Set to Sell: How to Effectively Market Your Finished Manuscript to Agents and Publishers

By Aimee Hardy

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So, you’ve written your story. You’ve gotten feedback and edited draft after draft. Finally, your manuscript shines. You’ve been sending it out to agents and publishers (and may have gotten a few requests), but you still haven’t found success. You start to wonder if your story is any good or if your writing isn’t good enough, but all of your feedback has told you that your story works. What could be happening? 

As an editor, the majority of manuscripts I receive are well-written and interesting, but their pitches often don’t do their stories justice. To move your work from the slush pile to the must-read pile, there are a few small things you can do in your pitch that will pay off exponentially. 

Important Details

When you pitch your work to agents, be sure to give them important details about your novel, including genre, word count, and comp titles. Acceptable word counts vary by genre, but a common sweet spot is between 80,000 and 100,000 words for general fiction. Look up specifics for your genre to make sure your manuscript fits with the standard conventions. 

Comp titles are also helpful for the publisher or agent to clearly understand the concept of your work. You can use popular books, movies, or even TV series, just make sure your comps are current and reflect today’s reader. For example, if you’ve written a dark coming of age thriller set after the apocalypse, you could describe your work as the Gillian Flynn version of The Last of Us meets Stranger Things. The agent or publisher will understand common themes (such as coming of age, power, friendship, and courage) but can expect a darker twist. 

Give or take a little more 

Once you’ve finished your manuscript, you’ll want to create a 1–2 sentence logline for your pitch. Your logline gives all the information needed for your book so the agent or publisher can identify the main character, the conflict, and the stakes. Who is your character, what is their big problem or conflict, and what happens if they don’t succeed? 

Some writers fear that they will give away too much plot or that the agent or publisher won’t read it if they know all the details at once, but the reality is, you need to have a clear understanding of your work to be able to sell it later (more on that in the next point). Here are some quick examples of short but effective taglines: 

• A young FBI cadet must confide in a manipulative convicted killer to receive his help on catching another serial killer who skins his victims. (Silence of the Lambs)

• A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future. (The Shining)

Try writing a few for your work and see which one works the best. 

Place it on the shelf

Along with knowing comp titles, understanding the market for your genre is often one of the best ways to sell your work. Agents and publishers want to know that you understand the market, the conventions of your specific genre, and the clear vision you have for your work. 

Not only does it show that you’ve done your homework, it shows that you can sell your work within the current market, which is a much-needed skill when it comes to publication. Although writing a novel is hard, a lot more work goes into book promotion. Once a book is accepted for publication, it will typically have a release date that’s 1–2 years away. Publishers need time to plan marketing, distribution, awards, etc. that might work best for your book, so comp titles and market knowledge are essential for planning a successful launch. If you already have a vision for your work, publishers are often able to use similar campaigns or networking strategies to your comp titles. 

Pinpoint your readers 

Another effective way to sell your story is to have a good understanding of your readers. You should know why your story is important and why readers would buy your book. Look at the demographics of your comp titles, including age, sex, occupation, interests/hobbies, etc. If you have a strong selling point with an eager audience, it helps agents and publishers see the incentive of releasing your book. 

Identifying your audience also helps publishers see how they can effectively market your book. They might consider partnerships or nonprofit campaigns that will connect you with your ideal reader. The more concise you are about your audience and how to reach them, the more likely a publisher will be to release your work. 

Leverage your communities

We’ve all heard that it takes a village, but networking is essential to your book’s success. You might need to include the organizations and networks that you’re a part of so you can leverage existing relationships. This also gives your publisher to see any connections that you may have missed when it comes to marketing your book. 

Although writers often don’t want to consider social media as important to their work, it can be an important part of getting your work to a wider audience. Focus on genuine connections with friends and followers and don’t be afraid to partner up with other writers and creatives to make meaningful relationships in the larger community. 

Do your research

You may also consider doing a bit of research. Watch interviews and read wish lists for agents and publishers. Reference their preferences to let them know that they are really important to you and aren’t just on an endless list of contacts you’re mindlessly submitting to. Personal connections let the agent or publisher know that you’re a real person who truly cares about your work and the place you're submitting it. 

You may also research market trends, including current events, changes in genre trends, and new reader data. Understanding the market shows that you’re invested in the success of your novel and that you can see an opportunity for your work in the future. This creates a sense of urgency for the agent or publisher and increases the likelihood of getting new eyes on your work. 

Invest in YOU! 

The most important part of pitching your book is the time and effort you give to the success of your book. You’ve worked so hard on your novel that you don’t want to sell yourself short or waste your time with strategies that don’t work. Remember, you are the only one who can write your story, but you are also the only one who can have the vision and the drive to make it a success. 

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Aimee Hardy is a writer in Birmingham, Alabama. Aimee is the author of Pocket Full of Teeth (2024) and has various short stories published with Running Wild Press, Stonecoast Review, and other literary collections. She received a Pushcart nomination in 2019 for her short story "Paper" and is dedicated to telling stories in unique ways. Aimee is married with two kids and loves to get lost in nature or disappear into a good book with a warm cup of tea.

Gotta Go Through It

By Chrissy Hicks

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Have you ever heard the children’s song, “Going on a Bear Hunt?” My toddler requests this often—either for me to sing the tune for her or play it during car rides.

The main plotline involves a group of people (or a couple, depending on the version) going on a bear hunt, claiming they’re “not scared.” However, after overcoming several roadblocks and approaching the bear in a cave, they realize the terrifying result of their actions and run away. As they face each obstacle, they sing the same chorus, “We can’t go over it, can’t go under it, gotta go through it,” before proceeding through the barrier. 

It had me thinking—partly because this song is frequently stuck in my head—that this idea of going through obstacles is a lot like the writing journey. The initial blocks you might face when starting out might be: finding ideas, getting the first draft fully written, carving out time to write, determining whether you’re a plotter or pantser (or somewhere in between), finding a supportive writing community. Once you get past this, your next hurdle is to polish your manuscript so shiny you’re not sure you want to look at it anymore; this often involves the recruitment of beta readers and editors. Once you’ve leaped over all that, you have yet another hill to climb: how will you share this book with the world? Self-publish? Hybrid? Approach small publishers directly? Find an agent? Each of these options presents an entire list of risks and rewards each, but let’s take finding an agent as an option, for the sake of example. You decide to query your novel—this book you’ve spent countless hours writing, revising, rewriting, revising again—and you spend an incredible chunk of time researching agents, perfecting your query, and emailing these agents, hoping you get a “yes.” When you do finally get your acceptance and you sign with an agent, it feels like Christmas. You’ve found your “bear.” The hunt is over.

Except it’s not. It’s only just begun.

Agents get rejected by editors and publishing houses too. They deal with their own set of setbacks. And what happens when a publisher accepts the manuscript? And it’s published? There’s yet another slew of expectations for the writer when it comes to marketing their book (or at least assisting with the process). Plus, the publisher will likely want more material (not just a single book), so you find yourself back to the beginning, with a fresh page and a whole new set of challenges. When you find yourself in this place, so close to your goals, terrifying as it all may seem, will this scare you away? Or will you stay the course?

The point of this brief exposition isn’t to deter you from writing. The point is simply this: there’s not much you can control outside of your writing and your dedication to the craft. You can’t control whether agents will sign with you, whether readers will like your work, whether you hit the New York Times Bestseller list or barely earn out your advance. So, what will you do when you face these obstacles? If you can’t go over it, can’t go under it, will you move through it?

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Chrissy’s work has appeared in three consecutive issues of Bridgewater State University’s “Embracing Writing” book for first-year freshmen. Her writing portfolio also includes publications in The Broadkill Review, SUSIE Mag, The Storyteller, and informative pieces for a local online newspaper. One of her unpublished novels, Foul Play, was a Suspense Finalist for the 2022 Claymore Award, and an excerpt from her unpublished novel Overshadow won Top Three Finalist of the 2024 Thomas Mabry Creative Writing Award. Though her background is in counseling, having earned a master’s degree in this field, when it comes to the art of writing, she’s an autodidact. She studies books she loves and enjoys completing various creative writing classes online, and attending writer’s conferences whenever she can; Killer Nashville is one of her favorites. Additionally, she’s volunteered since 2023 as a general editor for the Killer Nashville Magazine. She resides in Tennessee with her family, their talkative Husky, and a frenetic cat. You can find her online here: https://chrissyhicks.wordpress.com/ where she occasionally blogs about the writing life and reviews craft books.

Agents- You Don’t Need Them

By Dale T. Phillips

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In the past, literary agents were sometimes useful and necessary for selling a manuscript to a publisher, and as an author representative, negotiating a better deal for the author for the sale of the book rights. Unsolicited, un-agented manuscripts were often sent to the publishing house. These were called over the transom (the crossbar above a door), because in the olden days, some were literally pushed through the window portion over the transom in the hopes that someone would read them. They would be dumped into a slush pile, and good luck to anything that broke out of that oubliette. Once in a great while, somebody would scan some of the manuscripts in the pile and find a pearl in that mountain of clamshells (not even oyster), and a miracle occurred, and the book got published. Extremely low odds, but it didn’t stop the flow. Hope springs eternal in the hearts of writers. 

In the latter part of the twentieth century, the publishing houses churned in a frenzy of consolidation and mergers. The people taking them over were interested in profits more than literature, and things changed dramatically. Many people who had been in the business for the love of books went away (voluntarily or just cut), and the ones remaining had to do more with much less. One thing that got outsourced was the discovery of buyable manuscripts. Many publishers announced they would not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Some still did, even though they advertised the opposite. They just didn’t want to deal with what they considered were piles of junk. So they pushed the work of editors and screeners onto literary agents, who would take on the burden of sifting through submissions for the needle in the haystack, the sellable manuscript. Agents became the gatekeepers to the Big Leagues- if you didn’t have an agent, you couldn’t even get someone to read your work. Agents were convenient for traditional publishing, because they’d recommend manuscripts that had some merit. If an agent sent nothing but duds, they wouldn’t be around long.

Generalization follows. Agents screen by what they think will sell to the handful of editors they have contact with. And instead of reading actual manuscripts to start, they rely on the query letter from hopeful authors. A (usually) one-page letter is a summary of what the book is about. It can be scanned rapidly, and usually discarded. Their reasoning is that if a writer cannot write a good query, the manuscript isn’t likely to be good. So now New Author must spend a lot of time composing the Perfect Query, all to hunt for the elusive Great Agent, who will take them on, to find the Perfect Publisher. Trouble is, the Great Agents are all booked up, and few are taking on new clients. Guess where that leaves New Author? Going through listing of potential agents to query, studying what kind of book they prefer to represent, and firing off a batch of queries to the selected group. Why in batches? Because the agents then usually take their sweet time about responding, if they respond at all. It can be days, but is more often weeks or months before the author hears back. And the response is usually “Thanks, but it’s not for us.”

How does one find a good agent that will take them on? At this point, it’s a matter of rare good fortune. While there are excellent agents, there are some who are just awful, and a portion who are downright toxic or even criminal. Some famous authors have struck deals with well-bespoken top agents, only to discover horrendous abuses. See the horror stories of Laura Resnick and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Sometimes the agents wouldn’t bother notifying the author of additional potential deals. A bad decision by an agent can be costly. And that’s just the honest ones! But new writers are so desperate to get an agent (a process that can often take years) that they’ll sign with the first one who indicates interest. It can be a catastrophic mistake. 

The problem is that anyone can say they’re an agent, hang out an agent shingle tomorrow, run an ad or two, and within a few weeks, probably have hundreds of submissions, because there are so many people hungry for traditional publishing that they’ll sign with anyone who’ll take them. They’ll be taken, all right, usually to the cleaners. 

Agents need no certification or education, no degree, no proof of ability, no license, no standards. It’s all voluntary. In many cases, they give legal advice on complex contracts (which benefit themselves)- in other words, practicing law without a law license, which is actually a crime. Thousands of authors hand over their careers and money to absolute strangers, with little or no vetting other than they saw a listing somewhere. And then a few emails and a phone call or two. “They seemed nice, and eager to work with me.”

The publishing houses mostly send the money due the author for advances and royalties to the agent/agency. When does the author get paid? At the whim of the person holding the money. Imagine if your employer sent your paycheck to your bank, who then decided when and how much to give you of the money you’d earned! 

It’s always a good practice to be in charge of your own finances. If you do decide to sign with an agent, try to work it so the payments from the publishing house go to you first, or to each their share. After all, the agent is supposed to be working for you. Then you pay the agent. Unusual, but not unheard of. 

Other problems with agents are that if you decide to part ways, you might still have to pay them forever for any of your books they represented, or even any you sold elsewhere while you were signed with them. Yup, you could wind up forking over your 15%, even twenty years after you got rid of them. Worse than alimony. And if they sold anything of a series, they may try to get a cut of any future things you sell from that series, even after you’re no longer working together. Dean Wesley Smith (with over 40 years of experience) says writers don’t need agents anymore. He says it’s like giving fifteen percent of your house value to the person who cuts your lawn. 

Many authors say they love their agent. Some authors don’t want to talk about bad experiences with agents, for fear they’ll be blacklisted, because the Manhattan book world is a tiny bubble. And it’s possible an author might not even know for a long time they’re being badmouthed in the industry, and why doors are closed in their face. But many more will tell of the hell they went through with agents. One well-known example had an author finding out only years later that their agent had died! 

If you want to work with an agent, be careful. Have any contract with the agent and with a publisher additionally vetted by qualified, licensed Intellectual Property attorneys, not just agents who say they know what they’re doing. In the new world of publishing, agents are far less useful than they used to be. With all the changes, it’s getting tougher for them to make a decent living as well. Not having an agent means not having to give up a good chunk of profits, which are slim enough. 

However, if you want to meet agents, writer conferences are the best places, because many agents go there to find new clients, and expect to get pitched. Some agents even schedule pitch sessions at these conferences, where a prospective writer has a few minutes to pitch the agent on a book proposal. Many writers get asked for part or all of a manuscript, based on those few minutes. At least the agent will give it a chance. 

If you do this, have a killer tagline to catch their interest. Follow with a few sentences similar to a description of other books the agent has done, or top-sellers. Think high-concept: for example, Gone Girl crossed with Silence of the Lambs, that sort of thing. Keep it simple, exciting, and show you know the marketplace and what type of book that agent represents. Most have their likes and dislikes available on their website, so do your homework first. Some give precise guidelines for how to pitch them. Don’t think your manuscript is so wonderful that a strictly children’s author representative will suddenly want your adult science fiction novel (yes, this kind of idiocy still happens). But if your book is like others the agent has represented, say so. 

Your pitch could go something like this: 

“Hello. I’m [author name], and my novel, A Time for Tea, is an eighty-thousand-word cozy mystery about a blind librarian who solves crimes in her small Welsh village. It’s similar in tone to Murder by the Sea, which I see from your website you represented. This is my first novel, although I’ve had mystery stories published in [credits].” 

This pitch shows the author has done their homework, and in many cases, the agent would want to hear more. The conversation might end with the agent asking for a partial manuscript, maybe the first fifty pages or so. I’ve seen this happen so many times at conferences, and the writer comes out of the session stunned, starry-eyed, and grinning from ear-to-ear. It’s wonderful to see dreams come true, so give them the moment and don’t harangue them with lectures about what other paths they might want to think about. If they’re happy, let them live their dreams. Of course, if someone asks for your advice, wait a bit and then give them the truth as you see it. Just don’t volunteer to be a buzzkill or dream-crusher, and remember that timing is everything. 

Remember that you don’t need anyone’s permission to publish, nor do you have to wait years to be chosen by gatekeepers. You can publish independently while you pursue a traditional path if you want, becoming a hybrid author, or any way that makes you happy. And if you achieve outstanding success as an independent, the traditional publishers will then want you even more.

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Dale T. Phillips has published novels, story collections, non-fiction, and over 80 short stories. Stephen King was Dale's college writing teacher, and since then, Dale has found time to appear on stage, television, radio, in an independent feature film, and compete on Jeopardy (losing in a spectacular fashion). He's a member of the Mystery Writers of America and the Sisters in Crime.