Yet you’re earning a lot less money than most of the people who graduated with you. You have a master’s degree from an Ivy League college and you, at least, think you’re smarter than most other people. Imagine that you’re an acquisitions editor at one of America’s largest publishing firms in New York City. Before I show you ways to win the Battle of the UNs, I’d like you to have a fuller understanding of the system. However, one of my reasons for writing and researching this book is to reveal to you that as a potential author, not having an agent does not necessarily disqualify you from the game automatically. Finding and nurturing tomorrow’s stars are two of our functions. Most agents I know are always on the lookout for fresh talent. It’s significantly easier to get an agent than it is to get a publisher-not the other way around. I usually recommend that unpublished writers first make every attempt to get an agent before they start going directly to the publishers. One basic reason for this is that editors view agents as a valuable screening mechanism- that is, when a project crosses the editor’s desk under an agent’s letterhead, the editor knows it’s undergone vetting from someone in the industry who is familiar with the applicable standards of quality and market considerations For one thing, on the procedural level, established agents can usually obtain relatively rapid (and serious) consideration for their clients. Having an agent greatly increases the likelihood that you will be published. What can you do to turn it around? If you find some answers, then you haven’t failed at all, and the lessons you allow yourself to learn will lay the groundwork for success in this and in other endeavors. If you fail, fail, and fail, you should look within yourself for possible answers. There are reasons why some highly talented people habitually underachieve, and those reasons can often be found within them.
It’s also within your power to minimize those chances. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” It’s completely within your power to maximize your chances of getting published. For every published writer, there are, at minimum, several thousand waiting in line to get published.
#Publishers accepting unsolicited manuscripts 2019 how to
What I mean is: You’ll gain reasonable access to the powers-that-be for your work, and you’ll learn how to increase the odds-dramatically-that your work will in fact be acquired.
When I use the word “win” here, I don’t mean to say that you’ll necessarily get your work published. But first let me clarify an important distinction. In this chapter I’ll show you how to win the Battle of the UNs. Thousands of new books are published each year, and thousands of people are needed to write them.
There is no published author who wasn’t at one time an UN. I have dubbed the previous obstacle course the Battle of the “UNs.” If you’re presently unagented/unsolicited, you’re one of the UNs. On the surface, these negatives make it seem that you would have a better shot at becoming a starting pitcher for the Yankees or living out whatever your favorite improbable fantasy might be.īut, as you will soon learn, these so-called policies and practices are often more false than true, especially if you develop creative ways to circumvent them. You may also be familiar with the rumor that it’s more difficult to get an agent than it is to get a publisher-or that no agent will even consider your work until you have a publisher. It’s possible that you, or people you know, have already run into this frustrating roadblock. “Unagented” means that a literary agent did not make the submission.“Unsolicited” means that no one at the publisher asked for the submission. Most major publishing houses claim to have policies that prevent them from even considering unagented/unsolicited submissions. Battle of the “UNs” Unagented/Unsolicited Submissions
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