The first step in getting a novel published is, of course, writing it. Though it might sound easy enough if you have the drive to do it, most don’t realize that this is harder than they think. A large percentage of most who start a novel never get it done. The next step is getting it sent out to those who might want to publish the work. This is something that an even smaller percentage do. There is plenty of competition out there, but it would be even worse if everyone who ever thought of getting a novel published actually submitted it for consideration.

There are many directions you can go when you want to write for a living. Some go the freelance route writing for magazines and for online publications, and they find that this is what fulfills them the most. Others go into technical writing and find the pay so good that they don’t care to do anything else. However, many writers, no matter what they do to pay the bills, think about writing a book someday. If this is an itch for you, you do have to know how to go about getting a novel published into today’s publishing world.

If you find that doing this on your own is not getting you anywhere, you may want to get a literary agent that can help you with getting a novel published. You have to take the same approach you would take with a publishing company, however. You have to find someone who works in your genre, and that is willing to take on your work. They may read it and not like it, but someone else may find it publishable material. You won’t know until you try. You never want someone who wants you to pay them to read your book, but rather someone who gets a percentage after they have succeeded in getting a novel published for you. Even in the world of literary agents there are scam artists of which you should beware.

You may find that getting your novel published is very hard, and you may not even get anyone to read it. You should get a copy of the current year’s Writer’s Market to be sure you are sending your novel to the right companies and to ones that will take your submission. One of the biggest mistakes some make when they are trying to get someone to publish a novel is that they send a horror submission to a company that only deals in romance, or that does not take unsolicited manuscripts. Getting Writer’s Market will save you time and money when submitting your work.