There are several methods to publishing a work.
1. Vanity publishing, such as Xlibris, Lulu, Dorsett, that requires fees up front, ranging from $500 to $20,000, depending upon the size and illustrations of a book. The author must do their own strategy marketing of the book.
2. Obtain a literary agent through the Writer's Market book, send a query letter to one that best suits your genre, and hope they ask for the first three chapters. If an agent agrees to represent you, you could be looking at an 18-month target date for publication--after the necessary edits and changes they feel are necessary.
An agent will usually take a 15 percent cut of all sales.
This method of representation is the most difficult to attain for unpublished authors. Some break through the iron wall of representation, but it is only a fraction of all the writers, good or bad, that try to submit.
Good luck.
2007-07-05 03:34:27
·
answer #1
·
answered by Guitarpicker 7
·
0⤊
0⤋
I've been trying that one for 20 years now. I know how to do it with magazines, but the book market is a different market and without an agent it's not that easy.
A friend of mine has a dozen technical books in print and he tells me the secret is convincing them it will sell and make money.
Controversey works. I knew a first time author who wrote a very sexual book about the Vietnam war and the first agent he hit picked him up and placed him with a major publisher and the book make it into the top 100 list and he got threats from the religious right and there was talk about banning his book.
Anyway, for a non-fiction book you put together a proposal, outline and you can query in advance or submit that with a sample chapter.
For fiction they generally want to see the entire book, but that can get expensive for by the time it comes back to you rejected it's dog eared.
So again you might want to make a proposal and query letter and tell them what genre it is, what makes it special, what makes it unique. If you are already published include some tear sheets of your first page showing the magazine name, issue and page number you were on.
My article Title made the cover once! Not my name, unfortunately, as I'm not Asimov or King or Vidal so my name doesn't sell copies.
From what I understand Publishers allocate a budget for the year. The largest chunck goes to their prime authors, the Kings and Vidals of the world
The rest gets divided among fiction and non fiction and they designate how many TITLES of each they will do in the year. Five mysteries, One Sci-Fi, Twenty Romance, Ten Diet books, Twenty Self Help books.
Then the Editors have to fill this requirement with solid material and they usually get this from agents.
You submission goes to a College Intern on a 4-4-4 program who is first reader or to a girl or guy fresh with the compnay with their BA in English.
They like it, it goes to an assistant editor to be read. They don't like it it goes into the FULLY POSTAGE PAID return envelope YOU must provide if you want it back.
Actually, I'd use a box to help keep it from being dog eared by the Postal PEople.
The Assistant Editor likes it, it goes to the Aquistions editor who generally has a MAsters in English and had been in the business for 15 years at least and rEADS READS READS.
They may or may not have signing power. If they don't it goes to the General Manager or Publisher representative in confrence.
At that point they send you a contract.
Typical contract has a little front money, maybe $500-$1,000, some sample copies and a royalty on retail sales that excludes book club editions and close-outs.
That amounts to something between $1.50 and $3 per book sold at retail (which means they don't pay you off the payments they get from Ingram, the national distributor, until AFTER Ingram ships back all the unsold copies at the end of the year, which is when your book dies).
Those returned copies go to Edward R. Hamilton who will see your $29.95 novel for as little as $1.95 and you get nothing off that.
YOu then split 50/50 sub-publishing and all other ancillary rights, including movies and paper back editions.
2007-07-05 11:16:49
·
answer #2
·
answered by Anonymous
·
0⤊
0⤋
First of all, what type of author are you, if you're thinking you want to get a Poetry book published, stop right now, over submission has taken it's toll. If it's some other kind of book, I'd suggest looking to find a publisher that markets to your niche, i.e. Manic D caters to more punk rock books than novellas about dreamscapes.
But be careful, there are alot of so called talent agencies out their looking for the latest, greatest author and they will pray on your willingness to get your work out their so know this: "No requitable publisher or agent will ever ask you for money (up front), if they do, they aren't genuine."
Lastly if you already have an audience you might consider self publishing, if you know you can recoup the cost in books sold. Hope this helps.
"Writing is not a full time job, I had to get a real job to support my writing habit." - Someone Famou.... oh wait, I said that.
2007-07-05 10:37:57
·
answer #3
·
answered by Punk Dude 2
·
0⤊
0⤋
If you've written book, there's a couple of really good books you can buy. The one I read was very informative; it was by Evan Marshall, The Marshall Plan for Getting Your Novel Published. It will explain all about agents and publishers and the complicated submission process: queries, synopsis, manuscript formats, so on and so forth.
You also should buy a Writer's Market book. It makes it easy to look up publishers and agents for your genre of work.
Also on the AAR website, there is a list of credible agents you could try. Read the guidelines carefully. They throw out anything that does not follow them. www.aar-online.org
A writing group could also be beneficial. I found mine through RWA, but that's only for romance writers. There are so many out there so just look around.
Also, never give up. You're going to get some bad reviews and get brushed off by a lot of people and it can be very hurtful. But you have to keep pushing and believing because if you lose your determination and heart, there won't be much point.
I also highly recommend Anne Lamott's book called Bird by Bird: Instructions for Writing and Life. For tough times, I refer back to this. It is such a great comfort. It's like the writer's bible.
2007-07-05 12:13:25
·
answer #4
·
answered by Lou Lou 3
·
0⤊
0⤋
You cant get a book published unless your a book writer.If you are a book writer ask a publisher to get the book published.
2007-07-05 10:29:44
·
answer #5
·
answered by kevin j 2
·
0⤊
0⤋