Publishing Questions
On getting an agent or finding a publisher
Pick up The Last Exile and pre-order Nolan Chase’s A Lonesome Place for Murder from Bookshop.Org (US)
Or pre-order from Indie Bookstores (CA)
Or pre-order from Barnes and Noble
Following up on last month’s post about revision and submission, here are some questions I received about the publishing process, as well as my answers.
Is it better to self-publish or seek a traditional publisher?
Self-publishing is really its own thing. There are definitely good authors who self-publish, and you can always put your work in a newsletter or blog to get it out there. That’s absolutely valid. Most of my experience is with traditional publishing.
I have been wanting to traditionally publish but I also know it is not completely about skill but about luck.
I can’t deny luck plays a part. Even after your book is published. A lot of things about publishing aren’t in your control.
A lot of traditional publishers don’t accept non-solicited submissions and want the author to have an agent. I am only 23 years old, so I am unsure if an agent is willing to take a chance on me
Youth doesn’t put off the publishing industry—a lot of editors are trying to reach young readers, after all.
Salability of the book is really what they care about. To make that decision, it helps if you have some publishing credits, or experience in the field your book is set, or something else that tells them you’ll be a good fit.
How you communicate matters as well. Are you professional?
There are other factors too: Do I have to pay for an agent?
An agent works for you, and in turn collects a percentage from your book’s sales of rights, including audiobook and film/tv options.
What if the agent has internal bias? Ex. They don’t want characters with they/them pronouns in the work?
I’m sure there are agents who aren’t just biased but bigoted. I believe there are more agents open to a good story no matter who tells it. And since an agent works for you, if they don’t like your use of pronouns, you can tell them to piss up a rope (pardon the expression).
Where is the best place to look for an agent or publisher?
Do research. Look at who they publish, where they sell books and to whom. Who would be a good fit for your work?
Writers Digest is a good place to start.
Find a list of publishers or agents online—search “mystery novel publishers,” “publishers in my area,” etc. Check what the covers look like (a bad cover is a bad sign, all other things being equal).
Don’t submit to agents AND publishers at the same time. Send to agents first. Nothing would be worse than having the agent of your dreams say ‘yes’ and then having to confess that your book has already been rejected by half the publishers she would have sent it to.
Ken Atchity’s How to Publish Your Novel had a smart system. To paraphrase: take your list of publishers and rank them. Send to the top three or top five. Record your responses. After every group of five or ten, re-evaluate. Is your query letter good? Do the first ten pages grab a reader’s attention? If not, make revisions before submitting to the next five.
How many rejections should I take before taking the self-publishing route?
I don’t see that as a ‘route’ but a different journey altogether.
How should you pick your agent?
It depends. Some authors want an agent who’ll give feedback on early drafts and emotional support. I want somebody who answers my emails reasonably quickly and who sells my books to publishers who will get behind them.
The best way to decide on an agent is to talk with them. Listen to how they describe your work and where they think it’ll sell. Ask how they envision your career. If they see you as the next James Patterson, and you want to be the next Toni Morrison, that’s better to find out before you sign.
How do you stand your ground on certain things/plot points/characters? If a publisher says, for example, [the main character’s] ethnicity must be changed to sell how do I stand my ground and not get let go?
You know better than anyone what your book is about. An editor or agent will give you their suggestions, and will more than likely be open to discussing their notes.
For me, it’s about figuring out which parts are essential and which aren’t. When I went looking for an agent for Invisible Dead, one agent said “I like it, but it’s too much like a detective novel.”
Well, it IS a detective novel.
But for a different novel, my agent mentioned, “Hey, don’t kill that bad guy off, maybe he’ll come back in a later book.” I thought about it and decided he was right. The ending was better with that ‘loose end.’
A fear I have is being hired as a diversity hire for my disability.
It’s unfair that white male writers don’t have the same fears about ‘what if I’m not being hired for my skill.’ It’s also unfair that being a ‘nepo baby’ of a famous author, or a publishing professional who went to the right school, is a huge leg up. (I think it was Anne Rice’s son who said that the trick to getting published is to be Anne Rice’s son.)
Your book is going to be evaluated for a range of fair and unfair criteria. All you can control is the quality and your own professionalism.
How do you recover from countless rejections without giving up hope and giving up in general?
Practice helps! Sending short stories out and getting rejection slips (and hopefully an acceptance here and there) primes you for doing the same with a novel.
If rejection wasn’t a part of it, success wouldn’t be a part, either. I spent ten years submitting stories to Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock before getting acceptances.
Once you get your submissions out into the world, start a new writing project. That gives you something else to focus on. When you get a rejection, you put the book back in the mail ASAP. Then you’re not dwelling on it. If the first book doesn’t sell—and frankly the odds aren’t terrific that anyone’s first novel will—then you write another and send that out.
A lot of these questions are expressions of anxiety over an unjust and capricious industry. I can’t quell those fears. And I don’t know how it is for all marginalized writers.
If you write books you believe in, it’s extremely difficult to have anyone scrutinize them. It just is. I know people who shrank from that and never really succeeded as authors—and to be fair, I know others who were happy to share their work and received crushing indifference to it.
The other week I got an acceptance on a book project and a rejection on another. I sent in a story but I won’t hear for three months if it’s accepted or not. The first review of my new novel is up, and it was very generous. And last week I got a sheaf of ‘fan letters’ from a class of students who read my novella. The weeks before, I heard nothing positive and got several rejections. Obviously I’d rather have weeks like the former than the latter, but would one be possible without the other?
Pick up The Last Exile and pre-order Nolan Chase’s A Lonesome Place for Murder from Bookshop.Org (US) Or pre-order from Indie Bookstores (CA)
Or from Barnes and Noble
Thanks, Sam. Lots of good advice in this one!