Am writing a book

I wanted to know, once I'm done, how do I get it published? I know I need to get my story copyrighted, but is there a way to get a publisher's attention? What else do I need to do?

Well, find a publisher that is willing to market your book (consider its genre/audience, for starters) and make sure that you follow their guidelines for submitting a manuscript. Format it properly, etc.

Also, for the love of God, avoid Vanity Publishing.

edited 20th Feb '11 11:22:06 AM by snowfoxofdeath

Honestly, wait until you have your book done before asking that question. There's a lot of stuff to consider when you're trying to get published— query letters, agents, publishing houses, editors, genre/age markets— and you shouldn't worry about it if you don't even have a book to sell.

finish the book.

then find an agent.

You can get in contact with a publisher with an unfinished book, but you would pretty much have to have an outline of everything else that's going to happen if you decide to go that route.

If this is your first go-around, I wouldn't recommend that, though.

Don't ask Bill O'Reilly to publish your book. That's how Will Wheaton got screwed on his first book.

What happened to Wheaton?

Frankly, I'd never trust anyone who Stephen Colbert calls "Papa Bear". That's a red flag right there.

I'm not there yet myself, but the repeated advice is: find the agents that have represented books you like that are like what you've written. They're the ones that are good at selling works like yours. If you can't find the agent, you might have some luck asking the author themselves who represents them, and possibly if the author would recommend them.. Find out those agents' submission guidelines — generally available on their web site, or by phoning them. Follow them.

In some genres you can submit directly to publishers, but this is still a chancier bet for the most part — and you're still going to need to find an agent, really, because they're the people who understand the business of publishing and whether an offer is good or not.

Information for many publishers and agents will be in their listings in Writer's Market (look in your library for the most recent).

Don't be suckered by vanity press, or the "agents" that exist only to funnel you into vanity press. Google anyone you are thinking of dealing with and see if they have a bad reputation out there.

If you decide to self-publish, which is not the same thing as vanity press, this is a lot more feasible these days. However, you have to do all your marketing yourself; on the upside, you get to keep all the profits, if those occur. Doing this through online publishing is now feasible (e.g. you can sell your own works on Amazon's Kindle and as print-on-demand). You're probably not going to make a lot of money doing this unless your works are really good and you are very good at publicity, and if the first is the case but not the second, try and find an agent instead.

The personality that makes a good author generally doesn't make a good businessperson or marketer. Which is why agents are a good thing.

You don't need to worry about copyright. The moment you create something, you automatically keep all the rights of your work. What publishers do is essentially licensing those rights to print your book.