So you want to publish a book…

One question I get asked fairly often is how to go about getting a book published. This can be a complicated question as book publishing can cover a range of issues, but let’s take a look at some of the options. 

Option 1 – Get an agent to represent you.
This is the traditional method and is going to only work if you have a project with strong commercial possibilities. But it never hurts to try. Some publishers will talk directly to writers, but these days that’s a rarity. Some publishers do have time frames where unagented submissions will be read.  Others have direct-to-digital publishing programs that do not require agents submit even if the regular publishing program does.  Visit  agent/publisher websites for the most up-to-date information.

Option 2 – Self-publish as a Kindle Original on Amazon.
It used to be that self-publishing was generally a scam that resulted with the writer being out a lot of money with a big pile of unsellable books in their basement.

But in the era of Kindle and other e-publishers, self-publishing is a relatively easy thing to do. You can get instructions on how to do it through Amazon here:

• https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/

This can be as an e-book or as a print-on-demand paper book. This is relatively inexpensive to do (unless you bring in an outside professional to help you with it) and you get something like 70% of the revenue for yourself. This is a popular way for people to publish without a traditional publisher.

But keep in mind that most self-published books by first-time authors will bring in little income. Getting the manuscript published and for sale on Amazon is relatively easy; finding an audience for your book is hard.  There is, of course, the rare exception of people like Andy Weir and his break-out self-published The Martian. But cases like Weir’s are the exception.

Also, readers don’t like poorly edited books. You may need the services of a professional copyeditor.

Option 3 – Publish through a blog and social media.

If your goal is to get your story out and to get people interested in it, the best answer might be to serially publish it 1-or-3 times per week in a blog and then share the posts through social media such as Instagram or Twitter. If you get a lot of followers, you might decide to go ahead and publish it through Amazon or some other source. Or you might do a Kickstarter or other crowdfunding source.

• https://nybookeditors.com/2017/10/crowdfunding-authors-use-kickstarter-fund-novel/

Serial publishing through a blog and social media as a way of developing a project and building interest in it is done even by established writers. Chris Anderson, former editor of Wired magazine, did this with his book The Long Tail.  The  audience he built through blogging about it helped turn the book into a bestseller.

• https://amzn.to/3yner7u

Here’s where his blog started back in 2004 with his article “The Long Tail” from Wired magazine.

• https://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/page/56/

Start there with Anderson’s initial article and then you can step forward through his blog. Keep in mind that Anderson started out as the editor of Wired magazine and so had an established readership to begin with. Nevertheless, this was a great way for him to try out ideas for his book prior to publication.

I think this would be a good approach with something featuring meme-worthy content on shared media.

Option 4 – Publish a full-color book through a company like Shutterfly.

Printers like Shutterfly are an option for a photo or art book if you want a nice looking full-color book for a very limited number of people.  It is expensive, but it makes a nice keepsake. If you want to go with a more traditional self-published physical book, crowdsourcing the funding can be a good idea. But this will only work if you already have an established audience interested in your work.

So what do I do?

• Start by writing your book.
  You can’t publish a book you haven’t written. So write daily. Set as a goal the number of  words you want to write each day, and try to do that, five days a week. Don’t worry if you aren’t happy with what you’ve written. Write anyway! As my Dear Wife’s friend Holly says, “You can’t fix a blank page.” In other words, get a first draft written, then worry about going back to fix it.
• Figure on writing multiple drafts.
  My Dear Wife, author/co-author of more than 50 published novels, generally writes an outline followed by at least two drafts. For new material for my textbook (I’m now working on the ninth edition) I will write notes, a pre-rough draft of just trying to get a general narrative worked out, and then two or more drafts to get it into finished form.
• Think about what you want to do with it.
  For me, I first send out much of my writing as blog posts. I’ve had this blog https://ralphehanson online since March of 2004 – That’s 18 years! Much of the stuff here has never found its way into publication, but a lot of it has. You may decide that publishing through a blog is enough. But putting your writing before the public is a good first step.
• Don’t be afraid!
  Getting your thoughts/ideas/stories into written form is a worthwhile goal, in and of itself. Make getting your book written your first goal, because without getting it written, you will never get your book published.

So if you want to write a book, start writing!