storyglory - there was no magic at all in how I got published, and so it's a tale I like to recount to any writers because it dispells all those negative things that people like to say. Like you have to know someone in the biz, or you have to have contacts in the press.
Obviously this stuff helps but I know loads of authors who didn't have any connections, they just wrote a good book.
Basically, I wrote my first book and polished it but I really had no idea if it was any good. No-one except my DH had read it. So I bought the AYB and a book called From Pitch to Publication and decided to send it off to some agents. I figured they'd all reject it, but I might at least get some good feedback.
I drafted a synopsis and a covering letter and bought a lot of envelopes and stamps. I sent out a batch and got some rejections, but bugger me, if I didn't also get a couple of requests to meet. So I met them and chose the guy who I thought was the most in tune with me ie the least poncy and literary of the two.
Then he went into the market place and got me a publishing deal. Since then he's got me more deals including foreign rights, telly rights, large print rights, audio rights etc.
It has been a dream come true. And, as I say, there was no magic in it. To paraphrase Elizabeth Gilbert, people say getting published is as hard as finding a cheap apartment in NY and yet every day someone finds a cheap apartment in NY. Difficult, but not impossible.