Getting A Book Published

[JLaCroix]

I'm writing a book. I'll probably post sample chapters here, but right now it's barely done and I have ALOT of proofing to do.

I was wondering if this is even worth my time, I want to get it published but I don't know where to start or how to do it...

[altoecko]

Re: Getting A Book Published

Self-publishing is probably the easiest way to go. It's what I'm going to do with mine probably. It doesn't have the same triumph as getting your book published on a large scale, but if you just want the satisfaction of having it out of you to be shared with others then self-publishing is the best way to go.

If you'd like to get it published another way do a google search for publishing and maybe a visit to wikipedia to be your jumping pad for what to do.

[Magik]

Re: Getting A Book Published

I've read this article a few times, it's very informative.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Getting A Book Published

First and foremost: Once you've got your novel completed and polished and you think it's ready, find someone who will proofread it and give you an honest ****ing opinion because your friends and family are not all writing critics, and they're biased, no matter what they tell you. If you've got an in to the writing/publishing market in any way, utilize it. It's a cutthroat field and you've gotta take risks to get published in the national forum in the traditional way.


If you want to try and get published by a big publishing company, the national/worldwide kind, you basically need to get an agent first, because the big publishers almost never accept unsolicited manuscript submissions.

Getting an agent is no easy task, either. First you have to find one that looks like it might cater more specifically to your genre and looks legitimate, and then you get to spend all the time and energy creating specific query letters and synopses and bios depending on what they want from you specifically in order to submit to them without them just going "pft, he didn't format it the way we want" and reject you instantly. If you can land an agent, they can pretty well take it from there, or so it's said. Having an agent is NOT a guarantee of a published book, especially if the agent is disreputable or doesn't have your interests in mind, but if you find a good agent who thinks your book is worth representing to publishers, then you just might be published on a national scale before you know it.

You can always try submitting to smaller publishers (more specialized genre-specific publishers or local level publishers) to at least get a publishing credit and you can eventually get the eye of major publishers this way. If your book is any good. At least the smaller publishers have submission periods in the year in which unsolicited work is accepted.


If you want to go the self-publishing route, there's lots of options online, some reputable and some rip-offs. WordClay will charge the hell out of you for a bunch of services that, if you know how to properly manipulate them, can work out really well for you. And I'm pretty sure a few people here (Sejon and alto I think) have used Lulu to publish a children's book and a poetry book, respectively.

This Wikipedia article is insanely useful for those who aren't already familiar with the entire process and the different methods of self-publishing, plus it offers varying opinions and some outside resources that you may find useful.


The last thing to consider is trying to get your name out there in some capacity. Visit writing conventions, talk to agents and publishers if you get a chance, begin networking with other authors on a local level (LiveJournal and MySpace and Facebook are incredible tools to utilize in networking and getting your book out there) and Amazon makes it easy for you to utilize self-publishing to create your own store and sell your own book. And you could write and submit short stories to literary journals and magazines (I think Playboy still publishes stories in their magazines and that's how Stephen King got started). It's all about getting yourself some street-credit before some of the agents/publishers will even consider you.

It's a dog-eat-dog world, as they say, and it sucks. And there's so many people out there now trying the self-same stuff I just said. It's terrible how inundated the market is with unpublished works. But you just have to persevere. And more than anything, write your novel for yourself first. It's a wonderful feeling of accomplishment just finishing a book of your very own.

Edit: I also forgot about AgentQuery which will help you along the path to finding an agent, and it also has a lot of resources in the publishing field that you'll find helpful.

[Chad]

Re: Getting A Book Published

Obtain the Writer's Market book. That should give you a good idea about what publisher's to contact.

Try to get a literary agent.

Also, try Query Letters. They can get you a faster rejection.

[JLaCroix]

Re: Getting A Book Published

Thank you guys so much!

I think I will self publish my first book. The reason I scoffed at the idea of self publishing because from the way it sounded, it seemed like it meant that I would have to get access to a laserjet printer, print a bunch of copies, staple them, and sell them. I'm guessing that's not what that means?

I'm still confused. I'll do the self publishing thing and then try to land a better publisher later for a different book, but are there any publishers that will just publish it and take a cut from the profit or something so I don't have to go through BS?

It sucks though because I absolutely love to read, I want to publish some science fiction, and some computer training books, the same two types of books I like to read personally. I'm wondering if writing a computer book would be easier to publish.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Getting A Book Published

Self-publishing basically means you do it independently of a real publisher. You can go the "print a bunch on your home computer, staple, and sell" but that looks horribly unprofessional and most people won't care because it becomes very obvious that you're not officially published anywhere, and the first thing people think is "well, he wasn't good enough to get published" which is true in a lot of cases.

That Wikipedia article should give you just about all you need to know on the "how" of self-publishing.