Hi, I’m Josh Sundquist, author of the National Bestseller JUST DON’T FALL and my new memoir
WE SHOULD HANG OUT SOMETIME.
Today, I’m going to teach you how to get published.
First let’s start with defining some terms.
A “manuscript” is an unpublished work, like a text document of a future book.
Now, we’re talking about publishing today, and that word, ‘publishing,’ can mean
a lot of things.
Obviously, you could print the book yourself; that’s ‘self-publishing.’
Or you could write some fan fic, say, about shipping two of your favorite YouTubers, and
publish that online.
But what we’re going to talk about today is ‘traditional publishing,’ which means
that a publisher pays you for your manuscript, they print it, they distribute it to bookstores,
and they help you market and sell it.
OK, so step one is writing an amazing manuscript.
That’s the most important thing, and the first thing you have to do.
So go ahead and do that; I’ll wait.
Actually, that could take a really long time, so why don’t you pause the video and come
back after you’ve written your awesome manuscript.
*Typing sounds* OK, so you’ve un-paused the video because
you’ve written your awesome manuscript.
What do you do now?
You need a literary agent, because if you send your manuscript to a publisher without
a literary agent, there is a zero percent chance that they’re going to look at it.
It’s going to end up in what’s called “the slush pile,” which is where manuscripts
go to be unread and die.
VOICE OFF-SCREEN: “Oh, no!”
JOSH: The agent is a bouncer at the door who removes the velvet rope and lets you go inside
to speak with the editors.
Now before we get into how to find an agent, let me be clear that you want to make sure
you have a reputable agent.
If an agent ever comes to you and says, “I’m going to charge you money to read or represent
your book,” that’s not the agent that you’re looking for.
Your agent should only make money if you make money.
So what you need is what I would call “a rockstar agent”—this is an agent who has
already sold successful books.
Now, that means that they already have existing relationships with editors at publishing houses,
so they’ll know the editor who might be interested in buying your manuscript.
So for that reason, you also want to find an agent who specializes in your genre.
Now you might say, no Josh, my book is not a genre, it's literary.
Well, okay, let’s put that argument aside, and for the purposes of this video, we'll
just consider "literary" to be a genre.
Okay, so, now how do you find that rock star agent who’s going to represent you?
STEP ONE: List out the top ten most successful books in your genre.
STEP TWO: Look in the Acknowledgements section of each book.
Almost in every book, the author will specifically, by name, mention their literary agent.
STEP THREE: You’re gonna need to find the contact information for each of these agents.
First, you can go to this website, agentquery.com, which will give you the contact information
for agents and also tell you a little bit about what they’re looking for.
Now, the thing to realize is that successful agents get sometimes hundreds of query letters
per day, so sometimes they keep their contact information hidden.
If so, here are a couple ninja techniques on how you might find ways to contact them.
First is a website called everyonewhosanyone.com/.
And finally, if you can’t find their address in either of those, try searching for the
agent's name.
Put quotation marks around the agent's name, and then the word “email.”
And you never know, sometimes people’s email addresses pop up in, like, long-forgotten
PDF documents.
STEP FOUR: Send a query letter to each agent.
The idea with a query letter is, you’re just trying to get them interested in your
manuscript.
So you write them an email that is a short as you can possibly write it.
Your goal is not to sell them the book; your goal is just to get them to reply to the email
and ask to read the manuscript.
Now, many agents will have information on their website about how they want to be queried.
If they do, then you should follow those guidelines.
Remember that these people are very busy, and so you need to be very respectful of their
time.
And if they don’t reply to your email, or if they reply and say no, don’t take it
personally—this is just a business decision.
STEP FIVE: With any luck, you’ll sign with one of the agents.
He or she might take you through a few revisions of the manuscript; then he or she agent will
make a list of editors that could potentially be interested in your manuscript.
And submissions of your manuscript will be made to those editors.
And hopefully, one of them will fall in love with it, make an offer, buy the book, and
then you will be a published author!
And this week’s catchphrase is, “We should hang out sometime,” which—ha!—also happens
to be the title of my new book.
For more information about the book, click on the link in the under-bar to go to weshouldhangoutsometime.com.