If you dream of seeing your work in bookstores, landing a book deal with a traditional publisher is the best way to make it happen. Turning your great idea into a deal-winning book may seem overwhelming — but with a compelling manuscript, a clear strategy, and a strong understanding of the publishing industry, your odds of success will go way up.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to walk you through that process.
1. Write a great book (or proposal)
If you don’t have a book, you can’t get a book deal. Before you start thinking about finding an agent or choosing a publisher, you’ll need to buckle down and write your book. So put some coffee on, get settled into your desk, and put that big idea into words! (You can check out this post for concrete tips on the actual writing process.)
Before you start querying agents, take a few weeks away from your book before revising it from beginning to end. Then, proofread it thoroughly. If you can, send the book off to a few beta readers for broad feedback.
Note that this only applies to fiction authors. If you're writing nonfiction, you won't need to show a 100% completed book to publishers. Instead, you should start with a book proposal. This is a shorter document — usually 10,000 words or less — that summarizes your book’s thesis, discusses your target market and marketing plan, details your credentials as an author, and delivers a sample chapter or two. A great book proposal hooks readers and demonstrates a clear understanding of where your book will fit into the existing market.
After you feel good about your manuscript or proposal, it’s time to start thinking about how you want to publish your book.
2. Commit to the “traditional” route
If you’ve come looking for advice on how to get a book deal, you’ve likely already made the choice between self-publishing and traditional publishing. If you dream of mainstream exposure, prestigious awards, and bestseller lists, going “trad pub” is indeed the better option — but just know it won’t be easy.
Traditional publishing is very competitive, and the books that publishers pick up often depend on factors outside of your control — such as the genres that are popular at that moment and the publisher’s existing commitments to other authors. Even if you’ve written the next great American novel, you should prepare to face rejection and keep on trying.
Of course, you can always reevaluate and decide to self-publish your book instead. But if you’re determined to get a book deal, now’s the moment to commit yourself to this process: the days spent researching agents, the weeks waiting on replies, and then — if you do land a publisher — the months or even years it can take to actually see your book on shelves.
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Still, if a book deal is what you’ve always wanted, it could all be worth it. Having braced yourself for the journey, the next step here is to pitch your book to potential agents.
3. Craft a compelling query letter
If you want to submit your book to big publishing houses, you’ll need to start by finding an agent. A great agent is someone who believes in your book, knows how the industry works, and has experience finding deals for books in your genre.
To get a top agent’s attention, you’ll need to write a great query. A query letter lays out exactly what your book has to offer — for nonfiction authors, it’s basically a truncated version of your book proposal — and it’ll be your first introduction to potential agents. This letter should:
- Open with a captivating “hook”;
- Summarize your story (including an estimated word count);
- Compare your book to similar titles, while also ensuring it stands out; and
- Pitch yourself as an author who’s qualified to write this particular book.
Proving that there’s a market for your book is important here. If you have a platform on social media, a newsletter with many subscribers, or a popular blog, leverage these as audiences for your book. If you don’t have an existing platform, explain why the topic that your book covers does have a platform — a group of people who will read your book.
Once your letter is ready, it’s time to start looking for an agent!
4. Find an agent
As you compile a list of potential agents, remember it’s always better to over-research than under-research — you want your agent list to be long, since many agents won’t have the capacity to take you on (and most won’t even reply to you).
When evaluating agents, consider their experience in your genre, their willingness to take on new authors — and, to some extent, their known relationships with publishers you admire. Anyone who checks all these boxes should go on your list.
In addition to the directory linked above, you can also poke around on sites like:
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AgentQuery — another large database of literary agents across all genres
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QueryTracker — to find literary agents and read updates from authors who have queried them previously
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Manuscript Wish List — where agents post detailed descriptions of exactly what they’re looking for and what they’re accepting right now
Another “creative” way to find possible agents is to look at the “Acknowledgements” section of books similar to yours — particularly from debuts, since you know those authors have been signed semi-recently. In any case, authors usually thank their agents early on, and you can look them up to see if they’d be a good fit for you, too!
Once you have your list, it’s time to start sending out those query letters. Make sure you’ve familiarized yourself with the agent’s work and have a clear reason why you want them to represent you. Agents can tell when a query is a generic copy-paste job, and they’re a lot less likely to consider authors who haven’t articulated a clear reason for choosing them. Just a few minutes of research will lend your letter a personal touch and make it much more appealing to popular agents!
5. Submit your book to potential publishers
Your agent will help you find a publisher and secure the deal that’s best for you based on your timeline, desired advance, and the creative rights you want to keep. Depending on these and other factors, you’ll decide whether to submit your book to a small independent press, a prestigious publishing house in the “Big Five”, or somewhere in between.
Though your agent will ultimately be the one submitting your book, it doesn’t hurt to take a more active role here (as long as you don’t annoy them too much!). Particularly if your agent is very busy, you can look for publishers, imprints, and even small presses that might be suitable for your book — and suggest possibilities to your agent as you see fit.
As with finding agents in the acknowledgements section of similar titles, you can also look at the publishers of those books, then do more research to see if those publishers accept manuscripts like yours. Lastly, your agent should know this, but remember to always adhere to publishers’ submission guidelines — it might sound dramatic, but formatting can make the difference between a publisher taking your book seriously vs. tossing it aside without a second thought.
If multiple presses express interest in your book, it might go to auction. This can drive the price up and increase buzz around your book! However, this process of querying and negotiation can take over a year. Be patient, prepared for rejection, and open to making substantial revisions to ensure that your book appeals to the right audience.
6. Sign a contract
Once you’ve found a great publisher and secured the deal that works for you, it’s time to sign that contract. The contract will detail your advance, the royalties you’ll receive, and which creative rights you get to keep. Review it carefully with your agent to make sure the deal is right for you.
Congratulations! The work of getting a book deal is over. You’ve still got lots to do, though — you’ll need to finish writing your book, go through multiple rounds of revisions, and help with marketing to drive pre-orders and guarantee sales. You can read more about this part of the process in Rebecca van Laer’s post about working with Bloomsbury to publish and market her nonfiction book, Cat.
Now: as you’ve seen, landing a book deal involves a lot more than just writing a great book. To make the process easier and increase your odds of winning a coveted spot on a top publisher’s release schedule, check out the additional tips below.
Bonus tips for landing a book deal
👩💻 Build a platform
Though it’s not mandatory, building an author platform can be a great way to improve your chances of getting picked up by a publisher. Publishing houses want a guarantee that your book will sell, and showing them that you come with a built-in readership will make them think twice before passing you up.
Consider investing time into growing your social media presence, publishing a newsletter, or booking local speaking engagements (or, better yet, all three) to increase your visibility.
🤓 Understand the market
If you want to actually sell your book, it helps to understand what the bookselling market really looks like. Do a bit of research to determine what publishers are picking up, and use your query letter to tell a story about how your book fits into that trend.
Keep in mind, books that are “of the moment” are always going to be in higher demand than books on more esoteric topics. But while the nature of this will shift constantly, one thing you can rely on these days is that short books — 75,000 words or less — seem to get picked up more quickly, too.
In other words, if you’ve written a novella about something that everyone’s talking about, publishers might be more inclined to take you on — even if you haven’t published a book in the past.
✍️ Never stop revising
In the process of seeking a book deal, be prepared to rewrite your query — and, perhaps, your entire book — as many times as necessary. Writing is mostly rewriting, and the in-house editors at publishing presses won’t send your book to print until it’s just right.
You might be surprised by the number of revisions you need to make, but remember that every round of editing brings you a bit closer to publication!
🧘♀️ Practice patience
Again, traditional publishing is highly competitive, and rejection is common. Even if you follow all the steps and tips above to the letter, it can take months or even years to land a book deal.
Remember that rejection isn’t a reflection of your talents. Often, it comes down to market trends, timing, and luck. Keep improving your work and be persistent.
Landing a book deal is challenging, but not impossible. With a strong manuscript and your newfound knowledge of the process, you have a decent shot at securing a book deal and seeing your work in print. Stay persistent, keep improving, and never be afraid to put yourself out there — the perfect opportunity might be just around the corner.
About the author
Caroline writes about craft and publishing for Litreactor and Reedsy. She loves reading and the outdoors, and her writing on the topics has been published in Climbing Magazine and Kirkus. When she's not deep in a book, she's probably getting lost on a climbing route, taking the "scenic" trail by mistake, and generally worrying her mother — all in the name of a good story.
