Young Writers Society

Okay, So I'm half way through writing my book. It's posted on the YWS Action/Adventure forums, and I'm starting to think about publishing. I'll perobebly finnish writing the book before I apprach the publishers, but i would like to know all I can, way in advance.

Oaky, so I've found this publisher that looks good, is willing to publish my genre and publishes on merit, regardless of experience. They ask for a 'covering letter' explaining marketing potential, my background and qualifications. I'm only fourteen, and the only thing I have gotten published is one or two stories in a school magazine. What should I put as my 'qualifications' and is there anything else I should know?

Thank you so much for your help!

Make sure you have a finished product when you go to the publishers. Otherwise, they'll reject you without a thought.

Remember to read your work thoroughly before you submit it. Just glancing at your story, I found the words, "Tears welled up in my throat." I'm not even sure that's possible, unless you're drinking tears or something bizarre. Weird little things like that aren't worth stopping the actual writing process, but when you go back and edit it, they should be gone. Having written a novel, I know that once you finish it you want to publish it fast, but it's worth looking back on.

After that... I wouldn't recommend telling them too much about yourself. You don't have much experience at this point and it would be unwise to flaunt it.

Thanks for the quick reply meep!:)

I tried a month ago to get published with my first novel. It did not go at all well and now it's back in the shop for a partial rewrite, beta read, and edit before I try again.

1. FINISH THE BOOK FIRST. That is the #1 rule of publishing. Do NOT query until you have a finished novel.

2. Revise, revise, revise. Get rid of all the spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, plot holes, character issues, word overuse, telling instead of showing, etc before you even think about submitting to publishers.

3. Send it to a beta to read and check for anything you might've missed. Find someone that will be 100% honest. That would not be a friend unless your friend isn't afraid to rip it apart.

4. Revise it again.

This is what happened with Andra. I spent two months writing it. I started in November and finished in December. I spent four months revising and sending to betas. I started querying in April and queried for a month until about halfway into May. After 15 straight form rejections and about 5 no responses, I decided to pull Andra off submission, sit down with my critique group, and revise the whole thing before I tried again. It got so ripped apart by the group that I sat down and began the total rewrite. I'm not two weeks in and on chapter five with fourteen more chapters to go. I can already see the vast amount of improvement.

Some general advice about publishing.

1. DON'T GO TO PUBLISHAMERICA! If you want to know why, PM me. ETA: Or just google "PublishAmerica scam". That works too.

2. Check out all agents and publishers before you even query them! There ARE scams out there. Don't be a victim of one of them. Preditors and Editors (no that is not misspelled), Writer Beware, and the Background Check section of absolutewrite.com are good places to start when checking out.

3. Get. An. Agent. Most publishers won't even look at your work unless you have one. It'll just get thrown into the slush pile and that's the last place you want your story to end up. Querytracker.net and Agentquery.com are good places to start when looking for an agent.

I'm going to give you a quick runthrough of how getting an agent works too since that's what I'm doing and that's what's recommended for most cases.

1. Find agents to query. (I'll explain what a query is in a minute.) These agents should be reputable (the best ones are members of AAR. They abide by a code of ethics and are reputable. Remember: anyone can be a literary agent. There is no certification and there is no guarantee that the person you're querying is legit.) They should also represent your genre. If your book is a YA fantasy, don't go to agents that represent romance only. If you write mysteries, don't go to someone that only represents nonfiction.

2. Write a query. (actually this probably should've been first) A query is a one-page letter designed to allow agents and publishers to review hundreds of submissions a day. An average agent reads 100-200 of these things a week and only requests maybe a few out of the bunch. A query letter begins with a greeting (No Hi check out my book!). This is a professional business letter and should appear as such. This is typically followed by a short (one to three paragraphs not four pages) synopsis of your book. The easiest comparison to make would be the back blurb on the novels in the bookstore. You want to get the agent's attention and make her want to read more. The blurb is followed by an author bio. Don't worry if you don't have anything to put here. If you want to add that your 14, you can, but I'm 15 and my age is not on my query for various reasons. The main one is that I want my work to be judged just like everyone else's not harder or softer because of my age. The letter is closed by a short "Thank you for your time. Sincerely," and then your name and contact information.

3. Write a synopsis. While some people hate queries, I find them easier to write than synopses. This is a two to three page synopsis of your book that usually includes the ending. These are only sent to agents that request them.

4. Send those queries out there! Most agents have a preference for receiving queries. Many go for the paperless e-mail because it's faster and well, paperless. Some agents continue to only accept snail mail. Others accept both. CHECK OUT ALL GUIDELINES BEFORE SENDING! Not following guidelines is one of the stupidest reasons to be rejected. It only takes an extra minute to read them and send out the requested material. Some agents accept the first five pages with a story so you definitely don't want to miss out on that information!

5. Wait. And wait. And wait some more. This is my least favorite phase. Some agents (if you're lucky) will get back to you in 24 to 48 hours. My fastest response was 10 minutes. Others will take weeks to get back to you. And then there are the dreaded "no responders." The ones that say "if we don't respond in this time period, assume we aren't interested." Those are the worst because you never know if your response got caught in their spam filter or if they really weren't interested.

6. Collect responses. Most of these will be form rejections. Don't let them get you down! Everyone gets them. Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, even Dr. Seuss was rejected 73 times before he got published! I like to save mine in a folder so in the future when I have printer ink and paper I can print them out and burn them... Make sure you keep track of who your querying and who's rejected you! You don't want to suffer the embarassment of accidentally querying the same agent twice! Querytracker.net is good for this. I just use an Excel worksheet that I designed for myself.

7. If you're lucky enough to get a partial (or even a full!) request, then CONGRATULATIONS! Make sure all the asked for material is ready and submitted in the proper manner. Read the instructions carefully two or three times!!! Don't send a full back as a attachment if they ask for a partial! Don't send a full via attachment if they ask for a hard copy!

8. And if you get VERY lucky you get "the call!" Which is what writers call the phone call from an agent that wants to offer you representation.

Few last tips:

-if you don't put your age in the query, don't wait until the last minute to mention it to an interested agent.
- don't send out 50 queries the first day. Send out around 10 or so, collect the responses, reevaluate based on responses, and send out more. I subscribe by the revenge query method. No that does not mean I send out hate mail every time an agent rejects me! DON'T EVER DO THAT! DON'T RESPOND AT ALL! Agents hate that! (I read agent blogs. That's how I know all this stuff.)

Ummm I think that's it. How this is a long post... Hope that helps! You can PM me if you have an questions...

Oh yeah. MOST OF ALL: DON'T GIVE UP!

Um...yeah. What HR said. Also, in the Writer's Tip forum I compiled a list of websites that give A LOT of great advice on how to get published. I think it's stickied up at the top.

Doesn't self-publishing cost a lot of money with little results unless you have a good platform from which to publicize?

Just curious. I don't have anything against self-pub, just don't think it's for everyone.

Horserider already covered the main points, but I'd like to add a few things.

1. First Five Pages

Even if you don't send it in with you're query, your first five pages have to be the best they can, so that the agent is

Advice for getting a publisher:

1. Finish your first draft.

2. Revise it until you're happy. (Put it away for a month first and when you come back you'll see the problems more clearly.)

3. Get someone ELSE to read it and make suggestions/commentary.

4. Because of your age, try and get someone vaguely professional to give it a read through.

5. Query various agents. It's way too easy to get scammed, especially with your age, by publishers. Some agents are also scams too. Be careful.

6. Remember that your parents need to sign any contracts for you until you are 18 years of age.

On the subject of self publishing:

99.9% of self publishers aren't worth it in any way, shape or form. Lulu.com is the exception to the rule because you get it PUBLISHED for free, and even then it's only useful if you're a) famous so people will go looking for it, b) published so people will go looking for it and c) if it's a really alternative work.

It's not usually worth it because of the difficulty of promoting a self published book unless you already have a name for yourself.

Another thing-it is quite possible that some people I know will have a different style of publishing company. You register with them as an author, send your manuscript to an editor, revise it with them and then AFTER they've given you revisions they decide if they want to reject it or accept it. If they make it somewhere I'll be posting links up on the site so you can check it out.

edit: Uh, I'm not sure why I thought this post had no responses. Oops? Turns out everyone got there ahead of me.