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发表于 2024-2-14 06:25:26
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Q: What steps should one take to get a novel published?
A:
Plan A
1. Start a blog and publish one short story a week for 3 years, writing a novel in the background. Grow to 10,000 readers.
2. Self-publish the novel on Kindle at $9.99, keeping $6.97 per sale (throw in Lightning Source and keep similar paperback margins if you like).
3. Announce on blog
4. Sell 3000 copies in first year, clear $20,000 odd
Plan B
1. Write novel over 3 years
2. Collect 20 rejection letters over next 3 years, feel like crap, listening to patronizing lectures about "real" publishing along the way.
3. Finally find one agent and publisher
4. Get book published at $1 in royalty payments per copy
5. Sell 300 copies in first year. Clear $300. Marvel at how little marketing it is possible for a publisher to do.
6. Frame check and hang it in your office. Congrats. For the privilege of being "real" published instead of self, you just paid about $20,000 and waited 3 extra years.
Which plan do they call vanity publishing again?
https://www.quora.comm/What-step ... ished?no_redirect=1
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Related
Q: How should I publish my first novel?
A:
The most important advice I can give you is to finish the book first. Seriously. Life will try to get in the way.
After you have finished the book, you need to find a good editor. I don't mean Mom— even if she is an English teacher. She will be able to help with grammar and punctuation, but you need someone who is more understanding of the industry and the nuances of when it is and isn't okay to break the rules of grammar and punctuation for effect. My experience with English teachers are that few are flexible enough in this area to allow for poetic license. Find a good professional editor. There are many kinds of editors, so research this. You may need to hire more than one editor so that you can get developmental editing as well as line editing. Don't skip this step, no matter what kind of final publishing you think you are going to try for. If you are self-publishing, you need to put forth your best foot. Don't publish crap. If you are aiming for being published by one of the big 5, you need to put forth your best foot and impress the hell out of them. Don't send them crap.
Find a proofreader, or three. Try to get all the mistakes and typos out. You will never get all of them, but do your best. Remember, every time you touch your manuscript, you've probably added a new mistake, so involve proofreaders LAST.
All that stuff about editors is important and will cost you money. My advice is to NOT get an editor as part of a packaged deal of "We'll design your cover and publish your book for you!" Those are usually scams, and if they're not, they are usually crap. Find other writers in your area, join the local community, get to know the business, and find editors who are reputable that way. Trust me on this. This is a very expensive lesson for some of us.
Make sure you use contracts for EVERYTHING. Even hiring your new best friend as an editor. Even if your new best friend is Stephen King because you just met him and he loves your book and wants to edit it for you. Contracts protect that friendship. Make sure you completely understand every contract you sign. Don't trust the person/company issuing the contract to explain it to you. You need a disinterested 3rd party to explain them to you. An agent who wants to or is representing you is not a disinterested 3rd party. They make money off of you and what might be best for them in the short term might not be best for you in the long term. Remember, even when self-publishing, clicking on that button when you submit your files to be uploaded is entering a contract with CreateSpace, Ingram, Lulu, or whatever or whoever you are using. Read those EULAs! They can ruin your career if you are not careful and don't understand what you are getting into.
Okay. Now that I have scared you off…
The second most important thing is to not get overexcited. Keep your cool, be ready to be in this for the long haul. Do not jump at the first offer or contract you see. Read it and make sure it is good for you, or you may regret it the rest of your life. Don't decide you want to self-publish and put the book out as fast as you can. Think on it. Realize you are starting your own business. Make the best cover, get the best editing, have the best marketing strategy you can BEFORE you put the book out there.
My personal recommendation is to always shoot for the stars first. Try to publish with one of the big 5 publishers. If that doesn't work, look into the mid-sized publishers. After that, consider smaller publishers. If you don't feel they can offer you what you can do yourself by self-publishing (which does happen often), then consider self-publishing.
Here is my advice, summed up:
Finish your book. This is the hurdle most people cannot make it over.
Don't get overly excited and jump to quick mistakes when you finally finish your book. Take your time and make wise choices. This is a business and you need to learn it, or you will face the unfortunate consequences.
Always put your best forward. Don't get lazy. Always have your stuff edited and proofread before you send it anywhere or to anyone. (Even an editor! The cleaner manuscript you give them, the more they can focus on helping you instead of fixing typos.)
Contracts are your best friend and your worst enemy. Everything is a contract. Learn and understand them. Treat them like a loaded weapon—with the utmost respect and importance.
Shoot for the moon. You may not hit it, but you may land much higher than you thought you could!
Good Luck!
More Answers:
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Option 1- E-mail your drafts (first two or three chapters) to the top publishers in the country. A few like Westland and Harper Collins have stopped taking unsolicited works, so you'll have to take option 2.
Option 2- E-mail your drafts (first two or three chapters) to the top literary agents in the country. Red Ink, Jacaranda, Sherna Khambatta, Purplefolio etc. are great and provide editing services too. They know the ins and outs of the publishing business in India and will definitely find a great publisher for you.
Option 3- Contact small publishers. Pay them money. And they'll publish your works. You'll have to do capital investment and marketing on your own though.
Option 4- Amazon KDP. Publish online for next to nothing. Earn 70% royalty and an international audience. Just that you'll have to do your own marketing, else see your works get lost among a flood of others.
Option 1 takes time. Publishers like Penguin can take up to 6 months to respond to your mail.
Option 2 can take comparatively less time. I was in contact with Sherna Khambatta within a week of me sending out my proposal.
Option 3 is good if you have the resources. I have been in contact with two so far and their rates are definitely not worth it for millennials like me.
Option 4 is exploding like anything these days and many self published authors are easily trumping established ones. See- Savi Sharma.
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In the Digital Age, it is easy enough to self-publish virtually any book. However, getting a real publisher to invest its time in developing, producing, and marketing your book is a very different prospect.
Is your book any good? Will people want to read it? Will they be willing pay for it? In a world of a million book choices, why should someone (other than your friends and family) pick your book?
Writing a novel is an impressive accomplishment. Wanting to get it published is an understandable goal. To that end, make sure your book is as good as it can be. Ask people whose opinions you trust what they think of your book. Ask your English teacher. Listen to what these readers say—and consider how their suggestions might improve your book.
Hint: Your most important work will likely take place during the revision stage. Writing a novel—a first draft—is just the first step.
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First buy two books. I'm not selling them. You can get one from Amazon and the other from Smashwords. From Amazon, buy Stephen King's On Writing: Memoir's of the Craft. Oddly enough, the paperback version is cheaper than the Kindle version. Read it many times, as if you're studying for the most important final exam you ever took. Commit the best parts to memory.
I assume, because you are 17 and this is probably your first book, you will want to self publish, so you will want to make an Ebook out of your MS Word manuscript so from Smashwords download the Ebook Smashwords Style Guide. It's free and is without doubt THE best book for learning how to turn your MS Word manuscript into a file that will easily pass through the program which converts it into a nicely formatted Ebook.
But first, after you have read On Writing a few times. Finish your novel. Be sure to write twice as many words as the target optimal number for your genre. For instance, the optimum length for a romance novel is about 100,00 words and the target number for an epic fantasy is somewhere from 200,000 to 300,00. You want twice as many so that you can do aggressive cutting — as recommended in On Writing — before showing it to anyone. Now find beta readers and editors. I prefer ones who have the appropriate skills, not just friends and family. It's interesting to note however that King says his best beta reader and always his first reader is his wife, Tabatha. He has a circle of five friends whose literary opinions he trusts who make up the rest of his beta readers. I think that's a great model.
About editors: Join Goodreads, a social site for Readers and Authors. Make friends with authors whose books you think are well written with excellent grammar and spelling. Find one or two who would be willing to look at a sample of your work in order to decide if they are willing to trade edits with you (you edit theirs and they edit yours). You can offer to do a trial with them, one chapter each, to see if they can work with you.
You will find plenty of people on this site offering to edit your book for a price. Some of them are quite good. Just be aware that the good ones charge a lot, as much as $3,000 or more. I've heard as high as $7,000 mentioned on Quora. Even if you have brilliant talent and do everything right, the chances of making enough money on your first book to break even after paying a good editor are slim to none because you're an unknown name. No reflection on your writing. The vast majority of readers browse for books by author's name.
Good luck! Break a leg! Knock 'em dead!
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Beware the trap of self-publishing! At the very least, you need to have your book read by someone with editorial skills. Join a writer's group.
That said, there is too much unknown here. What genre are you writing in? Would you be satisfied with the status of fan fiction or do you aim higher? Please note that as time goes on, it is harder and harder for first time authors to get published. Publishers tend to go for sure things: established names to guarantee sales. Are you ready for the vast numbers of rejections you will face? Research submission requirements. You might be surprised to find that you do not need to present a finished manuscript.
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FINISH the Book first.
Do NOT pay to get it published (Money should always flow towards the Writer.)
PUT THE MANUSCRIPT ASIDE for 6 months after it is done. This is your Raw Material. Your feelings towards it will change once you see where things could be tightened up, grammar corrected, etc.
EDIT the book (I suggest reading not just "Strunk and White" but "The 10% Solution" by Ken Rand, which is only $7, short, and will teach you the flow of modern English from and experienced journalist who had to write tight.) starting after month 6. DO NOT be disheartened if you go into it, and discover your priceless jewel is now in some way "Crap" compared to what you see on the shelf. Those books have all had a team of people working on them, and you are now trying to get it to the point where they will take you seriously and invest their man-hours into your project.
LEARN basic things such as manuscript format, word count, etc. — which looks ugly (to me) but in the hands of an experienced published will tell them exactly where it will fall in their line-up once finished.
JOIN not just your local writing group (which there may be at your school), but a larger group that specializes in the types of book you write. Think Romance Writers of America, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Science Fiction Writers Association, Horror Writers Association, etc. This is very important as many traditional publishers will not accept un-agented materials, and editors and agents specialize in what they like to read. Editors and agents are approachable at conventions, held in many places, and take this as seriously as your would getting into college or a job interview (which it is).
Write a COVER LETTER for your Book and yourself (less than 1 page, since agents and editors are deluged with hundreds if not thousands of hopefuls), starting with a 25-word or less opening hook, then saying why you are qualified to write it ("I wrote a 70-word mystery about a sailor because I always go sailing during the summer with my family in Maine." and do not lie about your credentials, or go overboard bragging.) Compare your book to other books on the shelf that your have seen which cover similar topics.
Write a SUMMARY of the entire Book, going into pertinent details, the shorter the better. (1000 words or less)
NETWORK at the conventions, collecting business cards that you can then email people concerned who might be interested. BE POLITE, and write them within 24 hours, but give them 1 MONTH at least to say if they are interested or not in seeing your work. Keep you emails short, to the point, and professional. When/if they write back, DO EXACTLY what they say for submission guidelines. If all they want at first is the first 5 chapters/ 30 pages/ 2000 words, you must OBEY. Then WAIT 3 MONTHS. You are not the only person on their desk, but you are farther than most by having contacted them in person, and they actually requested your work. After 3 months, give a polite email, if they haven't said "send in the rest" or "not for me".
Meanwhile, start work on your NEXT BOOK — assuming you want a part-time career out of this.
The reason to go with traditional publishing in my point of view is because they have this wonderful thing call a marketing team. Your job is to write. Marketing sells, and rakes in a bigger piece of the pie for everyone.
Make sure that if an EDITOR says "this is nice, send me what you have", you get a reputable AGENT at that point. People with agents are taken more seriously in many situations, real agents don't get paid up front, they take a percentage of the writer's profits AFTER the sale, and the agent might know other editors who would be interested as well, and you could end up in an ethically arranged bidding war.
My two cents, and hope this helps. :^)
https://www.quora.comm/How-should-I-publish-my-first-novel
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发表于 2024-2-14 06:17:56