How to Get Published

by Al Kalar

One of my jobs in this madhouse, is “gatekeeper”. I review new submissions to see if they get rejected up front or considered for publication. I hate saying “no”, but if I don’t, we’d be flooded with less than top notch material.

Lousy material takes too much time to whip into shape and often can’t be saved. Although we edit everything we publish, we’re not in the business of editing poor quality stuff to help a writer get published. There are people who do that and some are very good at it (and some are not). But, even though our editors are great, our job is publishing.

Back in May, I gave you 11 Ways to Get Rejected. Well, what about the flipside? You know, the goal of the submission process - acceptance.

Obviously, the most important thing is to not do any of those 11 deadly things.

We’re strictly an eBook publisher, so we do everything digitally. To get a novel accepted at AKW Books, you should do the following: (more…)

by Al Kalar

A poet called in about a submission he’d sent. While we talked, he asked that if I didn’t like his poetry, could I give him some guidelines as to what to write. He seemed to think he could write poetry to order.

I can’t think of a better way for him to kill his writing career.

Poetry, song writing, and such can indeed be cranked out to a formula. Unfortunately, formula writing comes off as just that.  Some of it will actually sell, but it will never become “great literature”. (more…)