Jane Friedman on how to get your book published.
Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published
It’s the most frequently asked question I receive: How do I get my book published?
Unfortunately, when I hear this question, I know I’m dealing with someone who is at such a beginning stage that it’s difficult to know where to begin.
With this post, I hope to offer the most critical information and address the most pressing questions, as well as provide a starting point for more fully exploring what it means for you to try and get meaningfully published.
Have you just recently completed your book?
If so, honestly answer these three questions.
Is your book really done? Is it really the best you can make it? And have professionals (whether editors, agents, or published authors) encouraged you, because they see and know you are ready? Do you feel confident that it’s ready to submit?
Are you informed enough about the publishing business to understand where to submit the work, how to submit the work, and what obstacles you might face? Does your work break the rules of the industry? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then you need to study up on the industry before submitting your work.
What is your motivation for trying to get published? A little self-reflection might be in order before you chase after an agent or publisher. Read my post 3 Questions Every Creative Person Must Ask.
Are you writing fiction or nonfiction?
Novelists follow a different path to publication than nonfiction authors.
Novels and memoirs: You must have a finished and polished manuscript before you even think about how to get published.
Most nonfiction: You must write a book proposal (basically like a business plan for your book) that will convince a publisher to contract and pay you to write the book.
If you’re writing a hybrid work (personal vignettes mixed with instruction, or a multi-genre work that includes essays, stories, and poetry), then you will have a difficult time getting a publisher to accept it.
Getting published is a step-by-step process of:
Researching the appropriate agents or publishers for your work. (Here’s a list of free resources.)
Reading submission guidelines of agents and publishers.
Sending a query, proposal, or submission package.
Read the entire article here.
Why do writers still seek national/international publication? There alternatives to reaching the intended audience that don’t involve mass publication. I have considered investing in a massive bottle to stuff with my manuscript for general ocean release. I have also made many of my poems available for interrogation on the internet.
In the emerging medium of passive visual reference, what strategies would you suggest for gloaming my perspective over the genmass projection? When the genmass schema arrives for assimilation (just as I mature in my skill as a writer); is there a preferred method of insulation to slow the migration pattern of my modulations of identity before they coalesce with genmass? I want to watch it before it blooms to bask in the delusion I initiated the end result.
A third line of hyperbabble because that felt good and I’m not done trying it out in real time. Okay now I am done.