What process must you go to in order to publish a book?

Answer 1

Query agents first -- never send a full manuscript. Write them a letter pitching your book and include a self-addressed, stamped envelope for them to respond with. Prepare for a lot of rejection, because no matter how good your writing is, it's going to take time to find the right agent to market it. Best thing is to query as many agents as possible -- but make sure everyone you query is currently accepting submissions in your genre, because otherwise you just look unprofessional.

Answer 2

Woah I totally was going to ask this question! I want to publish a book too! I found this link and it looks really good. It has the step by step process.
http://library.thinkquest.org/J001156/publishing%20book/publishingbook.htm

I know one thing is that teen and children books are the hardest to get published because there are so many and publishers kind of turn their back on you. They only have room for so many. So you need a very nice a hard working agent or whatever.

Good luck with your publishing! Tell me what it's called so I can read it when it does get published!

Answer 3

Well, I'm assuming you have your manuscript written.

Your first step is to ignore the answer above mine.

Once you've done that, think about your manuscript, what genre is it? Who would it appeal to?

What you want to then is, let's say you have a Mystery novel that would be suited best for young adults, then you could either look up recently published Young Adult Mystery novels and find out who published them, or just do a broad search for either "young adult publishers" or "mystery publishers" or "young adult mystery publishers" and see what you get. You can also pick up the Writer's Market, the 2008 edition is out now, and you can find it in most book stores. It will have a list of every publisher in North America.

Once you have found a publisher, or a list of them, go to their websites or phone them and find out how they accept submissions. If they do not take unsolicited submissions, move on, only the larger publishers require you to use an agent and your odds of selling well with one of them are slim. Instead, you want a small to medium sized publisher. Most often they will ask you to either send the first three chapters of your manuscript as well as a cover letter, with a summary of the rest of the story, as well as some personal information. You will also find a lot of them asking for your entire manuscript, printed to their specifications and unbound.

Once you have mailed your manuscript to the publisher's specifications, you enter the hardest step, waiting. It varies from publisher to publisher, but you can expect to wait from between two weeks to several months. In the mail you will either receive a rejection letter or a letter announcing that they wish to publish your novel, as well as a means of contact for you to get in touch with the company. From there, you will simply follow their directions and soon you will find your book on shelves.

Answer 4

author house.com
brad tirey