As a writer, you may assume you will have the copyright of your book when it is published. If you write for magazines or newspapers, you may need to negotiate rights over your own written material — one time use — but these days, once you write something, you are assumed to own the copyright from that moment on. Although historically there were some European writers who managed to get full rights to publish and sell their own books, the first American copyright law was not passed until 1673, and even then, only in Massachusetts. But it was not the same kind of copyright that an author has today. It was called a “bookseller’s copyright” because there was only a narrow distinction between Publisher and Bookseller. Since this law protected the publisher, it protected the bookseller in the same breath. What this copyright law didn’t protect was the Author. This was true on both sides of the Atlantic. In the American colonies, each state had its own regulations (or lack thereof). Because of this, a publisher in one state could basically take the text of a book from another and republish for full profits. Book printing, however, was considered a “gentleman’s trade,” with agreements between publishers more common that outright stealing. But authors in the colonial states were only paid by their original publisher since they had no rights of their own. In those days, authors had to pay for their book to be published, much like “vanity publishing” these…

So you think you need an agent? Most agents do not represent poetry, short stories, non-fiction or material suitable for academic or small presses. If you have written a novel or a memoir, you might consider finding a literary representative. The best reference guide is Chuck Sambuchino’s Guide to Literary Agents published annually by Writer’s Digest Books and the 2014 issue has just been released. Before you seek representation, it’s important you do some initial research on potential agents before you send a query. Here’s a few questions you need to answer before you contact a specific agent. Is the agent a member of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR)? Self-identified ‘agents’ may not be members of AAR and are not bound by their code of professional ethics. Are book deals this agent has sold to publishers reported in Publisher’s Marketplace? What comes up when you Google your agent’s name, or the name of the literary agency? How many years has the agent worked as a literary representative? Does the agency have a website? What did they do before they became an agent? The agent’s website should have a bio. How many books has the agent sold to publishers? Many self-identified agents are ‘packagers’ or ‘book producers’ who work for imprints of self-publishing companies. Investigate the track record of the authors’ books. Look at publishing houses, sales rankings, reviews, and news coverage of the agents portfolio of published clients. How many authors does the agent currently represent? The more authors an agent…

You spend years working toward the publication of your book. Take writing classes. Attend workshops. Mingle at literary conferences. Develop your craft. Work with a writing coach. Write the manuscript. Hire an editor. Revise and rewrite. Build a website and blog every week. Grow an audience platform. Write reviews of books by authors you admire. Polish a proposal. Query agents. Receive rejection after rejection. And you wonder if it will stop hurting so much if you simply give up now. When you get a “no” it hurts. You doubt yourself. You question whether the book you’ve written is any good. You wonder if you’ve been suffering from grandiose delusions about your own talents. When you reread the latest rejection letter a few days later, you might see a glimmer of hope. The agent complimented your writing but didn’t think it was right for them or didn’t think they were the right person to sell the project. So maybe, you think, it’s not you or your writing but simply this wasn’t the right agent. Or maybe the agent is right about an insufficient audience platform, the lack of character development, or the first 10 pages didn’t have a strong enough hook. And you go back to work. You struggle to improve the manuscript. Tighten the narrative arc. Deepen the characters. Figure out a way to repackage the project. Submit essays, poems, or short stories for publication in literary journals or popular magazines. Give readings of your work-in-progress. Expand your social network.…