Yes, I want to be a published author. So...what now?
After some research, I discovered that it works like this. For any type of book, you need a Literary Agent. They're basically a person who you pay to represent your work to the publishing companies. Yes, I think you really do need this middleman- most publishing companies won't even accept manuscripts unless they come from an Agent.
Next, there's a big difference between Fiction and Nonfiction writers. Fiction writers (that's me) should complete *this checklist before submitting for publication. Non-fiction writers have an entirely different checklist- I suggest researching those steps through www.writersdigest.com.
*Complete these steps before submitting your Fiction book:
1. Finish your novel. Never query with an unfinished product.
2. Revise your manuscript. Seek other writers/readers and polish, polish, polish.
3. Proofread for grammatical errors.
4. Publish short stories or novel excerpts in literary journals.
5. Research to find Agents of known published authors in the genre you are writing.
6. Construct a list of Agents looking for new authors.
7. Rank your Agents list according to suitability with you and your work.
8. Write your novel synopsis.
9. Write your query letter (this is important! Look for follow-up posts on this topic).
10. Educate yourself about the business of Agents, should you get an offer.
The above checklist is paraphrased from the *Writer's Digest 2013 Guide to Literary Agents. I suggest you buy this book. It helps with the last 5 checklist items.
This blog post was one of the first I read about getting published- great site and author:
http://www.rachellegardner.com/2011/02/how-to-get-published/
I'm still on Step 1.
S.C. Rood
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