Publish Your Novel
Published September 10, 2011 | 
Opportunities for self-published authors have greatly expanded due to technology.
Your book manuscript is not earning you money if it sitting at home in your bottom drawer.
You are a writer. You have written a novel. But your novel hasn’t exactly set the publishing world on fire. Despite your aspirations, you are flummoxed and frustrated by rejection and have become a little gun-shy about submitting your work to yet another agency or publishing house. If so, maybe it is time to consider alternatives:
1. Try a smaller, independent press
Smaller publishing houses are typically much more willing to work with new, unagented writers. True, they don’t offer large advances, but right now your goal should be to get that novel out there.
2. Self-publish
Self-publishing doesn’t have the same stigma attached to it that it once did. And no, I am not talking about selling your first-born to pay and vanity publisher for a handful of books you cannot sell. I’m talking about self-publishing with a reputable service and doing so with a plan.
- Pay a professional editor to edit your manuscript and help you polish it until the words sing off of the page.
- Layout your book (or hire someone to do it) using In Design or similar program and get it into print-ready format.
- Have a professionally designed cover.
- Publish as a Print-on-demand book and in various e-book formats. Lulu.com and Amazon’s CreateSpace are good options for POD. Formatting for e books is not too difficult. Amazon Kindle formatted can be done using Mobipocket creator. You can create E pub documents using InDesign. Also, a free program called Calibre can produce E pub from other documents formats. Open Office also has a plug-in that supports E pub
Whether you try a small, indie press or self-publish, you should realize that you will have to do most of the promotion and marketing yourself. So the last point I want to make is have a marketing plan! Don’t think that you can depend on spontaneous sales based on nothing. Readers have to get to know you and your work. Use press releases. Do readings and book signings. Use social networking. Build websites. Blog about your book and get others to blog about your book. Send out review copies. Whatever works. Otherwise, except for sales to your grandmother and maybe 3 or 4 of your closest friends, no one will buy your book.
Posted in ebooks, epub, kindle, novels, POD, self-publishing, writing | 
Ebooks, EPub, Freelance Editors, InDesign, Kindle, POD, Self-publishing | Leave a commentRejection from Publishers: What to Do Now
Published August 1, 2011 | 
After completing a novel, the most frustrating part is trying to get it published.
So you’ve written a book and now, you want to share this work of art with the world; publishers are the only people standing in your way. It doesn’t really matter what genre you specialize in, the fact of the matter is, when you send your work to editors or publishing houses, you can get rejected.
Nothing can be more frustrating than getting rejected by publishers and here’s how you can deal with the rejection. Instead of sulking at home, refusing to write another word, you can try sending your manuscript to another editor. When that’s done, you can sit back, relax and spend your time doing other things besides thinking about your book. More often than not, publishing houses and editors work under strict guidelines with manuscript submission and you’ll be putting yourself in danger by sending your manuscript to other editors at the same time.
Meanwhile, you can keep a close eye on your email for a letter from the publishers. When you receive a letter, expect a no. Expecting the worst will be easier for you when you do get the worst. For this particular circumstance, you can scream and shout, rant and rave for a few minutes about how these people just let a good thing pass them by. You then get back to reading the rest of the rejection letter. Here, you’ll be given a number of tips how you make your work better. When all these tips have sunk in, you can start submitting your manuscript to another editor.
Simply repeat the process of sitting and waiting, keeping an eye out for a letter from the publisher, etc. For the first rejection slip you’ve received, you can file this letter away or you can simply throw it out. Remember that that was just one publisher’s opinion. You have a long list of publishers to go through. In the meantime, you can continue revising and editing your manuscript. When you think you’ve made it even more perfect, you can send this out to another editor. Rejection from publishers is just a part of the process for becoming a successful writer.
Posted in Articles, freelancing, novels, rejections, writing | manuscript submission, publishing houses, rejection | Leave a commentSponsors
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