My big advice about trying to get published.

[alg]

Recently, one of my clients asked me what my recommendations were for someone starting out in the publishing industry. Here's the answer I gave her:

My big recommendations about publishing are:

1. Educate yourself.

2. Stay polite, even when dealing with someone who may not be polite to you.

3. Be open to hearing ideas, but keep hold of your own vision.

4. Be persistent! Don't give up after the first few rejections; it can take years to get published.

...These are the same things I've been saying to people who want to be professionally published for years. Sometimes I rephrase the advice, but it's basically stayed the same. E-book, comic book, print book, whatever -- these four pieces points hold true!

Is there any advice that you wish someone had given you? Or advice that's held true as you navigated the murky waters of publishing?

Comments

[rachelrandall.wordpress.com]

My advice:

Understand that the book being released by a publisher is not the end point, nor a goal in and of itself.

"Wanting to be professionally published so I can then [fill in your own blank here]" is a much better way to look at it.

Your book is on the shelf (or the e-book shelf)...now what?

This advice also falls under the category of "If you don't like being a salesperson, don't aim for professional publication"...

[alg]

Oh yeah -- having a goal beyond having your book printed by a publishing company is a must!

[green_knight]

Is there any advice that you wish someone had given you?

All the people who say that I need to work on my writing, be critical, improve, polish, and work on it some more? Are right. Right, but not helpful to my career.

I'm *good* at telling myself that my writing needs more work. What I really could do with is more people saying 'you're doing something right, do more of it, trust in your instincts, finish the damn thing, and submit it already.' Encouraging humility is all very well... unless someone starts out highly self-critical and unable to appreciate the things they're doing right.

[alg]

I am actually in the middle of finishing up a blog post about this very thing. Well, something similar -- the fact that the constant negative feedback a lot of writers get is not as helpful as anyone thinks. !! Because you are right -- it's rough for a lot of people who are super critical of their own work and need encouraging as much as they need critique.

[green_knight]

I'm recently taken stock of my non-career (no fiction publishing credits), and it's pretty bleak. I *have been* struggling with several issues - some of them fairly fundamental - but I've also followed a pattern of getting nice rejections before sitting down, working out a long list of reasons why that project will never be published, and working my arse off to write a better book. And, y'know, that's not a bad trait in a writer - but I ended up, among other things, with one project in the drawer that I rewrote four years ago which I never even sent out. Nobody got the chance to reject it, I did it for them, and looking at it from the point of being a better editor than I was then - yes, it has weaknesses and needs revision and I *can* make it better with the skills I've learnt in the meantime, so I won't send it out as is ... but I'm not convinced that it would have _been_ rejected, if you get my meaning. And looking at another piece that was heavily critiqued and had all its problems pointed out, I recently reread it, expecting to cringe at how bad it was... and now, with the distance, I can see what I was doing, and it's pretty darn good writing in a way; just not in the ways that counted with the people who critiqued it. I'm not saying they were wrong - they weren't - but I expected to find something hideous... and it's not. It's flawed, but not 'bad writing'.