How To Get Your Novel Published

10 Ways to Not Get an Agent #4: Writing anything that involves a serial killer that specializes in the killing of literary agents. You’d be surprised how many of these I get. Elizabeth Jote

Write something I haven’t seen before, and write it really really well. Janet Reid

A great plot just drips off of a query letter, and an author with a great plot can’t help but write a great query letter. Nathan Bransford

I realized that I kept repeating to writers that they should make their pitch paragraphs read like the back cover copy of books you’d see in the bookstore or library. And that got me thinking about how I write my pitches to editors. That got me to my realization that I almost ALWAYS use the catalyst that starts the story, which can be found within the first 30 pages of the novel. Kristin Nelson

To attend a book fair at Frankfurt or London is to see how removed the industry is from the daily concerns and challenges facing writers — and vice versa. Orna Ross

Writing is your job, just like your postman has a job. He delivers the mail every day, rain or shine. Successful authors sit down and face that blank screen every day. You don’t actually have to do it every day, but you do have to do it on a firm schedule. …If you write only when the muse strikes or when you feel like it, you will have a very hard time finishing a book. Irene Goodman

(Talking about what makes a book special) …the thing is, it is both subjective and emotional, as well as involving the part of my brain that weighed books up as a commercial publisher for fifteen years. I’ve turned down books I loved personally, when I didn’t feel they were commercially viable. So basically, both sides of me have to feel something is special. John Jarrold