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When attempting to publish a fantasy book, how will I go about selecting a publisher? Is it possible to find a list of publishers that publish specifically fantasy books?
Similar to publishers being genre-specific, does this apply for agents? Editors?
Absolutely. Agents specialize in the genres where they know editors (or they specialize, SO they know editors) and of course some publishers don't publish fantasy at all, while others focus on it.
You can get basic information on this by looking at the books you think yours resemble. You can generally find an author's agent just by googling the author's name and the word 'agent', and you can obviously find the book's publisher just by looking at the book.
There are also lists available. Assuming you're going the traditional 'agent then publisher' route, check out querytracker.net and/or agentquery.com. You could also look at the SciFi Writers of America site, paying special attention to their "Writer Beware" section.
Good luck with it.
SFWA's site also has a list of "qualifying novel venues" (publishers that count as a professional sale in order to qualify for SFWA membership). These publishers release most of the fantasy novels published in the US.
Many don't accept un-agented submissions, however. Those that do often have long turnaround times (very, very long turnaround times). So be patient. And good luck!
You could also look into the possibility of self-publishing. If you publish your own e-book, you can choose the genre where the book gets promoted. E-book sales have surpassed paperback sales each month for the past three months, and they don't show any sign of letting up. There's a whole new world of possibilities out there!
