So, you have finally finished the novel you’ve been agonizing over. The writing is flawless, the editing (and re-editing) is complete, the cover is impeccably eye-catching and even your beta readers are praising your masterpiece. The book is to your exact standard and ready for the pain-staking task of pitching to literary agents with the hope of a lucrative contract. What writer, after putting in the excruciating hours of writing a novel, isn’t in search of a book deal, right? Unfortunately though, what many authors don’t realize is that, even if they land one, it doesn’t mean that they have found success.

It is tough to grab the attention of an agent, as they are very particular when choosing what they feel will sell, so receiving a publishing contract is exhilarating – it breathes tones of success and popularity as an author, but that isn’t always the case because many of these contracts do not come with a large paycheck. A publishing contract is often an agreement for the agency to pay all or a portion of the expenses of publishing and printing your book while offering you a percentage of all sales – better known as royalties – but these contracts may also require the author to do most of the advertising and promotion, some even requiring a set number of book sales within a time period. The agency recoups the expenses paid for your book this way and may even require you to reimburse them if book sales are too love to cover them. The idea that a publishing contract means that you will be a famous author is a common misconception. Can it happen? Yes, but that isn’t the norm.

If people don’t know about your book, they can’t buy it and, with so many new novels being published everyday, promotion is key. Some literary agents are better at it than others. More often than not, it falls primarily on the author to build an audience and a following in order to boost your book sales. Doing things like book signings, author interviews and using social media platforms to post news, blogs, ads and even book trailers are all ways to help get it noticed. You may need to be shameless in self-promotion for you and your book to stand out as much as possible. Promotion is the key to successfully selling your novel, and you don’t need a book deal to do it. Authors often get discouraged by agent rejections because they think they can’t be successful without being represented by one, but that is far from the truth. Many authors have found great success with self-publishing, especially if a contract requires them to do their own promotion anyway. The success of your book depends largely upon you. You are already an author, with or without the book deal so proceed with confidence and success.