Question:
Hhas anyone published a book, if so what company did you use? What steps did you take to get your work known?
anonymous
2014-01-21 17:42:02 UTC
IM WORKING ON A BOOK LOOKING TO BE FINISHED THIS YEAR. I WAS WONDERING WHO TO GO WITH AS FAR AS A PUBLISHER AND WHAT STEPS DO I TAKE AFTER I DO HAVE MY WORK FINISHED
Eight answers:
Anastasius Focht
2014-01-21 17:45:09 UTC
I'd be more concerned with finishing my draft *protip: first drafts are a lot of poopoo with nuggets of gold buried in them*, and polishing it to the highest possible degree I can over multiple drafts, and having it edited and proofed by someone knowledgeable.

THEN worry about the rest.



But to make it simple:



Join a local/online Writer's Circle for comments, critique and some editing

Take a creative writing course (often free or low cost through civic groups

Hire a good editor/proofreader.

Polish your work to the highest standard you and your editor/proofreader are capable of (You want a very very high Gold Nugget to Poo ratio in your final draft)

Read up on YOG's LAW



then



Get a current Copy of Writer's Market

Submit your submission/manuscript exactly as indicated to the literary agent(s) in the genre you have chosen.

Wait.

Submit a few dozen times.

Maybe get lucky and get a few nibbles.

Get published! (maybe) Yay!

Tirelessly promote your work



or



have your work Published for money by a vanity press.

Tirelessly promote your work

(I don't really recommend this route)



or



Publish your work for almost nothing on Amazon or similar sites.

Get paid when people buy it

Tirelessly promote your work.



or

Goto Kinko's

Print out a few copies to sell/give away

Tirelessly promote your work
anonymous
2014-01-22 18:53:53 UTC
1st step: realize that ALL CAPS does not impress in the literary world.

Then either go the free E-publishing route, or start tracking down publisher that accept queries. No publisher wants to see a whole book on spec. But that also means you can send queries before the book is done. You just need some finely polished sample chapters and an outline and the answers to a few questions that vary with the publisher. This is good because if you do get your book published, it will likely be after a lot of queries. Get a copy of the author's guide if you want to go the query to a real publisher route. It has lots of good information.



Warning: anybody who wants your money to publish your work is NOT worth dealing with. They're ripoff artists. Same with agents: if you have to pay an agent (other than nominal expenses at worst), then you're probably getting screwed.



I say try E-publishing. It means you have to do the marketing yourself, but more and more publisher want you to do most of it anyway unless you're an established mega-selling author or a celebrity.

(that's one of the most maddening things for the modern author: Kim Kardashian could get her used toilet paper published, just because she's famous, but You will have to scramble and struggle while idiots read her junk because she's a celebrity.)



This all sounds really discouraging, but it should, because you've got to really work to be an author. If you think you might be up to it, then give it a go. and good luck.
anonymous
2014-01-22 01:52:22 UTC
Wow Jordan is an idiot. What he calls vanity publishing is actually called traditional or trade publishing,

And vanity publishing is something else entirely where idiots pay thousands to have their book printed out full of errors like the Xlibris vanity "publishing" scam which has nothing to do with real publishing. http://www.pissedconsumer.com/reviews-by-company/xlibris.html



Also even in traditional or trade publishing they don't pay for ads or promote you. No matter what you do you basically have to promote yourself,



But paying a company like Xlbirsi or other vanity companies is truly for idiots



Traditional publishing is where you have to be selected for quality work that ends up in book stores.



Jordan you should delete your answer or edit it because it's just so wrong and ****** up.



Lulu is no good any more they want big money now and have become a scam.
?
2017-02-28 02:44:12 UTC
1
TaylorWS
2014-01-22 01:45:13 UTC
So, you want to be published.



KDP.Amazon.com or .co.uk.



But, before you do, make sure your story is understandable- not convoluted, or full of typos and mis-spellt words, or fancy words that are rarely used and stupid adverbs and extra adjectives and make sure you clean up your character POV.



Then go ahead, sell for retail $4.55 and do this because you love to write and not in order to become rich and famous, cos you won't.
?
2014-01-22 02:05:20 UTC
If you think you book is complete crap and no REAL publisher would ever touch it you can self publish it.
Jordan
2014-01-21 18:05:33 UTC
EDIT: Sorry, I was referring to Traditional Publishing when I said Vanity publishing. I was misinformed in the past and thought they were synonyms.

I apologize profusely for the misinformation.





I hate to break it to you honey but the first draft of your first book isn't going to be publishing quality. You're not even finished yet, so I doubt you've even read over the whole thing to make sure there aren't any typos. Please don't take it as an insult or get indignant, because I'm not dissing you as a writer at all.

I can speak from experience; when I wrote my first book at 13 and an entire community of writers told me it was amazing for a thirteen year old, I thought I was all ready to publish. But even five years later and after a couple of full manuscript edits I'm still not sure it's ready.



The longer you write, the better you get at it, and I can promise you that if you're still writing a year from now you'll look back at the first couple chapters of your book and literally laugh at yourself- not because it's necessarily bad, but because you can do so much better. The first draft of your first book is never, ever publishing read. Take a look at Twilight if you need proof. There's a kind of writing quality you can only get from experience- you'd be better off taking the time to make it better than launching into trying to get it published half ******.





HOWEVER, if you really want to try for publishing, you have two options; traditional or self. There are pros and cons to each.



Self publishing- you don't have to do anything to get published other than copy and paste your manuscript into a field, slap on a cover, and buy a copy. Wala, a printed book with no lines or hard work. The only problem with this is that you're a company of one- you have someone to print the book for you and that's it. You have to go talk to managers of bookstores all by yourself and get them to buy copies, and you have to hire your own editor, and you have to hire your own cover artist or use a crappy online photo editor with pictures you could get sued for using. It's a tremendous amount of work. Ebook self publishing is a slightly more lucrative means (50 Shades of Gray started as E-Book self publishing and hey, it's worth millions and a movie deal (Note: unless your book is twilight fan fiction porn it probably won't have the same response)), but you're still a marketing team of one. Getting your book out there is all up to you, and most self publishing books flop. You won't usually see them on the shelves of your local Barnes and Noble, certainly.





Traditional Publishing: AKA Getting a publishing company. This is a lot more work on the front end and a lot less on the tail end. You have to submit it to interns who read hundreds of (usually terrible) manuscripts from authors just like you a day, and hope they don't throw you on the slush pile. If they like you, they put you on the very small pass pile and send you on up the line. If their boss likes you out of the dozens of manuscripts they read, they'll be your "champion" of sorts and take you to the next round. Usually, only a couple of those next round books get published. The books published to books submitted ration is almost ridiculously small. Some people spend years submitting to every publishing company known to man pleading for a deal. It's not easy. But the company will get you a cover artist and an editor and if they're big name they'll get it slipped right onto book shelves for you. You don't have to market to the people, but you have to get the company to want you in the first place. It's a lot of formalities and frustration, but they're your best chance. I'd say 99% of books you hear about are traditionally published.

Also, to clarify, I didn't mean they're going to put up posters all over town. I meant that you don't have to personally talk to bookstore owners to get on shelves.



As for which publisher, it depends on your book. Different people want different things. You'll have to work around and find out who's good for you. But picking up a copy of writers market is definitely a good plan if you want to get published. They'll tell you who's looking and who's really picky and who even takes your genre.



Good luck!
WikiJo
2014-01-21 17:58:56 UTC
Anastasius knows what he is saying.



Lulu is a good start.

Get a good editor.

Promote your work !


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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