STEP 2: Start crafting the pitch for your book

When the book is ready, now it’s time to change your brain. Take it from writer mode to marketing and sales mode. You need to understand how you can talk about your book in a compelling and succinct way because not all engagements will allow you twenty minutes to ramble on about it. And if you thought writing a book was hard—condensing those 80K words and 300pp into a sentence, a paragraph, or even a page is a massive undertaking. But it’s one you need to learn and get good at talking about your work.

Book Synopsis (300-600 words)

Let’s start with the synopsis. This is basically a longer summary of your book, from beginning to end covering your main events, character arcs, and key plot points. Imagine you had 10-15 minutes to have coffee with someone and they asked you what your book is about. A synopsis would fill that time easily. It’s basically a summarized brain dump of your book. If you do a cursory internet search, you can find a lot of guides to crafting a compelling synopsis.

Back-jacket Summary (150-250 words)

Typically, this would be the summary of the book you place on the back cover, so when readers take it off the shelf, they can flip it over to get the flavor of it before buying. You can also use this summary as sales copy on distributors like Amazon and Ingram Spark to tantalize readers into purchasing. And it’s roughly half the size of the synopsis. But it’s good. This type of writing really gets you to think about why your book is important to the audience, because you can’t spend all day blabbing about the details. You need to cook that soup until it thickens to stew.

Elevator Pitch (up to 150 words)

The elevator pitch is exactly that. Pitch your book in the time you have shared the elevator with a reader. It needs to be short, concise, compelling, yet fun all rolled up into a Twinkie of words. It is no easy feat and will make you pull out your hair, but it will get you to think about what the dominant theme and idea of your book is, and how to get that across in a few statements.

Step 3: Research writing agencies, agents, and publishers.

Depending on your path, the next step is about researching agencies and publishers. If you are trying the traditional publishing route, then you’ll need to focus on literary agencies and their agents. They act as advocates and sellers of your book. Since most traditional publishers rarely look directly at manuscripts, you’ll need an agent first. They will use their connections to sell your book to a publisher. If you are going the indie/hybrid path, then you can research various smaller publishers that look at manuscripts directly without an agent. Both are viable paths for publication, but choose what you have the appetite for.
Traditional publishing can be soul-crushing with their gatekeeping and rejections.
Indie/hybrid gives you a better chance, but not the moonshot that trad publishing offers.
And self-publishing is a LOT of work.

Look for partners that align with your book

Look at prospective agencies and publishers. Look at what kinds of books they publish. Are they like yours? Are their authors like you? Do their books look professionally produced? Make sure you are responding to agencies and publishers that espouse the type of writer/agent dynamic you want.

Understand your partner’s operating guidelines

Make sure you check on each partner’s “season.” Most publishers and agencies have periods of time where they’re open to accept submissions. Do not send a manuscript to them when they are not open. They may not even look at it. Also, understand the rest of their guidelines. Like simultaneous submissions. Some partners allow you to submit the same manuscript to them and other partners simultaneously. Others do not. If there’s one thing I learned in my agency queries—they hold no quarter for writers not following the rules. Know. Their. Rules. Before. You. Query.

Step 4: Write a query letter for agencies/publishers

Once you have found the partners you want to query, the next piece is the query letter. This is a professional letter you can send to agencies/publishers in order to compel them to read your manuscript and then ultimately take you on as a client. So I wanted you to get into a marketing and sales frame of mind a few steps above.

A query letter contains: Your goal (to submit your manuscript for review), a summary of your book, and a brief intro about yourself:

State your goal at the beginning of your letter

The first portion of your letter should tell them what your goal is, and describe the technical specifications of your work like: word count, audience, genre and comps. Word count is simple. Audience is simply the age group your book is targeting: children, middle grade, young adult, new adult or adult. Genre is the general format of your book: contemporary literature, science fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, thriller, etc. And lastly, if you have any creative comparisons that can help define it. Ex. “It’s like Harry Potter meets Dracula.”

Describe and SELL your book

The second portion of your query letter should be a compelling summary of your book. Start with your back-jacket summary or your elevator pitch and expand or condense them. Remember, an agent/publisher is looking for a book that will hit a wide audience, sell easily, and make some money. So, any way you can hit on what makes your story a great read for millions of people will help tremendously.

Tell them about yourself

For this portion, be authentic and you. Don’t key it up like a resume with over speak and fluffy terminology. Be open, honest. This is also a good place to talk about the subject of the book and while you feel so passionately about it. Showing how important the subject is to you and your journey might compel them to read it.

Step 5: Repeat Step 4 ad nauseum, until an agent takes you on

If you succeed at getting an agent, there are likely still a lot more steps before you actually get published. The agency might set you up with a developmental editor to shore things up in your manuscript to get it ready for them to sell to publishers. Again, I cannot stress this enough—listen to their advice. These people are in their positions for a reason. But watch that fine line. If their control over your manuscript crosses that line. Then you might want a different agent. But either way, this step is about working with them to get your manuscript ready to sell to publishers. And if they succeed in that, you’re off to the races and they get a cool 10% of your take.

Understand the differences in publishing options

Like I’ve said, there are a variety of publishing paths to take. Below is a basic grid outlining the pros/cons/differences between the three basic forms of publishing. Traditional publishing is the hardest to break into. Indie/hybrids are a lot easier than traditional, but still no walk in the park. And self-publishing can be anything you make it to be. You’re the captain and the cruise director on this voyage:

Well, I hope that was helpful in your publishing journey. Thanks for sticking around.

Until next month, go bananas, man!

The Ghost of the Wicked Crow

Book 1 of The Lost Zenith series. Multiverse, high school, trauma, pirates!

Order now!

Escape from Atlantis City

Book 2 of The Lost Zenith series. Multiverse, mental health, superheroes!

order now