Anything Goes : Finding a literary agent and publisher by Gary Craig

Hi Gary - I wrote my auto-biography of a particular period in my life and self-published. . Doing it through Amazon (for Kindle) and Createspace (for Paperback - which makes the book available via Amazon also) is quite easy and my auto-biography/memoir "Access Denied" is available on Amazon. You need to ensure the formatting is right and the best way to do this is via Word then exporting to PDF to "see" how it looks as the finished article which can be read into Kindles etc. The good thing about doing it through Createspace is there's lots of guidance on the step-by-step process and it tells you about issues with your file/formatting and cover image issues. Other sites like lulu.com do a similar service - I paid around £100 for it but found the support quite lacking and the process they used quite cumbersome, but it did get the book out on multiple platforms. However, Createspace/Amazon is entirely free and once you've done it, you realise how easy it is. Happy to help if you have difficulties - just assisted a friend of mine with publishing his book for a small fee. David E. Gates

Thanks for all the info David

Gary, getting an agent is a time-honored exercise in frustration of writers. Some say you aren't a real author until you can paper a room with rejection letters. A couple of things to consider as you begin the process. First, decide what kind of literary work are you creating. Second, and this is kind of important, finish the novel. A literary agent won't consider an incomplete novel unless you are very well known and they're able to sell your name "with an upcoming work of literature." Third, you'll need to write a synopsis of varying lengths...different agents will ask for different pieces: one page, three, five...like that. And your masterpiece: the query letter. There are various forms of queries, but they include such things as the genre, the length (in word count...approximate),, a hook, and a brief beginning, middle and end of the story. Who it will appeal to as an audience and a brief bio. Especially include any published work. There's more, but this all has to go on one page, so that middle of the story best be no more than six or seven lines. Jeff Herman publishes a pretty good book on getting a literary agent updated every year with listings of a LOT of agents. You'll have to research each agent before you send it out...target the agent as to their interests. Was this a little helpful?

I'd echo what David said about Lulu - I tend to use them for personal projects rather than ones I will market. The site also crashes a lot (though that might just be my internet provider). I found Createspace fairly user-friendly, but had to get the book formatted by someone else because I'm just not that clever...! Good luck with your autobiography, let us know how you get on!

If you're firm about penning your bio, do that first. Don't deflate your energy worrying about getting an agent or a publisher. Best of luck!

Yes, I'd agree with Margie - although I believe for non-fiction books you can sometimes get away with the first few chapters and a book proposal - I think it depends on the publisher and perhaps also the subject matter - if it is something which is 'trending', for example. The publisher would probably want you to finish the book before committing themselves, I suspect.

Thanks for all the great advice. I started out doing this book for my children, but as I'm writing it, the ride is so crazy, that I think a publisher might be interested. I've lived 3 lifetimes already!

Non-fiction does not require you finish it before you sell it. I'd suggest doing the book proposal at the same time (to keep your working on the book flowing). You want to stress in the book proposal how you plan on promoting it...what your author's platform is, i.e., 15,000 Facebook, 10,000 LinkedIN, 12,000 Twitter followers, private email list of 24,000, speeches for so and so organizations, membership in these 14 organizations. They want to know who is going to buy it. You only need the outline, a couple finished chapters, what the total pages is supposed to be. They will pay you an advance to write it...part when you start/middle/finish. You need all the same promotional things to self-publish. Self publishing is becoming mainstream now. I have two books out there, "Creating a Love Box" and "To the Light and Back", wrote a column for Fun & Fit Life Magazine of Las Vegas for 10 years.

I know this post is three years old - did you manage to get it published? To get a publisher interested, you need to make sure your social media following is healthy and that you can demonstrate how good, keen, eager you are to get involved in the marketing of the book. If you need any tips, just visit my website BewleyBooksPlus and get some ideas.