratulations on finishing. It should be a GREAT feeling. I agree with bluntforce, get started on the 2nd one.

wolfee · Mar 31, 2008

Hi and thanks for the quick pick-me-ups! My problem is that book 2 would be part 2 of book 1 and I really don't want to start another 15 year project if book 1 ... sucks. By the way, do people make money at this?

bluntforcetrauma · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee said:
Hi and thanks for the quick pick-me-ups! My problem is that book 2 would be part 2 of book 1 and I really don't want to start another 15 year project if book 1 ... sucks. By the way, do people make money at this?

The 2nd book would go much faster I think. As for money...it depends on who you ask.

BenPanced · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee said:
Alot of people have told me that the fact I've even finished a novel is a great achievement but the day I finished was a sad day. I felt empty. It was over, or so I thought. I'm married with two kids and have worked on it for about 15 years. It's 200 pages in MS Word 8 1/2 x 11, so that equates to about 400 pages I think. I've done four of my own edits and just finished reading through the whole story again last week. My first big mistake was Writer's Literary but luckily I decided to google it before I sent any money. That was a depressing first experience to say the least.

So I did some research on how to write a summary or synopsis and off I went down the path of trying to summarize my story. Well that ended up being 26 pages and I figured I was ready to hunt down a publisher or two, after a copyright of course. I've submitted to Mundania Press and Penguingroup so far. What surprised me was the two completely different means of submission. One wanted me to summarize in ONE PAGE. Summarize a 400 page novel in one page, ouch! That was hard. I also needed to submit the manuscript in .rtf and to remove all chapters. Ok that wasn't too bad. The other one just wanted the first ten pages of my book included in the body of my email. That wasn't too hard either but talk about being nervous hitting 'Send' and watching your first ten pages head out for review.

I was looking into trying to get a literary agent but I just seemed to be going around in circles trying to determine if one is legit or a scam. Well I just wanted to say hi and let you know there's another confused first time writer out there.

(Emphasis mine.)

Don't send off for the copyright just yet. The publisher will take care of that for you later; you're already protected and if you're shopping around something in 2010 with a 2008 copyright on it, potentinal agents and publishers will look at it and wonder what's wrong with it for it to have been shopped around for so long.

JamieFord · Mar 31, 2008

Congrats Wolfee and welcome. It's definitely worth your while to find an agent. Agentquery.com is a great place to start and you can always double check those agents at Preditors & Editors.

Bufty · Mar 31, 2008

Welcome, Wolfee.

Easier said than done, but just think - 1 page a day is a 365 page novel in a year!!

Cheers, friend.

icerose · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee said:
Alot of people have told me that the fact I've even finished a novel is a great achievement but the day I finished was a sad day. I felt empty. It was over, or so I thought. I'm married with two kids and have worked on it for about 15 years. It's 200 pages in MS Word 8 1/2 x 11, so that equates to about 400 pages I think.

I'm really confused on this 200 pages being 400. Is it all single spaced? If not then it's really 200 pages and in an actual novel even shorter! It's based more on word count. For example if you have 25 lines per page double spaced courier, then by the old word count method that is still used by many publishers as an aproximate, you have about 250 words per page. Each 100 pages is 25,000 words. A 400 page novel following this format is approximately 100,000 words. That is much more important than actual word count. It also will depend on your genre and audience.

Fifteen years is a really long time. Each one has their own pace, but I'm betting you could write your second one a lot faster if you were able to dedicate even a page a day.

Check out manuscript formatting stickies and such. Background and Bewares section has a lot as does Preditors and Editors. These are great resources for writers for checking out whether or not a company is legit.

Good luck.

Sara

Charlie Horse · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee said:
Hi and thanks for the quick pick-me-ups! My problem is that book 2 would be part 2 of book 1 and I really don't want to start another 15 year project if book 1 ... sucks. By the way, do people make money at this?

So don't start the sequel just yet. Start something new and completely different.

wolfee · Mar 31, 2008

icerose said:
I'm really confused on this 200 pages being 400. Is it all single spaced? ... Check out manuscript formatting stickies and such. Background and Bewares section has a lot as does Preditors and Editors. These are great resources for writers for checking out whether or not a company is legit.

Good luck.

Sara

Well I just looked at the "Formatting Manuscripts" section (very helpful) and it looks like I may have made two mistakes. First, my font wasn't Courier New, which now makes my book longer at 244 pages and the big one is that it's single space, not double. Total word count is 110,581 in .rtf. I checked the two publishers that I submitted to and they don't mention double space vs. single space so hopefully my submissions won't be tossed into the trash. Thank you for the help and the tips on agents, much appreciated.

Phaeal · Mar 31, 2008

All paper novel and short story submissions must be double-spaced. This is industry standard. Courier 12 and Times New Roman 12 are two standard fonts and pitches. There are specific guidelines for formatting headers, first pages and title pages, which are readily available. I haven't looked at the Formatting MSS section here, but I'd expect it to be as thorough as the rest of the site.

I think you'll find it helpful to submit your query letter and a sample of your novel in the Share Your Work forum, especially if you haven't had other writers read your work before. Lots of good advice, and it's free.

Oh, and round down that word count to 110,000, quite a respectable length. Could be overlong for some genres.

ToddWBush · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee, in the words of Jon Voight in "The Rainmaker", "welcome to the war..."

Good luck!

Jackfishwoman · Mar 31, 2008

Just curious.... you can submit to Penguingroup without an agent? I would have thought they would require agent submissions only - like all the other big-wigs.

melaniehoo · Mar 31, 2008

Welcome to AW & good luck!

icerose · Mar 31, 2008

wolfee said:
Well I just looked at the "Formatting Manuscripts" section (very helpful) and it looks like I may have made two mistakes. First, my font wasn't Courier New, which now makes my book longer at 244 pages and the big one is that it's single space, not double. Total word count is 110,581 in .rtf. I checked the two publishers that I submitted to and they don't mention double space vs. single space so hopefully my submissions won't be tossed into the trash. Thank you for the help and the tips on agents, much appreciated.

You'll find a lot of helpful things around the site and avoid quite a few of the pitfalls, still there are many to make and I have made several myself and am still making mistakes. I finished my first novel when I was 17, then it got accepted by a bad publisher when I was 19 and it is a hard path to learn by.

Thankfully sites like AW can help you avoid the bad apples and the pitfalls to make the journey a little bit easier.

writin52 · Mar 31, 2008

All right, wolfee!!!!

wolfee said:
Alot of people have told me that the fact I've even finished a novel is a great achievement but the day I finished was a sad day. I felt empty. It was over, or so I thought. I'm married with two kids and have worked on it for about 15 years. It's 200 pages in MS Word 8 1/2 x 11, so that equates to about 400 pages I think. I've done four of my own edits and just finished reading through the whole story again last week. My first big mistake was Writer's Literary but luckily I decided to google it before I sent any money. That was a depressing first experience to say the least.

So I did some research on how to write a summary or synopsis and off I went down the path of trying to summarize my story. Well that ended up being 26 pages and I figured I was ready to hunt down a publisher or two, after a copyright of course. I've submitted to Mundania Press and Penguingroup so far. What surprised me was the two completely different means of submission. One wanted me to summarize in ONE PAGE. Summarize a 400 page novel in one page, ouch! That was hard. I also needed to submit the manuscript in .rtf and to remove all chapters. Ok that wasn't too bad. The other one just wanted the first ten pages of my book included in the body of my email. That wasn't too hard either but talk about being nervous hitting 'Send' and watching your first ten pages head out for review.

I was looking into trying to get a literary agent but I just seemed to be going around in circles trying to determine if one is legit or a scam. Well I just wanted to say hi and let you know there's another confused first time writer out there.

Snoopy Chorus line for having finished your book and making some moves to get if published. Isn't confusion a prerequisite for first time writers? :Shrug:

Susan Breen · Mar 31, 2008

Congratulations on finishing your novel and welcome to AW. You might want to spend some time reading through the various threads here. There is a lot to learn about the publishing business and you don't want to rush it. Good luck!

acharity · Mar 31, 2008

Welcome!

We've all had run-ins with the scam agencies, but you were able to avoid them in the end

You'll find the right place and we'll be here to help!

StoryMonkey · Mar 31, 2008

I'm in the same boat. I finished my first draft (then joined this site), then started editing. Argh, how did all of those typoes, umm, tyoppps, typooos, typos get in there?

Now the scary part... is letting people read my book. A publisher? I don't have the nerve yet. Maybe after 10 friends review and comment I'll consider taking another step.

Wolvel · Mar 31, 2008

Charlie Horse said:
So don't start the sequel just yet. Start something new and completely different.

I agree on this one. I had already finished book one and had started book two and my brain got confused, so I put away book two and started a whole new story, lot better off.

Matera the Mad · Mar 31, 2008

LOL - StoryMonkey - some toyps are editos, I just found one I left behind when I changed a sentence within the last month, in a novel I've been editing for nemmine how many years.

Do check out things in synopsis country here, wolfee. Everything gets easier with practice.

Mumut · Mar 31, 2008

writin52 said:
Isn't confusion a prerequisite for first time writers?

I'm a twice published author and I still get confused. So welcome to chaos.

And I started writing my second book straight after the first. I had left a cliff-hanger (or maybe a mound hanger - is there a better name for a small cliff?) so I was eager to continue the story.

Birol · Mar 31, 2008

Welcome to AW. I know the process of researching agents seems daunting, but once you know what to look out for, it does get easier.

Mklangelo · Mar 31, 2008

I've never finished anything but a handful of articles that showed up only on Helium. (My landlord's dead dog could put an article there)
What a thrill it must be to have written a novel.

Start the next one. I bet you'll like it as much or more than the one you've just finished!

Hi, first timer here. My novel is done :)

Esquire

Making my own sunshine

Esquire

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)

giving resonant directions

Where have the last ten years gone?

Lost in School Work

Speaking in metaphors

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

And thus we begin the edits

Lost in School Work

fantabulous!

Write the Damn Book!

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Well begun is half done...

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