what to do when youre asked for a full manuscript

So you want to become an author…

Well, I have good news and bad news.

The bad news first:

Writing your book won't be easy. If yous're in the middle of that right now, you lot know exactly what I mean.

But hither's the adept news:

All that work could open some amazing possibilities for yous:

• Getting published
• A career you honey
• Impacting people
• Media attention
• Added income

In this extensive guide, my goal is to give yous an honest await at how to become an author—using lessons I've learned from nearly 50 years working with some of the top publishers in the globe.

Having written 200 books, including 21 New York Times bestsellers, I'm confident I can advise you in your writing journey.

Want to write a book but don't know where to start? Click here to download my ultimate guide to writing a book for Gratis.

What You Volition Larn

Everything I cover in this step-by-stride post on condign an author:

1. 1. DON'T Try to Become an Author Until You've…
      …Studied the Arts and crafts and Polished Your Skills
      …Written and Published Things Shorter Than a Book
      …Joined a Community of Writers
      …Started Building Your Platform
   2. Writing Your Book
      Create a Writing Schedule You Can Stick to
      Identify Your Target Audience
      Research and Plan
      Go on Your Day Job
      Go a Ferocious Self-Editor
   3. Landing a Publishing Contract
      How to Go an Amanuensis
      Selling a Publisher
      Editing Your Volume
   4. Whether to Self-Publish
      An Overview
      How to Set Your Manuscript Apart
      Choosing the Right Company
      The #1 Killer of Self-Published Books

How to Become an Writer in 4 Steps

ane. DON'T Try to Become a Writer Until You've…

I get information technology. You're antsy. Y'all're ready to pen your bestseller right now. You've heard of writers who scored with a million-seller on their first attempt.

Throttle back. Those stories become big news because they're so rare. Don't bank on winning the lottery. If you want your book (and your message) to get anywhere, make sure you lot've:

…Studied the Craft

There's no need to write past trial and mistake anymore. Your best bet is to follow proven methods.

Hither's a list of my favorite 12 books on writing to go you started.

The competition has gotten and then fierce, you do yourself a favor if you lot learn how successful authors write before yous attempt to get a look from a publisher.

…Written Things Shorter Than a Book

You shouldn't start your writing career with a book any more you lot should enroll in grad school as a kindergartner. A book is where you lot arrive.

Beginning pocket-sized, learn the craft, hone your writing skills, write daily.

Journal. Write short stories. Write a newsletter. Start a web log. Write for magazines, newspapers, ezines. Take a night school or online course in journalism or creative writing.

Lesser line: Work a quarter-meg clichés out of your system, learn what it means to be edited, become an expert in something, build your platform (more on that below), and but then think virtually writing a volume.

…Joined a Community of Writers

Think you tin can do it alone?

Almost every traditionally published author I know is function of a helpful customs. That'southward one way they deal with:

• Frustration
• Discouragement
• Procrastination
• Wanting to quit

I've written 200 books, and at this phase, community means I tin can bounce ideas off colleagues when I need to.

When yous first get a writer, another pair of eyes on your piece of work tin can testify invaluable. Ten pairs of eyes tin be even improve.

Join a writers' grouping. Detect a mentor. Stay open to criticism.

Ane caveat with writers' groups: make sure at least ane person, preferably the leader, is widely published and understands the publishing mural. Otherwise you lot risk the blind leading the blind.

…Started Edifice Your Platform

When you somewhen pitch agents and publishers, one of the first things they'll do is bear an Internet search for your name.

They're looking for authors with a platform. If platform is a new term to y'all, it merely means the extent of your influence—how many people are interested in what you do? So get-go building yours at present.

Bottom line, to get a published author you lot'll demand your ain author website.

Add a web log and invite readers to comment, then collaborate with them. Join your favorite social media platforms and interact with readers there regularly.

Publishing short pieces tin boost your name recognition.

With all the social media vehicles available, building a following has never been easier.

ii. Writing Your Volume

Most people never get this far. Writer's fear leads to procrastination, and few ever brand information technology to the first folio.

To avoid this, you demand a programme like the post-obit:

Create a Writing Schedule You Tin Stick To

Successful writers prove up and do the piece of work whether or not they feel similar it.

Writer's cake is no alibi. In no other profession could y'all claim worker's cake.

Cleave out at to the lowest degree 6 hours a calendar week to write. You won't observe information technology, you'll have to make the time by sacrificing something else. Lock these hours into your calendar and go on them sacred.

You'll get a lot done when y'all finally establish yourself in your chair.

Place Your Audition

Once you've determined your genre, identify the readers you want to read your book. Agents and publishers need to know the audience yous're targeting so they tin market place your book.

Just resist the temptation to say it's for everybody. Naturally, it's tempting to wonder who wouldn't desire to read our work. But the truth is, that kind of thinking makes you lot look like an amateur.

Even mega-bestselling books don't appeal to everyone. They're written to specific audiences, and if they cross over to other markets (like the Harry Potter Young Adult titles—which accept go vastly popular to adults also), that's a bonus.

Inquiry books in your genre. You should read dozens and dozens of them to learn the conventions and expectations of readers. And who are those readers?

• Primarily Male or Female person?
• Age Range
• Educational background
• Hobbies
• Lifestyle

Become to know readers by regularly interacting with them through your website, on social media, or in person.

Inquiry and Plan

To give your manuscript the best chance to succeed, don't skip this step. Excellent preparation can make or break your book.

Two primary means to prepare:

i. Outline.
Regardless how you experience about outlining, you demand an idea of where you're going before you starting time. If you're writing a novel, you're either an Outliner or a Pantser (who writes by the seat of your pants. If you're writing a nonfiction book, you must outline.)

On the fiction side, Pantsers write past procedure of discovery—or every bit Stephen Rex puts information technology, they "put interesting characters in hard situations and write to notice out what happens."

If you're an Outliner and a novelist, yous'll benefit from Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method. But if you're a Pantser, check out this post. It'll teach you how to piece of work inside a structure without actually outlining.

2. Do the research.
Great stories can be sunk with less than solid enquiry.

If your character drives 10 miles east out of the Chicago Loop—as I once read in a bad novel, he'd better exist in an amphibious vehicle, considering he'd exist in Lake Michigan.

Immerse yourself in the details of your setting. Accurateness adds flavor and authenticity. Become them wrong and your reader loses confidence—and interest.

Inquiry tools:

• Atlases and Globe Almanacs offer geography and cultural norms and can provide character names to align with the setting, period, and customs. If your character flashes someone a thumbs upwards, exist sure that means the same in his culture every bit it does in yours.
• Encyclopedias. Buy your own, access one at a library, or find i online.
• YouTube and online search engines can yield tens of thousands of resources.
• Use a Thesaurus not to notice the nigh exotic word but that normal one on the tip of your tongue.
• Interview experts. People dear to talk about their work, and that often leads to more than story ideas.

Don't Quit Your Solar day Task

I didn't become a total-time freelance author until I had written and published nearly xc books. A veteran author brash me that my freelance income ought to be effectually 3 times what I made at my job before I considered going solo.

Why and then much?

He listed everything I would take to pay for: insurance, retirement, benefits, travel, equipment, office supplies—in short, everything.

Your job doesn't accept to go on yous from writing. Go on it and write after hours.
Why?

1. You'll have steady income—one less thing to worry nigh—while trying to build your writing career.
2. You'll be forced to be productive with limited hours.

How large a cede is that for your writing dream? How badly exercise you lot desire to become an author?

Become a Ferocious Self-Editor

This section is and then of import that it has the power to determine whether your manuscript sells—or slides into the editor's decline pile.

Get serious about cocky-editing.

Editors know from the outset page or ii whether your manuscript is worth pursuing. I know that doesn't sound off-white or even logical. Y'all're thinking, Information technology took me months, perhaps years, to write hundreds of pages and yous didn't even get to the proficient stuff!

How could they do that to you? Why did they?

First, the skillful stuff ought to appear from give-and-take one. And if they run into 15 needed adjustments on the first 2 pages, they know the cost of editing three or four hundred pages of the same would swallow whatever profits they could hope for.

To avoid the dreaded "Thank y'all, merely this doesn't meet a current demand" letter, your manuscript must exist lean and mean and a great read.

My 21 rules of ferocious self-editing:

1. Develop a thick skin. If y'all can't take a critique, this may be the incorrect pursuit for yous.
2. Avoid throat-clearing—scene setting, clarification, philosophizing—anything that slows getting to your story or your point.
3. Choose the normal word over the obtuse.
4. Omit needless words.
5. Avert subtle redundancies, like: "She nodded her caput in agreement." Those concluding four words could be deleted.
6. Avoid the words up and down, unless they're needed for clarity.
7. Commonly delete the word that. Again, utilise it only when necessary.
8. Give readers credit. They understand more than you think.
9. Avoid telling what'southward non happening. If you don't say it happened, we'll assume it didn't.
10. Avert existence an adjectival maniac. Good writing is a affair of powerful nouns and verbs, not a plethora of adjectives.
11. Avoid hedging verbs like smiled slightly, about laughed, frowned a bit, etc.
12. Avoid the term literally when you lot mean figuratively. [Note: I literally died when I heard that.]
13. Avert too much stage direction, describing every action of every character ad nauseum.
14. Maintain a single point of view (POV) grapheme for every scene.
15. Avoid clichés, and not just words and phrases, but situations—similar beginning your story with a graphic symbol waking to a jangling alarm clock.
16. Resist the urge to explain (RUE). If a character enters a room, nosotros demand not exist told he came through the open door.
17. Show, don't tell. Telling: John was cold. Showing: John turned upwards his collar and faced away from the bitter air current.
18. People say things; they don't wheeze, gasp, sigh, laugh, grunt, or retort them.
19. Specifics add the ring of truth, even to fiction.
20. Avoid similar grapheme names. In fact, avoid fifty-fifty the aforementioned offset initials.
21. Avoid mannerisms of punctuation, typestyles, and sizes, similar overusing ellipses, italics, boldfacing, exclamation points, etc.

3. Trying to State a Publishing Contract

Becoming a published author isn't easy. Merely let me bear witness you the available options and suggest the best practices to increment your chances.

Acquiring an Agent

One time you lot've finished your manuscript and have ferociously self-edited it until you're happy with every word, your first step in trying to land a traditional publishing deal (in other words, ane where the publisher takes all the financial risk and too pays you) should exist to endeavor to state an agent.

There may seem a dichotomy, particularly if you write for altruistic reasons—you accept a mission, a passion, a message, something you want to share with the world. Withal agents and publishers announced to base their decisions solely on the bottom line.

But that doesn't mean they don't share your passion. They simply must make a turn a profit to stay in business—even religion-based publishers who are all nearly ministry building.

Though it's difficult to observe an agent, it's also rare to get traditionally published without i. Well-nigh publishers will not consider unsolicited manuscripts, though some let you to submit at writers conferences or with the recommendation of other clients of theirs.

Check The Writer's Marketplace Guide and The Christian Author's Market Guide for agents and publishers.

An agent can make your life a lot easier.

Besides the instant credibility of an amanuensis's approval, evidence that your writing has survived a vetting procedure, you also get valuable input and coaching on how to style your query and proposal from someone who understands the publishing industry, knows the players and who'south looking for what, and has experience pitching publishers.

Patently, there are good and bad agents. Whom tin can y'all trust? Credible agents welcome scrutiny. Check with their clients. Ask:

• Were you happy?
• Did you experience taken care of?
• Were they pleased with the results?

Feel free to ask agents:

• How do y'all like to work with an author?
• Have they succeeded in my genre?
• And whatsoever other question y'all take.

Once you compile a list of agents who seem to be a good fit, follow their submission guidelines. They'll probable ask for a query letter, synopsis, proposal, and perhaps a few chapters.

If whatever enquire for any sort of reading fee or other payment up front end, eliminate them as candidates and practice non respond. Agents brand their money when they sell your volume to a publisher.

Bank check out the submission guidelines for whatsoever amanuensis past going to their website.
You may exist asked for:

one. A query letter

This is just what its proper name implies—a letter querying the involvement of the agent in your book idea.

Four parts of an constructive query letter:

a. Your elevator pitch

This is a summary of your volume'south premise, told in the fourth dimension it would take the editor to attain his floor if yous happened to find yourself in the same elevator. And so it has to exist fast and easily understood.

The elevator pitch for my very first novel:

"A estimate tries a man for a murder that the judge committed."

While today I might accept added a few more than specifics, that either interested an agent or an editor, or it didn't. Fortunately, information technology did.

b. Your synopsis

In a paragraph, tell what your nonfiction book is about and what yous hope to accomplish with information technology. Or tell the basic premise of the plot of your novel. The synopsis would naturally get beyond the elevator pitch and tell what happens and how things turn out. Don't make the error of trying to tease an agent into reading your manuscript to find out what happens. Tell him up front.

c. Your target audience and why they'll enjoy your book

Agents need to envision how to pitch it to publishers, simply be careful not to oversell. They know the business amend than you lot practice and will non exist swayed by your assurance that "anybody will observe this astonishing."

Tell what readers it's intended for.

d. Your personal information

Sell the agent on yourself. What qualifies you to write this book? What else take you published? What kind of platform have you built? Where tin can they read your blog? Include your contact information.

Other query letter tips:

• Go along it to i page, single-spaced, and 12 pt. serif blazon.
• Don't gush—let your premise speak for itself.
• Follow the amanuensis'due south submission guidelines to a T.
• Have someone you trust proofread your letter. Any typo on such a curt certificate makes you lot look like an amateur.

A great example of a query alphabetic character, with a breakdown of why it works, past Brian Klems of Writer's Digest.

two. A book proposal

Near agents desire only this. Succinctly describe your idea, your goal existence to make them want to read your manuscript in its enentirety as shortly as it'due south gear up. For nonfiction, include every major issue yous'll cover and the basics of what you'll say virtually it. For fiction, synopsize the plot.

Three trusted colleagues have produced masterful works on how to write book proposals:

Michael Hyatt: Writing a Winning Book Proposal

Jane Friedman: How to Write a Book Proposal

(Jane also has bully material on query letters.)

Terry Whalin: Volume Proposals That Sell

Proposals contain components such as:

• Premise
• Elevator pitch
• Overview
• Target audience
• Affiliate synopses
• Marketing ideas
• Endorsements
• Your assay of competing books
• Up to three sample chapters

Every discussion should be designed to pique an agent's interest in seeing your unabridged manuscript.

Desire to write a volume only don't know where to start? Click here to download my ultimate guide to writing a volume for Gratis.

Connecting with the Right Publisher

Should yous choose to approach publishers on your own (without an agent):

1. Precisely follow their submission guidelines.
2. Personalize your encompass letter of the alphabet to each.
3. Avert flattery and obvious sentiments similar, "I'll practice anything yous say, brand whatever changes you want, meet whatsoever deadline…" Just express that you look forwards to hearing from them.

A rule of thumb:

If you're writing fiction, about publishers require a complete manuscript earlier offering a contract.

Many writers come up up with great ideas, and some produce promising starts. Only few see their style through to the finish. They desire to know you can finish.

If the publisher offers input for the residue of the writing, you lot'll take a much improve hazard of success if yous tin can accommodate their wishes.

Professionally presented manuscripts follow these submission guidelines:

• Apply Times New Roman font (avert sans serif fonts).
• Use 12-betoken blazon.
• Left-justify your page. (This means your text should exist aligned at the left margin, but not the right. This is too called "flush left, ragged correct.")
• Double-space your page with no actress space between paragraphs.
• Each paragraph should be indented 1-one-half inch.
• One space betwixt sentences.
• Microsoft Word .doc or .docx file format.
• 1" tiptop, bottom, and side margins (or whatever is standard in your Word program).

Editing Your Book

Though you've already spent endless hours editing your own piece of work, be set to do more.

In one case a publisher accepts your manuscript, they assign an editor to suggest changes, maybe major ones.

Develop a thick skin and avoid defensiveness. You can debate your points, if necessary, but recall, they're on your side and desire the all-time finished product. A published book is not a solo. It'south a duet between the writer and an editor.

Let them do their job. Proceed an open mind and remain piece of cake to work with. They'll remember.

iv. Should You Self-Publish?

Frazzle your efforts to traditionally publish before resorting to cocky-publishing. Fifty-fifty honest cocky-publishing executives would advise this. Why? Because with traditional publishing, the publisher takes all the risks, and y'all're paid an advance against royalties and royalties based on sales. So cipher comes out of your pocket.

With cocky-publishing, however, you pay for everything, and packages can price upwards of $10,000. Even and then chosen co-op publishers, who ask you lot to cover only publicity or invest in an initial press run, crave a meaning investment.

Back when self-publishing was referred to as "vanity publishing," you could always tell a cocky-published book from a traditionally published book due to schlocky covers, dull titles, the word past before the author's name on the cover, a misspelling of the word Foreword or Acknowledgments, too much copy on the front and back, sans serif typeface and interior design, shoddy editing and proofreading, etc.

Admittedly, the game has changed.

Publishing your ain book is vastly unlike than information technology used to be. Your end production can now look much more than professional, and your price per book much more reasonable.

Print-on-demand technology allows for low-cost printing, so you can order every bit few equally two or 3 books at a fourth dimension for the same cost per book as you'd pay if you lot were buying hundreds.

And then, you no longer demand to store countless copies in your garage or basement. And self-published books look nicer these days too, because writers have demanded information technology.

How to Set Your Self-Published Book Apart

If yous become this route, realize that it falls to you to advertise, promote, and market your own book. And though you're earning profits after expenses, not but a royalty, don't presume this will internet you more coin per re-create. You'll be amazed at the expenses required before you see income. But of course it happens.

It's also rare that a cocky-published book finds its way to bookstore shelves outside the author's home town.

(The hard truth is that it'south not easy for fifty-fifty traditionally published authors to place their books in bookstores. Experts say as few as one percent of all published books can be accommodated by bookstores and that the residue must be sold through other channels like the Internet, direct mail, and by hand.)

To give your cocky-published title the best chance to succeed, you need to invest in:

• A great cover, which volition involve purchasing a photo or artwork, blazon design, and layout
• Within layout, blazon design, and typesetting
• Editing (resist the urge to use a relative who majored in English or even teaches English; book editing is a specific art)
• Proofreading (aforementioned caveat as above; friends and loved ones who are meticulous spellers are not enough; there are myriad style matters to deal with)

Each of these elements will dramatically increase the professional person look of your final product and, thus, your hope of selling more books. Practise NOT skimp on them.

If you've ever congenital a house without a contractor, you lot have an thought of how circuitous this tin can exist to do right.

So despite that many self-published authors swear by it and believe it's fairer to the author than traditional publishing, I maintain that traditional remains the ideal—except for those unique titles targeted to deserving but very limited audiences.

Choosing the Right Visitor to Self-Publish Your Book

More than two million books are cocky-published every twelvemonth in the U.s.a. alone, so there are many companies to cull from. But sadly, many are wolves in sheep'due south clothing.

They'll let you create a poor product and tell you lot it's great.

They'll "award" y'all a contract, telling you their publication board has "evaluated" your manuscript and "found it worthy" to be published.

They'll tell yous they're "not a subsidy publisher" or "not a self-publisher" or "not an independent publisher."

Only they'll utilise another euphemism to justify the fact that you're paying "just for promotion" or "merely for [this many] copies," or "only for…" something else, when the fact is that the fee will cover all their costs and will include their turn a profit.

They'll imply they tin get your title earlier the eyes of every bookstore owner and manager in the country. They might fifty-fifty requite examples of a few titles of theirs that have sold in some stores or even made some bestseller list.

Merely they tin can't guarantee your title will exist sold in whatsoever store. Because that list your title is on that is "available" to every store owner and managing director is merely a master list of all the books on some distributor'due south internet site of every title in their catalogue. That means your book will get no personal attending from a salesperson and no more than emphasis than whatever of the tens of thousands of other titles on the list.

Such companies are using you lot as petty more than than a content generator, pretending to accept "chosen" your book from among the many they have to choose from, when the fact is they would publish anything you transport them in any form, provided your accompanying check clears the banking concern.

Be wary of any company that:

• Doesn't have seriously the editing and proofreading of your book
• Lets you commit embarrassing typos
• Allows the word by before your name on the cover
• Over-promises what you lot should look in the fashion of personal sales representation, public relations, marketing, distribution, and advertising

That said, when you practise demand to self-publish, legitimate companies with proven track records are set and eager to assistance you. Do your homework and get beyond an internet search, which volition probable plow up beautiful websites for countless companies putting their best human foot frontward.

Find previous customers and ask nearly their experience. You lot want a company who volition answer every question straightforwardly and without hesitation. If you experience difficult-sold, run.

A litmus test question for the publisher: ask if they would advise you to exhaust your efforts to traditionally publish first. I asked this of the caput of WestBow Printing™, a segmentation of Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, and he said he always advises customers that this is the platonic route.

That kind of refreshing honesty bodes well for a company.

The #ane Killer of Self-Published Books

When writers run out of money to invest in their book, too ofttimes the starting time place that suffers is the content itself.

Writers may sympathize that they are not experts in comprehend blueprint, layout and typesetting, marketing and promotion, warehousing, distribution, and sales. But they overrate their writing and editing and proofreading abilities.

So, they invest in those other services and cut corners on editing and proofreading.

What they wind up with is a handsome product that looks like a real book only reads like the manuscript that made the rounds of the traditional houses and was rejected.

You must determine what will set up you apart in a noisy marketplace.

That sure something that will set you autonomously is what it has always been:

Writing quality.

Having been in the writing game for l years and an author for more than 45, that is something I am able to tell y'all with certainty.

To employ an ancient adage, foam rises. Readers recognize quality.

You or your agent may be looking for a deal from a traditional publisher. Or you may have chosen to cocky-publish online, in print, or both.

Regardless, you want your manuscript to be of the highest editorial quality you tin get in.

What does that mean?

Information technology means you lot must:

• Learn the craft and hone your skills. Rigorously study writing, do exercises, write stories, ferociously edit your piece of work. It can all pay off. Just as with concrete exercise, the more than the ameliorate, but anything is better than goose egg.
• Recognize that writing well is much harder and more involved than you always dreamed. If you idea writing was merely a hobby, this realization could crush you lot. And then, to push through, recollect why you wanted to get a writer in the first place: you accept a message, and people need to hear it.
• Don't trust friends' and relatives' flattery. Sure, they're slap-up for encouragement, or keeping you from quitting. But when y'all demand solid input on your writing, their enthusiasm won't translate to sales.
• Accept criticism and input from people who know what they're talking about. Discover an experienced writer or editor who'll offering honest feedback on your work. Join a writers grouping. Nourish writers conferences. Get a mentor.

If you lot really want to go an author, information technology can be done. Don't permit the magnitude of the process to overwhelm you lot. You'll know you're ready when you're willing to cleave the time from your schedule to write. You won't find the time; yous'll take to create it.

Something on your calendar will have to give so y'all'll brand the time to write. What'll it be? What you're willing to sacrifice will tell y'all how important your writing dream is to y'all. Welcome to the journey.

Want to write a book only don't know where to start? Click here to download my ultimate guide to writing a book for Complimentary.

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Source: https://jerryjenkins.com/how-to-become-an-author/