Okay, okay. So, now you have a book-length project ready to get out there. Again, how do you go about getting it published?

You have two options: you can self-publish or try to get a traditional publisher to publish it. And if you take the traditional route, you can approach a publisher directly, or you can try to land an agent first who will then shop your manuscript around, much like a real estate agent attempts to sell a house.

Is landing an agent better?

Yup. Your agent will get a percentage of earnings from the book, but it's worth it. Many acquiring editors won't look at a manuscript unless it comes to them through an agent. And an agent does far more than just sell your work. Here's How a Literary Agent Can Help from CBC Books. But if you don't land one, don't sweat it. According to TWUC, 80% of writers in Canada are not represented by an agent. Scroll down on the TWUC link to see a list of Canadian literary agents. When approaching an agent, read their submissions page carefully to see how they prefer to be contacted, and make sure they represent work like yours. For example, some agents only handle literary fiction and not commercial. Most want to see a query letter first. You only send your manuscript at their request.

So let’s say you don't have an agent and you want to sell that manuscript to a publisher, what do you do?

Again, you check out the publishers' submission guidelines to make sure that they publish work like yours, and how they prefer to be contacted. Here's How to Find a Publisher. You'll see on this link and those above the importance of the query letter.

Once you've sent off your submission package, you wait. And wait. And wait. Easy, huh? You can send off multiple submissions, by the way, where you mail or email your query letter to several publishers at once. Here's TWUC on how to handle multiple submissions.

How about if you decide to self-publish? How do you go about doing that?

Self-publishing is a huge topic, but you can Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book. More and more writers are choosing the self-publishing route, even writers who are already established with traditional publishers. Self-publishing offers the writer complete control over the publishing process. That's cool. But that's also a lot of work. The self-published writer must take over every job in the publishing house (and that's a lot of jobs).

OR there are now companies that help the writer with the task, but then, of course, you must pay those companies to help you publish.

Still, it's an exciting prospect to self-publish and worth looking into. The quality of self-published books has risen to the point where they are now being considered for literary prizes and attracting prizes of their own. For example, I've judged the Whistler Independent Book Awards and been amazed at the quality of the writing. Successful self-published writers buy the editing services they need, however, and shoulder the cost of publishing the books. And there's no guarantee that a self-published book will garner sales.