How to get a book deal?

Question

I have a really good idea for a book, but I have no clue how to get a book deal. How do I go about doing this in a professional manner?

Answer 1

Sara,

If your book is non-fiction, you need to write a proposal and a query letter and send them to the agents and/or publishers who handle the subject matter you wish to cover.

If your book is fiction, as a first time author, you need to write the book first. Agents/publishers want to know that you can deliver the goods, and if you've never published anything before, how are they supposed to know that your work is high quality and you can meet a deadline? When it is as good as you can get it, write a query letter and submit to agents and/or publishers who handle the genre.

Either way, there are two very important parts to the process to do this in a professional manner:

1) Do not submit to agents or publishers who do not handle the subject matter. They have better things to do with their time, and you want to be successful in getting your book published.

2) Read their submission guidelines carefully. If they ask for 50 pages, do not send them 60. If they want an outline or a synopsis or any other such thing, provide it.

About the only guideline that agents and publishers give that I don't pay much attention to is the "does not accept simultaneous submissions" statement. I simply cannot afford the time it takes to wait 3 months for an agent to get back to me before I submit somewhere else.

Good luck. Hope this helps.

Answer 2

First write the book and then try to get an agent. Or just start sending copies of the book out to different publishing companys.

Answer 3

You have to write your book first, and then send them to different publishing houses (get a few new books, the addresses of the publishers are in all books). There's no deal if they don't see your work. Do you really think they'll wanna work with you and make a deal with you only to find out your book is the worst they've read? This would cause problems for them. So, get the book written and get information from the publishing houses and you'll be okay.