Over the eons of book publishing, agent querying became the obvious next step once an author finished a manuscript. Today, it’s not so simple. Sometimes, agent querying is the very best next step to publication–sometimes, though, querying isn’t the route that will lead to the most success in publication. Before spending hours and hours writing and sending out hundreds of queries, take a few minutes to ask yourself the following five questions: 1) Does my book fit into a genre publishers are looking for? Does your book have an obvious publisher-ready genre? Of course it should should be fresh and original, but does it have some logical ties to a  specific genre, and therefore a specific audience? Publishers need good… [read more]