Does anyone have hints or suggestions?

[Brent]

I recently completed my manuscript, and now I am working on the publishing arena. Does anyone have any suggestions? What has helped you? Is anyone else still trying to get their book published or find an agent?

[Erin]

Brent.
First of all, make sure your query letter is concise.
Second, give them a good hook right in the beginning.
Tell them about your book.
There are some great website links I can send you.
Email me @ joyfulwriter99@aol.com, and put in the subject line, Publishing Sites.
I have some great sites saved.

Warm regards,
Erin Collins

[C.j.]

My suggestion is make sure you've written the best story you can. Read it til you're sick of it. Then have someone else read it. They'll find typos that your eyes missed.

Now, write a synopsis that will knock their socks off. It doesn't have to have every sub plot and twist and turn of the story. Just the main plot, the characters. Make them love these characters. Do that and they'll ask for a full. Keep the synopsis tight and concise. Don't bore them to death.

Next? Write a killer query. That is the only way you'll even get them to look at the manuscript. I had to rewrite my query more than thirty times before I was okay with it. I didn't love it, but I was okay with it. It ended up winning Kensington Editor, Kate Duffy's Best Query Contest.

Now that is done. Buy a copy (or check it out of the library) of Writer's Market. Read the wants and needs of the agents or publishers. Find the one who take your genre. Then mail out your query, synopsis, sample chapters or whatever thier guidelines ask for.

Then you wait.
That's it.
CJ Parker

[Brent]

Thanks CJ,Do you mind sending me a copy of your synopsis? My email address is brent@cedaridge.net

[[deleted user]]

Writers Market is a must have. Same for Literary Agents (if that's the route you plan on going). There's a website called preditors and editors that was invaluable for helping me with hints, contacts, and info on publishing companies. I agree wiith CJ (the other one) queries are invaluable. Make it good, because it's the publisher's first impression of you and your work. And you know what they say about first impressions.
Oh, and expect to be rejected. Don't take it personally. It happens to all of us. I got rejected a bunch of times before I was picked up. I kept them all as reference and motivation. Trust me, it does pay off.
Keep us all posted. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me. I'll help anyway I can.

I wish you luck!

CJ Caron

[Catherine]

I posted my own query on my website catherinedelors.com if you want to have a look at an example.

I highly recommend the site AgentQuery.com. You have everything there: tips on formatting, on queries and most importantly, an up-to-date database of agents, with addresses, website links, and genres handled.

I also bought Writers Market, but I found it far less helpful. With AgentQuery, all I had to do to find agents handling historical fiction was to do a five-second search on the site. It would have taken me hours or days to do the same kind of search with a book.

When I queried, I didn't even have to retype the addresses of the agents: I just copied-and-pasted, which saved a lot of time and any risk of typos.

Best!

[Kim]

I'd be happy to send you my query as an example as well if you'd like. And I, too, kept my rejections letters...it was sort of fun to read them after teensreadtoo.com gave my book five stars...:-)

[Brent]

Thanks for all of you who have been responding so generously. If any of you are willing to send me a copy of your query letters you could send it to bgrulla@yahoo.com. Congratulations on all your successes as well.

[James]

I'm sending you both a query letter and synopis for my book The Shut Mouth Society. I'm not suggesting that they are great examples, but they worked for me.

Good luck.

http://www.jamesdbest.com