Young Writers Society

I finished writing my first novel, Angel's Symphony, so I'm making sure that I'm going through all the right steps. And seriously, this is not a joke. It's not one those hey-I-wrote-this-frilly-book-and-I-know-it's-destiny-to-get-it-published kind of books.

So what should I do now?

So should I be happy? Should I be scared? What's up ahead? I got a book called "Putting Your Passion to Print" and read a couple publishing things here and there, so I'm going to try to make sure I've gotten everything correct.

-I finished the novel. The whole thing.
-Its fine-tooth comb editing is almost complete
-my last look at my manuscript before printing
-get a synopsis done
-writing 10 personalized query letters every 2 weeks via email or snail mail
-receive replies, and hopefully, there will be good news.

It's a bit brief, but I think that's basically it. I guess it all comes down to how well-written my book is, the plot, and how much I want to get published. There's a lot of other people who'd swim across the atlantic ocean to get their books published, so how do I convince the agents to represent me without having to swim across an ocean? And better yet, how do they react to ages? Of course I'll use YWS as one of my "qualifications", but what else does it take to get their attention?

-Shina

Write a good query letter. This is more important than most people realise, and if you realise this, you'll be giving yourself a big advantage.

The query letter is the first thing the agent will see. If it's not good (and as I understand it, most query letters aren't) you'll probably get a form rejection letter before the agent has even read the first paragraph of your novel.

Check out the Query Shark. People send her their query letters for her to rip apart. Look through the blog, and you'll get an idea of what not to put in your own query.

If you're brave (and if you want to get a novel published, I'm gonna assume you are), you could even send in your query letter to be ripped apart. This will of course help you to improve it.

Also to consider: is your novel's opening gripping? Many agents will reject a novel after reading only the first paragraph.

(1) Make your novel fantastic.

I'm sure it's great already, but shop it around to various people whose criticisms you trust. And who will be honest, and critical — right now, that's what you need most. You've said that you wrote the novel and "fine-tooth comb edited" it but the vast majority of novels that are in the process of trying to get published need a lot of work from the first draft. Not just issues with style and grammar and spelling and things like that, but sometimes you need to rewrite the entire ending, or add another character to the story (or maybe subtract one.)

It's hard to listen to that kind of criticism because it means doing a lot of painstaking work on your novel, but there are few novels that I can think of that didn't need strenuous rewriting before it even made it into an agent's hands.

So take it to a few people who will be honest about things, not people who will tell you about the grammar issues or the typos (although those people are helpful, too) but the people who will say, "Hey, this character needs more backstory," or, "This romantic subplot feels false." And then take their criticism and think about how you can apply it to make your story better.

(2) Make your opening more fantastic than everything else.

Sureal's right. The majority of agents only need to read a paragraph before they know whether or not they want to represent the story, or if it's representing-worthy. Making your first chapter engaging is really really important. Again, having a handful of people who are willing to be honest with you, and are willing to tell you, "Hey, this sucks," or, "Hey, this works," or invaluable.

Read this.

This is a slush pile. Think about how many submissions editors and agents and publishers get on a regular basis, how many piles and piles and piles of manuscripts. Which is why you have to show them that your work is better than everyone else's, which is why you have to invest in your story and make it the awesomest thing they've ever beheld. Or at least try.

(3) Know your story and know your agents.

Which is to say, know what your genre/audience/style is and make sure the agents that you are sending queries to are the ones who represent said audiences/genres/whatever. Which is to say, if you're writing a cookbook, don't send it to an agent who only represents YA.

And like Sureal said, writing a good query letter is pretty necessary.

The process you have worked out is correct. Edit the crap out of your book before looking into an agent.

The beginning of your novel is key - in order to review as many submissions as possible, agents will usually only read the first 50 pages or so, and the first few paragraphs are key to hooking their interest.

As for the query letter, that's an art in and of itself.

Divide the query letter into three main parts:

1)The hook
2)Details
3)Bio

It's important to realize that the bio does NOT go at the begining - that part needs to hook the agent, and bios do NOT hook agents.

Details are focused on your novel - this is where you give length, genre, etc.

The bio is where you give previous experience and such. If you've had short stories published before, be sure to use those. Awards and such will also be good here.

Also, in your bio, show why you've chosen this agent, and show you've clearly done some research.

Here is an example of a superb query letter.

Also, it does help if you've been published somewhere before, like in Literary magazines and all that jazz, if you have been they know you're serious about writing and they'll take you more seriously right off the bat.

If your goal is to become rich and famous, then you will have to consider which publishing route you are going to take - whether traditional or self-publishing.

Please don't be misleading. Only a small fraction of writers will get rich off of their writing, and not a single one of them will be a self-publisher.

Really, if you self-publish, you're unlikely to make much money at all.

If you want complete creative control over your book, self publishing is a great route to take, but please don't go telling our members that they'll get rich off of it.

I agree with Sureal - the Query Shark is a great great website. I'm also a member of a site called Absolute Write, and they have a "Share Your Work" forum that is dedicated entirely to critiquing query letters. I got some great feedback on mine. The web address is here: www.absolutewrite.com/forums