She's in the publishing industry. Maybe she can point you in the right direction. Good luck!

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Brenna
Blog at Writing UP!
Brenna Fender's Blog

I have a friend that has started to wade into publishing her books, and I have done some research on publishers, but I'll warn you that I'm not an expert.

First, don't do a vanity press. They are gross. lol Wait and go through the process instead of just finding some place on the internet that will publish anything you send to them. A real publisher goes to a lot of trouble, and they will get your book on shelves instead of just your coffee table. And nothing is more embarrassing than having a relative reccomend your book, and having that person try to find it at Amazon.com, only to discover that there is no such book available. Then you are all left stammering that you used a vanity press when they ask where they can find it. Ugh.

Second, it sounds like you want to start with a literary agent, and you are selling yourself to them more than a book. You list a VERY vague summary of what you want to write about, and I mean VERY vague. Sum it up in ONE sentence. You list any credentials you have and WHY that qualifies you to write a book based on that subject. In short, they read a bunch of crap all day long as part of their job, so you need to catch them in that one brief second that they spend looking over your letter. They don't necessarily care whether you can write. That's why editors exist. They care whether you are interesting. They also care whether they can make money off you, so you need to research that there are books like this already in print.

Then, you mail it one at a time to as many agents as you can. In the literary world, they want to be the only one to discover the new talent. Think about the poetry journals that exist. If you submit to one, you have to wait to be turned down by them until you can even submit it to anywhere else. There is no calling later and telling them, "Thank you, but I've been accepted elsewhere." That's a good way to NEVER get anything published by them.

I'd only come here seeking peace.
I'd only come here seeking me.
It seems I came to leave.
-VNV Nation