Resources
Online Resources - various
Romance Writers' Associations
Joining a Writers Association, critique group or online forum is somewhere safe to hone your craft. Yes, it can be excruciating as you ask dopey questions or make newbie mistakes, but do you really want to make those mistakes in front of your prospective publisher or agent? No, you don't.
Writers & writing websites
Finding a Publisher or Agent
Not all publishers will accept unagented/unsolicited manuscripts for consideration, so depending on what publisher you're interested in, you may care to approach a Literary Agent to help you present your work. Alternatively, if you decide to go direct to a particular publishing house or editor the following my help:
Print Resources
There are gazillions of books out there on how to write, what to write, what not to write, when to write and your right to write. This list doesn't even touch the sides. But these are some books that have been recommended to me or that I recommend. (If you have a book to recommend and don't mind sending a few sentences, please do so via the 'email Hannah' link. No self-promotion, pls)
E-Book Sites
Reading your favourite books in electronic format is an acquired taste. I was never a big screen reader (that is, on my PC) but since getting a Sony Reader (hand-held, book-sized) I'm quickly becoming a convert. E-books are cheaper (to produce and therefore sell), smaller (taking up no shelf space), greener (no paper, no ink, no glue), faster (download in minutes, no shops, no queues) and better for authors (no swapping it to 25 of your closest friends or selling it over and over in second-hand book stores, robbing hardworking authors of rightful sales).
On the downside, some e-book sites are full of self-published, shorter works or are dodgy publishers masquerading as legit. I believe (also) that if you upgrade your computer, you lose access to all the encrypted books you have purchased because the encryption recognises an ID/number of your computer. My advice (as you get into e-books for the first time) would be to stick to the 'known' publishers and just chase down their e-book service. Some are below...
Or here's a list of further e-publishers (for better and for worse)
Sony Reader sites
The Sony e-book reader (PRS 500 or 505) can only take Sony's own, licensed encrypted book versiosn (known as BBeB). Most commercial ebooks are encrypted and will (therefore) not play on the Sony at this stage. Hopefully that will change in the future. Sony's own site (Connect) boasts thousands of titles but is useless to anyone outside of America. You simply cannot be their customer no matter how much money you'd like to spend with them. I'm slowly compiling a list of reputable e-book companies who are providing works in UNENCRYPTED form or in READER FORMAT (BBeB). This list will grow as I ferret them out.