If you are in the process of, or have already written a novel, congratulations! It probably took a lot of hard work, and maybe some research to finish it off. Now, where should it go?

Publishing is usually the main goal of any writer. Unless you are a playwright or screenwriter, and in that case you're wanting very badly to see others acting out your characters. However, novelists would usually love nothing more than to see their book adorning the shelves of their local "Barnes and Noble" with the adjacent heading "New York Times Bestseller!"

So...you've written, now you're looking at sending it out to the publishers. Do you have the most recent copy of "Writer's Market"? I know I keep harping on this, but it is one of the most important tools any serious writer can have on hand and if you haven't bought it, I'm wondering why.

First...pick a publisher, or several, that you feel publishes books along the same lines as yours. Sending a book about the plight of a handicapped Eskimo to an Art Publisher for example, makes no sense. Before sending a copy of the script to ANYONE, register it with The Writers Guild of America. This protects your work by marking the date you wrote it. The registration is good for 5 years and helps prevent someone stealing your piece. You may also want to Copyright it if you haven't already done so. You can contact the Copyright office at:

When writing a publisher, you'll often need to send a query letter before sending the manuscript. This is standard. A query letter outlines shortly what the novel is about and it gives the publisher the option of requesting to see the full manuscript if they like the idea in the query. This makes Query letters very important. Writing a good Query letter in fact can mean getting your foot in the door, beleive it or not.