Finally :) i am ready to share my work, I've clung onto it for long enough, and i am ready to share my manuscript and become published. Reason I clung .. fear ha-ha. Book one is complete, now working on book two ... I just have no clues, how to publish. ANY and ALL advice welcome please. How do i find a publisher willing to help me publish and get my work out there?
Hello Leanne Beaton,
This is the hardest huddle we all faced; many authors including me have faced this huddle and continue to face it.
Though some are luckier than others
My sincere word of advice is NEVER stop searching and you can take the same step I have taken so far while I am still searching for publishers who has made it practically hard if not impossible due to their placing more importance and emphasis on literary agent than the hand that does the work the writers/authors.
What I have done to get my books out is going the SELF-PUBLISHING while I keep sourcing for literary agent which in my view WHAT I CALL UN VETO POWER!
I wish you good luck to your effort and endeavor.
First you make sure it's edited to the very best you can make it: no typos, no grammar howlers, pages all set out properly, no plot glitches. Write a synopsis - this is harder than writing the whole book, so be warned.
Check out the red tabs at the top of this page. There's some useful advice there.
Then you trawl through the W&A yearbook and find any agents or publishers who deal in your kind of work. You check all their websites: who takes unsolicited manuscripts? Who wants the whole thing or just the first three chapters and that pesky synopsis? Who has closed their lists for the year, but may open them again next year?
You decide if you want to self-publish: but beware of any publisher who expects you to fork out money upfront, because they have no incentive whatsoever to sell your book since they've already been paid. Never, ever sign a contract with one of these companies until you've had it checked over by someone who knows what they're doing. All too many rely upon your desperation to see your work in print: that's how they make money, but you may not.
You can e-publish yourself, but if you are not comfortable with that, find a firm that will do it for you for a fee.
There is no guarantee at all that anyone will want to publish your book - that's the black cloud all writers live under; but if you don't go out there and shout about it, you'll never find out.
(And you thought writing was the hard part!)
Lorraine
There a number of ways. There first is if you have the cash or a library nearby check out The Writer's Year book. Second is if you know what type of genre you want to publish in you can look at who published other books, take note of names and look up their submission guidelines in google. Good luck.