How do you get a book or stroy published?

Question

I'm writing a story at present and also poems.
I was just wondering the step that you have to take to get a book published

Answer 1

Check out booklocker.com. They are a self-publish and Print on Demand (POD) publisher. Their FAQs and blog should help you get started. They have a sister site writersweekly.com that can give you information and markets for future work.

Answer 2

My first suggestion would be to join a critique group. You will learn critiquing others and having them edit your work. Plus, the price is right.

When you are done with that I suggest that you get a newer copy of Writer's Digest (from your library is free) and look for publishers that specialize in your particular genre.

See what their requirements are and start submitting query letters.

Be very careful about self-publishing. I'm not against it; just be careful and know what you're getting into. Many people have been ripped off. Some people swear by it. Make smart decisions.

Answer 3

You would be wise to get some books on writing. These can be obtained from your favorite bookstore, and you may even find them at your local library.

You will have to be up to par in your grammar and spelling if you want to be taken seriously. You'll need to get your manuscript edited, either by someone you trust, or read it over and over again yourself until you're sure you haven't any mistakes, either in grammer, spelling, or holes in your story that are easily found.

When you're sure you have what it takes to start submitting your work, get a copy of the Writer's Market from the bookstore. They show many literary agents who are on the lookout for various genres. You will need to write a query letter to the agent and give him/her a synopsis of your work.

If the agent is interested, he/she will usually ask you to submit the first three chapters of the manuscript. Here's where the tricky part comes in. You will need to put your manuscript in Industry Standard Format. There is one for short stories and one for novels. Go to the library or bookstore and find a book about formatting manuscripts.

Your letter better have NO mistakes in spelling or grammar whatsoever. This will lead to an immediate reject. If the agent likes what he/she sees, they will request that you submit the entire manuscript.

It's not easy, believe me.

Answer 4

For the primary one: All That I Wanted For the moment one: More Than I Needed for the 3rd one, do whatever a little bit one of a kind. probably she is going on a holiday and meets a complete new slew of men, after which one among her ancient love pursuits indicates up simply whilst she begins to fall for a brand new man EDIT: Title for the 3rd booklet: Not What I Expected

Answer 5

Selling books of short stories and poems is a tough sell. Not many puhblishers publish poetry anymore. It isn't a big seller. Consider this. You have a choice of publishing hte latest DEan Koontz high body count thriller and a book of poems. Which do you publish?? Take a trip to a large bookstore and check out the number of poetry books on the shelves. There arent many. And if agents cannot sell your work, they are just wasting their time when they could be selling high body count thrillers that will make them lots of money.

Your answer is smaller presses that publish "literary works." You will find some in Writers Market. However you must be very careful. Not all of them are legit. Check with Absolute Write Water Cooler Bewares and Background Checks, Preditors and Editors, Writers Wall, Writers Weeklky, Anne Crispin's site and every other site you can find. If there are complaints against a publisher, pass them over and find another.

Remember to always query in exactly the way the publisher asks for submissions. I do not recommend any self publishers. They may claim to be free, but they are not. And the average sales for a self published book is less than 100. Not worth it.

If you want to sell stories individually, there are four ways.One is to sell them to magazines, one is to sell them to anthologies, one is e stories and one is contests. The magazine route isn't what it used to be. There aren't nearly as many magazines publishing fiction as there used to be. However, the anthology market is growing. The e story market is doing ok too. Contests are iffy.

But there are two very important things you need to know.

1) It takes a LOT of research and time to find sources and send them out. You can use Writers Market. They do list magazines - to an extent. You can also go to the library and use Literary Marketplace which you will find in the reference section. It costs 300 dollars, so use theirs and don't buy it unless you have extra money laying around. It is a reference book so you cannot check it out. Bring a notebook and take lots of notes.

You will also find publishers in there who are doing e stories.

As for anthologies - you will have to let your fingers do a lot of walking on the internet. Surf keywords like anthologies accepting submissions. An anthology is generally a collection of stories by several authors in one genre -- Permuted Press publishes a famous one with zombie stories. You kind of have to search them out. You can also join Absolute Write Water Cooler and other forums which list some and communicate with other authors who may know of some. There is no miracle place where they just smack you in the face. Would be nice if there was, but there isn't. Everyone scrambles to find sources. The ones who put in the most time at it are the lucky ones.

The same goes for contests. You kind of have to shop around for them. The general rule for contests is do not pay any entry fees, but there are exceptions to that rule. Some legit contests charge. If you have to pay, make sure the prize money is at least 6 times the entry fee or more. And I would advise you not to enter any contest where the only prize is publication and copies of your work. I know of someone who won a novel contest, got his novel published after almost 4 years of hassling with the publisher, and ended up selling THREE books. Hardly worth it. Contests tend to have a poor reputation. Check them out carefully. There are articles at Preditors and Editors and Absolute Write about entering contests. Read them carefully.

Just remember that before you send anything to anyone, you MUST do your homework and check the publisher or contest out. Start with Absolute Write's Bewares and Background Checks, then Preditors and Editors, Writers Wall, Writers Wall and any other writers sites you can find. If there have been complaints from other writers, you will find them. We are writers, when someone rips us off, we write about it.

OK - now you have a pretty good idea where to send your work. Here is the bad news. You won't make much money on it. The average pay for a short story in a magazine or anthology is something like 5 - 25 dollars or a penny to a nickel a word plus a couple free copies of the book or magazine. Not very much. There are a few contests that pay first prize of over a thousand dollars, but they are very hard to win. They get thousands of very high quality entries. For e stories you make a royalty. If the story costs $1.99 to read, you might make 50 cents every time someone pays to read it. But kids will copy it and share it anyway and you probably won't get many paid hits. You will not earn a living this way. That is for certain.

What this does do is give you a start. Self publishing a novel will not give you the title "published author" in the industry, but a short story in an anthology will. It is a gateway. There are people who do it because they enjoy it. They end up with a nice little shelf of books and magazines with their stories in them, but not much money.

If you consider the time it takes to write a story, and you sell it for 25 dollars, you would make more money per hour working in Mc Donald's. However, if you are doing it for love and pleasure, go for it.

Pax - C

PS I star good Q and A on writing, so you can go to my profile and check my starred list. I add more as I see them. Add me as fan to get the latest. Print a lot of them out and study them. Make your own notebook of information. I do it to help others.