Ok, so it's finished. I think. Only took me 12 years! What now?

[FuckYouChrisAndThatHorse]

I'm an inveterate coward.

I've finished, edited, re-edited, added, taken away, and I think it's finally done.

It's nothing profound. 75000 words of silly, swashbuckling, fairytale nonsense for young adults/precocious children.

So what do I do now?

Like I say, I'm a coward.

My favourite review I've had so far from the few people who have read it, was from my ds (11). I put it on his kindle and didn't tell him I'd written it. He wanted to know if there were more books by "this author" because he loved it.

So that helped my confidence a bit.

I've considered self-publishing but don't know where to start.

I want to try to send it to agents, but don't know who or how.

Everyone here seems so knowledgeable and I feel like a fraud :o

(Did the flattery work?!)

Please help an amateur

Congratulations on finishing!

I'm just slightly further on in the process with a similar story, down to the fact that I got my do to read my MS without telling them it was mine, and also had good feedback from them :) I have approached a few agents now but with no luck, just a couple of encouraging comments about my writing being good etc. I'm listing a few more from the Yearbook but now looking into KDP. Mine is YA but wondering if it's not YA enough...doesn't include any vampires, witches or werewolves for a start, which seem to feature heavily on dds bookshelf.

Sounds like you have some beta readers lined up which is good, and they can hopefully see things you couldn't - it gets to the stage where you just can't see it anymore, doesn't it. Then go for it with the submissions, and good luck.

Some great support to be found on this board and on places like Goodreads and twitter if you're so inclined.

I would second the recommendation for www.writersworkshop.co.uk and Agent Hunter - there's excellent, very specific and detailed advice on how to go about the process of querying agents.

Congrats on finishing - it's a huge achievement!