Greg Leaping asked Jodi Perkins:

From an aspiring writer such as myself: Once you have a book completed, what then is the first step toward submitting it to a Book Agent or Publisher?

Jodi Perkins After you've gone through the editing and beta-reading processes, you'll want to research agents and publishers who would be a good fit for your book. A common mistake for aspiring authors to make is to keep sending their work out to "just anyone", hoping to strike gold, but ultimately they end up expending a ton of time, resources, and mental health doing this, only to get rejection after rejection. For example, you're not going to get an agent to read your manuscript (or even your first three chapters) if they specialize in contemporary and you wrote a science-fiction. You'll also need to write an amazing query letter and a synopsis of your book. The query letter is EVERY thing. It is your one tiny chance to captivate the interest of a potential agent or publisher; to pique their curiosity enough to read the first three chapters of your book (and then, God willing, to request your entire manuscript). Above all, Google is your friend! There are vast resources available on the world wide web that can walk you through every step of the process. Good luck!

flag