Okay, so you're thinking about writing a book. Or maybe you've already written one. You worked for months on it, maybe years. You devoted hundreds, maybe thousands of hours on your project and you've put your heart and soul into it. At times you thought you'd never get through it. Now that you're done, you're probably breathing a sigh of relief that the hardest part is behind you.
WRONG!!
Now comes the really hard part- Finding a publisher. If you've been around for anytime at all, you already know that none of the big publishing houses will even look at your manuscript unless you have a literary agent. Which means that your next logical step is to retain an agent to represent your work to the publishers. Good Luck!!
Finding a reputable agent (one who is an AAR member) is often times a daunting prospect. Most of the big time New York agents are swamped with clients and will not consider taking you on unless your name is Dean Koontz, Stephen King, or Robert Ludlum.
However, the reality is that you still need an agent. So how do you go about finding one? There are many great guides for sale that will tell you how to go about finding an agent. One of my favorites is Jeff Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents. I bought my copy at WaldenBooks for 25.00.
There are also many, many charletons out there who advertise that they are agents, but who are, in reality, little more than fronts for scams such as EDIT INK. The bottom line when looking a literary agent is to find an agent who is a member of AAR (The Association of Authors' Representatives, Inc.) AAR agents will not charge a reading fee to look at your work. Nor will they charge you upfront fees to market your book to publishers. Instead, they make their money when they sell your manuscript to a publisher. At that time, they usually take a flat commission of about 15% of your gross proceeds and sometimes they take another smaller fee to pay for their actual expenses incurred to sell the book (copying fees, messengering fees, postage, long distance calls, etc). That's it!
Below I've listed many writer sites on the net pertaining to Literary Agents, Publishers, Writing Hints, Professonal Writers' Associations, Copyright laws, etc. Some of the sites are particularly useful in that they list those agents who have been associated with scams such as Edit Ink.