Make Your Fantasy Come True…

The fantasy fiction market is wide open. There are fantasies for children, young adults, men, women; those who like historically based fantasy, contemporary fantasy, even fantasy romance (which sounds little redundant, don't you think?). If you can imagine it and put it down on paper, chances are someone out there…a lot of someones…will want to read it.

What do you do when you finish that fantasy novel
manuscript?

Try to get it published, of course! Okay, so how do you that? First you can do an agent hunt. Go to conferences where there are agents participating and talk to them about your book. Be sure they handle that kind of manuscript or you're wasting both your times. You can also talk with writers you know or have met at functions that have agents to see if they can forward your manuscript on. You have to be very careful with this approach, especially if the writer isn't a friend.

You can also search literary agents online. The Association of Authors Representatives, Inc. is a good place to start. All these agents/agencies must hold to a standardized cannon ethics in their business practices. There are three ways to search the member database and the links page is an outstanding resource of publishing-related websites.



Do you need an agent?

An agent can do many things for you and your book. First the obvious, they can open doors with publishers that you can't. Many of the large publishing houses will only look at agented work. Second, they get a better contract than you can get on your own because they know what to look for and how to protect your interest. They can make you money and save you headaches. Third, agents know who is buying what and they stay up on the ever-changing market and can advise you appropriately.

But you don't necessarily need an agent to publish your book. You can self-publish, go with a print-on-demand publisher or the like, but that costs money, which is one drawback. Two, you have to sell the book to the public completely by yourself. Most bookstores won't take a book that is self-published or print-on-demand, especially the chains.


There are some traditional publishers who take unagented work. They are often smaller, but not necessarily, with little if any money to help you promote your book so you might be in a similar position to a self-published writer. However, they can get you into the bookstores. After that, setting up a signing or other promotion is easy.

So who are these publishers?

There are too many to name individually, but below are a few who publish fantasy fiction to get you started. Here are some highlights from their submission guidelines:

1. They don't want short fiction, though some do publish collections of short fiction. Most said submit manuscripts of 80,000 words minimum.
2. Unagented doesn't mean unsolicited. Double and triple check the guidelines to be sure you are sending them what they want in your first contact with them. Is it a query letter, sample chapters and a synopsis or do they want the entire manuscript?
3. Also send it to them they way they want it. If they want it by snail mail, mail it. If they want it by email, but pasted into the body of the email, cut and paste it into the body of the email. Give the publishers what they want and how they want it.
4. You only get one chance so make sure your manuscript, query letter, proposal, whatever you're sending, is flawless. If you need to have the manuscript professionally copy edited for typos and grammar mistakes, do so. However, if your Aunt Tillie on your mother's side has spent the last 25 years teaching AP English, I bet she knows her stuff and can help you out too.
5. On the other hand, if the publisher says he wants it edited before he'll look at it and tells you which editor to hire, run away. This isn't a company to publish your book. Chances are there will be fee upon fee upon fee that you'll have to pay him or one of his recommended colleagues before and during the time he represents you.

PUBLISHERS: (alphabetical order - inclusion does not mean an endorsement)

Baen Publishers: sci-fi and fantasy only. See detailed guidelines here.

DAW: an imprint of the Penguin Group of publishers and the only Penguin imprint to accept unagented work, seeks only sci-fi and fantasy novels. Click here for complete guidelines.

Fat Cat Press: an e-book publisher who seeks nonfiction, travel, Buddhist studies, speculative fiction including sci-fi and fantasy, and mysteries. Guidelines are here.

Henry Holt Books for Young Readers: Children's books from infants to YA in all genres and subgenres. Complete guidelines are here.

Kitsune Books: wide variety of fiction (including fantasy and some short fiction), poetry, nonfiction and children's fiction. No submissions accepted until August 2008. See guidelines here.

Leucrota Press: sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and graphic novels, sometimes experimental, rarely short story collections. Find the full guidelines here.



Books jackets are representative of the publishers' online catalogs/book lists.