How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

There’s a lot of information for aspiring writers. Some has to do with the truly important stuff. Some is aimed at the details behind the important stuff. And some is, frankly, misinformation (”BS”).

Given today’s publishing market and the economics of the industry, breaking into print, as a “successful” new author, is very difficult. In fact, the odds are against you. I’m sorry, but it’s true. But by following this rule, you can improve the odds substantially.

You may have heard this before, but it bears repeating; because it’s THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE:

Write a great book.

Is that it?

Well, yes. If you don’t have a good product to sell, your efforts to break into print are going to be much more difficult. It won’t be impossible, but the odds mount substantially for a poorly written or poorly plotted book.

So, what constitutes a great book?

• The basics are as perfect as you can make them. By that, I mean spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. If you don’t have a good grasp of the language you’re writing, you’re in trouble already.
• Readability: Your book should be engaging and easy to digest. A fiction work should feature a well-told “yarn” with sympathetic characters the reader can care about. Your non-fiction book should make sense from the beginning.
• Organization: If this is a novel, your plot is well thought out, scenes are presented in the best order for overall understanding of the story, and the story “grabs” the reader from the first page. If yours is a non-fictional work, you’ve organized the information in such a manner as to teach or convince your reader, hopefully by leading him through the steps from beginning to the end. Remember, a reader can only learn something she almost already knows.
• Your style should be consistent and non-intrusive. It shouldn’t annoy the reader or sound contrived.
• Subject matter: This one is tough to call. Your subject has to appeal to enough readers willing to spend money on your book. Your publisher is going to want to recover his expenses and, hopefully, show a profit. The New York houses are going to want a subject or story line that will sell to at least 10,000 - 20,000 readers with an upside potential on top of that. Smaller presses will still want to see a potential for sales in the thousands. Even POD’s (print on demand) and digital presses (such as AKW Books) will have editing, designing, and overhead expenses that have to be recovered in one manner or another. So, if your book is about the sexual habits of African fire ants, you might not find a publisher. If your subject matter fits a successful “template”, you may find a NY publisher willing to take a chance on you. However, if your book is about a new and groundbreaking subject (or plot), you may have a tougher “sell” to the conservative editors in New York. You might find a home with a smaller or digital press who is willing to take a chance that it will “catch on”. Prime example: Chicken Soup for the Sole (self-published super-success later picked up by a press AFTER it became successful).
• Overall: The first page should grab the reader and hold his attention until the last page. If your first chapter bores the publisher’s reader, she’ll toss it onto the rejection stack. If the body of the work lags - into the reject pile. If the ending is weak - say “good-bye”.

All of this is about creating a truly solid book. Hollywood superstars, popular politicians, and people in the headlines can all get published with a substandard work. Their name will sell the book. But Jill Nobody has to actually produce something of worth that will appeal to enough readers to justify its existence.

There were over 275,000 new titles produced in 2008. You have to compete with all of those for attention. If you want to be a successful “author” (someone who enjoys good sales and is asked to submit another book), your book has to be better than 90% of those.

There are other steps on the road to success, but this is the most important. If your “product” isn’t great, all the other steps will be harder, perhaps impossible, to implement.

Tags: basics, editing, first page, get published, most important rule, organization, readability, style, subject matter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 2:00 am and is filed under Beginnings, Content, How to Write a Salable Book or Novel, Writing skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.