Book Literary Agents
Should I Self-publish Or Pitch My Book To A Publisher?
By Brian Scott
You’ve spent many nights working on your book. You’ve rewritten it, edited it, and you used a professional proofreader to proof it. Your book is done – finally — and you’re ready to send your precious manuscript off to a publisher, thinking that writing it was the hardest part.
In reality, getting your blood, sweat and tears published may be the hardest part of the whole process. You’ll need to decide if your book requires a publisher, or if you’d rather self-publish your book. Both venues have pros and cons, some of which I discuss below.
To work with a book publisher, you’ll need to send out query letters and/or a book proposal. This is a letter or a few pages briefly describing your text, why your book is unique, characteristics of your target market, and how you can help market your book. Most publishers don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, so you’ll need to convince them to read yours, or find a literary agent to represent you. If a book publisher requests that you forward your entire manuscript, you have one foot in the door. Be prepared to send more than one query and don’t expect a response next week. An excellent software program to help format your manuscript and create a book proposal is called Wizards For Word at http://www.wizardsforword.com
Publishers look for three things: platform, hook, and execution. This means a writer should have a built-in audience (ideally, a national platform such as a radio or TV show or a column in a major publication), an interesting hook, and strong writing skills.
The problem if you’re an unagented author is that most publishers won’t take your call or read your proposal. Then even if they do, you’ll have a tough time creating a bidding war or running an auction to get the best offer, and you also won’t have leverage negotiating the important deal points, such as ancillary rights and royalties.
There are writer’s guides that serve as excellent resources to find publishers and literary agents who specialize in your particular genre. These guides list the percentage of new authors published as well as the percentage of sales they pay. You may find pay rates ranging from 5-10% of sales. Some pay on wholesale sales and others on the retail amount. Do the math. Perhaps your book will retail for .95 and the publisher will pay 6% on retail. This means you will earn 90 cents per book sold. Of course don’t forget that the publisher is doing all the printing, distributing, and marketing of your text.
Another route you may want to consider is self-publishing. Self-publishing requires you to print, distribute and market your book using your money, but you will also retain all profits. There are book printing companies as well as companies that specialize in assisting self-publishers through every step along the way.
Many authors debate which method is better, using a publishing company or self publishing your own book. You know your situation and you know what will work best for you. You’ll want to consider how much time or money you have to invest in the project. That should give you an idea which route to take. Using a publisher takes less time on your part, but you’ll forfeit some of the royalties by using this method. If you self publish, you’ll have to pay “up front costs” and do the initial legwork to begin generating sales for your book. Either way, publishing is your call. With persistence and hard work you can get your book in the marketplace.
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Where can I find a comic book literary agent or agency?
Novel writers have agents who submit work to publishing companies, and can be found in guides such as Writer’s Market, but I haven’t found any agents or agencies who submit to comic book companies. If they exist, they’re very secretive. Where would I find information on locating them? Are there any websites or directories for locating literary/creative agents that might be involved in comics or graphic novels?
go to comics community.com for the kind of info you’re looking for
I cannot recommend a specific agent because I am confused by the identification of your genre.
Is it urban fantasy?
Or mainstream novel with an urban setting?
They are quite different!
The best way to find an agent is to look up the websites of published authors in that genre and see if they mention who represents them.
If they don’t, then a short, polite e-mail should do it.
“Dear __ I’m an aspiring writer looking for an agent and hope you might point me toward one who handles (genre). ”
If you’re a fan of their writing, it doesn’t hurt to say so! And absolutely do not tell them about your work as it is considered impolite.
You can also try http://www.agentquery.com/
ALWAYS google the name of the agent + “scam” or “complaints” and check through this watchdog site to make sure they’re on the square.
http://www.anotherealm.com/prededitors/pubagent.htm
Avoid fee-charging agents at all times.
http://www.sfwa.org/for-authors/writer-beware/thumbs-down-agency/
I hope you will have had your book beta-read, proofed, and polished within an inch of its life before you start shopping it around.
If not, then the resources of Absolute Write can help!
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/
It’s FREE, run by pros, and you can find beta readers to help out. They have an excellent board devoted to keeping people safe from scam agents and feedback from agents members have dealt with (Bewares and Background Checks).
Good luck!
Also, a lot of successful comics writers/artists self-published their work for a while, like how Adrian Tomine published and sold Optic Nerve himself. If you can show a track record of being able to sell the stuff you self-publish, that can help interest an agent or publisher in your work. You might also check out some of the comics publishers and distributors like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly.
Do literary agents help find comic book publishers?
Along side I guess “traditional” book publishers. Do literary agents also help you find comic book publishers and things like that?
How do i find a succesful literary agent for an urban fiction book?
I am looking for a successful literary (book) agent to represent my book. It is an urban fiction book. Please don’t respond if you cannot give specific names and/or contact information to notable individuals in the field.
Is it possible to hire someone to shop a book manuscript to literary agents?
One good, reliable source of editorial specialists and literary agents is the publishing industry’s “Bible.” This is The Literary Market Place. It will be found in every library. The names in this huge directory should be considerably more trustworthy than those you may find by Googling.
Before entering into any business arrangement with any rewriter or copy editor or literary agent, no matter where or how you found them, obtain a list of clients from them. Check them out first.
I don’t understand what shop means, if you mean send then yeah, but that is a waste of money. Kind of like having an agent to find an agent
How to find a literary agent/book editor?
I wrote a book on my computer and people told me that the next step to getting it published is to find a literary agent or a book editor. Should i trust those book editing websites where you email them the book? Does anyone know of any TRUSTWORTHY book editing companies or literary agents? please leave the companies name and details.
Thanks!