by Stephanie Morrill
Stephanie writes young adult contemporary novels and is the creator of GoTeenWriters.com. Her novels include The Reinvention of Skylar Hoyt series (Revell) and The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet (Playlist). You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and check out samples of her work on her author website.
After you’ve finished your edits and applied your critiques, you have a decision to make. Do I want to pursue publishing this manuscript or should I instead write something else?
To an extent, you can do both. But pursuing publication takes quite a bit of research and emotional investment, plus you spend a lot of time writing query letters, blurbs, and proposals. So let’s examine the choices briefly:
This is just my opinion, but if you want to try to get your book published, I can’t find much of an argument against it. (And maybe that’s because I started trying when I was in high school.) It’s not much of a financial investment, and the worst that’ll happen is you’ll receive some form rejection letters.
Here’s a super brief outline of how the process works:
- You decide you want to try to traditionally publish your book. (As opposed to self-publishing it.)
- You look for a literary agent. The majority of publishers will not look at manuscripts unless they come from a literary agent. Smaller presses often will, so if you’re interested in a smaller press, then you could submit to both literary agents and smaller presses if you like.
- You figure out which agents (and possibly small presses) you’re interested in and then you find a way to talk to them. Typically this is through a query letter (an email or letter that you write that explains your project and who you are and asks if they’re interested in seeing more) but you can also meet agents and editors at writers conferences.
- Even though a literary agent works for you (agents only make money when you make money) they still have to agree to take you on as a client. They can only have so many clients, after all, and they have mortgages and kids like everybody else, so they need to make sure they can make money. If they like the first impression you and your story make, they’ll ask to see more.
- Once an agent agrees to represent you, you’ll figure out together which publishing houses could be a good fit for you and where your manuscript might need some tweaking/strengthening.