Hints On Getting Your Book Published
April 7, 2011If you’ve finally finished writing your novel, then you have completed a monumental task. Plenty of people start writing novels, but few people finish. Now that you’ve got the hard work out of the way, all you’ve got to do is find an agent, and wait for Oprah to call, right? Not so fast. Sometimes, getting an agent and getting published can be just as tedious as writing the actual novel. So how do you actually find an agent, which can bet you published, and get you paid? Keep reading.
The first thing you’ll realize is that although there seem to be billions of agents out there, most of them are only looking for novelists who have already been published. Even though this may be discouraging at first, there are plenty of ways around this seemingly insurmountable problem.
The first thing to do is to summarize your novel in about two paragraphs. Make it sound as exciting and intriguing as possible. Use plenty of powerful adjectives to describe the plot and the characters. Remember, you’re trying to sell your novel to an agent, so make it sound good. Remember that agents get proposals from hundreds of people every day, so yours needs to really stand out from the crowd. An agent is worried about selling it for a profit, so make it sound like that will be easy.
The next step is to make sure that the first couple of chapters are equally as compelling. Often times if the description of your book is interesting enough, they’ll ask to read the first three chapters. Take the time to really go through these first chapters to make sure your writing is perfect, concise, and really grabs their attention and makes them want to read more. If you can afford it, have a professional look it over.
Next is to realize that getting published today is a huge numbers game. There are literally millions of people out there trying to sell their work. Don’t get discouraged. Give yourself just as long to find an agent as it took to write your novel. Send copies of the first chapter to as many agents as you possibly can. There are plenty of websites that list thousands of agents, and many of them accept queries by email, meaning you should send out no less than twenty queries a day. Somebody’s bound to nibble.
Just like Edison once said, this is one percent inspiration, and ninety nine percent perspiration. So long as you never give up, your bound to find an agent that believes in your work, and a subsequent book deal. And while you’re sending out all those emails every day, you’ll have plenty of time to get started on your next work.
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