Yesterday on Twitter, @rebekahharris asked me, “How did you know for certain [your first book] was ready for agents & editors?”

HELL’S BELLES was the first book I’d written that got published, but as John Scalzi mentioned in his terrific article about why new novelists are kinda old, like many authors, the first book of mine that got published wasn’t the first book I’d written.

It also wasn’t the first book I submitted for representation/publication. Nope. That honor belongs to my Great American Novel — the urban fantasy/contemporary fantasy novel I’d started waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. You know: 1988.

The first version of that novel — which I think I’d called The Naming — I wound up writing, and rewriting, and revising, and reimagining for many, many years. I started subbing it back in about 1994, but man, it was nowhere close to ready. How do I know that? Well, the plot didn’t kick in until page 212, for one thing. For another, it ended on page 226. On a cliffhanger. This doesn’t begin to cover the 2-dimensional characters, or the paper-thin plot, or the cliches…ah, God, the cliches… (Lesson #1: Learn the craft of writing. Stories must have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. There needs to be a plot, in which something happens. There have to be characters we care about. And the writer needs to be able to write in an engaging way. Don’t break the rules until you’ve mastered the basics.)

Of course, at the time I’d thought it was ready. But not because I had this innate sense or anything. It was because I didn’t know any better. Heck, I submitted my first draft. Again: I didn’t know any better. (Lesson #2: Learn the process of writing. It’s called a first draft for a reason. At the very least, go back to your work and reread it for grammar, consistency and style, even if you think the book is perfect.)

I futzed with the story for years — tinkering here, trying something new there. (At one point, there were cat creatures that spoke like Yoda. Hmm. Maybe “new” isn’t the right word…) But in 2003, I got serious. I decided that January that damn it, I wanted to do the book properly and get it published. I wanted to be a writer. I didn’t want it to be a hobby. So that year, I rewrote the book. It was adult contemporary fantasy, if it was anything (think Joel Rosenberg’s Guardians of the Flame meets Lord of the Rings, with a dash of Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing. Yeah, I’ve got a headache trying to put that all together too). I finished the new version in January 2004.

At the time, I was a member of an online writing group called Writers Net. And that was the first time I started learning about the business of writing novels: specifically, how to sell your work. I wound up joining a different group, Backspace, soon after. And that’s when I started working on query letters for real. (Lesson #3: Learn about the business of writing from other writers who’ve been there, done that. Writing is solitary, but there’s an entire world of writers who are online and share information. There are tons of terrific organizations — some free, some for a fee — in which writers can learn, network, and get dearly needed moral support.)

From February 2004 until January 2005, I queried the hell out of my novel. And I scored triple digit rejections. (Lesson #4: Steel yourself for rejections. Yes, you will get them. And yes, they will all suck. Deal with it. Once you’ve moved from “I’m writing a novel!” to “I’m trying to get my novel published!” you’re no longer all about the art of writing. Now you’re about the business of writing. And part of the business is rejection. Period.) Most of those rejections were on the query letter itself, which meant there was no way in hell I’d written the best letter I could. (Want to know what goes into a winning query letter? See my previous post on query letters that work.)

It wasn’t a total disaster. I did have a number of requests for partials and fulls. None of them scored me an offer of representation or publication. And that was after waiting, at times, for nearly a year for a response. (Lesson #5: Be prepared to wait. And wait. And wait.) Wait, maybe that was a disaster. Hmm.

So in January 2005, I gave up the ghost and started writing a second book. (Lesson #6: Write something else. Don’t just wait for The Call. Keep writing.) Finished it in May 2005. Started querying immediately. By August I’d scored 40 rejections — but this time, most of them weren’t form rejections. This time, most of them commented how much they loved the voice I used in the manuscript. (Yeah, I had more requests for partials and fulls this time out. My query letter skills had improved.)

During this time, one author in particular gave me some advice that I took to heart. His name is Joe Konrath, and what he said to me was: “If you want writing to be your business, treat your writing like a business.” Meaning: research the market, see what’s selling, and figure out why it’s selling.

Okay, before you scream YOU CAN’T WRITE TO THE MARKET, I call shenanigans. I did when I wrote HELL’S BELLES. I read an article in Media Bistro’s Avant Guard section, in which an editor mentioned that her colleague believed that magical chick lit would be the next big wave. That was what got me off my duff with the second book and start thinking about the third. Sure, I came up with the idea of a demon running away from Hell, hiding on Earth as an exotic dancer, and learning the hard way about true love. But the very notion of writing something about a magical creature in a humorous way, in which the creature was the heroine? That was all sparked from reading that line in that article. And I wrote the book fast. Two months, from start to finish. (Lesson #7: Do your research. What’s selling now? What’s getting a lot of buzz about the next thing?)

So…how did I know HELL’S BELLES was ready to go to an agent/editor? I didn’t. But at that point, I’d written three novels — and with each book, I was becoming a better writer. I’d gotten a bit more market savvy. And by this time, I also had a critique partner. My CP not only read the first draft of HELL’S BELLES and loved it — she was my strongest cheerleader. She encouraged me to get it out there. Of course, she also gave me her feedback to help make it stronger, and her advice definitely helped. (Lesson #8: Your critique partner is your secret weapon. Not all authors have crit partners. Me? I couldn’t do what I do without my CP’s blessing.)

If I had to sum up what goes into knowing your manuscript is Ready For Prime Time, I’d say it was three parts craft (writing the best story you can), two parts business (you need a killer query letter and strong synopsis), and one part “Get This Off Of My Desk Already.”

It takes time to get to that cocktail of Ready For Prime Time. You might get lucky and hit it out of the ballpark your first time out. You might have to do it the long way, through trial and error, and a lot of waiting. But one thing’s for certain: if you don’t query at all, you’ll never get representation/get an offer of publication. Stepping onto the Query Go Round takes a leap of faith.

Go on. Jump. See where you land.