Writers often spend years perfecting their first novel—then hit a dead end when it comes to getting it published. Learning to market your novel will make it stand out from the thousands of other books clamoring for the attention of an ever shrinking number of publishers.

In this book, Elizabeth Lyon offers the wisdom of more than twenty years of experience as an author, book editor, writing instructor, and marketing consultant. Step-by-step, she details what editors want, what questions to ask them, and how to develop a marketing strategy. You will learn:

·         How to categorize your novel, and the sixteen ways of describing it

·         Nine ways of selling your novel

·         Descriptions of the jobs of literary agent, editor, and writer

·         Examples of actual story synopses, and successful query letters—in all the genres

·         How to prepare sample chapters

·         Thirty questions a writer needs to ask a prospective agent

Amazon.com Review
Marketing is not usually a novelist's specialty. But unless you are among a very lucky few, you are going to have to market your book like crazy in order to get it published or even looked at. In The Sell-Your-Novel Toolkit, Elizabeth Lyon shares the wealth of information she has garnered as a book-marketing consultant and independent book editor. First, she says, make sure that your novel is good and ready; Lyon believes that "only one percent of the novels submitted for publication are both structurally correct and appropriately polished."

Once you have utilized all the resources you can muster to fine-tune your prose (writer's groups, freelance editors, books about writing, and long hours at the computer), you've got to start thinking like a marketer. You'll need a catchy title, an alluring synopsis, and a knockout query letter (writer James Axtell calls the query "the single most important piece of paper a novelist writes"). Lyon's instructions for synopsis and query writing are accompanied by several annotated examples. You will need to write and stick to a marketing plan, and you will need to research agents and publishers. Too many writers submit their work blindly, not understanding that "finding a publisher," as Lyon writes here, "closely resembles a job search. You wouldn't think of approaching a company about which you know nothing." Pay attention to who is publishing the kind of fiction you are writing; look on the acknowledgments pages of those books for leads on agents. And whatever you do, try not to get discouraged. After all, says Lyon, "substantially more people fail for lack of persistence than for persisting too long." --Jane Steinberg