In these difficult times in publishing, an ambitious writer should know the best markets for his/her particular genre, preferably before plotting the proposed book.
Publishers are inundated with manuscripts on a daily basis. These uninvited submissions go straight into the ‘slush pile’. They languish there until someone hopefully has time to glance at them. Almost all publishers are interested in only a specific range of genre. No writer in his/her right mind would send a gory thriller to Mills & Boon, for instance. The ‘slush pile’ is high enough without publishers receiving genres in which they have no interest, and so to save the writer time and, indeed, heartache he/she should research his markets.
The best way to do this is to purchase the latest copies of books that list publishers and agents, and which gives information on their requirements. The following books to be recommended are:
Writers' Handbook
Writers' and Artists' Yearbook
Crime Writers' Handbook
Children's Writers' and Artists' Yearbook
Writers' Markets
A study of any of these books will be well worthwhile and will save the writer a lot of time which can be better spent on writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment