How hard is to to land a book agent and get a book deal with a major publisher?

[Anonymous]

I'm not talking about self-publishing - I mean a legit agent and a big 5 publishing house.

[Anonymous]

I did it. It’s hard, and it took me most of a decade, but I know from experience it can be done. The harder thing is selling a second book.

[Anonymous]

About as hard as heading to Hollywood to find an agent and becoming a star.

[Anonymous]

Very, very hard.

[Anonymous]

No harder than becoming a music superstar.

[Anonymous]

The answer is: it depends. Are you a fiction writer who can write plot and characters well, have gotten consistent positive feedback from people who aren’t related to you, and are well-read in the genre you write in? Then your chances are pretty good. Do you want to write a nonfiction book with broad appeal that you have unique qualifications to write and:or you are already well-known on the topic? Again, decent chance.

But if you believe you want to write, say, a memoir about your non-famous family or believe you were destined to write the next great American novel, odds are no one will care.

[Anonymous]

Pretty hard!

But now is not the worst time. Hang out on Instagram ... there is a lot of good, free advice from agents.

[Anonymous]

I wonder about this, because the books cranked out by big publishers are sometimes (often) completely awful.

I guess my tastes are not aligned with the public. The young adult section particularly is full of trash.

[Anonymous]

^ and for YA, my teens agree with me, BTW.

[Anonymous]

The YA market has been in a huge downturn and there is just not as much demand for new YA these days. Many YA writers are trying to break into writing for adults.

Readers want plots that grip and surprise them and characters whose fates they care about and want to follow. If you can master one or ideally both of those, you can get a book deal for adult fiction.

[Anonymous]

Very, very hard.

Of everyone in my year at my MFA program, no one has done it.

But ... out of the 12 or so people in my workshop at the big-name writers' conference I attended close to a decade ago, all but two or three have agents at this point, and most have had books published, most with major publishers. If you are a good enough writer to get accepted at Bread Loaf, Sewanee, or Tin House, the odds aren't as terrible as they are for the average writer out there. (Also, those conferences are soooooo much fun.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I did it. It’s hard, and it took me most of a decade, but I know from experience it can be done. The harder thing is selling a second book.

This.

The advances just keep getting smaller and smaller, lol.

[Anonymous]

Maybe if you want to do children’s lit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe if you want to do children’s lit?

No—harder because everyone thinks they can do it. And especially for picture books people are just as happy to read Goodnight Moon, Eric Carle, etc. as something new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Very, very hard.

Of everyone in my year at my MFA program, no one has done it.

But ... out of the 12 or so people in my workshop at the big-name writers' conference I attended close to a decade ago, all but two or three have agents at this point, and most have had books published, most with major publishers. If you are a good enough writer to get accepted at Bread Loaf, Sewanee, or Tin House, the odds aren't as terrible as they are for the average writer out there. (Also, those conferences are soooooo much fun.)

MFAs unfortunately don’t teach people to write novel-length plot, which is what readers want and publishers look for.