Traditional Publishing

Traditional publishers pay you an advance and subsequent royalties in exchange for the right to publish your book. The company provides a number of services in order to create and sell the book. You do book signings and receive checks.
 
The path a new author must follow in this scenario goes something like this: you write your manuscript, submit it to a publisher, perhaps through an agent, they accept it and pay you an advance. About a year later, maybe two or three depending on the publisher and other variables, your book hits the shelves.

Maybe it really takes off, because you've been vigorously promoting it, and because it's a pretty good book. With all the time you put into it, it would have to be, right?

Life is good, the royalties will sustain you for the rest of your natural life, and all is as it should be.

However, there may be a wrinkle or two that makes this the less traveled road.
Many writers submit manuscripts to publishers every year. So many that most publishers have stopped accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Agents now serve the purpose of screeners, and publishers know that a manuscript that comes from an agent has at least survived one level of independent scrutiny. Of course, now agents are inundated with thousands of manuscripts every month. How can you be heard through all that noise?

It's not easy, and there are rules.

The Rules

When your manuscript is finished you will need to identify which agents or publishers handle the genre of work you are submitting. Don't waste time submitting your mystery novel to Lil Debbie's Recipe Books, Inc.

You can find listings of literary agencies and publishers in Writer's Market, an annual publication that lists agents and publishers by type, along with submission requirements. You can also find listings through online search engines, or in literary trade magazines. Choose a few agencies that handle your type of work, and then put together a query letter.

A query letter is a one-page document that explains what your work is about, describes your qualifications, and perhaps briefly makes a marketing case. This is a lot to do in one page, but do it you must if you want anyone to ask to see your manuscript.

You don't send in your manuscript with the query letter. If there is interest, someone may request the first chapter, or an outline, or something else. Follow their instructions.

When you send your query letters, always include an SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope.) Business-sized. Don't use fancy stationary in your query letter, and remember—you're trying to sell your idea. Be professional, but be creative. Know your market, and hope that this is what they are looking for right now.

After you send out your query letters (it's okay to send out more than one at a time) then you wait. Sometimes you'll hear back in a week, or two weeks, or a month, or longer. Sometimes not at all. If you do hear back, send in whatever they ask for as soon as possible. You still can be turned down at this point, and probably will be, but at least someone thinks your idea has merit. Now your writing must stand on its own.

Rejection is Reality

So you sent out fifty query letters and forty-seven came back with little more than a photocopied rejection slip.

Rejoice!

If you are receiving rejections it means that at least you are trying. It also means that something is wrong. It could be in your query letter itself—maybe there are typos, grammatical errors, usage errors—that make you sound unprofessional. Remember, the query letter is the only thing they know about you at this point. If it's sloppy and poorly written, that's the impression you will leave.

Are there any notes on the rejections? Sometimes an agent will take the time to offer advice. If they do, listen to what they say. Maybe you need help editing your query letter. Maybe your topic is not timely. Maybe the agents don't believe there is a market for this type of work at this time.

If you are asked to send in your manuscript, and you are offered a publishing deal, then congratulations; you have beaten the odds. Of course, by writing a manuscript that is timely, well-written, and pitched to the right people with an excellent query letter, you have reduced those odds. Now you just have to get people to buy the book.

 

Alternative Publishing

Advances in two technologies have opened up an entirely new mode of publishing. The first area relates to printing. Machines now exist which can print, bind, and cover an entire book of up to 800 pages in a minute or so. The quality is very good. This method of printing is called Print on Demand.

The second area of technology is the Internet, specifically eCommerce, which allows the general public to easily order books online from vendors such as Amazon.com.

In combination these technologies allow writers to publish their own work and to make it available over normal distribution channels. Using this model of self-publishing it is now possible to write a book, front the initial cost of publication, and have it available online without the use of an agent or traditional publisher. The cost is minimal, and doesn’t require the years of waiting that sometimes accompany the traditional model.

Considerations
There are negatives associated with print on demand. First, there is no independent editorial review. The only one deciding that your work should be published is you. This is not the same as a publisher deciding to take a chance on your work because they think it has market value. It is you deciding to make your book available to the public, and you are responsible for its content.

The second negative is that print on demand books are generally non-returnable. This makes sense, because books sold using this model are not printed until there is an actual demand. But brick and mortar bookstores use a different model, which allows them to return any unsold books to the publisher with no questions asked. This can be a serious drawback, because you are unlikely to get your print on demand book stocked in bookstores nationwide. In fact, even if the book is returnable, some chains have policies specifically forbidding print on demand titles to be placed on their shelves. If you go with print on demand, it is almost certainly going to have to be a grass roots effort.

So let’s say you decide to go ahead and self publish using print on demand. When following this route you are responsible for all content in your book. There will be no team of editors going over your manuscript with a fine-toothed comb, unless you hire them, which can be very expensive. Any mistakes in substance, style, plot, or dialogue will be printed as provided by you.

Friends and relatives will tell you your manuscript is great because they don't want to hurt your feelings. That doesn’t help. Brutal honesty from a qualified individual is what you are looking for. Your best bet would be to either hire a reputable editor, or to enlist the help of another author, professor, or other professional who is qualified and willing to comment on your manuscript. Sometimes other authors are willing to exchange manuscripts for review and commentary.

Be forewarned: You are responsible for all content.

As a grassroots operation, promotion of a Print on Demand title requires more than a little creativity and hard work. Since the book will almost certainly not be carried by Barnes & Noble or Borders bookstores, your main opportunity for sales will be through Amazon. Unless you have a brilliant idea for a niche market that only your book satisfies, then sales on Amazon or anywhere else will almost certainly be disappointing.

There is an interesting parallel here with traditional publishing. If you go with Print on Demand, you can easily publish, but the odds of selling many books is quite low. If you are traditionally published you will almost certainly sell many more books, but the chances of getting published this way are quite low.

It doesn’t sound very promising no matter how you look at it, yet for some reason writers are driven to keep trying. This literary determination may be what keeps us alive as a civilization, or in the end it may be what destroys our collective vision.

Literally.

Further, you will enjoy no marketing assistance, or marketing budget. However, even mainstream publishers dedicate precious little resources to new authors, so this may not be such a big difference. Whether you publish using print on demand or through traditional means, you'll still have to get out there and promote your book.

With Print on Demand you can quickly get your book into production, and available on Amazon. The rest is up to you. If you're not good at marketing, you're in trouble. Your book will not sell itself, and exposure is sometimes tough to come by. You have to be creative to market a Print on Demand book, but in the end it's a book and your job is to get people to buy it.

Marketing

People may buy a book if it is interesting, is reasonably priced, and if they know about it. Print on Demand books tend to be priced higher then their mainstream counterparts, but not drastically so. Assuming that your book is relevant to the prospective reader, is well-written, and is easily available for purchase, then the rest comes down to publicity.

Chances are that you don't have a huge marketing budget, or resources beyond your own computer, printer, and scanner. That's okay. To get started you don't need much more than this and a little boldness.

Identify your target audience. Everything you say about your book should be geared towards convincing this audience to buy your book. If you get on the evening news, it is an opportunity to tell viewers why your book has value for them. Find an angle that resonates, and use this every time you talk about your book, in literature you produce, or in articles you may write for magazines or newspapers.

Create bookmarks or index cards with your book information, and reinforce your message about your book on these. Hand them out at every opportunity. Go to your local television studio with your book and your pitch. Tell them you are a local author, and be prepared to talk about your book. Always be prepared.

If you suddenly get an opportunity to be filmed for the evening news—and this does happen—you should have several short, precise, and interesting sound bites ready to go. It's tough to ad lib and get your point across effectively. What is your book about? Be able to answer this question concisely in a way that gives people a reason to buy your book.