Completely new, would like prodding in the right direction

Hi all,

I have a 64k fantasy story complete that I'd love to advertise to agents/agencies, but I've never gone through this process before, despite having a lot of writing done in my time.

Can anyone give a total newbie like myself some tips on this please, like where to look etc.?

I'm Irish and based in Éireann (Ireland) if that helps/makes a difference.

 

Hate to say it, but if your novel isn't YA or middle-grade, 64K is too short for an adult fantasy story.

There are rare exceptions of course, but typically you're going to want to shoot for at least 90K. Bare minimum, maybe 85K. You could always test the waters and send out a few queries, but I'd recommend against it. Most agents these days will ignore your query if they aren't captivated by it, and the rest will send a form letter rejection. They probably won't bother telling you, "This is too short for an adult fantasy novel," which would be helpful feedback. So, here we are in a writing forum sharing advice and swapping our submitting experiences. The querying process itself is quite simple, though. You find an appropriate agent, and submit to them according to their stated guidelines.

Once it's up to an appropriate word count for the genre, the next step is writing your query letter. Plenty of resources on Google, YouTube, etc., and of course there is much discussion on forums as well. You can post your query for critique and I am sure a few people would provide some feedback. It's also a good idea to prepare a short (~400 word) and longer (800+ word) synopsis, as this is frequently requested by agents.

Oh, and an important piece of advice that I've learned firsthand - don't submit too early. Get a couple of beta readers. Let your book sit for a few months (maybe while you beta read the book that your beta reader sent you in exchange) until it's not so fresh in your mind, and then go through a few more editing sessions.

I recall your saying that you've written several other novels before this one, so you may have already taken some of these steps. But I reckoned it'd be worth mentioning them anyway.

 

The article below gives typical word counts by genre, and is worth looking at.

https://careerauthors.com/genre-book-length/

 

Thanks for the reply! My book is actually YA, so I was thinking 64k was actually something that might be happily hit for agents/publishers. My shortest are in the 38k-45k range, while my longest is up at 100k.

I do have a synopsis, and would probably need to get that reviewed here if possible - what's the best forum to post a circa 400-800 (as you said) word overview?

Thank you!

 

I suppose the most appropriate place to post it would be here:
https://www.writingforums.org/publisher/traditional/query-cover-letter-critique/

But I should warn you that this section of the site is viewable by the public, not just forum members. I wish I'd known that before posting there myself. So, with that in mind, you might want to post it in the workshop instead. If the mods have an issue with that, they'll let you know.

 

Oh that's great, thank you! I assumed it was intentional, but it did seem like an odd choice since all the other critique sections are members-only.

 

Looks like this was successful. The option still appears to someone who isn't logged in, but when they click on it, this is what they get:


But - there definitely are threads to display. You just have to be logged in. Thanks again, us users appreciate it !

 

Too bad you can't make it flash INTRUDER ALERT on their screen.