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The novel's done. It's been rewritten a thousand times, edited within an inch of it's life, and formatted into 12 Times New Roman font with a version of a title page somewhere in between the dozen different ways the many writer's guides tell you is the only way to do it. It's perfect or as lose to perfection as you can come without going crazy, because truth be told, if you read it again, you'll decide to rewrite chapter 5 and maybe 10 again, fix the opening sentence, maybe add to the ending. No, just let it go.
What's next.
1. You shop the Internet or use a publishing guide to find a literary agent since most major
publishing houses won't accept unsolicited material.
2. You find an agent who accepts your type of genre/audience. One who enjoys reading what you
are selling and has successfully shopped similar books to publishers.
3. You research what they accept and in what format and fix your first 5, 10, or two chapters
accordingly and send it off whether by mail or email.
4. The you wait! And wait and wait and wait and wait and check fifty times to make sure you sent
it to the write email address. And if you sent it to a literary agent who wants first crack at a
novel without competition like I did, this is all you get to do, except maybe work on your next
novel.
Welcome to pre-publishing limbo. It's actually hell. That waiting game of checking your email every hour to see if they have responded. You stomach clenches preparing for a rejection since you have sensibly reminded yourself that everyone get rejected at first, even J.K. Rowling (I bet those agents/publishers feel stupid) but really hoping for an email expressing interest and the rest of your manuscript.
Yet, this is only half of the game. We are only waiting for someone to agree to try and sell our beloved manuscript to a publisher. Another long wait in itself.
But this is the reality of the writing game. It's not the fast turn around. Just a lesson in patience.
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