Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Why is it hard to publish your book?


First, as a writer you are competing against roughly 99,999 other writers trying to publish their book per year.

Second, traditional publishers tend to look at self-published, vanity published, or published online less as writers than writers in highly rated magazines, or published traditionally.

Third, traditional publishers expect writers to have a marketing plan, followers, a PR plan, and a promotional plan for their book.

Forth, traditional publishers want to know about how writers will use social media marketing, and network marketing to garner interest in their book.

Fifth, traditional publishers might like the writer to have a blog, book trailer, and web site for the book as well before the writer completes the book so there is a ready-made audience before publishing the book.

Sixth, publishers want a book with few errors needing editing. These errors include, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and typos. Traditional publishers are looking for ready to print manuscripts. They don’t want to spend time and money, correcting manuscripts in today’s publishing culture.

Seventh, is a good deal of luck with the right genre, homework, and the publisher willing to chance publishing your book, and a ready-made audience and a large number of followers.
This is the hardest part of publishing, especially for new writers if their name is not a household name like, James Patterson.

Eighth, reading the submission guidelines carefully. What potential publishers are looking for as to the type of genre they publish. You’d be surprised how many publishers receive the wrong material.

Ninth, the proposal letter. If a writer’s proposal letter doesn’t show writing ability, the manuscript may never reach a reader, because of the number of manuscripts received in a year and the time it takes to read a manuscript by an acquisitions editor to see if the book is worthy of publication.

From this partial list, it’s easy to why it is hard publishing your book. Read articles from editors and reviewers online and you will read many complaints about the quality of self-published books, vanity published book, and more about the lack of quality writing.

Writers need to take responsibility for the quality of their babies to ensure they are the best book possible to help in publishing them so readers will ready quality writing, thus insuring they will want to read the writer when their next book is available.

Robert Medak
Freelance Writer/Blogger/Editor/Proofreader/Reviewer/Marketer

3 comments:

  1. Yes - it's difficult. But none of this is insurmountable. It just means we have to work really hard to get everything as right as possible. (then submit a little prayer to the luck god.)

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    1. That's about it, JO.

      Writing for easy reading isn't the easiest thing, and authors need professional editors.

      Bob

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  2. Great article, Bob. We're just a spec in the publishing universe and need to take all precautions to produce a quality product to help get our books published.

    It took Jack Canfield and his co-author 144 rejections before they got a contract!

    Perseverance is another key aspect of getting published.

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