publishing 101: the secret — to getting published, that is

We’re off for the holidays until January 2. During this period, every day I’ll be presenting one of my popular Publishing 101 posts. I hope it will inspire all you writers and illustrators for 2009!

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Someone recently contacted me with a question about getting started in book publishing — meaning, a general overview for those who want get published, but maybe aren’t to the point where they need the nitty gritty deets of contract negotiation, editorial process and so on. In other words, general advice on how to publish a book or a tarot deck.

There’s many things I can suggest, but not enough room or time to do them justice on this forum. What follows is some advice adapted from my faq page on this site.

Before I launch into this, please remember that many, many talented people want to be published — unfortunately, more than all the publishing houses combined in the world can hope to ever publish.

With that preface, here’s the secret to getting published:

Persistence is more important than talent.

Simple, huh? And no law of attraction involved (though magical thinking can get you through many a crisis of confidence).

Rejection is part of the game. When it occurs, you get up, brush yourself off, and keep going. Don’t let your hurt feelings get in the way.

And, most importantly, learn from rejection. Take your rejection letters as a gift. Embrace them. Look upon them as an offering from the School of Hard Knocks. Hard as rejections may be to accept, they are giving you valuable information — though it may not be the information you’d like to hear. After all, it’s far nicer to get kisses and kudos than a zeroxed form letter beginning “Your manuscript does not meet our editorial needs. . .”

In my experience, book rejections tend to fall into two categories:

1. Inappropriate or inadequate/oversaturated market. Have you sent your project to an appropriate publisher? Don’t waste your time — or an editor’s time — by sending a children’s book to an adult house, or a tarot deck to a paperback house.

Is there an audience for your project? In other words, is there a market that will purchase it? Is it novel or last year’s news? (Crass, I know. But publishers are in the business of selling books, so they can stay in business.)

2. Quality. It’s a harsh question to consider, but your project is as good as it can be? It’s difficult to be honest with ourselves when we’ve worked so hard for so long on something. We’re simply too close, too in love. But if you’re getting rejections on a project, then maybe it’s worth considering if there’s room for improvement. Or that your project isn’t as compelling as you think.

Take the time to workshop your book. Don’t just show it to your best friend who will be supportive no matter what. That’s a wonderful blessing, but that type of feedback is for when you’re starting a project — not when you’re getting ready to present it to editorial forces. Carefully choose to show your manuscript to those who have been there, know the biz, can give you genuinely helpful information.

Be merciless yet nurturing of your project — a tricky balance, but necessary. I think of it as balancing the Dionysian with the Apollinian.

Obviously, there are times when the reasons for rejections don’t fall neatly into these two categories. We’ve all heard of stories where books were passed on by 23 publishers and then went onto superstar bestsellerhood. Some times it’s simply a matter of timing — a book may be brilliantly written, but it may be ahead (or behind) the time.

And here’s one last simple but important tip: When it comes to selling a book, it’s better to send one pristine submission to a one appropriate publisher than a dozen bad ones happenstance. Take the time to research your market. Find out which editors are buying and why. As mentioned in a previous post, recent book deals are often mentioned in Publisher’s Marketplace and Publisher’s Weekly. They offer a wealth of valuable inside information.

Other resources I like: Harold Underdown’s Purple Crayon website (Harold is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books), Publisher’s Weekly, Jeff Herman’s Writer’s Guide to Book Editors and Literary Agents. There’s also The Literary Marketplace (known in the industry as the LMP, available at most local libraries). I’d avoid the Writer’s Market. True story: When I read slush at a major publisher, I could easily tell submissions which were sent to us using Writer’s Market information. It was easy: They all misspelled our editorial director’s name, since that’s how it was spelled in the WM. So, if you do use the WM, doublecheck it against the LMP.

After writing all this, you can see why the secret to getting published is persistence. Writing (or illustrating) your book is only the first step!

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

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