Sell Your Novel to a Major Publisher

(bright music) - When I first started out as an author, the amount of knowledge I had about selling a novel to a major publisher could fit on a single Post-it note, and it would probably look something like this. Step one, write book. Step two, sell book. Yep, that's about it. I was an economics major in college, and when I began writing my first novel, I was working as a financial analyst.

I didn't know anyone in the publishing industry, no agents or editors. I didn't even know anyone who had sold a novel before, but somehow over the course of the next 13 years, I managed to sell more than 15 novels to major publishers like Simon & Schuster, Random House, Macmillan, and Disney Press. And now my books have been translated in over 23 countries, and several have been optioned for film and television. So how did I do all that? Well, basically, I spent the first five years learning the process from scratch, reading books and blogs and websites, querying agents, editors and friends of friends of friends, writing, rewriting, revising and making mistake after mistake after mistake.

But now, having been through the whole process from the absolute ground floor, I know exactly what works and what doesn't work. Since inking my first publishing deal, I've received tons of questions from writers asking me for advice on how to sell their novel to a major publisher. So many questions, in fact, I decided to start publishing the most frequently asked ones on my website, jessicabrody.com, but there's so much information about how to sell a novel to a publisher, I was only able to cover the tip of the iceberg, and the questions were still coming.

I found myself spending more time helping people publish their novels than I was writing my own, and that's where I got the idea to create this course. I've decided to compile all the information I've gathered about the publishing industry and present it in this one extensive A to Z course. Now you can benefit from all of my mistakes and all of my trials and errors. Essentially, I've packed 13 years worth of knowledge and experience into these lectures. In this course, I will put you on the fast track to selling your novel to a major publisher, I will teach you the ins and outs of the publishing industry, why it's important to have an agent, what to do when you disagree with your editor, what to expect from your first book contract and most importantly, how to sell your first manuscript.