Whether this is your first book or your fortieth, you have to submit it into your publisher. Unless you are a professional author by trade with different ways of doing things, in other words highly paid and among the ranks of Stephen King, Sue Grafton, Truman Capote or Nora Roberts, this is a fact of life.
If this is your first book you are submitting to a publisher ensure you check their website for their Submissions Guideline. They all have one and it has to be followed to the letter. Information most include will be your legal name and physical address -this is for tax purposes for you and them- as well as a daytime phone number and a few other details about you. Then they want to know about your book, including the name you want to write under, the title of the book, your best guess at the genre -this is just to give them an idea so do not stress too badly if you're not 100% sure-, word count, brief synopsis and some character details. Now, each publisher is different so these details will vary slightly, these are the ones that are most common between them all to give you an idea of what is required of you.
Some publishers also require a full page synopsis or story board (something we've also heard it called) of your book. This gives them a better idea about what they are getting and whether they want to offer you a contract and proceed with editing and publishing. These are very hard to write for some authors. After all, you just pumped out a book of, for example, 50,000 words and they want you to break it down into approximately one to three hundred words? Are they insane? The answer is no, they do this for a purpose and usually it's to see if you can break your story down into such a tiny amount of space for them. Plus, it allows them that twenty seconds of reading to figure out if it's a story that will fit into what they already sell.
Read their Q&A or FAQ pages as well, this will often help you figure out what it is they need and want from you. And, if you get really stuck and confused, email them at the appropriate email address with your question. But ensure it is the right email as publishers tend to have a great many of them and, if you send it to the wrong one, you'll end up with a deleted message and no answers. Plus it shows you can't follow the simplest of directions which puts up warning flags at their end.
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