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[Stacey Cochran]

Hey folks,

Feel free to ask a question about how to publish your book here.

Stacey

[Stacey Cochran]

Hey Dave,

Great story, and great questions. You might start by perusing the agents at http://www.agentquery.com

I'd do a quick search for "Travel" (it looks like there are over a hundred agents listed who rep travel books)

Stacey

[Dave Combattelli]

Thanks for the reply to this. I have been to agentquery. Let me readdress my question.

In the genre of Jonny Bealby's books, or Shantaram. Does this come under Travel? Or would it come under something like Adventure? A semi autobiographical, book based on travel but encompassing travel and some fiction too. This is where I am stuck in finding an agent group to target.

Dave

[Stacey Cochran]

I'm not familiar with either of these authors. Just now, I searched both on Amazon, and I can see why you've got a question. Particularly with Shantaram... it's not really clear what genre it is.

Have you tried e-mailing the authors to ask them?

Also, I couldn't find anything regarding their agents from their websites.

You might consider e-mailing the authors to ask them. In the case of Shantaram, you could always call St. Martin's Press and try to find out info that way regarding who the editor for the book was.

[Dave Combattelli]

Thanks for the reply and answers. Also thank you for going to the trouble of doing a search. It's a good idea. I emailed Jonny Bealby already, but he's off in Pakistan at them moment!

Will try David Gregory Roberts tomorrow and will let you know!

By the way, Shantaram is one heck of a book. Never met a person who didn't like it.

Thanks again

Dave

[Dave Combattelli]

Hi Stacey,

Something recently popped up on a blog I was writing on that maybe you could clarify?

Quotation marks "Quote " appear like this on the web, and in a lot of blogs. In a WP package like Word or Writer they appear as curly “Quote”.

Now, as I was converting my blog to a WP program they all appeared as straight " " yet in the majority of published books out there I see them as curly “ ”.

I recently read from a journalism submission that they only except a script in Straight quotes "" due to software problems, they are on Mac.

So my question is, when typing a fiction manuscript or a novel with an intension to having it published, what is the correctly quotation mark to use?

As a sub note, I use open office writer, and it has curly, yet I had it switched off. So all quotes are "", it find and replace all would be a serious headache as the curly's are both open and closed and it can't detect which is which. Hence I am asking if there is a point to changing them. But then if one were to sepf publish would one have to change them, or one be published by a house would they change them?

[Stacey Cochran]

Hi Dave,

I don't think it matters at all whether the quotation marks are straight or curly. At least at major book publishers, a production editor is going to eventually format the text and so all things like straight (or curly) quotation marks will be formatted as per his/her discretion.

For submitting a manuscript, I'd just use curly quotation marks.

Stacey

P.S. There's an easy way in MS Word to do a global change to one or the other... curly to straight, or straight to curly.

[Dave Combattelli]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for the reply. That's good news. Everything is in Straight marks here! Unfortunately I am using OpenOffice and am busy fighting with it to change from straight to curly! Am posting online for some help, otherwise will use a friends MS Word to convert all

Dave

[gnjef]

Hi,

I have a few questions. My 7 yearold , yes 7, has wrote two shorts kids books that have had an fantastic response in the environment for which she wrote them based on her recent experience. We are interested in getting these books looked at to see if she can sell her work for herself (college fund) and share these books with kids who will find them to be a real help. Can you offer some ideas/suggestion? Thanks in advance.

[Stacey Cochran]

At that young of an age, you may want to consider self-publishing a book. I have never heard of a child that young being published through a traditional publisher (with advances, royalties, contracts, and book marketing and PR).

However, you could easily self-publish your child's book using a company like Lulu.com and could even make the work available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online.

I'd give Lulu.com a look.

I hope that helps.

[Editor In Chic]

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HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK