"Unfortunately our production schedule is currently full so we are not accepting new projects.
Thanks for thinking of us."

Getting a book published is a matter of building up contacts within the industry. There are a variety of ways to do this, the best rely on having someone read your prose and think "this could be a best seller." Sending queries is one way to try and make this happen.

I agree with Survivor. A good way to break in to publishing your full length novel is to submit your short stories to magazines that publish fiction. Once you have a few of those under your belt, you can mention your publishing credits when you send out queries.

One example of this approach is Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club. She had several short stories published in assorted magazines when an agent saw her work and phoned her to ask if she could put them into a longer, novel format.

I believe a good short story is harder to execute than a story in longer format because you have less pages to tell it. A good agent recognizes the value of an author who can get well crafted shorts published. It's not a bad place to start. So many aspiring authors feel their story will be the next great American novel. And that may be so. But it's a big gamble, much like playing big bucks in the stock market. Short stories are more like money saved up in the bank. It's the long, slow, safe method to success.

I learned a tremendous amount about queries, cover letters, and the publishing industry by simply setting aside time to go online. I also learned a lot about it in writing classes, at conferences and book fairs (the L.A. Times Festival of Books I find invigorating and informational with its many author and publisher discussion panels. These book fairs can be found all across the States, promoting literacy. And they're free!) Networking and being a member of local writer's organizations is another great source of gleaning tidbits of info on breaking in. Are you writing SciFi? If so, have you checked out Science fiction Writers of America (SFWA).

I highly recommend purchasing a copy of Writer's Market 2007. In it you will find every magazine and literary publication and what their submission rules are. Many of them have a range of months in which you may submit. They also list what type of material they are looking for, and to whom you would submit it, what they pay, their address, method of submission preferred, and many other useful bits of info. I can't imagine submitting anything without this guide. I believe the cost is about $15-$19, but it's been awhile since I bought one.

Edit here. They also provide info on how many submissions they receive per submission period and how many of those they publish. Also there are yearly contests that are listed and related rules.

Your chances for publication vary greatly from one pub to another, depending on whether the pub accepts mss from previously unpublished writers, or from only those who've been published. Sometimes they take either, but a publication such as Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker may only take experienced authors.

Also, I would add to make sure you keep a submission log, so you can track your mailings (or emailings). Many or most pubs don't want you to submit the same story to another pub while they have it and are deciding if they want it. If they do, there may be copyright problems if the other pub also wants it. This may keep your story out of circulation for up to a year or more, depending. If you keep a log you know which story is where and for how long it's been out.

Thanks for your query. Unfortunately, I do not feel that I could be the best advocate for your work. Please keep in mind that mine is a subjective business, and an idea or story to which one agent does not respond may well be met with great enthusiasm by another, and I encourage you to continue writing to agents. Hopefully you will find someone who will get behind you and your work with the conviction necessary in this very tight market.

So how do we tell the difference? It's not like agents have varying degrees of form rejection letters for "heck no," "almost there," "I was really liking it until ...." etc. (unless they do have such scaling degrees of rejections... do they?)

Take, for example, a rejection I got this week:
Thanks for sending along the opening pages of Omn's Tears. Truth be told, I'm afraid these pages just didn't draw me in as much as I had hoped. I'm pressed for time these days and, what with my reservations about the project, I suspect I wouldn't be the best fit. Thanks so much for contacting me, though, and for giving me this opportunity. It's much appreciated, and I'm sorry to be passing. I wish you the very best of luck in your search for representation.

This is a very kind rejection, and it initially got my hopes up. (This was actually the very first rejection I've gotten, I only last week deemed my novel "query worthy" and began sending out queries to agents.) But is the kindness just standard? Could I have sent in a rediculously horrible query letter with a grammatically incorrect, cliche synopsis and misspelled the agent's name and still gotten this kind reply? These are the questions that haunt my dreams.