HERE IS THE SECOND IN MY SERIES OF FREE CRABBIT’S TIPS FOR WRITERS. This one is Crabbit’s Tips for Getting Published. Last week’s was Crabbit’s Tips for Writing Fiction. For that and the full list, see that post [here at Writers' Dock, or on Nicola's website below - Ed.] Next week will be the one on approaching agents and publishers and I will be publishing one every week or more often until they are all up or I’ve run out of energy. This might happen.
[The orginal post can be found on Nicola's blog Help! I Need a Publisher! - Ed]
So, for today’s tips, either read them below or go here for the free downloadable pdf, to print out and pin above your desk. Enjoy and pass on!
CRABBIT’S TIPS FOR GETTING PUBLISHED
1. Be informed – learn about publishing and bookselling; connect to good information sources on Twitter, blogs by published writers, and from online book industry experts. There is no excuse for ignorance nowadays.
2. Get your advice from experts but your emotional support from friends and fellows. An unpublished writer is the best person to advise about how to survive being unpublished, but not how to be published. And even published writers are limited in what they know. Hell, everyone is limited in what they know. Learn to assess those limits.
3. Seek critical feedback from people you trust to tell the truth. And then respect them for the strength to give it to you.
4. Publishers only accept a book for one reason: they believe they can sell enough copies of it. They need to make money. We need to get over that. However, not all publishers, genres and books expect to make lots of money or sell zillions of copies – the definition of ‘enough’ varies. Know your market and research the right publisher.
5. A published writer might not be a better writer than a rejected one. Not all good writers will achieve publication. Some crappy ones will. Getting published is about writing the right book and submitting it in the right way to the right publisher. Nothing more. (Unless you are a celebrity. In which case, publishers will even want to publish your dribble.)
6. Perseverance is not enough. We also need to improve. This comes with good feedback and lots of informed practice.
7. The moment when you give up trying to publish your first manuscript and start writing another is what makes you a writer. The second will be better but the first is the one that began to make you.
8. Be the sort of person you would like to work with: nice, fair, professional, intelligent, willing to learn, hard-working.
9. Even a brilliant writer needs a brilliant-sounding idea. So, fashion yourself a wonderful must-read pitch to hook your agent, editor and reader.
10. Of course your mother thinks your book is utterly fabulous. She’s your mother.
GOOD LUCK AND WRITE WELL!
– Nicola Morgan
This article has been reproduced by kind permission of the author. Nicola’s writing can be found via Help! I Need a Publisher! and this article in particular can be found here.
About Nicola Morgan
Nicola Morgan is author of around 90 books, blogger at Help! I Need a Publisher!, and author of Write to be Published and Tweet Right – The Sensible Person’s Guide to Twitter.
