That’s right. I have successfully completed my book, a crime novel. It took several months of writing, several months of letting it rest, and several months of editing, and rewrites. Of course, it’s never truly finished until it is printed, bound, and on the shelve somewhere. But, I thought I’d share. Now comes the next phase… Finding an agent.
-J
Congrats and best of luck!! I admire and envy you. I’ve been trying to write various novels for years and can never finish them. Kudos to you!
Congratulations I hope it does well.
Congratulations, and good luck.
I especially wish you luck on getting the agent. I’ve been trying, intensively, for over five years, and haven’t had any luck yet. There are several books and websites listing agents. Here are a couple of pages to read:
How to get an agent
http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2008/04/how-to-find-literary-agent.html
How to write a query letter
Also check out the Preditors (sic) and Editors and website
CalMeacham,
Thanks for the info. It is definitely a whole other world when it comes to this aspect of publishing a book. It makes all the time spent writing look easy compared to the rest of the process, but all I can do is try and the worst anyone can say is no (or in some cases nothing at all). Keep plugging away, and keep writing, are phrases I keep hearing. If this one doesn’t take, there is always the next one. There is always the prospect of self publishing through Amazon, and the other like minded sites, but that makes me cringe a little.
Good luck in your ventures as well.
-J
p.s. If anyone has any other suggestions for blogs to look up, and/or lists of agents, I’m all ears. It’s better to have too much information than not enough.
I wrote a book once.
There! Just did it again!
Seriously :D, congratulations and good luck.
Congratulations!
Try the Absolute Write Water Cooler boards, if you’re not there already. A goldmine of information and links and support.
Oh, and the query shark blog is both extremely funny, and a good primer on how to, or not to, write a query.
Sorry for not hyperlinking; l haven’t figured that out on this device. Best of luck in finding an agent!
Well done.
There is always the Matthew Reilly approach if you can’t find a publisher. He self published 1000 copies of his first book and is now a best selling author internationally.
The wikipedia article makes it sound like a fluke that his book was spotted by someone in publishing but he actually vonly self published with the idea of attracting a publisher.
Here is what he said in an interview:
Geoff
So, knowing what you know now about publishing, self publishing and the industry, what would you tell Matt Reilly back in ’96 who’s just starting out?
Matthew
If I had my time again I would have gone to more agents. Agents have the super highway, broadband connection to publishers. So, if you want to save time, send your manuscript out to agents. I would even say send it to agents in London and New York. Because there’s a certain amount of agents here in Australia, there are lots in London and New York. And, publishing has become very global, and with the internet as well, you can send the first few chapters as a PDF. It’s not even going to cost you postage.
I did send Contest to one literary agency here in Sydney. And if there is a tinge of bitterness in me, it’s to them. I sent it to them. I waited a little amount of time. I called up to chase them up and said, “What did you think?” “Oh, where did that go?” “I’m sorry we can’t find that.” And, so I swore then I would not send it to anymore agents.
That said I am so pleased that I self published. And, as a published author, and an author who’s published by major publishers around the world, Simon & Schuster in the States, O’Brien in the UK, Macmillan here, you’d be amazed when you do promotional work having this story to tell. Because people say, “Well, the way you got started, Matthew, is really unusual.”
And, so I have this little story to tell, which is not related to the content of my books. I’m not going on radio station and saying, “Well, my new book is this big action-packed story about…” so and so. They say, “Tell us about how you got started,” because it’s an unusual story. And, it’s now sort of part of the brand that is Matthew Reilly.
Cate Patterson goes to the Frankfurt Book Fair and gets publishers from other countries say to her, “You’re Cate Patterson. You’re the one who found Matthew Reilly in a bookstore.” And, they are just blown away.
So, yes, I wish I had done some things differently, but in another way this is the path I’ve gone down and it’s created this, it’s a story I can tell over and over again. People love it. So, I don’t think I’d do it differently, but that’s what I would tell myself. Go to more agents.
FWIW, I got out of the fiction game almost twenty years ago and haven’t seen anything that would lure me back. The industry has become so screwed up that the notion of writing a book and then dreaming of actually seeing it on bookstore shelves, much less selling well or leading to fame, is pretty much on a par with buying Powerball tickets and creating UFO landing fields in your back forty.
Really: add up the number of new authors who get their book picked up in a significant way, and then add up the number of $10k+ lottery winners. Not even close.
Quality self-publishing, selling to genre buyers and modest success is the 99% point these days.
Emphasis, IMVHO, on the “quality.” It’s become far too easy to dump an unedited Word file into the system and call it a book.
Have you considered publishing it as an eBook? You don’t need an agent or publisher. Many new writers offer the first three chapters free then sell customers the whole book. At least check out Smashwords I buy most of my books from there now and I know they are alawys looking for new authors.