Traditional Publishing

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Traditional Publishing

At BookWise Publishing, I mainly work with self-publishing authors, but occasionally I have someone ambitious and energetic enough that they want to find an agent and a traditional publisher—and I am equipped to help.

These are the first steps:

  1. My editing staff will help you fine-tune your manuscript.
  2. I will help you write your query letter (for fiction) or your book proposal for non-fiction.
  3. I will help you find appropriate agents to whom you will send your query/book proposal. I recommend that you research agents. Large and mid-sized publishers do not want to work directly with the author. You can find this type of information on free sites such as agentquery.com or on monthly subscription sites such as publishersmarketplace.com.
  4. Once you have a very direct and “personalized” (to the agent) one-page query letter or a well-developed proposal, the next step is to send it out with whatever portion of the manuscript and whatever format they (the agent or publisher) want it. And they are very specific at times.
  5. Then we wait for responses.
  6. If you receive an offer from an agent or publisher, you will pay the agent at least 15% of your contract. This process can take anywhere from 18 months to three years or more. BookWise Publishing will help you through this process but does not take a piece of your pie, in other words, when you accept a contract from an agent or publisher, you no longer need BWP.
  7. In terms of initial costs, BookWise Publishing requires a $750 retainer which covers 10 hours of our producer/director/editorial time. Any billable hours above and beyond what the retainer covers are billed at $75 TO $100 per hour plus expenses (if there are any). And you DO want those first chapters that you’re sending out to be edited and refined. One successful and well-known agent (not to be named) with whom I have worked closely knows within two pages if the book is salable. If not, it goes into the “circular file.”
  8. All costs will be explained in advance and are subject to your agreement.

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