Guest Blogger Al Lamanda: Rambling Musings of the Mistakes I’ve Made Along the Way to Being Published.

**Please welcome author Al Lamanda, who is this month's guest blogger.**

You’ve sweated, stressed over, lost sleep because of, skipped meals, stood up friends and family, wrote, rewrote, gave up on, went back to, and finally finished the book you started out to write.

Finally, it’s finished. Your book. Now what?

When I first started writing, there weren’t the choices there are today. My choices were traditional publishers and that was it. Today, if you so choose, you can self-publish on a dozen different eBook publishing sites.

Before you try the eBook route, you want to take your best shot at getting you book scooped up by an agent, who will then in turn sell it for the best deal possible to a publisher. Where do you start?

Why, at the beginning, of course, because very little has changed in the world of traditional publishing. Your best chance of selling your work to a publisher is to get an agent who believes in you, and that isn’t easy. In fact, it’s very difficult. Not impossible, but difficult.

So, with that in mind, here are some of the things I did wrong and what I did to correct them along the way.

First, assuming you’ve finished your book, you must write a perfect query letter to an agent. One page or less, preferably less. An agent may receive hundreds of query letters in a week, how much time do you think will be spent on your six page rambler? My first query letter was almost seven pages. I included everything but my height and weight in it, and guess how many responses I got in return?

So what’s in a perfect query letter? Who you are, what your book is about, your contact information and a short bio of your work, if you have one. You can find many good examples of query letters on the sites I will list below. Note they are all one page or less. Practice yours until it’s the best query letter you can make it. Remember your query letter is your face, your introduction and your first impression. Make it a great one.

Now you have a query letter, so what do you do with it? Send it to an agent, of course. I mean, how could they not love it? After all, it’s your book. Right? So what I did was send my query to about five hundred agents. I figured volume query lettering would have to work if you send out enough of them. Of course, that proved to be the exact wrong thing to do.

Here’s why. If you do your homework, you’ll find that most agents represent the type of books they are interested in. So why query an agent looking for women’s fiction and tell them about you great mystery/thriller? Why query an agent looking for action/suspense with you great new western or romance novel? Do you homework and find the agents interested in your genre and query them. If you check the websites I’ve listed below, you can locate the agents interested in your genre. Those are the ones to target.

So you written the perfect query and sent them to your targeted agents and yikes, an agent wants to read your work. What now?

Simple, you do what the agent asks. Some will want to see a synopsis and first three chapters. Others will want a synopsis and the entire manuscript. Most, if not all will request a synopsis. The first time an agent asked me for a synopsis, I sent one nearly the size of my book. I never heard back. A synopsis should be two to six pages and no more. An agent doesn’t have the time to read a twenty page outline. If you had to read twenty or thirty of them a day, would you? Check the websites I list below for samples of some good synopsis writing. Practice writing yours and make sure it’s the best it can be before sending it out.

You’ve gotten this far, but you’re not there yet. When the agent asks to see your manuscript, what is expected is a manuscript formatted to industry standards. Nothing fancy in the least. Just 12 font, double spaced and as mistake free as possible. They don’t expect perfect, but they do expect industry standards and good. If the book is sold, a professional editor will take it from there. Check the websites below for samples of industry standards.

After that, it’s a waiting game. Don’t bug the agent. Normal response time is three months to get back to you, some as much as six months. After all, yours is not the only manuscript they have to read on their desk.

One final note on a doozy of a mistake I made early on. I took rejection personally. It isn’t. Resist the temptation to let that agent know what you think of their rejection notice. Rejection is just part of the business. Every reader won’t love your book and neither will every agent. Keep in mind that the agent who rejected your first book just might love your second one, but they will never read it if you make them an enemy.

Remember, when it comes to agents, it only takes one. If you don’t make the mistakes I did and your book is good enough, you will find that one.

Thanks for letting me share some of my mistakes with you and I hope they help you along your way.

http://www.agentquery.com/
http://www.guidetoliteraryagent.com/
Predators & Editors

Al Lamanda is the author of the books Dunston Falls, Walking Homeless, Running Homeless and Sunset (release date 2012.)

Back Away From the Ledge!

We're all going to face it at one point or another and as big as we talk about how thick our skin is or how we can handle it--the truth is that rejection hurts. We may be able to swallow the bad news right off the bat but then again we might find ourselves gazing wistfully at that ledge. Maybe a nice bridge....

Don't do it!

Instead, consider this: Most agents receive 30,000+ queries a year from writer's who are dying to be published. At most, a tenth of those actually receive requests for partials or fulls which means we're looking at a very small percentage of writers whose dreams aren't crushed during the first round. Chances are if you received some form of rejection letter, it doesn't necessarily mean you suck or that you'll never be published. It's true when they say agents really have to LOVE your story.

Does that help the pain a little? No, probably not, but it does make us feel just a teensy bit better that we aren't alone in that rejection club.

So what does it mean when you open that letter from that agent only to have your heart broken? Is there a way to read between the lines?

Honestly--unless there is a personal note somewhere on the rejection form...Nope. But after doing some research, I found these helpful tips:

• Standard Rejection Form:  Here is where we automatically assume we suck. No writing, no tips, zilch. Now isn't that something to freak out over? Don't. Remember those 30,000+ queries a year? Yeah...how many would you be able to personalize? Maybe you just need to hone your skills a bit more?
• Rejection With Advice:  Okay, so they didn't like it but at least they gave you a reason for it instead of letting your imagination run wild while you teeter dangerously on that balcony. (Or was it a bridge?)
• Rejection With A Personal Note:  So they liked it enough to write with their own pen--eh, so to speak. Still a no but this time the agent took the time (and they don't often have a lot) to give you some encouraging words. Perhaps it's a: "Not for me but hope to see something else of yours in the future." Which means they want to be subjected to the wicked way with words you have. Yay! Or a "Liked it but not sure if people will buy it." So you got a good story, unfortunately so does every other Tom, Dick and Harry. Dern.

And then finally--the golden ticket of rejection letters!

• Needs Revision but Please Submit Again:  Sure it needs work but they're willing to wait for you to make the suggested changes to make a final decision. Which means you got a second chance to win them over!

Even the greats have seen their fair of rejection. JK Rowling's beloved Harry Potter was rejected more than ten times before finally making it into print. Stephen King's Carrie was rejected more than 20 times.

Can you imagine if they'd given up? Thrown in the towel and went on to do other things with their lives? I'm feeling dizzy just thinking about it. They didn't give up and neither should you. Keep at it and hang in there when rejection comes a-calling. Keep in mind that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. And while it might hurt your ego, a lot, it's not the end of the world or your writing career unless you allow it to be.

I hope this has lifted your spirits and given you something to think about. Until next time...

Happy Writing!