Writing my 1st book... advice pls?

[pinkingshears]

Last Christmas I contributed a few paras to a thread on MN.
About 10 people commented 'you can write / you should write a book'.
(maybe they were full of Christmas cheer? / booze?)
So, I am trying.

It is autobiographically based but with some Whodunnit stuff to work out and will have an (imagined!) ChickLit style.
I have got to 40K words but have rest planned.

Do I submit a chapter to an agent or wait till whole thing finished?

Finish the book and then polish, polish, polish.

Then submit to agents (as per their website - different agencies want diffferebt things).

If an agent bites the first thing they will say is send the rest. And you don't want to answer haven't written it yet!

Once you've got a first draft, don't look at it for a couple of weeks at least, ideally more. I guarantee when you look at it again, you'll see more to polish. Once it's definitely finished, then submit.

Thanks.
Do publishers offer advances, if they make an offer at all?

#runs before walks

Most of the large trad publishing houses offer an advance (though often quite paltry).

Some digital publishers don't. But you get a better royalty rate.

Get yourself in Pinterest has great boards for writing. And well done you for going for it - I have numerous ideas that I think 'that'd make a great book start!' And never get round to even starting it properly. Keep going , all the best to you

Make sure several pairs of eyes have seen it before you send it anywhere. People who can critique a ms and tell you what is working and what needs more work. There is always something that can be polished.