You Imagine discussion

LunaWolf asked for this thread, so she got it! So let's hear it from the experts. How do you get published? Anyone have any good advice? It's a jungle out there.

Hello all,
I'm new to this group - thanks for the invitation from K.S.R. :-) My first young adult novel, Songs for a Teenage Nomad, was published last June by Hip Pocket Press. As far as publishing suggestions, I just think it's really important to make sure your manuscript is as polished as possible, make sure you have a solid query letter and that you do your research around agents and publishing houses. Be able to say to an agent, " I really like how you agented so-and-so's book." I also think it's really helpful to go to good writing conferences - that's where I met an interested agent. And I met my publisher at another writing workshop which is where they first asked about the manuscript of SONGS.

Above all, it's really important to not let the whole process make you nuts. It's really, really hard to find someone to look at your work but you just keep putting it out there - listening to feedback, reworking the manuscript. I went through a bunch of rejections with SONGS. And it just got a nomination for Best New Voice in YA fiction from the 2008 Ben Franklin Awards which was really rewarding and exciting. I teach high school creative writing and I like to show my students my rejection letters. I think it's really important that they understand how to learn from them. And how to ignore most of them. :-)

Keep writing, keep working on your craft. Keep delving into character and story and words. Mostly, my life hasn't changed that much from before I got published. The writing process stays pretty much the same. We just keep learning to get better (hopefully). :-)

Hi LunaWolf,
All good questions. A query is a cover letter that pitches your project in about 250 words as well as gives your experience, any writing credentials, etc. I would get a copy of Writer's Market (or Writer's Market for Children and Illustrators depending on your genre). They give a detailed "how to" on all of it. You can't really pitch a book without a finished draft...not as a brand new author. As far as a synopsis (plot summary), etc...WM will tell you how to do all that. They put out a new version each year - it's a great book. I write in Times New Roman for font, but there are a couple of others that are okay to use. Hope that's helpful :-)

One thing to keep in mind is that not all publishers publish the same sort of material. A publisher who specializes in romance novels is not going to be interested in your field journal about bird watching. So you need to do some groundwork and figure out which publishers publish your subject matter. A great way to do that is to get your hands on a program book from Book Expo America. It lists hundreds of publishers and what type of work they publish. The next thing you want to research is which of them will accept unsolicited manuscripts, because not all of them do. The largest houses want to deal with literary agents, not authors. Once you have a list of publishers that handle your subject matter, you can google them and get submission guidelines right from their websites. Most will ask for a synopsis, a sample chapter (or two), some will ask for an outline, and most of them want to know what books would be considered your competition, and what makes you think that your book stands apart from them.
Every year, Writer's Digest magazine puts out an annual that gives real good advice on putting together cover letters, synopsis, etc. It's a great resource.

Book Expo America is a great way to get noticed, as well. It happens every year at the beginning of June. This year it's in L.A. from May 29 - June 1. It's usually in NYC.

I'll be there. Anyone else?
~Karey

here's the link: http://www.bookexpoamerica.com

Writer's Market is great. Your local library should have it, and if they don't they could get it. If I recall, the author's give all the tips you need on font, addresses of publishers, a sample query letter that you can use to create your own, etc.

After reading through WM I really started to feel like a writer because I was learning a new part of the craft--getting published!

BTW, a query letter is a nut-shell summary of your manuscript. "A letter from an author or agent to an editor that briefly describes a manuscript and asks whether the editor is interested in evaluating the manuscript. [bookjobs.com/page.php]

Thanks for mentioning the query letter. I think I'll post a separate topic for that under this topic. I know there is a lot of information and resources on query letters out there.

SO glad you will be doing a topic post on QUERIES. I know for many, many writers the query is far harder than creation of the novel itself! Author Sandra Kring wrote "The type of writing a query requires is so far removed from the kind of writing a fiction writer does that, to me, it’s the equivalent of a dancer going to audition for the role of The Sugar Plum Fairy, and being made to stand perfectly still and DESCRIBE her movements, rather than simply being allowed to dance. Unless that dancer, then, is also a singer and has a way with words, that dancer may the most incredible Sugar Plum Fairy that troop will ever see, but the dance company will never know this."

Of particular frustration to those who are not yet published is the prevalance of only two kinds of examples: queries by other non-published writers which are, therefore, of questionable quality and perhaps no better or even worse than your own OR queries from multi-pubbed authors because the new writer will never garner the same interest a query from a proven writer gets. What are needed are examples of successful queries from new writers in a wide variety of genre, as a query that sells a romance will bear only superficial resemblance to the one that sells a horror, fantasy, or mystery.

I shall be watching this thread with great interest. Thanks for suggesting it.

Great, idea Pamela. I'm going to post a topic on sample query letters. Thanks.

I think the most important advice to anyone looking for publication is that money always flows to the author, it never flows to the "publisher." There are a lot of sharks out there that will charge fees and publish your book. Stay away from them.

As has already been mentioned, Writer's Market is a good place to start. It has lot of good information about how to find a publisher and listings of good, advance-paying markets.

If you can't land one of the bigger markets, there are lots of reputable small presses. A great listing of them in science fiction, at least, is Ralan's Market List on the web. Perhaps there are other lists for other genres that other people know about.