Advice on getting a book published

[WTH!]

Having become recently unemployed, again, I’ve finally decided to try and ‘shop’ around some of the fiction stories I’ve written over the years to try and get them published.

I’ve written (and had published) plenty of news and sports stories as a journalist in the last decade and was lucky enough to win a National award as a columnist, but my lifelong passion has been writing fiction. I wrote my first story when I was 11 (yes it sucked), and over the years a few of my stories were published in magazines but I’ve never really tried to shop a book around. Even though I’m still looking for a job I want to devote some of this down time to finally getting a book published, I just have no idea how to go about it.

 

[Wallace]

WTH!,

Check out this thread. Its got loads of good advice in there.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/36781/

 

[The Big Ragu]

I'm told a good agent helps.

I have one, though, and he has shopped a novel I wrote with a similar story to yours. I did it just because, without any hope of seeing it published and marketed. Until I decided to see if it could be published and marketed.

Without the agent, most publishing houses won't even look at your manuscript. You can be Faulkner and they will never know it. My agent hasn't been able to sell my book for me. And it has been a while. In fact, I am buried nowadays on his list of priorities. He did get it into some hands, though, and I even had an offer from a publisher that was rescinded. And then played off as a misunderstanding. The acquisitions editor made an offer, but the person above her wouldn't cut the check. The most depressing thing about it was that the advance was for peanuts. When they treat dollar amounts like that like the keys to Fort Knox, and you still couldn't get something that may be good published, even if you paid them, it really breaks your spirit.

 

[WTH!]

WTH!,

Check out this thread. Its got loads of good advice in there.

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/36781/

I'm told a good agent helps.

I have one, though, and he has shopped a novel I wrote with a similar story to yours. I did it just because, without any hope of seeing it published and marketed. Until I decided to see if it could be published and marketed.

Without the agent, most publishing houses won't even look at your manuscript. You can be Faulkner and they will never know it. My agent hasn't been able to sell my book for me. And it has been a while. In fact, I am buried nowadays on his list of priorities. He did get it into some hands, though, and I even had an offer from a publisher that was rescinded. And then played off as a misunderstanding. The acquisitions editor made an offer, but the person above her wouldn't cut the check. The most depressing thing about it was that the advance was for peanuts. When they treat dollar amounts like that like the keys to Fort Knox, and you still couldn't get something that may be good published, even if you paid them, it really breaks your spirit.

Thanks! That thread looks great and sounds like I need to find an agent