Does your book have to be complete before you start working on finding a publisher or agent?

I think it would help.

Not necessarily: you can often work with a sample chapter and a synopsis of the book as a whole. It will depend on the agent though. I would probably recommend going through an agent rather than approaching a publisher directly.

If you are a new writer then yes, if established or written a few before then no.

Not necessarily.

It’s usually enough to have three chapters complete and a good plan of how the rest of the book will look.

Having said that, it’s important that you know how the book will end!

Right.. I was wondering if getting an agent involved (or trying to) would make the project feel like more of a job prospect than a hobby for the writer concerned. Although fair play she’s doing rather well these last few days.

So – say you have an agent interested – they help you complete the book? As in, advice, possible publisher interest, deadlines etc?

Up to a point, yes: if they’re interested in the project then they *might* provide guidance on the best way to develop through to a completed manuscript. That depends entirely on the agent though. Remember that as an unpublished author the chances are that you are worth very little to them so they’re unlikely to commit a huge amount of time and energy. The agent I worked with sent things to external readers for feedback as well.

What they will do is approach publishers on your behalf: that’s basically their job.

You’d be very very lucky to get any interest at all ( advances are non existent these days) Tbh unless you’re already famous or a good genre writer, then self publishing is pretty much the only way to go.

Right.. so better to finish the novel and then work on agents I suppose.. But as newbies I’m sure there’s an awful lot we don’t know about the business. I mean the story is one thing but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there? Is there?

emsz – thanks for the encouragement!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with approaching an agent at this stage. My agent wasn’t great so I quickly moved on but then I work in a different field where having an agent isn’t so important.

Like Emsz says though: self-publishing can be a good way forward. Interesting article in the Guardian last week about someone in the US who has been hugely successful going down that route.

move to Ireland and get some tax breaks.

Self publishing has become very easy with more and more books sold electronically.

The obvious issue with self-publishing is how do you get your story out there in a way that grabs attention?

It’s easy to self-publish, but I imagine it’s way harder to gather publicity and to gain a readership. Is there any way to get around this?

Kindle is your friend here.
Look on the kindle forums, masses of help on there.

Surely self-published books are much lower volume than paper ones still? Having said that, one does take home a lot more of the money I have read.

And the publicity is an issue too. If you were very good at self-marketing you might be ok.

ebook, then print, it’s what I’m up to at the minute. This should be useful reading.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/12/amanda-hocking-self-publishing?INTCMP=SRCH

Hmm.. actually, come to think of it.. I know someone who writes a very popular book review blog for a living.. that might be a good place to start 🙂

Interesting article in the Guardian last week about someone in the US who has been hugely successful going down that route.

They also had an article with a bunch of other people who were attempting similar things who’d also spent ages on their novels, put them on Amazon, promoted them, and made something like 20p each.

Bearing in mind that a zillion people write novels, and a few thousand probably make money out of them, the odds are super low. So anything is a bit of a crap shoot – I imagine agents get hundreds of letters sent to them all the time.

At least she isn’t writing poetry – where there are probably fewer people paying to buy it than there are writing it.

I don’t think it has to be complete, but frankly it would make you look like a bit of a chancer. With all those people touting to publishers who have actually bothered to sit down and put the work in writing the book, and Mr “trust me it will be great when it’s finished”, to choose from.

A bit like trying to get a sponsor to ride World Cups on the basis of no results, but “I’m planning on training really hard over winter, and trust me, I’M AWESOME”

So anything is a bit of a crap shoot

It’s a difficult one. There are many books out there that are manifestly sh*te, but somehow have still been published. I wouldn’t be backing the author in question if I didn’t think the book so far was any good.. 🙂

A bit like trying to get a sponsor to ride World Cups on the basis of no results, but “I’m planning on training really hard over winter, and trust me, I’M AWESOME”

That would be the case if there was no book. There’s half a book, and it’s good, so it would be like asking for sponsorship by saying ‘well I’ve done this and this so far but need more time to train better so I can compete with the pros’.

My book is self-published in paperback (Lulu), Kindle (Kindle platform) and also ePub (Lulu).

The way I see it is that it is incredibly difficult for new authors to find even an agent, let alone a publisher. I see it now as being in a band, where you make your own CDs to sell at gigs, and build up a local following before looking for a record deal.

Many successful self-published writers of fiction publish their novels for 99p and then develop a readership that way. They can then start to sell novels for £2.99.

My book of course is specialised non-fiction so I have built up interest with a blog, magazine reviews and a facebook page for it.

If you do self-publish, it can be a great way for other related things such as book reading events etc.

To answer the original question: Surely it depends how good it is?

People have got publishing deals based on a sample first chapter and a publisher will obviously be more interested in a brilliant sample chapter than a mediocre complete book.

E-books may cost less but it seems the margins can be better for the author. The limiting factor is the size of the audience and the potential marketing effort a publisher could provide.