What are your thoughts on soliciting a literary agent before your book is done?

All I hear is: Don't.

One reason is that you don't really know what your book is all about, until you have completed it. The characters in the novel tend to have a life on their own while you write about them.

The other reason would be that - in the event of an agent showing interest - he/she will ask for the whole thing, and when you can't comply, he/she will turn to other writers. For most of these guys you only have one shot.

Again: take this as the opinion of an amateur. I am in the same position as you are.

Good luck!

my best advice is to have a sister who has the fore-sight to get a job in an area where she regularly deals with publishers, editors and agents! Can be a tough one to arrange though.

Seriously, though...I don't have much experience, but I think that as long as you're clear about where you are in the process, I don't think it would hurt to start trying to market it

Thanks Hajo!

You make some great points, and you're right... I really don't know what's going to happen. I guess that's the difference between someone who plots and someone who doesn't (I'm the latter). I guess I was just thinking agents ask for the first three chapters like some publishers do.

I'm just starting to feel a bit burnt out... hey I feel another article topic coming on:) How to deal with burnout when you've been writing for well over a year??? Soon to come I'm sure...

It depends of whether your book is fiction or non-fiction. If it's fiction, wait un til the book is finished before you query an agent.

If the book is non-fiction you can query an agent with a proposal, rather than a traditional query. Proposals hold weight with agents. In a proposal you need to qualify yourself for what you're writing about.

Yes agents ask for the first three chapters, but in the event they like what they see, they'll ask for the remainder, and if you can't come through, you're reputation, at least with that agent, is null and void. With a proposal, however, you also have to let them know when the book will be finished, so you're on a deadline.

I worked a year and a half on Destiny of the Divas, that's being published this August, and I refused to allow myself to get burnt out. In fact, I'd no sooner finished part One when I started right in on part two of the same book and worked nearly a year on that one.

Cheers...!

Hi Jonathan,
Don't - you are wasting your time and postage by sending a query before the book is complete. 99 per cent of the agents do not want to see a query for an unfinished novel because of what Hajo said earlier, and for many other reasons. Why would they want to consider your book when they are buried in queries of finished novels.
Some agents get 500 queries a week. Check out my article on Email or Snail Mail an Agent? at http://webdelsol.com/Algonkian/Mail_or_Snail.htm

After you have signed on with an agent and published a book, then your agent will ask you if you have another project and work with you from the first chapter to the last.

Many agents will list this requirement on their web sites.

Lots of luck and keep writing.
Anthony

Thanks guys! I'm going to keep my head down and keep on truckin. I guess, at least to feel like I'm making some headway, I'll post a few chapters here on gather. But for the most part, I'll be sitting in my little nook, writing away. So don't be surprised if you don't hear from me for a while!:)

I wonder if seeing all these finished works on gather is just making me jealous. I'll just need to keep focused so I can one day join the ranks of all you other great contributors out there.

Keep writing, head up high and with pride.

A note of warning about publishing here at Gather: If you really want to sell your book, don't publish things here too freely. The first chapter is fine. But if you have substantial parts of your text here, visible for everyone, a future publisher might consider this "published on the Web" and lose interest.

Plus the writing is the best part. Enjoy it! Don't worry about having to sell it yet. It's like taking your newborn to college interviews...there's a whole life you will be missing...

No one will consider an unfinished fiction piece. Especially if you've never done one before. How are they to know you can or will finish it?

Enjoy the process, and it is a process. Write because it's what you want to do. And then after all the edits and untangling of subplots look at queries.

I agree you should definitely wait until it is done. There are many articles on this site about people's own experiences and research into this very area. www.literarymarketplace.com This a link I just recently copied from one such article. It states it is a site for you to look up the names and contact information of agents. Good luck.

Lots of great advice here, Jonathan. Keep writing and when you're ready, feel free to share. But as Hajo said, not too much.

I second (or third or fourth) that motion. You should never query a partial fiction manuscript, but you can a non-fiction one if you have the resume/credentials to back it up.

I'd say you are a rare writer if you want to query early. My God, it's the absolute WORST part. Unless you enjoy wallpapering your house in impersonal rejection slips (which you have to pay postage on, btw), save that "fun" query process until you're sure your novel is finished and a good as it will ever be. Maybe you'll be a lucky one and not get those rejections. I hope you have more luck than I've had.

Okay...! You've read everything from idle suggestions to qualified experienced writers who've run the gamut themselves. I've been writing since the early 1980's and only now - 2007 - have I found a publisher to publish (paperback) one of my books. That means 24 years of writing, with only a six year hiatus from my writing endeavors because I simply GAVE UP. I threw in the towel and said I'd wasted too much money submitting to every agent and publisher for nothing. There are fine experienced writers who've gone every route to see their work published by the only means that makes sense, traditional paperback or hardcover publisher.

Why do they answer your questions the way they do? To save you the aggravation they've gone through. Postage today isn't cheap, and if you've got to submit to only one publisher or agent, you'd be one lucky individual. To an unknown author, we have to prove our worth, and that takes time and lots of perseverance.

I've read every comment here, mainly because I'm being published in a couple of months, and my advice is a simple one, because I've been there myself. Edit, Edit, Edit and Edit some more. Why? Because if you don't, a good editor will. Publishers want as tight a book as possible, specially where you're a new author.

Best of luck - Author Ernie Johnson

I've got to go with the others. Don't just wait until you've reached "the end" (even on a rewrite). I always recommend (a) waiting at least two weeks and (b) reading it out loud. It's got to sound as good as (though preferably not the same as) something published (preferably something you liked). Optimally, you have a friend, someone you know will be honest, read it too and tell you the truth.

Why go to all this trouble? Because, as with a publisher, sending work before it's ready (a) makes one look like an amateur and (b) makes it almost impossible that they'd look at it a second time when you have beaten it into shape. You want an agent/publisher to invest in you; you need to prove you're worth gambling on by proving you can finish a project (so only send a complete work) and that what you'll give them is marketable.

Querying and marketing (which aren't my forte) are challenging under the best of circumstances and can make the difference for a good product. But, in the long run, having a good product is still the key to making you memorable.

Fortunately for you, Jonathan, you've found a place where lots of writers and lots of readers are willing to share their expertise/authoritative input/amateur opinions, and help you get your work in the best possible shape. Nothing like a hoard of totally objective readers to give you the god's honest truth, before some agent or publisher does! If you can make it here, without having a nervous breakdown, no agent or publisher will initimidate you!

If you can't trust friends and family to be brutally honest with you, there are plenty of folks here willing to offer a friendly hand. I just joined a critique group here for the sole purpose of being an objective outsider. I am, after all, the consumer of your end product. What better information to offer your future agent, than that you've already run your product past a public survey team, and gotten market by-in and a built in fan base?

What Tom Hunter said. For fiction the manuscript has to be completed, edited, and as ready as it can be. They tell me a nonfiction one can be sold on proposal, but mine can't even when completed, yet.

To add, "finding a publisher" means not with a vanity press. Sure, some specialized nonfiction and all poetry can be, but never fiction. Never.

And agentquery for all your agenting needs.

This is all really good stuff to hear guys. I have completed a book and am planning on taking the next step to go for a publisher. I just had no idea where to start. I should probably start by rereading my book and making even more edits than I did the first time. This was a great discussion! Thanks Jonathon for starting it up!

Finish your books first!