AlotLikePsyche
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2005
- Posts
- 2,352
Can anyone suggest a good book on how to publish?
How to publish a book?
- Thread starter AlotLikePsyche
- Start date
Jenny_Jackson
Psycho Bitch
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2006
- Posts
- 10,872
Easy question, hard to answer.AlotLikePsyche said:
Generally there are four modes of book publishing:
Self Published - You foot the bill for everything and have no retail outlets
Local Publishers - Small publishers (under 100/year) for books that appeal to a small local audience (Like your home town).
Regional Publisher - Mid-sized publisher 100-500/per for books with a larger appeal base (like the west coast and often text books)
Commercial Publishers - Large Publishers for books of general fiction, science etc worldwide.
First thing you have to do is figure out which size publisher you need. (Commercial Publishers are not interested in the boat building habits of Eskamos, for example)
Second thing you have to do is figure out how to approach a publisher. Here you can go Publisher Direct or you can hope you can find an agent who handles new writers and the Genre you are writing.
Then you go through a submittal process. This takes from 8 wks to several years. If you book is accepted (which means you are unbelievably lucky) then...
Third you will have to go through the publisher's edit process which generally is two or three layers for (1) Punctuation & Grammar, (2) Contineuity and (3) Judicious Review (Will this piece of crap really sell?)
Good Luck. If you want to know more, IM Me.
SexyGolem
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2007
- Posts
- 158
Even after you publish, it's still a world of hurt. A friend recently recommended this book on privacy to me because it's one of my pet issues, and she's all like "It's directed at the average person and it gives an excellent picture of where things are going with technology and whatnot" (I'm wary of ordering things online because sometimes they'll sell information on what you buy, and generally people selling data on you from one place to data base companies (annecdote from the book: Guy gets denied increase in health insurance because 20 years prior he told his doctor that he smoked pot).
So I went to go buy the book at Barnes & Noble (Privacy Lost), and it's in like the consumer reference section between Pogo stick accidents of the 1920's and Programming your 8-Track, Tips and Tricks... It took me like an hour to find it. I'd say I'll never buy anything not online again, but that brings me right back to the whole data trail thing. Anyway, my point is just that even after you publish, you've still gotta deal with that kind of absurdities. Maybe if you put the word sex in the title though... :-D
So I went to go buy the book at Barnes & Noble (Privacy Lost), and it's in like the consumer reference section between Pogo stick accidents of the 1920's and Programming your 8-Track, Tips and Tricks... It took me like an hour to find it. I'd say I'll never buy anything not online again, but that brings me right back to the whole data trail thing. Anyway, my point is just that even after you publish, you've still gotta deal with that kind of absurdities. Maybe if you put the word sex in the title though... :-D
SexyGolem
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2007
- Posts
- 158
Lest you think me paranoid...
I just realized that last post sounded kind of paranoid, so I thought I'd include some context. This is just one of a series of recent privacy violations which I track in the news (I got this from This privacy site (it's from the same guy who wrote that book)):
IBill, the predominant billing company in the turgid adult payment service industry has leaked customer information across the Internet. Fraud artists and spammers got the personal information of over 17,000,000 users.
They were probably hacked and Wired news reports that credit card numbers don't seem to be included in the data, although most everything else is.
That's still a pretty big number. There's so many levels to view this on. From one perspective, that's a lot of people viewing porn. From another, that's a surprisingly large amount of people that are paying (big bucks) for access, questioning the commonly held notion that free porn is widely accessed on the Net. From the privacy perspective, this is absolutely appalling and it's a shame that it had to be the porn industry that got caught. I guarantee that if the 700 club's financial servers got hacked, this would be front page news and there would be a major FBI investigation.
But alas it's porn. I'm sure that conventional wisdom among legislators is that porn consumers deserve what they get or don't get.
When will Congress hold the custodians of personal information responsible for data breachs?
I just realized that last post sounded kind of paranoid, so I thought I'd include some context. This is just one of a series of recent privacy violations which I track in the news (I got this from This privacy site (it's from the same guy who wrote that book)):
IBill, the predominant billing company in the turgid adult payment service industry has leaked customer information across the Internet. Fraud artists and spammers got the personal information of over 17,000,000 users.
They were probably hacked and Wired news reports that credit card numbers don't seem to be included in the data, although most everything else is.
That's still a pretty big number. There's so many levels to view this on. From one perspective, that's a lot of people viewing porn. From another, that's a surprisingly large amount of people that are paying (big bucks) for access, questioning the commonly held notion that free porn is widely accessed on the Net. From the privacy perspective, this is absolutely appalling and it's a shame that it had to be the porn industry that got caught. I guarantee that if the 700 club's financial servers got hacked, this would be front page news and there would be a major FBI investigation.
But alas it's porn. I'm sure that conventional wisdom among legislators is that porn consumers deserve what they get or don't get.
When will Congress hold the custodians of personal information responsible for data breachs?
Jenny_Jackson
Psycho Bitch
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2006
- Posts
- 10,872
If you really want a book, go to your local book store and look for "The Writer's Market". It lists agents and publishers by what they accept, how to submit, etc. It also has sample submission letters and so on.
Print publishing is a jungle, though, and the competition is unbelievable. Don't even start until you have a finished manuscript that's been checked, edited and proofed. Typically, you will need something like 60-80,000 words in the manuscript. The publisher or agent will only want the first three chapters or thirty pages, plus a well written synopsis of the entire story.
Most large publishers and many small publishers won't even read an unsolicited submission unless your name is Norman Mailer or Steven King. With 100,000 titles currently in print just in novels, it's a tough market. To make it worse, even though they say they take the genre that fits your manuscript, they may reject it unread, simply because they think the market is going in another direction.
Remember, a large, legit publisher is going to front $40 or $50,000 before the first book rolls off the press. They have to be careful. They are all looking for blockbusters, not somebody's fantasy. So, think solid plot, great characterizations and great readable prose.
Finally, there are a lot of flakes, scammers and bullshit artists out there. So be careful. Check out the people you are dealing with before you accept anything.
Print publishing is a jungle, though, and the competition is unbelievable. Don't even start until you have a finished manuscript that's been checked, edited and proofed. Typically, you will need something like 60-80,000 words in the manuscript. The publisher or agent will only want the first three chapters or thirty pages, plus a well written synopsis of the entire story.
Most large publishers and many small publishers won't even read an unsolicited submission unless your name is Norman Mailer or Steven King. With 100,000 titles currently in print just in novels, it's a tough market. To make it worse, even though they say they take the genre that fits your manuscript, they may reject it unread, simply because they think the market is going in another direction.
Remember, a large, legit publisher is going to front $40 or $50,000 before the first book rolls off the press. They have to be careful. They are all looking for blockbusters, not somebody's fantasy. So, think solid plot, great characterizations and great readable prose.
Finally, there are a lot of flakes, scammers and bullshit artists out there. So be careful. Check out the people you are dealing with before you accept anything.
