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By Root 1577 0

I can offer here is go out and get the most recent version of Writer’s Market. This yearly reference volume is a great guide to what agents and publishers are looking to buy. The listings are grouped by agent (or agency) and by publisher as well, and give names, addresses, and statements as to who is looking to represent or acquire what. RWA also does a yearly report on agents and publishers that is specifically geared toward romance (another great boon that comes with membership). Further, if you know published authors, it also helps to ask around and find out who they are represented and published by, how they like their agent and editor(s), and what kind of experiences they’ve had. Sometimes you can even get someone to pass your work on to their representative, which can be very helpful—although this is something you should wait to have offered to you, not something you should pressure another author for.

It may take several tries to get represented or picked up by a publisher, but it’s a case of persist and reinvent until it works. And when it comes to agents, if you can’t find one to take you on, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are out of luck, because again, some publishers don’t require them.

9. Multiple submissions require full disclosure. Certainly sending out the same project to a couple of different agents (or publishers, if you are unrepresented) at a time can potentially reduce the duration of the process, but it can also land you in hot water if more than one of the folks wants to represent or publish you. If you do choose to multiple-submit, disclose the fact right up front—and be sure you do not send it to agents or editors who refuse multiple submissions.

10. Be professional. And this is about everything. Make sure your submissions are spell-checked and properly paginated with appropriate type-face and margins (Times New Roman 12 or Courier 10, double-spaced, one-inch margins all around)—as well as bound with a rubber band. When talking to folks, be polite and concise. If you’re going to an editor or agent appointment at a conference, dress appropriately. Be on time—if you tell someone you’ll get something to them by a certain date, leave yourself wiggle room for emergencies and have the material drop on the day you committed to. Write thank-you notes. Speak well of others or shut your piehole. Sure, a lot of this is no-shit-Sherlock, but it matters. God willing you’re going to have a career in this business, so you might as well start building your reputation and good name from day one.

11. Do not submit too early. This one was HUGE for me. What I’m talking about is your material. There is a tremendous temptation to finish whatever you’re working on and get it out to an agent/editor as quickly as possible—or at least there was for me. The thing is, though, you can make a first impression only once, and you’d be surprised at the kind of faults you can find in your work if you go back one more time with fresh eyes. My rule of thumb was (and is) to FORCE myself to sit on whatever project I was working on until I could give it one final read-through. It was brutal, because of course I was curious about what the editor or agent was going to say and whether I would get bought. But the thing was, I was never sorry I waited.

Here’s a perfect example. My first published book, Leaping Hearts, was not the one I got my first agent with. I wrote it during the process of trying to find representation. By the time I was picked up, I knew LH was much stronger than what I’d sent out, so I told my agent at the time to wait until I could get the new material to her. I actually delayed what went to market by a couple months in order to get LH right. But it was the correct thing to do, and my agent agreed with me. Leaping Hearts was a much stronger book and it was sold quickly.

The thing is, it’s in my nature to want to beat deadlines, but rushing compromises the work. I’m not saying that you should get caught up in analysis paralysis, where you go over the material so many times you crush it by overediting. But there