What if I want to publish my book but...?

Question

I can't find an agent? My book really is good, there aren't any grammar problems (That I can see. My English teacher can't see any either) and the words are in good order, but I can't find an agent, and I can't find an editor, I don't want to send it straight to a publisher (I can find one of those, but there names sound scary) because they might just say no because of me not having an agent...

Answer 1

http://www.spacejock.com.au/LiteraryAgen...

maybe try this site? but hey...it is an aussie site! so, I ddunno what country you're looking for?

Answer 2

Look up agents and editors online, send it to all the ones you can find. They may reject it. Just because a book it grammatically correct etc doesn't mean it's publishable, or that they'll think it's publishable (two slightly different things). So people tend to tell you to expect a lot of rejection and just keep going and don't get too down.

Many publishers will reject an manuscript that does not come from an editor or publishing agent. But it might be worth trying at the very end if you are set on this.

Answer 3

all right but understand that getting a book published is a long process and you really do have to stick with it.  Now I found trying to find an agent for my book overwhelming, scary, and not a little intimidating not to mention down right confusing as I was getting started. So, while I'm no expert by any means - here's some stuff that I found helped me.

http://www.bernardcornwell.net/chapters/... - writing advice from Bernard Cornwell himself (and yes, he answers email if you send him one - he's an amazing man!). Good points, very encouraging and gave me the shot of courage I needed to get started.

78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might by Pat Walsh - despite the title this is one of the most encouraging books I ever read about getting published. It also happened to be informative and easy to understand for someone who had no idea about the inside code words of the industry. He makes you feel good about yourself when you realize that most of thos 78 reasons don't apply to you and the rest are fixable. I need to buy this one eventually. He made me realize I really could do this.

http://www.writeagreatquery.com/ - absolutely EVERYTHING (except who to send it to) you will ever need to know about writing a query letter. I wrote several before I found this and several after and the response with the 'after' letters were so much better. Not to mention it takes a great deal of the panic out of the 'oh my GOD! what am I supposed to write? how friendly am I supposed to be? how much am I supposed to talk about my story? should I grovel?' lol The only thing I had problems with was putting my writing credentials in the third paragraph as I had absolutely none. I made it into a 'thank you for your time, here's my SASE, I look forward to hearing from you' instead. My bluff seems to have worked ;) The site says there's a charge for it but if you go further you'll find he's made it free - and the world bless him eternally for it too.

Jeff Herman's Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents by Jeff Herman (imagine!) - Bernard Cronwell's agent actually recommended this to me. Most everywhere else in the web will also recommend these two (at least) phonebook sized guides to literary agents and agencies (one title, just it takes two books to fit it all) which is just about as confusing as going into the phone book when you need to find someone with red hair. They're thick, heavy, and terrifying. Jeff's guide is much easier - gives much more detail as to what agents represent what and their latest books. As the agent that recommended it to me said though - don't buy it, get it from the library. It has to be rewritten each year (same as the phone books) so there's no sense in buying it when it'll be obsolete in six months.

also helpful in finding agents to query to - find books that cover the same subject as you and most authors will either list their agent in their acknowledgments of their book or else on their web page. I realized I'm mostly talking about agents here and not publishers and that's because most big name publishing companies aren't accepting unagented material anymore. ps - a publisher will NEVER charge you to print your book (that's self-publishing and goes along the same lines as the 'book doctor' scam (and don't worry about an editor, that's the publisher's job once they've bought your book)). You can however look at the publishing house that is listed on different books in the same subject area as you and check their web page. Most have a 'submissions' section. I actually aimed WAY high simply because I'd run out of agents I could think of to write to and simply wrote to the agent of one of my favorite authors and now he's my agent too! So also - don't be afraid to write to the big name agents.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/sear... - a chat group I never joined but cruised around for quite some time and found extremely helpful. Granted, most of the people are in the same boat as you are so they're not experts but they're amazingly helpful, have been through quite a bit, and know the agents and agencies pretty well too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4S2BIqo... - watch it before you send your query letters, watch it whenever you're worried about your book, watch it whenever you get a rejection letter. I can't tell you how often this and www.cuteoverload.com made me feel better.

http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/ - gives you an opinion on who to trust and who not to once you start getting together the list of people you want to send query letters to and ones that respond positively. Not perfect but very helpful.

http://www.ninc.com/questions.asp - when you do land an agent - and you will - here's some questions YOU want to ask them. Frankly almost half of them you should already know from researching the agency once they started showing real interest in you. The others are really appropriate though.

of course there's p

Answer 4

See if your library has a copy of the most recent Writers Market: http://www.writersmarket.com/Default.asp...

This is their website: http://www.writersmarket.com/Default.asp...

Additionally, even if your book is as grammatically correct as possible, it does not mean that it is marketable.  Publishing is a business, agents being the middleman.  As you may have seen, there are books out there that are examples of horrid writing and yet they have turned into bestsellers.  It has nothing to do with writing technique.  

Answer 5

Try using your nation's specific Google page and searching for agents for authors. Also perhaps try using the yellow pages website, and/or the yellow pages phone books to find an agent. But remember to choose at least three agents, then speak to them, and see who can get you the best deal. Play them off against each other, that is always a good idea.