Hey everyone. Happy New Year and welcome back to work! Right? Am I right? Yes… Get to work.
Well, Adamsville book 1 is done and now the search for a publishing home for my series is beginning. This is a whole different part of things. It’s a side that requires a lot of patience, understanding, faith and nerve to take whatever comes. There are a lot of things you can consider when publishing your books. A lot of folks choose the self-publishing route, which may be what the future could hold for this book but at this time, I am going for a book publisher.
What does that look like and what should you expect and do in this pursuit as well? Let’s look at what the process most commonly calls for.
1.) Have an agent, or an existing relationship with an editor:
If you want to get in with a publisher in many cases you need an agent to get face time with an editor at any of the major publishing houses. Most major publishers like Scholastic’s Graphix line will not accept an unsolicited submission. This means it can not be something you send to them on your own basically. It must come to them either through an agent or by personal request.
The easiest and best means of getting past this is to have an agent. I say easiest in a very loose term. It’s not extremely easy to get one and with good reason. Agents generally act as a filter of sorts in the industry, helping make sure that an editor only looks at materials that would have a certain quality that could meet their standards. It saves the editor having to filter through tons of submissions that could be from anyone and whoever.
The other option would be to have a contact with an editor through either personal relationship or contact. This actually goes quite a long way. The majority of people I know who have landed book deals have been people who were working with an editor before they had an agent. It’s a lot like when you apply for a job… If you have a friend that already works there or you know the owner it scores extra points in getting hired. But again the product needs to be worth their time. It isn’t fair or proper to expect other people to show your work to all the people they know for your personal gain. Your friends are your friends… don’t make things messy or start going directly up to people asking them to show your work to their editor. It’s just not very cool. I have actually had someone ask me if since I know a number of graphic novelists it shouldn’t be hard for them to put it in the right hands. This is true, but I’m not going to ask anyone to do that. My position on this, is that it’s their prerogative to do that if they feel compelled to… Share your book with people because you want to, not to devalue your relationships for personal gain.
So how do you get an agent? Let’s look at that one:
2) Query An Agent
Querying an agent is the most common way of reaching out to an agent that you do not have a relationship with. Now just like editors, some agents do no accept unsolicited submissions as well. So make sure you read their guidelines and understand an agent’s policy on being approached.
There are a few resources that may really help you in finding an agent.
Agent Query.Com This is a FANTASTIC resource for hunting down agents by being able to sort through agent’s by their desired subject matter and links to all of their agencies.
Preditors and Editors – This is a great guide to agents and editors. Really it exists to help people filter through potential threats in the publishing world. With all things there are scams out there. Being advised of them is good.
Query Shark – Don’t know what a query is? Well this is the site for you. A great blog where the writer will take submitted queries and dissect them. A great learning tool for what is and what isn’t effective in getting someone to pay attention to your submission.
It is very important to make sure, again, that you read each and every agent’s guidelines for submitting to them for consideration. It could mean the difference between the trash can and getting read.
3.) Patience
Lastly, and most difficult of all, is just learning to be patient with this process. God knows I am still learning this. We finish our book, or pitch and we just so badly want people to be taking notice. Nevermind people’s lives and all. Be patient. This process of querying and getting word back from publishers is a lengthy one. My first time through it took one year, solid. It was grueling, at times elating and many times for lack of better word, heartbreaking. The best thing you can do during this time is pick up and get to work on the next project. I am intrenched in so many odds and ends projects around here with work on my script for book 2 and other illustrations, I don’t really have too much time to be anxious. I believe in my project and I believe that if it’s good enough, it will rise to the people it needs to. Stay active, keep working and remember to control what you can.
With all of that said, do prepare for the possible outcome that involves your book not finding a home in the bigger publishing world. In comics and the rest of the industry it’s becoming harder and harder to get your book through. The whole industry is in flux and so many things could be changing in the near future. So I offer this word of personal advice from someone who’s gone through this and is about to again, set expectations appropriately, believe highly and have your next plan in place. If ADAMSVILLE doesn’t find it’s home somewhere I already have my next steps in mind. It’s OK for you to as well. We live in an exciting age where no project is truly dead. The internet and self publishing have risen so much that anyone can find a way to share their idea with the world. It’s a great time to be working in storytelling and working to get BETTER with every project.
So keep working everyone!
On an ADAMSVILLE note. Tonight I finished my first pass at the treatment for book 2 of the series. With any luck I will be working on the script very soon! In my next post I will talk more about how I write a comic from start to finish. See you all then.