So, I'm still waiting to hear from the publishing companies considering my book. I think that's the hardest part, waiting. Isn't that a Tom Petty song?

In a world of service 24 hours a day, instant communication and on-demand everything, we've become a society of instant gratification. And I'm definitely one of the guilty. I want what I want when I want it, the mantra of generation X, possibly. But publishing doesn't work that way. People always look at me funny when I'm explaining that, even after three long months, I'm still waiting to hear an answer from xyz company or abc agent, and even if they say yes, it could be a year more until publication. (Though, I do think it is infinitely better to be waiting for an answer than to be in that awful period where you've heard back from everyone and they've all said no. Fortunately, another batch of query letters usually solves that!)

You can't rush publishing. The process is long and sometimes trying, only to result in rejection about 99 times out of 100. But everyone keeps going back for more--I'm also one of the guilty there as well! You have to keep trying because someone liking your book and wanting to publish it is much like someone seeing your book on the shelf and wanting to buy it. You certainly don't like every book on the shelf, probably not every book in your favorite genre and maybe not even every book by your favorite author. So publishers definitely have a tough row to hoe, as they say (publishers don't say that, at least as far as I know. The universal "they" says that.)

So as part of my little conversation with myself and whoever else is out there and wants to read along, I thought I'd give you a rough outline of the publishing process, or at least as far as I've gotten in it!

Part One
1. Finish the book. In fiction, at least, you have to have the novel completed before anyone will even consider you. If you're a big bestselling author, this may not be true. If you're really a big bestselling author, will you read my book and give me a blurb? : )

For non-fiction, you can usually have just the outline (more on that in a moment) and the first three chapters done.

Some writers I've met claim that they write the first three chapters on their novels and then send it out and quick write the rest when they get a positive response. If that works for you, great. But I like to sleep at night and eat without throwing up from the stress of writing under that kind of pressure. (Imagine, if they like the first three chapters, how do you know the rest of the book would be up to the same level? If they eventually say no, would you torture yourself wondering, what if you'd only allowed yourself more time to write the rest of the book? Or, what if you can't write and perfect 200 plus pages in 7 days? *shudder* I'd rather not find out).

2. Write a query letter and synopis/outline. This is another hard part. I love writing fiction, no one said anything about letters and summaries. A query is a short letter, one page or less, that you send to an agent or editor to captivate their attention enough for them to request more. Again, my feeling on this is that you wrote a novel because you aren't good at cramming things into small spaces. Otherwise, you'd have written a short story! And these editors/agents get hundreds of these suckers every day, so you have got to get their attention from the get-go but in a classy, professional and creative way. Sounds like a lot for one little letter, right? Tell me about it.

The query letter contains a brief summary of the story (you know the one you just wrote 300 pages about? Make it into one paragraph), a paragraph about your writing credentials, and other interesting things that might make someone interested in your book, awards it has won, your day job, etc.

I had such a terrible time writing my first query letter. Maybe I'll devote a blog to it later this week, so other writers can learn from my mistakes!

An outline or synopsis is essentially a summary of your story in five pages or less. Again, you might say, if the details weren't important to the story, I'd have left them out. But here's the catch with a synopsis, you have to leave huge amounts of things out. Your heroine has green eyes because green is the color of fertility and her mother's name was jade, etc. Nope, not going to make the summary, no matter how many hours you spent deliberating those details. The fact that your heroine falls in love with a convicted murder, wrongly accused of course, and flees the country with him to set up a dog grooming shop in France--that will probably make it. A synopsis is a high level summary, like what you do when you're giving a friend a report on the latest movie or episode of Friends (yes, I confess I do still watch the reruns, where Ross was still lovable and geeky cool.) He went there, did this, came back, found her doing this, etc.

3. Target the right agents/editors. Writer's Market is probably the best place for information like this. You're looking for companies and/or agents that deal with your kind of book. Each company or agent has a listing, explaining what they want and what types of books they handle. And there are lots of them. So, you take the time to research all of them and figure out which ones have sold or bought your kind of books. And just because they handle romance doesn't mean they handle the kind of romance you've written. And the same is true for all genres. There are so many subcategories to fall into. And agents/editors have so many manuscripts coming to them daily, they can afford to say, "I only want romance with a heroine under 22, virginal, where the seduction takes place on a boat at high sea. And the hero is a swashbuckling captain." Okay, not quite that specific, but pretty darn close! So you have to pay attention and do some extra research, go online, check out books that share a similarity to yours from the library to find out who represented them (usually listed on the acknowledgements page of any book), etc.

The best rejection letter I ever got came from an agent that I wrote to simply because he represented a book that I liked and felt shared some similarities to mine. And I wrote to him and told him those similarities (strong heroine with unique powers, etc.) and he requested the first few chapters. Eventually, he said no, but he wrote me back a very long personal letter, telling me everything that was wrong with my manuscript, or the part he'd read anyway. And I sulked for a few days (more like, weeks) and then finally realized he was right. I made changes to my manuscript and sent it out again.

So, finding the right agents/editors takes time. It's best if you can meet them in person or find a connection, like your book is like one they've represented.

Part Two of the Publishing Process tomorrow....Talk to you then.