Stop thinking about your book and start thinking about your writing career.

Most writers don’t think beyond writing “The End,” but if you intend to be a professional author, you need to have a plan and make smart career choices to stay on the path to meet your long-term goals—from mapping your next books out, to landing the right agent, and signing with the right publisher.

Chantelle Aimée Osman, the editor of Agora Books, discusses a solid strategy for laying the foundations to career success.

• How to diagnose your manuscript is ready, standard editing mistakes new authors make and how to avoid them.
• Starting to build your team: finding the right agent, and how to get your query to the top of the pile (finding agents: including having more than one agent for film, foreign, etc., how to know if they’re right for you, query letter, synopsis, pitching: in person and in writing). 
• Building your team, step two: finding the right publisher (the difference between small, independent and major, considerations in making these decisions as it relates to an author’s overall career plan).
• Ways to make money writing while you write.
• Identifying long-term goals and interim plans to make money and build your brand.