How to Get Published

by Al Kalar
One of the pieces of advice I give writers is, “join a writing workshop”. No, not a one-day “become a best-selling author” given by Famous Writer. I’m talking about a peer-to-peer workshop that’s really a club.

Well, I do follow my own advice. I’ve been a member of an online workshop since the late 90’s and I learned a LOT. I still learn more on a regular basis, but I also dispense advice (everyone does from the day they join).

This last weekend, I critiqued a submission from one of our members. The writer is a big fan of “classic” pulp science fiction and decided to write his book in a similar style, including a rather lengthy “foreword”. I took him to task over the forward (it violated my favorite “rule”: get right into the story, explain later if at all). I also objected to the fact that he started with four separate story lines (part of the reason for the forward).

He took it well (the good writers are willing to heed advice, the bad ones won’t listen to anyone) and sent a rather nice comment back to me explaining his love of classic SF and the “why’s” (mentioned above).

Here’s my reply to that note:

Just remember. In today’s market, it’s hard enough to get published the first time without giving a MODERN editor an excuse to reject your ms.

Modern audiences by and large don’t care for classic forms. Tastes have changed (not always for the better, but some things you just can’t fight). The old books are still read, but only because they’re “classics”. New books with the same, outdated, format stand a much smaller chance of succeeding because the competition is more exciting from the start.

Notice I didn’t say the old format would fail. I said they stand a smaller chance.

At AKW Books, we publish only the best mss, yet less than half enjoy any sales success at all. Some never sell more than one or two copies (probably to Aunt Agatha). Publishers can’t afford to take a chance on anything but the absolute best, respecting current tastes.

Does this mean that some book that pushes the envelope of current reader tastes won’t ever make it big? No. Anything is possible. After all, today’s fast-start “formula” violated the old slow-start “standard” and eventually replaced it.

You have to decide if you want to “push the envelope” with your work. Just remember that publishers tend to be very conservative and rarely take chances. Your best bet for challenging the “norm” is to produce something that is so outstandingly good that an editor can’t ignore it.

It would also help if you’re a successful author with a big following.

Tags: advice, classic formula, formula, publishers, reader taste, slow start, story lines, style, workshop

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 at 2:00 am and is filed under Beginnings, Content, Writing skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.