After Editing: Submission « Suvudu - Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games

I finished writing my book last night—again.
Yes. Again.
I completed the first draft of The Dark Thorn about a month ago. I was fairly happy with it but knew it was only one step in a series of steps. Months ago when I had submitted its first four chapters, my prospective agent asked for the book when it was done but warned I had a great deal of purple prose that would need editing before he would send it to a publisher. It meant once I finished it I would have to start from the beginning and remove as much of that flowery, ornate language as I could.
After a long month of analyzing every word, sentence, paragraph and bit of dialog, I have a much tighter—and shorter—book.
The first draft of The Dark Thorn was 162,000 words. It is now 149,000 words.
Hence my finishing the book yet again.
It is now time for the next step though. The agent submission.
The first of what I hope will not be many!
Ironically, a few days ago I received an email from a hopeful writer concerning the next step for him to take now that his manuscript and editing are completed:

Question: Hello Shawn. Hope you’re well and your book is coming along. Hope there’s not too much red pen on it. There was a lot of red pen on my book when it was done but now I’m happy with it. I need to look for a agent and have bought a book from over here called the Writers and Artist Yearbook 2009, which has been very useful so far but one thing I’m having trouble with is how to class my book. Is it classed as fantasy or just fiction? There are agents who just ask for fiction and non-fiction etc. But one or two say they accept fantasy as well. Am I missing something here? Surely fantasy is fiction, so they should all accept it?
And here I thought writing the book would be the hardest part. Oh, how wrong I was!

Answer: Writing the book is not the hardest part! I’ve been saying it for years now, ever since I started submitting. Ha! Most people do not know that unless they’ve finished a book and shopped it around.
About your dilemma, I don’t know. I have no idea how the Writers & Artists Yearbook classifies its agents and editors. I’m assuming when you say “over here” you mean the UK, which makes my advice all the more difficult.
Agents come in all colors. Some only represent commercial fiction. Others represent commercial fiction, fantasy, science fiction and mysteries. Still others only agent fantasy. When an agent just puts “fiction” down as their emphasis, it could mean commercial fiction or it could mean all fiction. I can’t tell you.
What I can tell you is that you are going about it all wrong—at least to start.
You know your book. You know what you’ve written and what it is classified as. What you need to do is think about what other published books are like your own and then find out who agents those writers. Agents, by the large, are attracted to certain genres because they like to support what they enjoy. Doing this is far easier than what you are trying to do and you will be focusing your time and resources better.
For instance:
If I didn’t already have an agent interested, I’d look at my book and think, “You know, this is a lot like Dan Brown, Jim Butcher and Terry Brooks.” I would then do some investigation and learn who agents Dan Brown, who agents Jim Butcher and who agents Terry Brooks. Then I would query those agents.
See how simple that is? Warranted, those agents are high profile agents but I prefer to start at the top and work my way down. There are pluses and minuses to high profile agents and new agents—high profile agents tend to be very busy with clients whereas new agents have time to work for you—but high profile agents have proven themselves. If you do what I suggest and exhaust those agents, start querying those agents who “fantasy” as what they are interested in. After that, go to those who just offer “fiction” services.

A whole other article can be written on how to fully submit a book to various agents and editors. There are rules upon rules for doing it correctly and just one error can end an opportunity. More on this soon!
Have a question for me? Other than why do you talk about your unpublished book so much? Send them in to me! I love to talk about the craft of writing.
And the business that comes after!