Writing Genres Preparing Submitting Protecting Contracts Process Marketing Networking

Chapter Five: Submitting It: General Questions Once you have written your book or article, you naturally are struck with the question of how you can share this work with others. If you wish to share it beyond your immediate circle of friends and family, you will want to publish it in the public venue. This chapter helps you decide what form of publishing you wish to seek and to whom and by what methods you can best submit your work for publication. Specific questions on submitting to agents and publishers are included in the two chapters that follow this one. General Questions How Do I Get Published? You essentially have two pathways toward being published. You can contract with a traditional publishing house to publish and market and distribute your work at its own expense, a process that is often accomplished, in the case of book-length manuscripts, by first engaging a literary agent to initiate and represent the sale of your work. The other path is to produce the work yourself, either through self-publishing, either in print or in electronic form, or through paying a book producer to produce, market, and/or distribute the book for you. You essentially have two pathways toward being published. You can contract with a traditional publishing house to publish and market and distribute your work at its own expense, a process that is often accomplished, in the case of book-length manuscripts, by first engaging a literary agent to initiate and represent the sale of your work. The other path is to produce the work yourself, either through self-publishing, either in print or in electronic form, or through paying a book producer to produce, market, and/or distribute the book for you. What Are the Different Forms of Publishing? There basically are two forms of book publishing—print and electronic—and three types of book publishing, based on who pays for it—traditional publishing, in which the publisher pays nearly all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs and the author receives a royalty and perhaps an advance on sales; subsidy publishing, where the publisher and author share the costs of production, marketing, and distribution; and self-publishing/vanity publishing, in which the author bears all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs. There basically are two forms of book publishing—and—and three types of book publishing, based on who pays for it— in which the publisher pays nearly all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs and the author receives a royalty and perhaps an advance on sales; where the publisher and author share the costs of production, marketing, and distribution; and in which the author bears all of the production, marketing, and distribution costs. In print publication, a physical book, with printed pages between covers, is produced either by the traditional offset printing process, using page-by-page photo plates, or by the newer print-on-demand (POD—printing one copy at a time from an electronic file) technology. In electronic publication, the work is provided in electronic form on a disk, a CD, direct computer download, and/or an Internet Web site post. Works can, of course, be offered in both forms consecutively or simultaneously. The traditional print publishing method of financing the publication of a written work, which requires that the publisher take nearly all of the financial risk in publication (the author still foots the bill in finding the publisher and often swallows some of the promotion expenses), still provides the aura of quality books and periodicals that have weeded out the now-considerable chaff. Traditional publishers will not charge the author for anything in the publishing process (beyond costs associated with producing the manuscript, which would include the normally author-born cost of permissions to use copyrighted material and images). They will pay royalties, and, if they determine they will make a tidy profit from the venture, will often pay the author an advance. They also will cover the costs of copyediting, cover and interior design, printing, advertising, and distribution. The risk taken by the publisher implies an independent professional determination on the part of the publisher that the work is of high enough quality to produce a sales volume profit for both the publisher and the author (and an agent as well, when one is involved in the transaction). Knowing this, the reader tends to have more confidence in the worthiness of books published in the traditional manner than those produced by other means. The author will share costs, to a lesser or greater degree, with a subsidy publisher. There, in fact, are few real traditional publishers left in today’s world except for authors perpetually populating the best-sellers’ lists. Even nominally traditional publishers are increasingly demanding that authors deliver submissions in nearly publishable shape, contribute heavily to sales promotion, and perhaps even apply for copyright, all of which incur what were traditionally publisher’s costs for the author. The true subsidy publisher (note that many "subsidy publishers" are really vanity press publishers in drag—pay very close attention to the contract wording of who does what for how much) has at least enough commitment to the book to share some of the risks. Self-publishing, or publishing through a vanity press (the slight distinction between the two is that the author does all of the legwork when self-publishing, and a production company does much or all of the production legwork with vanity publishing), will impose the complete costs of production and advertising (if any) on the author. There is no publisher commitment to the project in this category; such a publisher would publish your laundry list (with all the words misspelled), if you were willing to cover the costs. One of the most recent innovations in publishing is the rise of the POD producers (like iUniverse, 1stBooks, Xlibris), which will produce, list on their Web sites, and distribute books for authors, using the print-on-demand method rather than the print-run method that is used by the more traditional vanity presses. A services and price comparison of the major POD producers can be found on Clea Saal’s Web site at http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/index.html. All three types of publishers are represented in the traditional print and e-book publishing fields, so read that small print in any contract carefully. Is there a difference in submitting fiction and nonfiction? For nonfiction, agents and publishers usually want to see a formal proposal (and the credentials of the author in the topic’s field) before you begin writing a manuscript, although they certainly will look at a finished manuscript as well if your credentials are solid and a sufficient target market has been identified. For much of the nonfiction in the market, as a matter of fact, the publishers decide what they want to publish and go looking for likely authors. For fiction, nearly all literary agents or publishers demand a completed manuscript. What should I know about my book before I start looking for an agent and publisher? Besides being confident that your work is in the best possible shape it can be, you should know the genre (see chapter 3, "Book Genres and Category Listings") and target audience (where the markets are for your type of book) of your work before trying to find a literary agent or publisher for it. If you have used written material that is more extensive than will be covered by fair use provisions of the copyright laws (see chapter 8, "Protecting It") or images from previously published works, you also need to have permissions in hand to republish. Can I search for an agent and publisher for two books at the same time? It is not uncommon for authors to write both fiction and nonfiction or more than one genre of fiction at the same time. Therefore, it is not unheard of for an author to have different agents representing their disparate works. At the same time, it can be very difficult to work with two different agents simultaneously, so if an author who is seeking an agent has works of different categories to offer at the same time, he/she would probably do best to give priority in the agent search to someone who will represent all of the categories the author writes. This frequently is not possible, however, so there really are few impediments to having separate agents for separate genres. If you already have an agent for one type of book before you start seeking representation for another type of book, though, you really should consult with your current agent before going looking for another agent. If you have a good agent, he/she will be helping to develop your overall writing career, not just a single book. The agent may want to represent the second book as well, even if it’s not in his/her specialty genre, but the agent most certainly will need to know for his/her promotion of your career that you are writing in more than one genre. Is one time of the year better than another for submitting to agents and publishers? Across the industry the months of August and December tend to be less good months for submissions than others. Publishing operates on two catalog seasons: spring and fall, with fall being the bigger of the two, because Christmas is the big book sales season. Although publishers acquire and work on books year round and, just like any other job category, these people have individualized work rhythms, the busiest time in book publishing comes in meeting the catalog deadlines. Those in publishing, therefore, tend to take their vacations/breathers after the catalogs have been put to bed (the Christmas period for the spring catalog; the August period for the fall catalog). Books being acquired now by publishers are usually for catalogs two or more seasons away. Agents too can work year round, but as much of their sales depend on being able to meet with publishers, they tend to take their own planned vacation/breather periods at the same time most editors in publishing houses are taking theirs. Neither agents nor publishers normally close their doors to new submissions at a given time of year (many get booked ahead to the point of closing submissions for a while at unscheduled points)—but there are times when they are off on vacations, at the big book fairs (especially the Frankfurt Fair in October of every year), or just taking a little down time from the "get the catalog out" period and aren’t actually looking at submissions. But publishers and agents are individuals, with individual work schedule preferences. Thus there is no hard-edged rule on when they will take their vacations or whether they even will stop looking for new book projects while on vacation. How do I set up an SASE that I’m sending to an agent/publisher in another country? What’s an IRC? Although initial queries are increasingly being handled via e-mail, query letters and manuscript material are frequently sent to publishers through the mails and usually require inclusion of self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASE) for response to initial queries and the return of manuscript material the author has sent for review. (Also, increasingly authors are asking agents and publishers just to recycle rejected manuscript pages.) Providing such SASEs can be a big problem, however, for authors submitting material to agents and publishers in a different country. In some cases, authors are able to find someone in the other country to send them stamps to use on SASEs. In the case of the United States, stamps can be purchased on line with credit cards from the U.S. Postal Service at http://www.usps.com. As agents and publishers are increasingly becoming comfortable with e-mail communications, and because this is by far the easiest means of communication across international boundaries, it would probably be worthwhile for those submitting from another country to query whether an agent or publisher would accept e-mail exchanges even if this was not specified in their submissions guidelines as an acceptable means of communication. International Reply Coupons, or IRCs, are used when you send mail to a country other than your own and want to pay for postage. They are redeemable in any country that participates in the Universal Postal Union. You should be able to purchase IRCs from your local post office. The cost of IRCs will vary by country. Should I staple or clip a short story submission or bind it? What about a book manuscript? Don’t staple either a short story submission or your book manuscript or put it in a binder. Just use rubber bands, paper or binder clips, depending on how thick it is. How should I package my submission for delivery to an agent or publisher, and can I just send it in the mail or should I use a delivery service? Submitted manuscripts and supporting documents should not be bound; both complete texts and partials are sent as loose pages. Any sturdy envelope or box that keeps the manuscript clean and straight will do for sending material. Do not use packing material like Styrofoam peanuts or shredded newspaper that might get loose in the recipient’s office and make them think unkind thoughts toward you for months to come. Sending by messenger service rather than regular mail does not impress, and sending by means that will require the recipient to sign for receipt in person normally will irritate. Use of stationery that will stand out or attaching some attention-getter such as a pan of brownies is considered unprofessional and will not have the desired effect. If you’ve been asked to send follow-up material, you should mark the package with a "Requested Material" identifier to ensure that it receives priority attention. Submission Documents Before and/or when you submit your manuscript for consideration to either an agent or a publisher, you will need to include a number of accompanying documents. If you have all of these prepared beforehand, your documents will most likely be clearer and of higher quality than if you had to create them upon short-deadline demand. Before sending any part of your manuscript at all, you most probably will need to send an initial query letter. When you are requested to send follow-up material for a nonfiction book proposal, you will probably be asked to include a project proposal, which will include an overview and summary (or synopsis) of the book, an annotated outline of the proposed chapters, your biographical material, a marketing plan, and at least one sample chapter. You need not have the manuscript completed for a nonfiction proposal. When you are requested to send follow-up material for a fiction manuscript, you will probably be asked to include a synopsis and/or an outline (either of one or two pages or longer) and your biographical material, and possibly a cover blurb and a marketing plan. If you have sent a query letter and have been asked to send a "partial"—a portion of the manuscript—or full manuscript, with supporting documents, you will need to send a brief cover letter with the full manuscript to tie your current submission in with the agent or publishers request and with previously sent documents. The Query Letter What’s a "query?" The query letter is the single most important sales tool to get the agent/publisher to read your manuscript. The bottom line is to try to find out how the targeted agent or publisher prefers to be approached in a query letter—they usually include this information in a submissions guidelines area of their Web site—and then use that approach. Yes, this will mean that many of your submissions have to be tailored to the specific target. The query letter provides the pitch for your book, so it should identify the book’s genre and approximate wordage (the computer "properties" statistics will do fine). It should also include a paragraph on what your book is and information on who it’s targeted to, why the agent/publisher must buy it, and what your background is in being qualified to have written it. The letter most often should not be over one single-spaced standard business letter page—and you shouldn’t use extraordinary means such as miniscule font sizes and cramped margins just to wedge more written material on that one page. Your query letter will be taken as something like a first test on how well and to the point you can write. Agents and publishers are increasingly accepting queries by e-mail, but some are touchy about this, so it’s best to be sure it’s OK before using this mode. One caveat: it won’t help to have a great query letter if you haven’t spent as much time and attention on having a great manuscript to offer. Where can I find samples of good query letters? You can search for samples of good query letters by going to Google.com on the Internet and searching on: literary query letter samples. Those posting on several of the Internet writer’s Web sites (such as http://www.writers.net) can be counted on to help you tone up your query letter drafts. Examples of good sample query letters can be found at/in: http://sfwa.org/writing/query.htm http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/agent2.html http://rosenberggroup.com The annual Writer’s Market (as well as other specialized books published byWriter’s Digest) Jeff Herman’s annual Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents http://www.nicholassparks.com/WritersCorner/Query.html (an actual successful letter example from Message in a Bottle author Nicholas Sparks.) If you are interested in interacting with others to fine tune your query letter, such Internet discussion boards as the one at http://www.writers.net can provide help, although you need to keep in mind that, in most case, the help isn’t being given by professional agents or editors. What should a query include? The query should provide a short paragraph on genre and word count of the book and on how it is marketable, a two-or-three-sentence synopsis paragraph (no hanging endings), and a paragraph on who the author is, concentrating on background information that qualifies the author to write this book (previous published material, formal creative writing training, and/or unique credentials related to the topic of the book). If you haven’t previously published anything, this is not a good time to fall back on that gold star your fairy princess story earned in the third grade; the agent or publisher won’t be fooled or impressed. This is a document in which you are trying to sell your project to someone else, so it is not nearly as important what you think about your project, as it is how the query letter’s recipient will think about your project. The bottom line is just to try to find out how the targeted agent or publisher prefers to be approached—they usually include this information in a submissions guidelines area of their Web site—and then use that approach. The query letter should clearly provide all means by which you can be reached (e.g., postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number). The submissions guidelines of the agent I want to send a query letter to say to include sales information on similar books to mine. Where the heck do I get those? It’s true that submissions guidelines occasionally ask for market information. This doesn’t mean, though, that there is a comprehensive, trustworthy source for such data. It seems like agents sometimes include this request just in hopes that someone has figured out how to tap into this information, which probably isn’t available anywhere in meaningful form and probably wouldn’t be provided to the public if it were collected and collated. Many people use Amazon.com rankings to answer this question, and that’s probably as good as using anything—but Amazon.com rankings are only rankings for Amazon.com sales, and those who shop on Amazon.com aren’t congruent with the general book-buying population for many categories of books. For a discussion on various ways to make up mythical numbers as well as on using the data from Amazon.com to provide some sort of response to this question, see Morrs Rosenthal’s article "Estimating Potential Sales" at http://www.fonerbooks.com/best.htm. The Proposal What’s a "proposal?" Unlike fiction manuscripts (which should be completed before the author starts to query agents and/or publishers), nonfiction, more often than not, is sold on the basis of the concept, a description of the content of the book, and sample chapters. (A previously published nonfiction author can often make do with just a concept and a content outline.) These elements are written up in the proposal. For help in writing up a proposal, consult Elizabeth Lyon’s Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write or Jillian Manus’s article "How to Write a Non-Fiction Proposal," located on the Manus & Associates Literary Agency Web site at http://www.manuslit.com/flash/index.html in the "Info for Writers" section. You can also find an in-depth instructional guide at http://members.dca.net/areid/proposal.htm. The proposal should be from 10 to 80 double-spaced pages and should consist of a one-to-three-page overview, including the title and subtitle; a description of the book in a one-sentence catchy sentence; the projected word count; a projected list of photographs, illustrations, and figures; a paragraph on how the book fits in the publishing world; a selection of most-relevant previously published titles; key marketing ideas; and the author’s credentials and previous publishing history. The rest of the proposal should include expansions of these discussions plus an annotated chapter outline and a sample chapter. Like the query letter, the proposal should clearly provide all means by which you can be reached (e.g., postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number). The Synopsis/Outline What’s a "synopsis," and how long should it be? The synopsis is a thumbnail sketch for your fictional manuscript. A basic synopsis should be no longer than a couple of pages (single spaced). Some submissions guidelines call for a longer synopsis (with a ratio of about 1 double-spaced page of synopsis for every 25 pages of manuscript), however, so it might be a good idea for you to create both long and short synopses before submitting your manuscript. The synopsis is usually written in third person, present tense, and omniscient voice. It should include all of the major turning points in your book (not any of the nitty-gritty detail) and should lay out the whole main plot plan (no coyness about who did what to whom and why). Minor plots should be given less discussion space than the major plot line. If you find you simply can’t write a clear synopsis (although most authors believe this is tougher to do than writing the book itself was), then there may still be structural problems with your book; it may have a split or frayed main thread. Instead of a synopsis you may be asked to provide an outline. This would contain essentially the same material, but would permit presentation to be broken down into point-by-point elements more and would allow for description in succinct slugs rather than complete sentences. Should I single or double space? Short, one-or-two page synopses can be single spaced (with an extra line space between paragraphs to ease reading), but a longer, multipage version should be double spaced (without the extra line spaces between paragraphs). The Bio When an agent asks for a bio, what should I include? If your book is nonfiction, anything that shows you are familiar with or have experienced first hand what you’re writing about would be pertinent. For example, if you’re writing about great camping spots along the Colorado River and have actually camped there, that would be pertinent. Credibility counts with nonfiction. With fiction, it isn’t that crucial that you have writing credits if your manuscript is well written. It’s always best to be honest with your bio. Do include any education, workshops, or even unique collections you may have that have aided you in your writing career. If you have special experiences that you feel added to your writing, such as raising children, public speaking, or even heavy reading, include it and explain why it helped. If the best writing background you can muster, however, is a writing prize in junior high school, it would be better not to mention any writing awards and leave the agent/publisher to speculate that better, but unmentioned credentials than this might exist. To gauge desired content, format, and length of book bios, the most simple and sure thing to do is to go to your local library or your local big box bookstore, go to where books similar to yours are shelved, and review the authors’ biographies provided in the "About the Author" sections and on the covers. These are bios that have already been crafted and have passed muster. The Cover Blurb If the synopsis is the thumbnail sketch for the book, the cover blurb is the all-important pinky tip version. Contemplate meeting someone in a cocktail situation and having his/her attention for only a moment. What would you tell them as succinctly as possible that would make them want to go out and track a copy of your book down? For good examples of cover blurbs, trudge back to that library or bookstore and start reading the covers of best sellers in your book’s genre. The Cover Letter You need a cover letter in the instance when you have already sent a query letter and have received a request to send more material—either a partial manuscript, with accompanying submission documents, or the full manuscript. This letter should be short and sweet and should not repeat everything you included in your query letter. (Many consider it a good idea to send copies of the initial query letter with each requested follow-up package they send.) It need only clearly identify what you are sending and that it was requested and provide all forms of address (e.g., postal address, e-mail address, telephone number, fax number) where you can be reached. If you were sending a partial or full manuscript because an agent or publisher has requested it in writing (or via e-mail), it probably would be a good idea to include a copy of that request with your cover letter and to refer to it specifically in your cover letter. This way there won’t be any doubt on the receiving end that the material, indeed, was requested. The Marketing Plan What’s a marketing plan? What goes into it? When should I send it? You might be asked to send a marketing plan along with your manuscript, or may choose to do so unasked if you can devise particularly strong marketing ideas for your book. Give the agent and publisher something to pitch besides your manuscript in this marketing plan. Be precise about what you are willing to do to promote the book. This is usually a new direction for writers who want to spend every spare moment doing what they love—writing—but really, it could be that something extra you need to get your manuscript accepted. For example, if you were willing to attend a book expo in Chicago or New York, most traditional publishers would be willing to pay all or at least a portion of the expenses incurred. Answer such questions as: Do you have a marketing budget? How much is it? Are you willing to actively pursue radio, television, and print interviews? Are you able to travel? Are you willing to give up your other pursuits and concentrate on marketing your book for at least the month it’s released? This is the critical time for books. If a publisher likes the manuscript but has doubts the author will work to market it, that could deter it being accepted. Don’t forget to mention a Web site and online marketing capability as well. An excellent book and online resource for book marketing is John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Book. His web URL is http://www.bookmarket.com. Resources and Links Print: Sierra Adare, What Editors Look For: How to Write Compelling Queries, Cover Letters, Synopses & Book Proposals (Cougar Imprints, 1995). This nifty little paperback contains advice from editors at Tor/Forge, Avon, NAL/Dutton, Putnam Berkley, and more. Judith Appelbaum, How to Get Happily Published: Fifth Edition (Harper Perennial, 1998). Many writers have credited this book with helping them to become published. Sheree Bykofsky and Jennifer Basye Sander, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published (Alpha Books, 1998). Deals with everything from creating a manuscript to the query and proposal stages. It includes tips for finding an agent and establishing publishing contacts. Blythe Camenson and Marshall J. Cook, Your Novel Proposal from Creation to Contract (Writer’s Digest Books, 2003) An up-to-date reference that runs the whole gamut of writing a novel. Thomas Clark, Queries & Submissions (Writer’s Digest Books, 1995). Has a tutorial on researching the marketplace as well as writing energetic queries and proposals. Scott Edelstein, Manuscript Submission: How to Put Together a Blue-Ribbon, Attention-Getting Query, Proposal, or Submission Package That Will Sell Your Fiction to an Agent or an Editor (Writer’s Digest Books, 1989). This little book is packed with marketing information for the fiction writer. Jeff Herman, Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. (published annually by Prima) Dean Koontz, How to Sell Best Selling Fiction (Writer’s Digest Books, 1981). A basic, straightforward writer’s aid. But it is out of print and hard to find. John Kremer, 1001 Ways to Market Your Book (Open Horizons, 2000). His web URL is http://www.bookmarket.com. Michael Larsen, How to Write a Book Proposal (Writer’s Digest Books, 2003) Literary Marketplace (Standard directory of services for the publishing industry. Available in the reference section at community libraries; also available by subscription Internet database.) Elizabeth Lyon and Natasha Kern, Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write (Perigee, 2002) Pam McCutheon, Writing the Synopsis (Gryphon Books, 1998) Stephen Blake Mettee, The Fast Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal (Word Dancer, 2001) Rachel Vater, Agents Directory 2004 (Guild Press of Indiana, 2004) John Wood, Attention Grabbing Query & Cover Letters (Writer’s Digest Books, 1996). An informative and instructive book by an acquisitions editor. There are samples of good and bad queries and cover letters. Writer’s Digest, Novel Writer’s Guide (annual; available in big bookstores) The annual Writer’s Market series published by Writer’s Digest (which can also be obtained on constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Market Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com). Internet Links: Columbus Metropolitan Library site (http://www.cml.lib.oh.us). You can go here to check for other books of similar content. English Professor Alice Reid, M. Ed., offers an in-depth instructional guide, A Practical Guide for Writing Proposals, at http://members.dca.net/areid/proposal.htm. Library of Congress catalog Web site (http://www.loc.gov/index.html). You can go here to check for titles of other books and to check for publishers of similar books. Jillian Manus’s article "How to Write a Non-Fiction Proposal," located on the Manus & Associates Literary Agency Web site at http://www.manuslit.com/flash/index.html, in the "Info for Writers" section.Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html/. This provides a subscription service on what’s being published. Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom—especially the "Hot Deal" section. Query letter samples can be found at the Web sites http://hollylisle.com/fm/Articles/agent2.html, http://rosenberggroup.com, http://www.nicholassparks.com/WritersCorner/Query.html. Morris Rosenthal’s article on estimating potential sales for a new book at http://www.fonerbooks.com/best.htm. Science Fiction Writer’s site (http://www.sfwa.org). U.S. stamps for SASEs can be bought directly at http://www.usps.com. Watchdog Internet sites on agents and/or publishers can be found at: Preditors & Editors at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/ Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware Agent Research and Evaluation Service at http://www.agentresearch.com/ Writers Weekly’s "Whispers and Warnings" section at http://www.writersweekly.com/whispers_and_warnings.php. The professional agent’s association (AAR) at http://www.aar-online.org/. The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE; http://wgaeast.org). A services and price comparison of the major POD producers can be found on Clea Saal’s Web site at http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/index.html. Chapter Six: Submitting It: Agents The first consideration in the submission process for publication of your manuscript is whether or not you need to engage the services of a literary agent to seek and represent the sale of your work. Agents aren’t required for all approaches to publishers. Agents will only be become involved when there is enough money in a publication deal to make their time and effort worthwhile, which means they operate almost exclusively in the realm of major trade publishing houses. Since most books are published by lesser publishing houses, most books actually reach print without an agent. You would have no need for—and, in fact, probably will not be able to engage—an agent if you are self-publishing; if your work is an article, short story, or poetry; or if it is the type of book that is more appropriate to be published by a small, medium-sized, or academic press. For these types of manuscripts, you can submit directly to publishers. (See chapter 7, "Submitting It: Publishers.") This chapter provides responses and suggested resources for the questions of whether you need an agent to represent your work, and, if you do, how to go about deciding who to submit the manuscript to and how to submit it. Agents: Questions What services does an agent perform and how much does it cost me? The good literary agent will target the search for a publisher on the best fit for the author; will fully understand the provisions of the contract offered by a publisher (to the extent that most lawyers can’t, because most lawyers don’t specialize in publishing terms) and will be able to explain the terms to the author; will negotiate the best possible terms and advance for the author; may edit—as part of the basic service—the manuscript to make it more marketable; will run interference for the author during the publication process and the marketing; will help take the best-possible advantage of the rights; and will handle the business matters for the book, including the collection and disbursement of royalties. Literary agents work through networking. They network with publishers and other agents to determine what is on demand—and at what general price. They usually make their offers of representation based on this knowledge. They also network to determine what publishers will fit best with the clients they are representing. Reputable agents will charge a standard percentage on the advance and royalties from all uses of rights—most generally 15 percent currently (or 10 percent if the author has already found a publisher and wants representation from the time of contract signing)—plus a reasonable fee for copying and postage on manuscripts they send to prospective publishers—all of which normally is collected out of the money as it comes in from the publisher(s). Note, however, that a trend has started for even reputable agents to charge the author for expenses directly related to submitting material to publishers (e.g., copying and postage) as the expenses are incurred. If this is to be the case, the conditions under which these charges will be passed directly to the author should be clearly stipulated in the contract. Most generally, all advances and royalties come through the agent to the author, so agents usually take their cut out as it passes through their hands. Do I need an agent? If you are self-publishing or submitting to academic presses or small or even medium-sized trade publishers that aren’t known for giving advances or if you have a short work to place (e.g., a newspaper article, a poem, a short story, a magazine article), not only will you not need a literary agent, but it also is unlikely that literary agents will be interested in representing you. They will only be interested if there is enough money in the publishing deal to make the time and effort they put into finding a publisher for you worth their while (or if they already represent you for other works that have been placed relatively easily). If you are trying to be published through one of the big, New York publishing houses, get a reputable literary agent to represent you, if you can—if for no other reason than that this level of publisher usually will not look at unagented work. The difficulty in finding an agent will be a good index to the difficulty in finding a publisher. Finding an agent and publisher is one of the Catch-22 propositions for your first published book: while you are searching for one, it likely will feel like neither agents nor publishers will have an incentive to consider your project unless you have already published (and therefore already have an agent and a publisher, neither of which wanted to take you on unless you had already published). Many uncredentialed businesses and individuals only pose as serious literary agents; they use the publishing hopes of neophyte book authors to prey on them. Thoroughly check out prospective agents (the means to do this will be explained later in this chapter), and if the literary agent asks for money up front, or says there is a reading fee, or has someone to recommend to you to improve your book in any way for a fee, run for the exit. I’ve been told I can just skip the literary agent and get a lawyer to find a publisher for me and handle the contract. Wouldn’t that be faster, easier, and cheaper? If you have a "big" book and/or are interested in publishing multiple books, there’s a lot an agent can do for you after you’ve landed a publisher (and the assumption here is that you landed a contract offer from the publisher yourself and wonder if you need an agent from that point—or whether a good lawyer would be enough): There are very few lawyers (comparatively) who know book contracts as well as literary agents do to get the best benefit for the author to begin with (and chances are they will end up charging more than a literary agent does). If you have a "big" book that attracts subsidiary rights interest, once again, a literary agent will know far more what to do and how much to negotiate for than most lawyers will. If you hit snags with the publisher (disagreement over cover, title, or content), your agent will either help convince you—as an objective observer—that you are less right than the publisher, or will go to bat for you with the publisher. A lawyer won’t. Your literary agent will help—at least in relevant advice—with how you handle your promotions responsibilities. A lawyer won’t. Your agent will help handle financial settlement from a contract and will collect and disperse your share of the royalties—all for the original commission. A lawyer will do it for an add-on monthly fee. An agent will help you with advice and guidance on your subsequent books. A lawyer will look at you cross-eyed and remain speechless. When you get around to offering your next book, chances are your agent will be there to find another publisher for you. A lawyer won’t be. Lawyers aren’t in the "finding a publisher" business. If they were, they would be literary agents, not lawyers. How do I find an agent? What you probably want to do is land an agent, not just find one. Good agents are pretty well publicized if all you want to do is find one. You’ll find that they aren’t all that easy to convince to represent your book project even after you find them. Landing an appropriate and reputable literary agent requires considerable fortitude and legwork, but we can recommend a comprehensive program that has worked well for others. The most efficient way to go about this is to do careful research up front and to target only agents who you think you’d be willing to work with and who could serve your book the best. This means you need to zero in on agents who would represent your work in the best light, obtain the best benefit for you, and be the most reputable available. There are several ways to find out what agents and publishers are available and to zero in on the best fits for your book. All of these ways should be employed to obtain a master list of possibilities. • Go to the local big box bookstore and find the section presenting books that are most similar to the genre you want to publish. (Fiction genres and nonfiction categories are discussed in chapter 3, "Book Genres and Category Listings," with asterisks marked beside specific shelf sections you’ll find in most Barnes and Noble stores.) Note down the publishers of these books and check out the acknowledgment sections to see if specific agents are identified (and praised by their client author). You can find "similar books" listings on some library Web sites and at such online bookstores as Amazon.com as well. • While in the bookstore, go to the writers’ reference section. Buy some of the books that list agents and publishers. The most useful of these are the annual Writer’s Market series published by Writer’s Digest (which can also be obtained on constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Market Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com), and the already-mentioned Jeff Herman’s annual Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. • Also, go to the local public library and ask for the latest edition of the Literary Marketplace, which probably will be in the reference section. (It’s in two volumes the size of big-city telephone directories). This is the bible for the publishing industry concerning who does what and how to get in touch with them. • Look for a subsidiary rights section on publisher Web sites and note agents listed there (and elsewhere) who frequently place books with target publishers • Follow the discussions on the Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom—especially the "Hot Deal" section. Also, keep track of Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html, which is a subscription service on what’s being published. • For a fee, the Agent Research and Evaluation service will review a précis of your novel and provide you with the names of agents who have sold similar work (http://www.agentresearch.com). • Search the Internet for agent lists. Good listings for both U.S. and U.K. agents can be found at http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com (in "Writers Area") and http://www.writersservices.com/index.htm (use the buttons on the home page). When you have a list of literary agents who seem to be likely to be interested in your book, you now can start focusing on the most desirable of these agents. The first thing you should do is to set up a record-keeping system to keep track of the status of your submissions. At minimum, you should include check-in categories of where you sent queries and follow-up material (with specific names and contact information), dates of submissions, and dates and content of responses. When you send queries out that include self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASEs), we suggest that you use the individual addressee as the return address on these envelopes so you can be sure you can identify who is sending a response to you. (They sometimes send short form letters that don’t identify themselves.) You are now ready to review all of the information you have gathered on your master list and categorize these in sections from the most attractive to you as far as benefits and services and closest to the content and style of your book to the least desirable. Concentrate now on the top three or four categories (but save the categorized master list; your journey to publishing may be so rough you may eventually have to consider querying agents in the lower categories). You now find out all you can about the reputations of these agents on the various watchdog Internet sites. Comprehensive sites can be found at: • Preditors & Editors at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/, • Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware, • Agent Research and Evaluation Service at http://www.agentresearch.com/, and • The professional agent’s association (AAR) at http://www.aar-online.org.• Writers Weekly’s "Whispers and Warnings" page at http://www.writersweekly.com/whispers_and_warnings.php. This process of determining who will actually deal with you honestly will have weeded out a high percentage of the agents you had on your master list. Don’t mourn over how short your vetted list now appears; take heart that the time and money you are now going to put into querying agents has a higher probability of success than all of those around you who didn’t vet their choices first and who are now engaging in unproductive and ultimately expensive and disheartening discussion with unsuitable and/or disreputable agents. How can I find the agent of a specific author? You can find out about authors and what they have written by checking them out in Contemporary Authors (Gale Group publishers), an annual publication, which sells for $180 but which is available in some libraries. (Information on the 2004 edition can be found at http://www.galegroup.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&titleCode=CA&type=3&id=185108). You may also be able to find this on Bill Hammon’s "Bill’s List of Literary Agents, Editors, and Their Authors’ Books" Web site at http://www.wrhammons.com/literary-agents-books.htm. With an index to what authors have written a work that is similar to your own work, you can then often identify their literary agent(s) by checking out the acknowledgment section of their books and/or by running an "authors name" plus "agent" keyword service on a good Internet search engine such as Google.com. The Publisher’s Lunch service of the Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) also reports what is selling and to whom through what literary agent at the upper advance levels. Authors are also linked with their agents in the Writers Directory, which is published annually by St. James Press and which can be found in larger libraries. Do be aware that established authors do occasionally change agents. How can I find addresses of agents? Most agents have Web sites that will include contact information. As a literary agency is in the promotions business, you should be at least a little leery of any agency founded after the advent of the Internet that does not have an easily located Web site (allowing some latitude for good agents who simply hate the Internet). Addresses for many literary agencies in the United States can also be found in the annual Literary Marketplace, which should be available in your local library reference section. An online e-mail address directory of almost 2,000 top literary agents and publishers of adult trade books in the United States can be found at http://everyonewhosanyone.com/wps.html. Where on the Internet can I find listings of U.S. and U.K. agents? How do I find out if an agent is reputable? Listings for U.S. agents can be found at http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com (in "Writers Area"), and a list of the agent members of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) can be found at http://www.aar-online.org. Listings of a good many U.S. agents (with recommendations of whether they are reputable or not) can be found at Preditors & Editors at http://anotherrealm.com/prededitors/. You can also query Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware and Agent Research and Evaluation Service at http://www.agentresearch.com directly to check out the reputations of agents. Listings for U.K. agents can be found at http://www.writersservices.com ("UK agents list" button on home page) I’ve heard that I should find an agent located near to me. True? It would be advantageous to be relatively close to your agent (but few authors are—most U.S./Canadian market agents are in New York; most authors aren’t), but of more importance is where your agent is located relative to the best market for your book as well as to publishers producing books for this market. What’s the target audience for your book? What agents are best placed to sell that book to a publisher targeting that audience? If you’ve written a regional book about the Northwest Cascades, you probably would do better with an agent and publisher on the West Coast rather than in New York. How do I find an agent for gift/miniature (or other specialty) books? This category isn’t listed in the writer’s guides I’ve seen. Tracking down an agent for any specialty line of books can require considerable sleuthing that often is not rewarded, because many types of books like gift and miniature books are, in fact, not handled by agents. Literary agents work primarily in areas where considerable money is involved, which largely restrict their activity to mainline books and big publishing houses. Also, many publishers producing specialty books like gift and miniature books directly hire their own writers to produce these. Often it is best to work into such a question sideward or backwards. First, consider what other genres are similar to the one you seek and query agents in that field. A miniature book, for instance, often is also considered an inspirational book, and some agents do handle inspirational books. Check out the Web sites for some of these agents and query ones that seem likely to be interested in what you write. Also, go to bookstores and check to see what publishers are producing the types of books you wish to sell and query these publishers directly (or query these publishers and/or the other authors writing in this field about the possibility that literary agents represent these genres.) Should I send one query at a time or multiple ones? The query phase is very much a "just shopping," no-commitment-from-any-party phase of the submissions process. Do not assume the first one or two agents you query is going to show interest or that you have any obligation (no matter what their submissions guidelines might say) to query agents one at a time. As outlined in the "How do I find an agent" section above, a good strategy is to research agents first and only query the ones who appear to be appropriate to your work and who have good reputations, but to query in multiple batches, starting with a group of the most attractive, and, if those don’t work, moving on to groups that are acceptable if not as attractive as those in priority groups. This is not a static process. You will find that you are continually refining your submission documents and searching for new agent possibilities. But, although agents will press for exclusive review whenever they can, an author should not feel bound to treat this as a one-up, consecutive submission process. If you do treat it as such, you are likely to long buried before you find your ideal agent. What if more than one agent wants to review the manuscript? If more than one agent wants to review the manuscript, this is good news for the author. Send out multiple copies—as many as you can afford to produce and can keep status records on. Avoid agreeing to exclusive reviews, and, if they must be granted, provide an explicit end date on an exclusive look (four weeks should be more than plenty) and then put the manuscript back into circulation after that date whether or not the agent has responded by that time. Keep it moving until you have at least a verbal, and preferably a written, commitment on it. It is not in the author’s interest to lose control over the circulation of the manuscript or to leave it in isolated hands for more than a few weeks at a time. Although agents certainly want to have exclusive looks at manuscripts, they know how the multiple submission process works in real life, and authors should feel no obligation to make greater commitments than are being made to them. If an agent asks for an exclusive review of a manuscript and you already have in the hands of others, just tell the agent that is the case but that you’ll be happy to send it for review anyway; in most cases the agent will probably go ahead and accept the manuscript for review. What if more than one agent wants to represent the book? If more than one agent wants to represent the book, it’s time to look not only at the benefits and obligations of the contract but also at the agents themselves and at their comparative track record in your genre. Most authors are looking for a congenial long-term partnership when they are shopping for a literary agent (and most agents are looking for that as well; they generally want to establish a stable of producing authors). You should have considered what you want in an agent before you went looking for one, and during this process, you should have gotten an idea—updated as you continued your research and actually came into contact with agents—of how the agent prospects sorted themselves out in terms of attractiveness. If you have two or more to choose from, remember that this is someone you are going to have to trust and work with under sometimes stressful situations. Your decision will want to consider the best balance of business savvy, track record, regard for your work, and compatibility (with you) that you can discern. It isn’t always a matter of who will probably get you the biggest advance in the short run. What would be the ultimate great agent? Although anyone’s idea of a great agent would vary from individual to individual, the ultimate great agent would, of course, be the one who immediately sold your manuscript to a publisher for a six- or seven-figure advance and to a major motion picture producer for an additional six- or seven-figure option. But in the real world, we could look for an agent who had been with a major, successful literary agency for just a few years (thus, who is still learning from the pros around them in the agency) and who had a respectable number of sales during that time—but who was not so successful and well known yet to already have a healthy list of highly favored (i.e., favored more than you) and demanding authors. Our ideal agent would have had several years of prior experience as an acquisitions editor (preferably specializing in the same genre[s] we specialize in) in a large, successful publishing house. And, most important, our ideal agent would believe in the high quality and marketability of our work, would have a communication level that met our expectation, and would be a good personality match. What do "no unsolicited submissions" and "no unsolicited manuscripts" mean? What a "no unsolicited submissions" statement posted on an agent’s Web site or appended to an entry in an agents listing means on the surface is that this agent obtains his/her clients exclusively through referrals and his/her own initiative. In practice, however, authors shopping for an agent have often found that agents show interest when they ignore this warning and that many agents perhaps are using this device merely to weed out the meek and to keep submissions volume down. In any case, don’t expect to receive any acknowledgement of a submission or the courtesy of a rejection notice if you choose to ignore this warning and submit material anyway—just be pleasantly surprised if they respond in the affirmative. In contrast, "no unsolicited manuscripts" simply means that the agent wants to see a formal query letter before you send any portion of your manuscript and will ask to see more material if they think they might be interested in representing the work. Nearly all agents prefer to receive a query letter first unless they explicitly announce that you can just go ahead and send the entire manuscript. What’s an "exclusive"? Agents will sometimes request (or require) an exclusive period of review of a manuscript, a period during which no other agent will be permitted to be reviewing the manuscript and deciding whether to offer representation. This may or may not reflect a higher-than-normal interest in the manuscript, and some agents say they will provide helpful margin comments on the manuscript, whether or not they choose to offer representation, if they know they are having an exclusive look at it. In general, however, the probability that a given agent will offer representation is so low and they take so long considering the manuscript (more often, they take a long time before they even start to read the manuscript) that it is not in the author’s interest to have a manuscript tied up in review by a single literary agent for very long. Thus, it normally is a good idea for authors not to grant exclusive reviews whenever they can avoid it, and, if they cannot avoid it, it is imperative that they set time limits on the exclusive period (four weeks is a generous time) and put the manuscript back into general circulation at the end of this time whether or not the agent has followed up by that time. Many authors advise that when they’ve been asked for an exclusive but responded that the manuscript already was in general circulation, the agent has asked to see the manuscript anyway and has dropped the request for an exclusive review. Do I need an agent for poetry, short stories, and periodical articles? There is little or no advance money in poetry, short stories, or periodical articles, so literary agents generally will not represent these for anyone but an established and high-profit book author they already represent (or want to represent). Publishers in these areas do not expect material to be submitted through an agent. You can find links to over 100 literary magazines to which you can submit short stories on the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Web site at http://www.clmp.org/cgi-bin/clmp/webdata_members.cgi?pagenum=1&cgifunction=Search as well as at http://www.newpages.com/npguides/litmags.htm. Can I query by telephone? It is a rare agent who will welcome a cold-call query for representation by phone. They normally are busy with other work and thus are distracted by any telephone call. In addition, the nature of this business is in the written word. Agents want to get a sense of how well you write and how well you organize and sell ideas on paper from the point of receiving a written query letter. An author who is not already an established celebrity and who cold calls an agent shouldn’t expect anything better than an invitation to send a query letter on the project—which is no farther into the process than if they had dispensed with the telephone call and just sent the query letter to begin with. Can I query by e-mail, and can I include attachments? The ability to query by e-mail is a quickly evolving concept. Before the 2001–2002 anthrax attacks on the U.S. postal system, literary agents generally did not accept solicitation by e-mail. Since that time, however, agents have increasingly welcomed receiving initial queries electronically. If you can easily track down an e-mail address for a prospective agent, chances are good that they will accept an e-mail query. (If they don’t respond to such a query, just send a separate query by mail as well, and you won’t really be any worse off than if you hadn’t tried to query by e-mail.) Agents often include e-mail addresses on their Web sites and/or in the various annual compendiums of agents and publishers (e.g., Writer’s Market, Jeff Herman’s guide, and the Literary Marketplace). A good many are also listed on the Writers Free Reference Web site at http://www.writers-free-reference.com/agents/. An e-mail address directory of almost 2,000 top literary agents and publishers of adult trade books in the United States can be found at http://everyonewhosanyone.com/wps.html. Sending an unsolicited electronic attachment, however, is an entirely different matter. Computer viruses travel by e-mail attachments, and agent and publisher computer networks are particularly vulnerable to virus attack. Thus, any unsolicited attachment you send is very likely to be automatically deleted before delivery by the agent’s computer protection programs or simply will not be opened by the agent. Thus, when you solicit by e-mail, it is best to send a succinct query message (with contact numbers and addresses clearly provided) and—if you wish to send representative material from the manuscript—a very (very) short portion of the manuscript within the body of the e-mail. What are agents looking for and how do I know what they are looking for? Be prepared for circular talk from literary agents and publishers concerning what they are looking for, especially for fiction (the offerings of which have swamped the available market). They all say they are looking for something fresh and new (and indeed best sellers usually get to where they are by blazing trails), but publishers will typically reject authors, especially first-time authors, by saying that their work doesn’t follow this or that formula or theme development that is guaranteeing adequate sales this month. Basically, agents are looking for books that they can quickly and easily sell and that will be highly profitable. In many cases, what is selling well at the moment will heavily influence their thinking. (And publishers are looking for the specific book that will fill a hole in their catalog, which is something an author can rarely guess—not the next best manuscript of just any variety.) If you have something offbeat or cross-genre, you might consider electronic publishing, which is more experimental and freewheeling, rather than a traditional print publisher. Through print-on-demand publishing, you can produce a book that is virtually identical to one published as a traditional printed book (but will be more expensive to buy and nearly impossible to get into traditional book stores). There’s still the problem of connecting your book with your readers, of course, if your book is so different from anything else that it will be difficult to match with the target audience in promotion or to decide where it should be shelved in the bookstore where those who might be interested in it will be able to find it. How long does it take an agent to reply to my query? It will take an agent anywhere from five minutes (for an electronic query) to forever to respond to an initial query. Responses to most initial queries probably fall between two and four weeks, which allows time for the query to transit and to work its way up the incoming mail backlog at the literary agency. Agents request to look at far more material than they are going to offer to represent, so they will usually determine fairly quickly whether they are interested in seeing partials or full manuscripts. Of course, determining that they aren’t interested in your offering does not necessarily mean that you will receive a quick rejection; agents, like everyone else, must prioritize their activities, and they often will give priority to transactions they wish to pursue over those they need to close out. Reviews of partials and full manuscripts can take from six weeks to six months or more for review, depending on the agent’s review workload and the complexity of the internal decision-making process within the literary agency. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason determining whether an prospective client will benefit or hurt themselves by sending follow-up queries on the status of their submission, although some authors advise that they have bolstered their submissions and quickened a favorable response by reporting events that enhance the marketability of the manuscript (e.g., the manuscript winning an award or the subject of the biography announcing for president) or by (truthfully) reporting that another major agent has made a representation offer. Follow-up queries at the query letter stage are probably useless, as this is a stage where the piles of letters are voluminous, no commitments exist, and agents are unlikely to be keeping searchable records. If the agent has had a partial or full manuscript in hand for review for more than four months or so, a little nudge could be justified. Should I phone and see if an agent got my submission? Agents rarely appreciate telephone calls checking on the status of submissions. Authors tend to view their book submissions as a much more momentous event than do agents, who receive many such submissions every day and who, when submission receipts are combine with everything else they have to do in their profession, are much too busy and frazzled to frequently hold the hands of individual manuscript submitters. Chances are very good that even if you did call, you wouldn’t get through to anyone who would know—or would check—whether your submission had been received. If you feel you really must know this, send the manuscript by some registered means (but not in such a way that an individual agent would have to personally sign for it, or it just might come back unopened). Where can I find an agent for my screen script? Agents for screen scripts are listed at http://www.scriptsales.com/DDReadAgents.html, which is the "done deal" listing for screen script agents and deals, and on the Publishing Trends Web site at http://www.publishingtrends.com/download/HollywoodAgent.pdf. Where can I find an agent for my children’s picture book? Do I need to have the illustrations done myself? Unless you are an established celebrity who is adding children’s picture books to your portfolio, there is little likelihood you’ll find an agent for such a book. Children’s picture books normally are small-budget projects, and there is not enough money involved to attract participation by an agent. For help in finding a publisher for such books, explore the following Internet Web sites: • http://www.scbwi.com • http://www.write4kids.com • http://www.cbcbooks.org You do not need to find your own illustrator for your children’s picture book. In fact, most children’s book publishers will prefer to find their own illustrator. What are the AAR and WGAE? The Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR; http://www.aar-online.org) is a not-for-profit organization of independent literary and dramatic agents, who must meet credentials and sales standards to join and whose membership criteria include a code of ethics to be followed in dealing with author clients and with each other. It is considered highly advantageous to have an agent who is an AAR member. The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE; http://www.wgaeast.org) is a labor union, promoting and protecting the professional and artistic interests of writers and others in the publishing industry. Does an agent have to have a license? Agents do not have to have licenses. Anyone can put up a Web site (the modern version of a shingle) saying they are an agent and start accepting clients. The most reputable ones who also have good track records in selling books to publishers are members of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR), which has a Web site that identifies its members (http://www.aar-online.org), but AAR doesn’t police its members. It therefore is a good idea to always cross check with Preditors & Editors (http://anotherrealm.com/prededitors/) and Writer Beware (http://www.sfwa.org/beware) publishing industry watchdog organizations. Efforts are under way by such people as the managers of Writer Beware to establish a license system for agents—something like real estate agents, where licensing wouldn’t automatically add lots of money to the bill as it does for lawyers and doctors. (The higher prices brought for licenses in the latter come because these are professions that require considerable expensive education and that skyrocket insurance rates as soon as the shingle gets hung). Is it OK to offer two related books in the same query to an agent? Agents tend to focus on single-book sales, although they very likely will be favorably influenced by knowing that there are other manuscript on offer that are related to a good book. But it’s best to pick the stronger of the two for the direct pitch and to mention that the second related one is also complete and on offer. Once I have an offer of representation from an agent, what sort of questions should I be asking the agent? There are several categories of questions you should clear up with a literary agent before signing with them; These concern the credentials of the agent for selling your specific book, what your working relationship both in the short and long terms will be with the agent, what specifically the agent will be doing to sell your book, how the business matters concerning you book will be handled, and what the agreed exit strategy will be if/when your working relationship ends. If the agent refuses or is reluctant to discuss these questions before the signing of a representation agreement, you can assume that there is a negative reason they will not do so and that you probably should reconsider establishing a working relationship with this agent. Questions on the background of the agent/agency include: How long have you been in business, what is your personal relevant experience and training background, how many and what have you sold, what have you sold that was similar to my work, how large is the agency, and are you a member of AAR? Questions on the working relationship include: Who exactly will I be working with on this book, what will happen to my books if this person leaves the agency, what are the steps that have to be taken to find a publisher and the general timeline for how long this should take, how and how often will you keep me informed on what is happening, will I be consulted on any and all offers and have the final approval, and if publishers in general suggest that additional work needs to be done on my book for it to be publishable, what sort of support will I get from you to accomplish this, and what expectations do you have for our relationship in future book projects? Questions on selling the book include (in addition to the foregoing): How do you plan to market my book, how will the expenses of doing this be handled, and what role do you see me playing in this effort? Questions on business matters include: Do you issue an agent-author agreement; what are the provisions in this agreement; may I review a copy of the agreement with counsel before signing; what is your commission rate; do you have specialists who handle movie, television, and foreign rights; how/when are client funds deposited; are author and agency revenues kept in separate bank accounts; when/how do you report accounting; and what are your policies about charging clients for expenses? Questions on exit understandings include: Do you contract a minimum time for your relationship, especially if the book isn’t selling; if I’m not happy with the arrangement, what provisions have you made for me to amicably terminate our relationship; and if our arrangement is severed, how are residual business matters (e.g., handling of subsidiary rights) handled? Resources and Links Print Blyth Camenson, How to Sell, Then Write Your Nonfiction Book (Contemporary Books, 2002) Contemporary Authors (Gale Group publishers) is an annual publication (selling for $180 but available in some libraries) that provides extensive bibliographic information on authors. (Information on the 2004 edition can be found at http://www.galegroup.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&titleCode=CA&type=3&id=185108) Jeff Herman, Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. (Published annually) Literary Marketplace (Standard directory of services for the publishing industry. Available in the reference section at community libraries; also available by subscription database.) Rachel Vater, Agent Director 2004 (Guild Press of Indiana, 2004) Writers Directory, a resource linking authors with their agents, produced annually by St. St. James Press. The annual Writer’s Market series published by Writer’s Digest can also be obtained on the constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Market Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com). Internet Links Agent associations: The Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) can be found at http://www.aar-online.org The Writers Guild of American East (WGAE) can be found at http://www.wgaeast.org. Information on publishers of children’s picture books can be found at http://www.scbwi.com http://www.write4kids.com http://www.cbcbooks.org. Information on the 2004 edition of Contemporary Authors, which provides extensive bibliographic information on authors can be found at http://www.galegroup.com/servlet/ItemDetailServlet?region=9&imprint=000&titleCode=CA&type=3&id=185108). Lists of literary agents, with some information on the authors they have represented can be found at Bill Hammon’s "Bill’s List of Literary Agents, Editors, and Their Authors’ Books" Web site at http://www.wrhammons.com/literary-agents-books.htm. Extensive biographies on authors, often including identification of literary agency address lists can be found at http://www.publishingtrends.com. Todd James Pierce’s site at http://www.literaryagents.org. Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html, providing a subscription service on what’s being published. Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom—especially the "Hot Deal" section. An e-mail address directory of almost 2,000 top literary agents and publishers of adult trade books in the United States can be found at http://everyonewhosanyone.com/wps.html. The Writers Free Reference Web site at http://www.writers-free-reference.com/agents/ also provides agent e-mail addresses. Screen scripts agents are listed at http://www.scriptsales.com/DDReadAgents.html. http://www.publishingtrends.com/download/HollywoodAgent.pdf. Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Web site at http://www.clmp.org/cgi-bin/webdata_members.cgi?cgifunction=Search. Lists of literary magazines can also be found at http://www.newpages.com/npguides/litmags.htm. Watchdog Internet sites on agents can be found at Preditors & Editors at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/ Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware Agent Research and Evaluation Service at http://www.agentresearch.com/ The professional agent’s association (AAR) at http://www.aar-online.org/ Weekly’s "Whispers and Warnings" page at http://www.writersweekly.com/whispers_and_warnings.php. Web site list for UK literary agents: http://www.writersservices.com/index.htm (use the buttons on the home page). Web site list for U.S. literary agents: http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com (in "Writers Area"). Chapter Seven: Submitting It: Publishers If you have retained a literary agent, the agent will take care of the submissions to publishers and you normally only need follow the instructions of the agent on what material will be needed for the submissions. (The agent may also enlist you to beef up your overall portfolio or to try to track down endorsements for the book, however.) But in many cases you can submit your manuscript directly to publishers without first obtaining an agent. Agents come into play almost exclusively when you are trying to sell your manuscript to major publishers that provide advances that support large agent commissions. If your book would fit better with the catalogs of small or medium-sized publishers or academic publishers, few of which pay advances that would attract the participation of literary agents, than it would with a major publishing house, you can submit your work directly to these publishers. Large publishers will usually clearly signal in their posted submissions guidelines whether or not submissions must be made through an agent (e.g., with the phrases "unagented submission welcome" or "no unagented submissions accepted" or by noting how many agented as opposed to unagented manuscripts they had bought in the previous year). For smaller or academic presses, you can assume the publisher will accept unagented submissions unless their submissions guidelines specify otherwise. The previous two chapters dealt with general questions on submitting manuscripts and with questions on submitting manuscripts to agents. This chapter deals with questions of submitting directly to publishers—with answers and methods often being the same as submitting to agents—and provides links to both print and Internet resources concerning these questions. Publishers: Questions How do I find a publisher? Finding an appropriate and reputable publisher through direct submission requires considerable careful effort. The most efficient way to go about this is to do careful research up front and to target only publishers that will produce a high-quality book and that are able to profitably sell books similar to yours. This means you need to zero in on publishers that would represent your work in the best light, give you the best benefit, and be the most reputable available. Unfortunately, unless you don’t mind making no money or taking a loss on a book you’ve spent considerable time writing, the ability of the publisher to sell books like yours should loom high as a requirement in your evaluation of your publisher options. There are several ways to find out what publishers are available and to zero in on the best fits for your book. All of these ways can be employed to obtain a master list of possibilities. • Go to the local big box bookstore and find the section presenting books that are most similar to the genre you want to publish. (Fiction genres and nonfiction categories are discussed in chapter 3, "Book Genres and Category Listings.") You can find "similar books" listings on some library Web sites and at such online bookstores as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com as well. • While in the bookstore, go to the writers’ reference section. Buy some of the books that list agents and publishers. The most useful of these are the annual Writer’s Market series published by Writer’s Digest (which can also be obtained on constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Market Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com), and Jeff Herman’s annual Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. • Also, go to the local public library and ask for the latest edition of the Literary Marketplace, which probably will be in the reference section. (It’s in two volumes the size of big-city telephone directories). This is the bible for the publishing industry concerning who does what and how to get in touch with them. • Run a Google.com Internet search on publishers in the genre of the book you have written and learn to interpret what types of publishers these are and what their services and submissions guidelines are. • Follow the discussions on the Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom—especially the "Hot Deal" section. Also, keep track of Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html, which is a subscription service on what’s being published. When you have a list of publishers that seem likely to be interested in your book and that will accept unagented submissions, you now can start focusing on the most desirable of these publishers—in just the same way you would focus on finding an agent. The first thing you should do is to set up a record-keeping system to keep track of the status of your submissions. At minimum, you should include check-in categories of where you sent queries and follow-up material (with specific names and contact information), dates of submissions, and dates and content of responses. When you send queries out that include self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASEs), we suggest that you use the individual addressee as the return address on these envelopes, so you can be sure you can identify who is sending a response to you. (They sometimes send short form letters that don’t identify themselves.) You are now ready to review all of the information you have gathered on your master list and categorize these in sections from the most attractive to you as far as benefits and services and closest to the content and style of your book to the least desirable. Concentrating on the top three or four categories (while saving the categorized master list for possible use later), you now find out all you can about the reputations of these publishers on the Preditors & Editors publishing industry watchdog site at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/. This process of determining who will actually deal with you honestly will have weeded out a high percentage of the publishers you had on your master list. Don’t mourn over how short your vetted list now appears; take heart that the time and money you are now going to put into querying publishers has a higher probability of success than all of those around you who didn’t vet their choices first and who are now engaging in unproductive and ultimately expensive and disheartening discussion with unsuitable and/or disreputable publishers. Do I want a Big New York publishing house or a small publisher? A big New York publishing house most probably will bring you the most money for your book—especially in advances—and fame. But, unless you have written a certified blockbuster, you may do better with a smaller publisher that will spend more than the three weeks the major publishers reputedly give a book to rise to the top before cutting the advertising budget. A good, comfortable fit with your acquisitions editor and copyeditors at a publishing house is very important, but, unless you don’t care about sales (read "connecting with an audience"), pay even greater attention to how your book is going to be marketed. Expect to spend as much if not more time and energy getting your book to market as you expended in writing it. The market is saturated with books trying to connect with their readers, and there is an aspiring book author under every rock. Publishing houses increasingly are expecting authors to carry the bulk of the publicity burden. Some authors are now contracting with publicists to augment the advertising of their books, although the field of reputable—and relatively inexpensive—book promotion firms is quite slim. If the publicist you are considering contracting is a member of the Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/), you can be relatively assured that he/she is reputable. What are publishers looking for and how do I know what they are looking for? Just as is the case with agents, be prepared for circular talk from publishers concerning what they are looking for, especially for fiction (the offerings of which have swamped the available market). They all say they are looking for something fresh and new (and indeed best sellers usually get to where they are by blazing trails), but publishers will typically reject authors, especially first-time authors, by saying that their work doesn’t follow this or that formula that is guaranteeing adequate sales this month. If you have something off-beat or cross-genre, consider electronic publishing, which is more experimental and freewheeling, rather than a traditional print publisher. Through print-on-demand (POD) publishing, you can produce a book that is virtually identical to one published as a traditional printed book. the downside to this is that it will be more expensive to buy and nearly impossible to get into traditional book stores—and, thus, it will be harder for you connect your book with readers. Are there differences in the steps to take to find a publisher for fiction, including a novella and short stories, than those needed for nonfiction and poetry? You would want to try to engage an agent for many book publishers in fiction and some in nonfiction. Otherwise you can query publishers directly. Agents usually handle book-length anthologies of short stories and poetry only when their authors already are clients for books in other genres. Individual short stories and poems can be directly submitted to appropriate magazines. Magazine publishers that accept submissions for these can be found in specialized Writer’s Market editions published annually by Writer’s Digest. An extensive contact list for magazines also can be ordered from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Web site at http://www.clmp.org/about/dir.html, and a listing of literary magazines can be found at http://www.newpages.com/npguides/litmags.htm, and a list of literary magazines can be found at http://www.newpages.com/npguides/litmags.htm. Novellas are a little difficult to sell to publishers. They are too long for magazines and not long enough for profitable print publication individually unless the author already is well published. A search of annual publisher’s listings and of the Internet, however, will surface some publishers that deal in combined volumes of novellas. The novella is also an ideal length for electronic publishing, although that form is really too early in its infancy to return much of a profit yet. How can I find a publisher for foreign fiction translated into English? Some academic presses in the United States specialize in regional literary fiction translated into English (e.g., the University of Virginia press has special series devoted to both Central American and Africa literary fiction). Presses that have such specialties include these in the lists of the genres they publish. The following publishers claim to specialize in worldwide fiction translated into English. In the United States: Interlink Publishing Group, INC 46 Crosby Street Northampton, MA 01060-1804, USA E-mail: interpg@aol.com In the UK Peter Owen Publishers 73 Kenway Road London, SW5 ORE, England E-mail: admin@peterowen.u-net.com The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Web site at http://aaupnet.org publishes an annual directory of its 124 member presses that includes topics of interest as well as contact information (AAUP Directory, 2003-2004, University of Chicago Press). Where can I find a publisher for my children’s picture book? Do I need to have the illustrations done myself? For help in finding a publisher for children’s picture books, explore the following Internet Web sites: http://www.scbwi.com http://www.write4kids.com http://www.cbcbooks.org You do not need to find your own illustrator for your children’s picture book. In fact, most children’s book publishers will prefer to find their own illustrator. I would like to write a column for a newspaper and possibly put it into syndication. How do I go about that? For help in establishing a syndicated newspaper column, review How to Write and Sell a Column by Julie Raskin and Carolyn Males (Writer’s Digest Books, 1987) and/or You Can Write a Column by Monica McCabe-Cardoza (Writer’s Digest Books, 2000). I am looking for information on magazines that I can send my erotica or other sexual short stories to. Go to http://www.google.com and type in erotica short story markets. They have a huge listing there of possible publishers. Should I send one query at a time or multiple ones? Send multiple initial queries (a method for sending queries in prioritized batches is described earlier in this chapter under the question "How do I find a publisher") to publishers—if you send queries one at a time, you are likely to expire before your list of prospects does. When reviews of partial or full manuscripts are requested—and assuming your best publisher prospect won’t review your manuscript unless you give them an exclusive look—send these out in multiple batches as well. If a publisher demands an exclusive look at your manuscript, set a definite time (four to six weeks should be sufficient) after which you are free to shop the manuscript elsewhere unless the publisher has offered you a contract. If they let the exclusive period lapse, you may certainly query them about the delay, but in your own best interests we suggest to get the manuscript in circulation again straightaway. What does "No unsolicited submissions" mean? What does "agented submissions only mean"? When publishers post a "no unsolicited submissions" notice in their submissions guidelines, this means that they are claiming they do not accept formal queries from either agents or prospective authors. These types of publishers either go out or find the manuscripts they want on their own initiative and/or acquire their manuscripts by networking within the publishing industry—or they just want to cut down on the number of submissions they receive, knowing that the disclaimer won’t put off the bold. An "agented submissions only" notice means that all queries have to come through a literary agent; "unagented submissions welcome" means authors are welcome to submit queries directly. If no restrictive submissions notice is posted in a publisher’s submissions guidelines, a prospective author should feel free to submit directly. Indeed, many authors say they just ignore restrictive notices altogether as a means to weed out the timid and query whatever publisher looks attractive to them—and they report frequent favorable results in doing so. Can I query by telephone? Book publishing is pretty much a busy, multitasking world, and few publishers appreciate or favorably respond to cold solicitation telephone calls. Can I query by e-mail? Can I include attachments? Having initial queries accepted by e-mail has grown steadily since the anthrax attacks in the U.S. postal system in late 2001 and early 2002. Before that almost no agent or publisher would accept e-mail queries, but, having seen how well that can work when their regular mail deliveries were hampered and/or stopped, many now willingly accept this means of correspondence. This has been of particular help to authors sending queries to agents and publishers in other countries. This receptivity to e-mail messages does not extend, however, to e-mail attachments. Computer viruses travel in e-mail attachments, and publishing computer systems are particularly imperiled by the threat of viruses spreading in their networks. Thus, unless you have specifically prearranged with your addressee at a publishing house for the passing of an e-mail attachment, you should put all of your correspondence in the body of the e-mail message. To do otherwise is courting having everything, including your e-mail message, just deleted upon receipt. An online e-mail address directory of publishers of adult trade books in the United States can be found at http://everyonewhosanyone.com/wps.html. How long does it take a publisher to publish my book? The total time for the actual production process (manuscript acceptance to bound books) in the typical publishing house usually takes at least nine months, although a month of so can be shaved off this if the book’s release is being expedited to pair release with a particular promotional event. In fact, however, publishing houses typically release their books in two catalog seasons (fall and spring), and a book does not just drop into a conveyer-belt-like production schedule on the day the manuscript is accepted. The books are scheduled for particular future catalog seasons, and their production schedule can be accelerated or, more typically, elongated to meet a target release season. It is thus typical for a book not to launch in bound form for a year or 18 months after the manuscript has been accepted. For an amusing, but pretty accurate description of the publishing process itself by a top literary agent, Sheree Bykofsky, go to http://users.rcn.com/sheree.interport/process.html. Why does it take a publisher so long to decide whether to publish my book? The publisher is not selecting your book to publish in isolation. Publishers specialize in a set of book genres/categories, which is based on the sets of buyers they sell to. Their semiannual catalogs typically are a delicate balance of the books in their specialties—something for everyone and not too much of anything for anyone. So, your manuscript is not being assessed for purchase on its own merits alone. It usually gets selected as a possible purchase by a topic-specific acquisitions editor and then has to go to a combined selection committee, where the offerings for a future catalog season are all compared and contrasted to determine what the publishing house’s optimum offering in that season would be. In preparing for this selection process, the acquisitions and executive editors have to become at least familiar with the content of all of the books being considered, the editorial and production staffs have to do a rough estimate of the production costs of the books being considered, and the marketing team has to consider how each would fit—in relationship to other possible offerings—in a promotional campaign. This usually is not a book-by-book "I love it; let’s do it" decision. What’s a book auction and how does it operate? Agents take manuscripts on offer to auction usually when more than one publisher has expressed interest in publishing the book or if there is something special about either the manuscript or the author that leads the agent to believe that more than one publisher is going to be interested in the book. Although the specific procedures for auctions differ from agent to agent and circumstance to circumstance, they usually are conducted over the telephone for a set amount of time, during which publishers register bids with the agent, in terms of advances and other bundles of services under the projected publishing contract, until the agent reaches a bid that the author likes the best. Is there a way to find out a publishing company’s track record (negative statements, etc.), even if it’s a small company? Publishers do not publicize comprehensive statements on their sales track records. Like almost any kind of business, in their self-promotion effort, they can be counted on to trumpet their successes and soft-pedal their failures. A diligent author can learn much, however, by perusing back issues of Publisher’s Weekly to check activity reports and can check their rating on the Preditors & Editors Web site at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors and/or contact Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware to see if they have any information on file about the publisher. How can I find a service that is reasonable priced to prepare my book for print on demand with minimally invasive editing and proofreading, that will do a competitive cover, and that will publish under my own imprint? There are various national-level book-printing services (e.g., R. R. Donnelly, Sheridan, and Morris) that would do most, if not all, of what is listed in this query on a per-service fee (and even print the book for you). These services can be found through the Internet. For what would probably be less money (but perhaps more footwork on the author’s part and with lesser quality), the author could ask around at printers in his/her area for prepress specialists recommendations. In most cases, editing and proofreading are not offered by such services (although they very well may have lists of editors and proofreaders who could be contacted. Some print-on-demand (POD) services and most printers will publish under the author’s own imprint, a helpful service if you don’t want it to be immediately known that you have used a self-publishing source. The major POD producers, such as iUniverse, Xlibris, and 1stBooks, won’t produce books with the author’s own imprint. A good book to get if you are contemplating organizing the self-publication of your work under your own imprint would be Tom and Marilyn Ross’s Complete Guide to Self-Publishing (Writer’s Digest Books, 1994). Where can I find a services and prices comparison of the various POD producers? A services and price comparison of the major POD producers can be found on Clea Saal’s Web site at http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/index.html. For a comprehensive list of POD production services (as well as e-book production services), go to http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.html. I have a book that I plan to have released by a POD producer. How many sales of this book would impress an agent or publisher enough for them to be interested in republishing this book or in publishing my subsequent books? In response to the surface question, an agent or publisher would probably take notice if you sold 500 of your POD-produced books. But the notice they would be taking would probably be on your ability to help market a book, not on the quality of the book itself. Thus, the best you could count on was a zero-based willingness to look at a new manuscript on its own merits, with the knowledge that the author has marketing talents to help with the promotion of the book—if the book manuscript was highly competitive in its own right against the other manuscripts on offer. But the response to the underlying question here is that there isn’t really much use of wondering how many sales of a POD-produced book would impress an agent or publisher—and here there is a great difference in what your goal really is—a future for this particular book or a future for your writing career. If your goal is to get this same book picked up by a traditional publisher, this is something that rarely happens after the book has already been released to the public in any form, and when it does, this usually is under special circumstances, such as determination of a whole new market for the book, current events renewing interest in the topic of the book, or popularity coming to the author’s works through subsequently published books. If your goal is to get future books published by a traditional publisher, the real question seems to be whether or not—and, if so, to what extent—having a POD-produced book out is a stepping stone to getting published by a traditional publisher. Time really shouldn’t be wasted in pondering this at all—and traditional publishers won’t waste much time thinking about it. Having a POD-produced, essentially self-published book out is evidence that you can take a book project to print. But it doesn’t say a thing (either positive or negative) about the quality of your writing or of your creativity in weaving a story—no one of any experience validated the worthiness of your book; you just decided to self-validate. Traditional publishers don’t see POD-produced books as having been published at all (although they do tend to see them as having already expended their sales life). They see them as inferior manufactured products, and they often give the author automatic demerits with the assumption that they just couldn’t get anyone in publishing to validate the book and put any risk into publishing it. They tend to see all copies of a book bought in an earlier edition to be lost sales opportunities for a new edition. So, rather than wondering how far ahead toward a traditional publishing goal having put out a POD-produced book got you, you’d best see yourself as at ground zero (or less) again vis-à-vis traditional publishers—with something on the plus side in the marketing angle if you sell a lot of your books and the same things to prove about your writing and story weaving ability that any previously unpublished writer had. How much of the manuscript should I complete before trying to find a publisher for fiction? For nonfiction? Book-length fiction, short stories, and poetry—especially by first-time authors—should be fully completed before a publisher is queried. Book-length nonfiction should be substantially researched and organized enough to have in existence a detailed proposal, book outline, and a few sample chapters before a publisher is queried. Essays and newspaper or magazine articles can be substantially completed before a publisher is queried, or, if the author has established a track record with the targeted publication, topic assignments can be worked out with the periodical editor before the essays or articles are either researched or written. What is an advance, how much can I expect to get, and do I have to return it if my book doesn’t sell? An advance is an amount of money paid to an author upon signing a publishing contract and in advance of publication or, by agreement, in increments as the book is being produced and marketed. It provides an early royalty payment for the author’s efforts as a speculation on earnings from the sale of the book. Before any royalties are paid to the author, the publisher much first recoup the amount of advance money, but if total royalties do not recoup the advance, the shortfall generally does not have to be returned (unless the contract specifies otherwise). Agents will charge a standard rate on the advance as well as on the rest of the royalties from all uses of rights—most generally 15 percent currently (or 10 percent if the author has already found a publisher and wants representation from the time of contract signing). Advances range from nothing (which is the case for many small and academic presses and for a good many first-time authors) to several million dollars for those who have previously produced multiple best sellers. Generally, the larger the publisher and the greater the planned print run and dedicated promotion budget, the greater the advance. Some speculate that the large advances that are reported in the media are a function of the promotion for the book. Advances for a few books have gotten so large in recent years, with books that don’t recoup their advances, that a backlash has started to form against such large advances. Resources and Links Print Anne Bowling, 2003 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books, 2003) Association of American University Presses, AAUP Directory, 2003-2004 (University of Chicago Press) Nancy Breen, 2003 Poet’s Market (Writer’s Digest Books, 2003) Jeff Herman’s annual Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. (Prima) The annual Literary Marketplace (LPM), available in the reference sections of most publish libraries. The bible for U.S. publishing services. Monica McCabe-Cardoza. You Can Write A Column by Monica McCabe-Cardoza (Writer’s Digest Books, 2000). Julie Raskin and Carolyn Males, How to Write and Sell a Column (Writer’s Digest Books. 1987). Tom and Marilyn Ross, Complete Guide to Self-Publishing (Writer’s Digest Books, 1994). The annual Writer’s Market series published by Writer’s Digest (which can also be obtained on constantly updating annual subscription at the Writer’s Market Web site, http://www.writersdigest.com) Internet Links The Google search engine at http://www.google.com is probably the most comprehensive search resource on publishers. Information on publishers of children’s picture books can be found at: http://www.scbwi.com http://www.write4kids.com http://www.cbcbooks.org. An online e-mail address directory of almost 2,000 top literary agents and publishers of adult trade books in the United States can be found at http://everyonewhosanyone.com/wps.html. An extensive contact list for magazines can be ordered from the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Web site at http://www.clmp.org/about/dir.html, and a listing of literary magazines can be found at http://www.newpages.com/npguides/litmags.htm. Topics of interest and contact information for some 124 university presses in the United States and abroad can be found in an annual publication of the Association of American University Presses, which can be ordered from the AAUP Web site at http://aaupnet.org. Preditors & Editors at http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/, a watchdog site on the publishing industry, where you can check on the reputation of publishers. Publisher’s Lunch at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/lunch/subscribe.html, a subscription service on what’s being published. Public Relations Society of America (http://www.prsa.org/). Publishing process description by a top literary agent, Sheree Bykofsky: http://users.rcn.com/sheree.interport/process.html. Publishers Weekly Web site (http://www.publishersweekly.com) for what is selling and to whom—especially the "Hot Deal" section. Writer’s Market electronic version via http://www.writersdigest.com. Writer Beware at http://www.sfwa.org/beware can be checked for records on publisher sales. A comprehensive list of POD production services (as well as e-book production services) can be found at http://www.bookmarket.com/ondemand.html. A services and price comparison of the major POD producers can be found on Clea Saal’s Web site at http://www.booksandtales.com/pod/index.html.