To get published- do I need a literary agent? Which publishing company is the best one???

I don't have an agent and I don't know how to get an agent, but I have a book already written and have been looking at publishing companies online. These companies say they will publish the book for free but not market it.

How do I get a good publishing deal??To get published- do I need a literary agent? Which publishing company is the best one???
OK. STOP. You are not looking at publishers. You are looking at vanity presses or print-on-demand companies. These are not real publishers.



A real publisher prints, markets, and promotes your book and pays you a royalty. There is no such thing as "the best one." What is best for you is dependent on the type of work you are looking to publish. In reality, the "best" publishers for first time writers are probably small presses. They are often the most willing to consider unagented work. While they tend to pay lower advances, they also tend to pay more individual attention to their authors because they produce fewer titles. Some small presses specialize in children's books, others in chick lit, etc. You need to research individual publishers and see:



Who is accepting manuscripts

Who publishes what

Who has a good reputation



In all of the above, Google is your friend. If you enter a publisher's name with the word "scam" after it, you'll get a good idea of their reputation. While all publishers have one or two disgruntled authors, if your search turns up dozens of pages of authors accusing a publisher of being a scam, run.To get published- do I need a literary agent? Which publishing company is the best one???
Get a copy of Writers Market and read how to submit and who to send it to.To get published- do I need a literary agent? Which publishing company is the best one???
Not every legitimate sale requires an agent. Many small publishers still deal directly with the author. Once you have a completed, polished manuscript, you can figure out if you should seek a big "name brand" publisher, in which case you need an agent, or if a small publisher will do just fine.



You can find publishers in the most recent edition of Writer’s Market (US) or Writers’ %26amp; Artists’ Yearbook (UK). Each listing will indicate “agented submissions only” or not.



Remember, reputable agents charge the author NOTHING up-front. Some agents may deduct the costs of doing business (copies, mail, phone) from your first check, but nobody legitimate needs that in order to get started.



You can determine whether an agent is reputable at sites like Preditors and Editors (http://www.invirtuo.cc/prededitors/) and the AAR (http://www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do). Besides being a real agent and not a scammer preying on writers’ dreams, you also want to research an agent’s recent sales of books in your genre before sending a query letter.



Researching whether a publisher is the real deal is easier. Go to a bookstore. See any of their books? Good. No? If it’s a small press, it might still be legitimate. The biggie is that no publisher needs money from the author. None at all. Any publisher who does is cause to run the other way.
Writer's Market is a great suggestion. So is a book called How to be Your Own Literary Agent. Good Luck.