Dear O'Abby: Tell me about querying

 Dear O'Abby,

I'm a pretty new writer in terms of looking toward publishing a novel and so I've been thirstily sucking up all the information I can about the process.  I've been reading this blog for a few weeks and have been interested in the number of posts referencing querying.

I know what querying is in a pretty basic way - it's pitching your book to an agent or publisher - but I'm looking for a little more information about the process.

Is that something you can help me with?

All the best,

Uncertain

Dear Uncertain,

Querying is a pretty big topic, but I'll try to keep things fairly high level for now.  There are a lot of resources out there to help you, so I'll share some of the ones I find most useful.

You're right about what querying is - a pitch to agents or publishers.  It is important to decide which because you don't really want to be trying to get a publisher and an agent at the same time.  It's important to be clear in your own mind what you want from your book and what route is the best one to take to get that.

If you want to be traditionally published by one of the major publishing houses, you will need an agent.  When querying agents, it's important that you research each one to make sure your book fits with them.  A quick way to get a pile of rejections is to query agents who don't represent the genre or category your book fits into.  You want to find an agent who loves your book and will champion it to publishers on your behalf. I suggest spending time at MS Wish List, researching what different agents are looking for and compiling a list of the ones that would be a good fit for your story.

It's important that your book is ready before you start querying.  Yes, you will likely do revisions once you have signed with one, but your best chance of getting one in the first place is to have a well polished manuscript.  There are a lot of books being queried at any one time, and if yours looks like it needs more work than others that come across an agent's desk, it will have to be pretty darn spectacular to get picked up.  And most agents won't look at a book they've rejected again, even if you've done substantial revisions since the last time you queried it.  Make sure your book is as good as you can get it before you dive into the trenches.

If you're not sure traditional publishing is the right thing for you, you may want to look at small presses instead.  Some of these require an agent too, but there are a large number you can submit to directly.  Small presses generally don't pay advances and the amount of publicity and marketing you get can be limited, so be prepared to have to do a lot of that work yourself if you sign with a small press.  Their distribution channels can also be rather limited, so if your dream for your book is for it to be in bookstores and libraries worldwide, small press publishing might not be for you.  If this is the route you want to go, there is great information about small presses that accept un-agented submissions at Authors Publish.  You need to subscribe, but subscription is free.

If you like to be in control of everything, you might be better off self-publishing.  That way you can be in charge of when your book releases, what it looks like, and how it is marketed to readers.  Self publishing is a lot of work, but the stigma that used to be attached to self-pubbing is wearing off and numerous writers are building successful careers for themselves this way.  It's more work, but you also get more of the money from each book sold than you would get through traditional or small press publishing.  

Hopefully that helps you decide the best path for your work.  My only other advice is to always be courteous with the people you deal with along the way.  Publishing is a small world and one mis-step can derail your whole career.  You will get rejections along the way, and they will hurt.  You will get criticism you disagree with.  Restrain from lashing out at those who give you this.  It won't help you in the long run.

Good luck.  I'll probably see you out there in the trenches.  And join Operation Awesome's query support group so you don't feel so alone as your rejection emails start piling up.

X O'Abby