Wait. How Did You Get a Publisher?

Every author has a different story for how they got published. Unless you go the self-publishing route, pretty much all writers take the path of querying to get their book out into the world. Like everything with me, I had to be a little different... and it paid off.

I was already used to this grind as a playwright so when I started querying Whispers of the Pale Witch, I slung on my armor and prepared for the inevitable rejections. Querying is not for the thin skinned. If you don’t have an agent and are cold querying (submitting without an agent or publisher requesting you to do so), you are going to get many, many rejection emails before you find someone interested in reading your manuscript.

So how does one query? Like most things, you start with research. There is literally a site called manuscriptwishlist.com where you can search for agents and editors who are looking for works in your genre and subgenre. Some give very detailed wish lists (or MSWLs). Some are more of the “show me what you got” variety. You can also find agents and editors on social media and see if any of them are looking for the type of manuscript you’ve written.

Let’s back up a bit. Who are the folks we are talking about?

Agents are people who will represent you to publishers and try to solicit a sale. They are very familiar with the publishing marketplace, will help get you the best deal, and can assist you with contracts. Good agents have relationships with existing editors and publishing houses and keep up to date with what they are looking for. Some agents will recommend you work with an independent editor prior to querying publishers if your manuscript needs some extra love to be fully marketable. This is especially the case for authors who have a great idea but have little writing experience.

Editors work for publishing houses and are looking for manuscripts that will sell in their particular marketplace. If they decide they want to publish your work, they will edit the manuscript for content and grammar and get it ready for publication. Large publishing houses will rarely let writers query them directly, so an agent is required for seeking potential publication with them. Many small publishers will allow new writers and authors to cold query them. As you would for agents, research each publisher before you send them a query. You can also reach out to authors who have worked with the publishing house to see what their experience was like.

So how did I get my publisher for the Beckett Coven series?

I decided to start my querying process by seeking an agent. After going on the manuscript wish list site, I created a spreadsheet of my prospective queries based on my genre, sub-genres, marketplace, and if they were looking to represent queer authors like me. Many of them preferred using QueryTracker which is a wonderful way to manage all your queries in one place. They have a free version or a very reasonably priced pro version for an annual subscription.

Each agent will list what they want from an author for the query. Be prepared to have a bevy of information to submit, and of course everyone wants something a little different. Most will want a query letter which includes a brief pitch about your book, information about yourself, and why you think this agent would be a good fit to champion your work. They will also very likely want a synopsis and a sample of your manuscript. This is where things can get bespoke. Some may want a very brief synopsis, and others may love a couple of pages. Some may only want the first ten pages of your manuscript, and others will want several chapters. Other things that may be requested are trigger warnings, a bio, comps, and anything else that they may find helpful to make an informed decision.

I went through several months of getting a couple dozen rejection letters, which isn’t uncommon. Many writers will go through a hundred rejections before they get a yes. The rejections I was getting were very encouraging, though. Several said the project wasn’t right for them as an agent, but as a reader they really hoped I got it published because they wanted to add it to their TBR. Very often you won’t get a personalized response but rather a form rejection letter, which I totally don’t mind given the volume of requests some agents receive.

One thing I wish agents wouldn’t do is send vague feedback. I only received one of these during my query quest, and I found it to be very unprofessional. It was done with two short sentences in the middle of a form letter. I suppose the person wanted to personalize their rejection somehow. However, the comments weren’t detailed enough to be a proper critique, and they were just vague enough that I didn’t know precisely what the person was referencing. Rather than being helpful, it just ended up being irritating, especially for someone like me who’s gone through dozens of critiquing sessions as a playwright. I love a good, detailed critique. Bring it on and challenge me. Vague, however, is a total turn off and makes me not want to work with that person.

A couple of months into querying, I discovered social media pitch fests, called Pits. I know. I know. It’s sounds super nutty. At first I did it just as a test to hone my pitching skills, but then I discovered a lot of the publishing industry participates in them.

The events happened on X or Twitter, whatever you like calling it. I did my pitching a couple of years ago in 2023 when the writing community was still pretty strong within the remnants of Twitter. (It looks like a lot of these events have moved to Bluesky. #PitDark was alive and well there in May 2025.)

Once I felt I had gained my sea legs in a pitch fest called #PitLight, I made my way into the trenches for the May session of #PitDark. The rules are slightly different for each pitch fest, but the general, overall rules are that you can only pitch during the hours of 8am to 5pm ET on the day of the pit and must use the hashtags created for the event. Typically, it was the event hashtag followed by abbreviated genre tags. Some pits allowed you to post an illustrative storyboard with your pitch, others like #PitDark only want the pitch.

During the week leading up to the event, I got all my pitches ready and polished. #PitDark lets you send out a new version of your pitch every hour. If an agent or publisher gives a like to your pitch, that is a green light to query them. By the end of the day, I had three agent likes and three small publisher likes. Some even sent me notes, making sure I saw their like. I queried all of them and waited.

A couple of weeks later I was at Disney World with family. In the afternoon I went back to our hotel by myself. While I was on the bus, I checked my emails. There was an offer from Rowan Prose Publishing. I was surrounded by strangers and did a terrible job of taming my excitement. It just happened to be my dad’s birthday that day. He passed away a quarter century ago, and I’m sure he was sitting beside me, sharing in my joy.

So, you get a small publisher interested in your manuscript, but you don’t have an agent. What do you do? You can either quickly try to hunt down an agent and see if they will help you with negotiations, or you can go it alone. This can be exciting and terrifying for someone who’s never sold their written work before.

If you go with a small publisher and aren’t familiar with literary or other entertainment contracts, it’s best to have someone with that kind of experience look over the agreement with you, such as an attorney who’s familiar with publishing contracts. Don’t sign if anything seems off. There are some really great small publishers out there. Mine is awesome. But there are also a bunch who try to make money off of inexperienced writers who don’t know any better. A reputable publisher should never ask you for money or make you pay them for edits. That is a red flag, and you should walk away immediately.

Research can go a long way and help you avoid major headaches down the line. If you aren’t familiar with contracts, it’s well worth the couple hundred dollars to have a professional review it for you. Also, feel free to ask your publisher questions about the contract. Sometimes they are willing to make adjustments to certain language.

There’s nothing wrong with doing a little negotiating. Worst they can do is say no. If it’s a major sticking point and they won’t negotiate with you, it may be best to walk away. I see this period as a great way to learn your publisher’s boundaries and collaborative skills.

Because I had prior experience with playwriting and entertainment contracts, I felt comfortable doing my own negotiating with my publisher. Luckily, I had been scoping them out as a possible publisher to query. I was already familiar with their publishing terms because they were very open and spelled them out directly on their website. Even so, I did ask for a few changes to be made to the contract. My publisher was fine with most of them and was very patient about explaining why some things are different in the print world as opposed to my more familiar theater world.

With contracts out of the way, then we could get to the fun stuff like cover design. Publishers will do this work for you and may take into account some of your feedback. To be honest, writers have very little control over the final cover of their book. Have faith that publishers will try to create something that appropriately fits the current market. They want your book to sell, too. In a flooded marketplace they are trying to get eyeballs on your book. The cover is often the first thing readers will see, so let your publisher create something that will get attention.

The part of publishing I was most unprepared for was marketing and how much self-marketing I needed to do on top of what my publisher does for me. It’s like that for everyone no matter who you are or who publishes your book. You need to find readers who will want to read what you’ve written, and they need to be able to engage with you. It’s just that simple and pretty much a whole other job on top of the hours you spend writing. I’ll talk more about that in a later blog post.

Check back each month, from now until Whispers of the Pale Witch hits bookshelves, to learn more about myself, my writing process, and how the Beckett Coven series was born. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Next month I’ll go back to talking about Salem and the Witch Trials with power struggles and scapegoats.

Shall we begin?

S.A. Sizemore with her manuscripts from 2020