Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014

Do your research
Finding agents and publishers
Getting published

We’ve spent most of this book looking at the techniques and forms of creative writing. However, beyond the joy of writing, most writers want to have their work published for others to read.

There’s no sure-fire formula for having your work published. It’s mostly a matter of talent, persistence, and luck. First, you have to write very well—well enough to stand out from the competition—and you have to send your material until it reaches someone who appreciates it as much as you do. And no matter how well you write, you’re sure to encounter plenty of agents and editors who, for various reasons, do not like your work. Getting published takes drive, determination, and toughness. It can also take years of dedication to the craft of writing.

Part 7 examines how to negotiate the gate-keepers of publishing—agents and editors—by looking at research, cover letters, the synopsis, and the intangibles of rejection and persistence. While I cannot guarantee the publication of your work, I can share the ways of going about it that are better than others.

CHAPTER 23 Finding agents and publishers

In this chapter

·  Planning, planning, planning

·  Writing good query letters

·  Writing a winning synopsis

·  Getting turned down and hanging in there

When you’ve finalized a piece of creative writing, your next step is figuring out how you can share your work with others. If you want to project it beyond your immediate circle of friends and family, you’ll want to publish it. To do so, you need to know whether you need an agent or can submit your material to publishers directly and also how you can most efficiently and cost-effectively go about this.

The first consideration in manuscript submission is whether or not you need a literary agent to seek and represent the sale of your work. This can be a tricky issue. Agents aren’t required for all approaches to publishers. They only become involved when there’s enough money in a publication deal to make their time and effort worthwhile. This means they operate almost exclusively in the realm of major trade publishing houses. It also means that although a short work of yours might lead an agent to have interest in something book-length, they typically have little interest in books that sell few copies. Even very well-known poets, for example, fail to sell half as many books as most any novelist.

DEFINITION

A literary agent is someone whose job it is to sell a writer’s work to a publishing entity, negotiate advances and contracts, and manage royalties and copyright.

You probably don’t need to bother with an agent if one or more of the following applies to your work—you can submit directly to the publisher:

·  You are self-publishing.

·  Your work is an article, short story, or poetry.

·  You have a book that’s more appropriately published by a small, medium, or academic press.

On the other hand, if you believe your book is commercial enough to interest an agent, here are some of the things a good one can do for you:

·  Target the search for a publisher on publishers that are the best fit for you

·  Fully understand the provisions of the contract offered by a publisher and be able to explain the terms of the contract to you

·  Negotiate the best possible terms and advance for you

·  Potentially edit the manuscript (not all of them do this) to make it more marketable

·  Run interference for you during the publication process and the marketing phase

·  Help you take the best-possible advantage of your publishing rights

·  Handle the business matters for the book, including the collection and disbursement of royalties

Like many business people, literary agents work through networking. They mingle with publishers and other agents to determine what’s 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 fit best with the clients they represent.

Reputable agents charge a standard commission on the advance and royalties from all uses of rights. All agent fees and commission should be collected out of book sale proceeds as they come in from the publisher. Publishing receipts generally come through the agent to you, so the agent usually takes out his or her cut as it passes through their hands.

WATCH OUT!

A significant number of businesses pose as serious literary agents. They use the publishing hopes of inexperienced book authors to prey on them. Thoroughly check out prospective agents and, in particular, watch out for agents who request money up front, ask for a reading fee, and recommend someone to improve your book for a fee.

The rest of this chapter is dedicated to helping you save time and money as you search for the right agent and publisher. I will tell you upfront that in my twelve-year professional writing career, I’ve already been through three agents and eight publishers. It’s highly unusual to stay with the same publisher for your entire career anymore, and the book industry has been further destabilized by corporate buyouts and electronic media. However, it remains that a combination of research, effective correspondence, attractive project marketing, and old-fashioned persistence give you the best chance.

Do your research

The first step in finding a literary agent or publisher right for you and your work is to put together a list of recent books that you admire or that you think are similar to your work. Then, take note of the publisher and/or who represents the authors of those books. Many authors list their agents on the acknowledgments page in the front or back of their books. If you can’t find the agents this way, visit authors’ websites.

You can actually use the same basic research methods to find both reputable agents and publishers. Do careful research up front, and target only those agents and publishers who can help you produce a high-quality book. Publishers and agents you target should possess previous success in profitably selling books similar to yours. This means you need to zero in on agents and publishers who would represent your work in the best light, give you the best benefits, and appear as the most reputable. Unfortunately, unless you don’t mind making no money or taking a loss on a book you’ve spent considerable time writing, the ability to sell books like yours should be the bottom line in your evaluation of your agent and publisher options.

You can find out what agents and publishers are available and narrow down the best fits for your book in several ways. First, go to your local big-box bookstore and find the section of books most similar to the genre you want to publish. Note the publishers of these books, and check out the acknowledgment sections to see if specific agents are identified and praised by their client author. Then, when you’re home, look up those books online. At some library sites and online bookstores (like amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com), you’ll get a list of “similar books” like the one you looked up.

Back at the big-box bookstore, go to the writers’ reference section, and write down the titles of 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 (also sign up for its constantly updating annual subscription online at writersdigest.com) and Jeff Herman’s annual Writer’s Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. These books are often available at public libraries for you to review in depth.

Also at the library, ask for the latest edition of the Literary Marketplace, known as the LMP, which will probably be in the reference section. This guide, printed in two volumes roughly the size of big-city telephone directories, is the bible for the publishing industry listing who does what and how to get in touch with them. The LMP contains a pretty comprehensive list of publishers, along with the genres they represent, the number of books they published the previous year, and contact names and addresses.

In addition, you can look for a subsidiary rights section on agent and publisher websites and note agents listed there (and elsewhere) who frequently place books with target publishers.

On the Publishers Weekly website (publishersweekly.com), the discussions on what’s selling and to whom can be of interest. Especially check out “Hot Deal” section.

I’d recommend you subscribe to Publishers Lunch, an email newsletter covering what’s being published and publishing deals being made. Find out more at publishersmarketplace.com.

For a fee, Literary Agent Research and Evaluation (agentresearch.com) will review a summary of your work and provide you with the names of agents who have sold similar work. The Writer’s Digest University (writersonlineworkshops.com) also offers this service.

Finally, search online for agent lists. Two places to start include Bloomsbury Review (bloomsburyreview.com), which offers listings of agents, and WritersServices (writersservices.com), which gives listings, from The Writers Handbook, of agents in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

When you have a list of appropriate agents or publishers, you can start focusing on the most desirable of these.