Hi S. Jae- Jones! I was wondering how do you find a literacy agent and publish books? I write science fiction stories. Also- I am not very confident in my work. How do you manage to make things sound original? If you can get back to me with this information that would be much appreciated!

S. Jae-Jones These days there are a lot of resources online that can help an aspiring writer polish their work and find a literary agent. Query Tracker and Agent Query are two places you can go to research agents and see what sorts of books they represent, and if they are a good fit for you. I (and several other published writers, agents, and other publishing industry people) blog at a website called Pub(lishing) Crawl, and I also host a podcast about writing and publishing with my friend Kelly where we try our best to answer questions about the industry, as well as offering writing tips and advice.

As for the second part of your question, originality is not as important as people make it out to be. There are no new stories; only new ways to tell them. Finding new ways to tell old stories comes with practice. Keep writing, and you'll get there!

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