Many of you know that I’ve been working on a YA novel (my third) for the last four years, and now a milestone in that project has been reached. I need to find a publisher. Reaching this milestone has been neither quick nor easy. Diary of a Girl in Trouble has been through no fewer than five drafts and numerous minor revisions. It has been read and critiqued by a multitude of individuals both within and outside of my various writing groups. It may need additional revisions, but if so, I’d like for those to be suggested by a professional editor working for a well-managed publisher. Accordingly, my pursuit of a publisher is now officially in progress.

So, what am I looking for in a publisher? Let’s start with the kind of publishers I won’t be querying. First, I won’t be sending my manuscript to any publisher that requires an author to have an agent. This includes big-name publishers — Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster — as well as publishers that only want authors who have a well-established record of market success. Some publishers at this level keep a “slush pile,” that is, a collection of unsolicited manuscripts from unknown authors. A manuscript may sit in a slush pile for weeks, even months, before being read (and probably rejected) by an intern or another lower-level staff member. My novel deserves a better fate.

Second, I won’t be querying any publisher with a narrow focus that excludes YA. Some publishers focus on a particular genre such as fantasy, gothic romances, cozy mysteries, or regency fiction; others want stories set in a particular environment such as Appalachia or the Deep South. It would be a waste of time for me to submit to such a publisher since I don’t have the kind of story they want.

Third, I won’t be submitting to any vanity press. This kind of outfit requires authors to pay for the publication of their books. The fees are often exorbitant, and once the books are published, the authors are on their own. No promotion, no reviews, no anything. For a book such as mine, vanity presses are not only a waste of time, they are also a waste of money.

Finally, and most-emphatically, I won’t be self-publishing Diary of a Girl in Trouble. I’ve gone this route before with The Bullybuster and the re-publishing of Fast-Pitch Love. To be sure, I know and respect a number of authors who have self-published with some success. But it’s not for me. That’s mostly because I don’t have the technical knowledge or skill with spatial relationships to be a good self-published author. I’ll avoid a lot of stress and frustration by not taking this route.

The publisher that I do want will meet four criteria: (1) It will be a relatively small press but one that has been able to stay afloat for at least five years. (2) It will accept unsolicited manuscripts from authors without agents. (3) It will be selective in the manuscripts it accepts. I want my manuscript to face the possibility of rejection. That will prove the publisher wants to market high-quality books. (4) It will, at least initially, offer some help with promotion. That would include being a guest blogger and/or receiving some attention on the publisher’s website.

My pursuit began with an online search for all publishers of YA books. Then, using the criteria above, I culled the herd down to 25. That number includes a small publisher from Plano, Texas that I encountered at the Columbus Book Festival in July. They haven’t published any YA titles yet but might be persuaded to test the waters in that genre with Diary of a Girl in Trouble. Other promising publishers include Steel Toe Books, Wise Wolf Books, Black Rose Writing, Bottom Dog Press (based in Huron, Ohio), Ukiyoto Publishing, and Van Velser Press.

I’ve already queried several of the 25 publishers on my list. Rejections are likely, but that comes with the territory. I’ll provide an update on my “Pursuit of a Publisher” in a future blog.