Book Written; What Now?

You have finished writing your first manuscript. You have done your own proofreading and competently edited it yourself. What is your next step? I assume that someone besides yourself has read the book as well and given some feedback. Family and friends are there to do these little favors. Ask them to read the book and be honest about what they think about it.

Your next step is the hardest one you'll have to take. Writing a book was peanuts in comparison. You will have to make up your mind about finding an agent, a publisher, an editor, or to publish on your own. The answer depends on what you can and what are you prepared to do yourself. I have collected some information and some ideas that will help you make up your mind one way or another.

First things first. What is the word count of your manuscript after you've edited it? Anything below 50,000 words doesn't count as a book in any genre. You will have to work on it again or publish on your own. No traditional publisher will accept a book that looks too short before they even start reading it. The word count differs from genre to genre. Science-fiction and fantasy books should be over 80,000 words; mysteries and romances start at 60,000 words. Once you know this, you understand why many books are published electronically by authors missing out on length.

If your manuscript is shorter, you should have the concept of a series of books to come. If that is in place and you can keep to tight scheduling, then publishing your own book might work for you. Remember that besides writing the next books you will also have to do all the marketing and promotion. It is a hard world to sell your own books. First you are an author writing manuscripts, proofreading and editing them once they are finished. Then you have to take on all the work a publishing house would normally do for you.

There are authors that made a success of it. Hugh Howey published the e-book Wool in five installments of a series. Then he published them together as an omnibus edition. Now Penguin is publishing The Wool Omnibus edition in print. Hugh Howey wrote the series in snaps of  12,000 words. He offered the first book for free to build a fan base. By adroitly using a cliffhanger ending for each installment, readers bought into the series. His tactic turned his series into a bestseller. It is possible to be successful as your own publisher, but it needs a lot of graft, too.

If your book is long enough and can't be cut into little bits for serial publishing, then you will have to go for the traditional way with finding an agent willing to take you on. Publishing a full book on your own will most probably proof too hard for you to do. The price will be way higher than customers are willing to pay for a new writer (they usually balk at prices over 99 cents). Building a fan base on a single book is also very hard to accomplish. The traditional route is to find an agent to represent you, your writing, and your manuscripts. The adventurous route is to approach publishers yourself.

Going the traditional route brings up a major question you have to answer first. Are you happy that you will be told which characters to enlarge and which scenes to cut? That is the job of editors at large publishing houses. They tell writers which way to walk. If that is against your artistic convictions, you're back to try publishing on your own.

Contacting publishers on your own can be as time consuming as doing your own marketing. They are not waiting for you to send in your manuscript. They get hundreds sent in every day by hopeful writers. To get you down to earth: The first book of the Harry Potter series was turned down 12 times. The Diary of Anne Frank was rejected by 16 publishers. One of the icons of the 1980s, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was refused by 121 editors. C. S. Lewis had to try 800 times to get his first book published. With these numbers to consider, you might want to hire an agent instead.

If you want to go directly to a publishing house all the same, or if you want to find a good agent, you need to have things in place before even starting to collect addresses. You have to compose a good query letter. You have to make sure that your first 20 pages are spotless and the rest in best form. A one page synopsis of the story helps to catch the interest of an agent or publisher; if you plan on a series, a one page game plan for the series will be invaluable. Make no mistake, agents get just as many manuscripts sent to them as publishers.

Once you have collected your material, you can go and look for the addresses to send your work to. Only go for publishers and agents that are working in the genre you are writing in. Anything else is a waste of effort and time. The larger a publishing house, the smaller the chance of getting in. The smaller a publishing house, the larger the chance of you having to do your own marketing after all. Its a case of Catch 22; learn to live with it. And beware of fake publishers that don't do anything than publish your manuscript as an e-book and then do nothing to promote it. You get fake agents, too, by the way. 

Don't expect any breathtaking developments within days after sending out your queries or publishing your manuscript as an e-book under your own steam. Traditional publishing takes about two years to see your book in print and on shelves. As the publishers will take care of marketing and promotion, it leaves you time to write the sequels and prequels you outlined in your game plan. If you published it yourself, you will be spending those two years promoting the book on Twitter, Facebook, and whatever else comes to mind; you'll have to get positive reviews from family, friends, and strangers. And you still have to write the sequels and prequels.

Further reading
Writing Dialogue
The Writer Checklist
Rejection is Part of a Writer's Life