You’ve finished your manuscript and you want to get a book deal with a traditional publisher. Where do you start?
Getting a book deal isn’t as simple as sending your manuscript to a publishing house. There’s a process that takes time, and each step builds on the one before it.
In this article, I’ll walk you through what that process looks like from preparing your manuscript, to querying agents, to signing a publishing contract. Lastly, I’ll share a Story Weapon to help you navigate the journey.
Learning how to get a book deal follows six steps: preparing a fully polished manuscript, finding the right literary agent through research, writing a compelling query letter, querying in tracked batches, navigating an offer of representation, and going on submission to publishers. Legitimate agents never charge upfront fees and earn roughly 15–20% of what they secure. Since waiting periods between steps can stretch for months, the most productive thing a writer can do is keep working on the next project.
Step 1: Make sure the manuscript is ready
This sounds obvious, but it’s where a lot of writers move too fast.
Most literary agents can tell within the first few pages whether your manuscript is truly ready for submission. If you query too early, you may lose the opportunity to ever work with that agent. Many won’t reconsider a project they’ve already passed on — even after major revisions.
The most important step to take is ensuring the manuscript is indeed ready. You may need an extra round of revisions. You might also benefit from having an editor look at it or getting feedback from a trusted critique partner who can help identify any areas that still need work.
Querying is emotionally demanding, so it’s worth it to make sure your manuscript is the strongest version it can be before you begin.
Another useful piece of practical advice here is checking the word count on your manuscript. Most agents and publishers expect manuscripts in certain genres to fall within a specific range.
Step 2: Find the right literary agent
For writers who want to get published the traditional way, a literary agent is essential. Most major publishers won’t look at your manuscript unless it’s sent by a trusted agent.
Agents will show your book to publishers, work out the details of any deal, and make sure your interests are taken care of throughout the whole publishing process.
Finding the right literary agent takes a little research. Most agents only represent certain types of books, so querying the wrong one usually leads to a rejection—not because your writing isn’t good, but because your book isn’t the right fit for them. Tools like QueryTracker, Manuscript Wishlist, and Publishers Marketplace can help you build a refined list of agents to contact.
Be sure to check if a literary agent is even open to getting new manuscripts before you send yours in. Some literary agents stop accepting new manuscripts for a while, and if you send yours during that time, it will probably be ignored.
One thing that’s important to know here is that real literary agents do not ask for money to read your manuscript or charge you any fees before they start working with you. A literary agent will earn a percentage of the money they secure for you — around 15% for books sold in your own country and 20% for books sold in other countries.
If a literary agent asks for money up front, that is a warning sign that they’re not legitimate.
Step 3: Write a query letter
The query letter is its own craft, and it’s worth treating that way.
A query letter is like an introduction to your book for an agent. It is usually one page long. You need to have an interesting hook that grabs the agent’s attention. Then you tell them what your story is about.
This part should be around 250 to 300 words. You also need to tell them your manuscript’s word count and what kind of book it is. You can tell them a little bit about yourself, but only the parts that are relevant to your book.
The most important part of your query letter is that opening hook. Agents get a lot of these letters. Some get a thousand every month. Nailing a good hook is key. It needs to be both interesting and specific. If your hook is too vague, it doesn’t give them a reason to keep reading. For example, saying, “This is a story about love and loss,” is not a hook. Make it more intriguing and unique.
Try to make a connection with the agent in your letter by pointing out why you think your book is a good fit for them. You can do this by talking about the kinds of books they’ve shared that they like on their profile, or books they’ve sold recently, or things they’ve said in interviews. This shows that you have done your research and you’re really interested in working with them. Agents notice these things. It can make a big difference.
Step 4: Query in batches and track everything
Most experienced writers recommend querying in batches of up to six to eight letters at a time rather than sending dozens of queries out at once. This recommendation is based on practical considerations: it allows you to revise the query letter if responses from the first batch are unresponsive or give any critical feedback.
Track your queries in a spreadsheet or somewhere handy. While some agents respond to queries within a few weeks, others can take six months to reply. Understanding what kind of response time can be expected from each agent makes the process much easier.
When you get a response, it’s also useful to know what an agent’s requests for additional pages means. They might send you a partial or full request — either way shows promise!
- If the agent makes a “partial request,” it means that they’d like to see fifty to one hundred pages of the book.
- If the agent makes a “full request” then it means they want to see the whole manuscript.
Step 5: The offer of representation
When an agent wants to represent you and your work, they’ll require you to make a phone call — also known in the industry as “the call” — to talk about the project, their vision for it, and discuss how they do business with authors. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for you to learn more from them: How will the book be submitted? Who are the intended publishers they have in mind?
When you do receive an offer of representation from an agent, you then have to inform any other agents you’ve been in contact with regarding the full manuscript. This act of professional courtesy is appreciated by most agents and sometimes serves as a motivation for them to move faster on reading the material.
Upon accepting an offer, an agent may ask for some changes before making the submission, big or small. The editing process here can take a few weeks or even months.
Step 6: Going on submission
When the agent submits the manuscript to publishers, you enter another waiting period — often one of the more nerve-wracking parts of the entire process.
The agent sends the book to acquiring editors at publishing houses. Those editors read it if they’re interested, pass it up to editorial boards, and then either make a book deal offer or pass. This round of waiting can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
If multiple publishers are interested, an auction may happen where publishers bid against each other for the rights to publish your story. More often, however, an editor makes an offer and your agent then negotiates.
The advance — the upfront payment against future royalties — is part of the negotiations here, along with royalty rates, publication timeline, and rights. A publishing contract is a complex document, and a good agent earns a significant part of their value in this negotiation.
If the manuscript doesn’t sell in this round, it doesn’t mean the book is a failure in any way.
Some books go through multiple rounds of submissions before finding the right publisher. Some manuscripts might be reconsidered after revisions are added.
After an extended submission process without a deal, some writers might choose to try a different route and self-publish. Or they get started on the next book and come back to this one later.
A note for nonfiction writers
There’s a somewhat different approach to getting a book deal with nonfiction books. For many commercial nonfiction books, such as business or self-help, a proposal may be enough to secure a deal before you’ve finished the manuscript. I’ve covered that in more detail here.
Your story weapon: Write the next thing
The waiting period is long. It’s largely quiet, and there isn’t much you can do to make it happen any faster.
Agents have a lot going on. Publishers have even more going on. The publishing world operates at a timetable unrelated to our own desperate need for a response. A full manuscript may sit unread with an agent for months, followed by another month or two with an editor, and so on.
Of all the things that remain in your control during this waiting period, the most significant is the actual writing. The writers who emerge from the querying experience in the best shape possible, emotionally and creatively, are often those who were working on something else during the waiting period.
It helps you get through the process without feeling like life and death are on the line in each email you receive. If you have a new project underway and something to anticipate, a possible rejection for your submitted manuscript affects you differently. While it still stings, it doesn’t incapacitate you, as your focus has shifted to the new project.
I often tell my students to stay out of the result, meaning that the journey is more important than the destination for your creative mind.
Don’t wait. Send out your query letter, and then start working on the next book. Let the query process run in the background while your real work is done in the foreground. This is where the vibrancy of a writer’s life lies, not wallowing as you wait to secure a book deal.
Preparing a manuscript for the traditional publishing process requires careful revision and an objective understanding of what agents and publishers will see in the pages you submit. Work with our in-house editors to strengthen your manuscript before you begin querying and give your book the strongest possible foundation for the next stage of its journey.
