John - I don't mean to be pessimistic but approximately 99.6% of all manuscripts written annually never see the light of day. Getting a publisher is incredibly difficult, especially without an agent. I was very fortunate. JK Rawlins was turned down by every publisher in Great Britain before finally finding a publisher in the states for Harry Potter. I would recommend you send manuscripts to all the publishers who publish the type of book you want to write. Most all of them put the requirements on their website but most all large publishers will only accept manuscripts from agent. They will not take direct submissions from writers. You can consider self-publishing. There are a lot of options there, but if you do go that route and then have aspirations for the future you could have hurt yourself. Once you self-publish you get labeled. Again, I don't want to be negative but I do want to be honest with you. I wrote about the South and just happened to find a publisher that was looking for manuscripts on the South. Best of luck my friend. Honestly, writing a book is much much much easier than getting it published.
