Do you REALLY want to be published?

No really do you?

I get the feeling that a lot of people want to be published because that is "the aim" similar to why a lot of bands want to get signed. Whenever I see someone say "I'm trying to get published" I can't help but think to myself "and why is that?"

Don't get me wrong here, I think getting published can probably be a fantastic thing for many many writers but certainly not for all, probably not even for most. If you're sure that publication is the right thing then by all means, I hope no intention to discourage you, just question why it's the right thing.

I work in a bookshop. I see lots and lots of books and I know that this isn't even scratching the surface of the books that are out there. It's just the books that tend to sell well enough to be worth taking up the shelf space. As a bookseller, I feel I've got a bit of insight into what publishing a book means, largely because a great deal of what goes on in terms of a publication is my job to put into place.

Par example - when a book is published it needs to promoted, so the publishers will send us posters to put up etc.

In fact, the publishing process is probably much more complex and labourious than I have any idea of (editing, manufacture, distribution, promotion and much much more). Every step of this process will cost the publishers money, and if a publishing deal is anything like your average record deal then that money will come out of your royalties. There is a lot of tying yourself down involved in a getting published. It's not as simple as "here's my manuscript" *3 months later* "Oh look, my book is on the shelves!" It's so ridiculously far from it I reckon.

At the end of the day: Is that what you really, really want?

Much Love
Sebbi

 

Yes, I want to be published. My writing is good and I think it should be out there, because I work very hard on it and I think it's better than a lot of the stuff that people are reading right now.

I write for myself because I like to read but I don't really like a lot of books that are out there right now, because most of them are too long and boring and not about things I like. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way, so they should have a chance to read it too, because I think they will like it.

I don't want to be published because I want to make money. I want to be published because maybe one day some one I don't know about will pick up my book and read it, and think it's very good. Then they might write a book of their own, instead of doing too many drugs and wrecking their creativity. I think that is a good thing!

 

Nobody said anything worthwhile would be easy.

 

Yes. Why? Money.

And it is pretty much as easy as sending a mamuscript. Writing the book is hard, researching markets and submitting is hard. But the manuscript to book process isn't all that hard. You complete a contract and direct depositi slip, you get edits, you look at cover art, you wait--that's really all there is to it.

 

As far as I know, publishing is the only way to make money from your writing. It's a dirty business, but all business is dirty, and the starving artist bit gets old.

Just be sure to either read everything you can get your hands on regarding business contracts, or retain a competent intellectual property attorney. In negotiations, never let them know you're so armed. You might as well just walk away. Nobody wants to deal with someone who has "lawyered up."

 

I want to have all my writing trampled on by a herd of buffalo

 

Have you ever read a poem and gone, wow, that was amazing!? What if they hadnt published it? I like to publish my work, cus it might mean something special to a few other people out their.
o, and also making a living..that too. we can all live out our passions and desires but if they dont bring in the money we havnt got a hope.

 

Difficult to make a living from creative writing - if you want a living do journalism - most famous writers were journalists first - thats where you learn the craft and get your heaviest criticism

 

i really wouldnt wanna be published, but i want people to read my shit aye?... so like, wtf, wats a guy to do...maybe with the internet and shit, people can like, put up stories and books and shit, and people could read em...i know we all wanna feel special and have like a million books on our shelves like they r trophies or something, but could it, should it?

 

I like to shoot books and then stick them on a board and hang them on the wall as trophies. I shot a few copies of a book by that abysmal egotist "will self"
I go on book safari and bag a few in the wild
but I wouldnt write a whole book or nothing incase it was shit - about 99.99% of all published writing is the most dire shit you could read but everyone who publishes pretends everything is the greatest thing they ever read

 

...and, bloody hell, of course that promo and marketing money doesn't come out of your royalties. Royalties are about 8-10% (30-40% for ebooks) and you *keep* them. Publishing is laborious, but the publishers do it--they are the professionals. Publisher's publish, writers write. And yes, all the writer does is provide the manuscript and go over that edits. That's what makes you published not self-published.

And while I have never worked in a bookstore (I did work in a comic store but that's hardly relevant). I do have my first story in a print anthology coming out in February (you can order it now at any chain store) and my first print novel due out around July. I want to be published and am already e-published (over 4000 copies sold) for a simple reason, all you have to do it write and people send you checks. It's brilliant.

 

Getting published means more people will read what you write and see your view of the world. (If you don't care about that, the logical thing to do would be to just burn whatever you write as soon as you finish it.)

I've had comic art published--and several print books. The publishing business is a "dirty" business, so called, however, it is the only way I could quit my day job and do something I enjoy. It is lots of hard work and even now I live on a tight budget. (I sure as hell ain't rich. It took me nearly twenty years of work until I made enough to subsist--but I'm not that talented.)

The pressures can be huge. (My marriage could not stand the strain.) One thing is certain: A writer can't be discouraged. No matter how much hell it is to write and work seven days a week, they will do it because that is who they are.

Another thing. The main reason for trying to get published is that every writer writes in the hope that someone will read it. Of course, not all great writers are published, but I have met plenty of writers who say they don't want to get published because they don't want to spend the time to make their stuff good enough to publish. It also takes luck.

I am just a footnote in the book world but I can't stand to do anything else. I don't want to do anything else.

Opinion: I've read many many books on writing but if you can only get two, buy "Bird by Bird" by A. Lamott and "On Writing" by Stephen King. I re-read each of them once a year and glean new things from them.

Finally, perspiration and never giving up is more important than talent. I know some writers who can write circles around me but are not published 'cause they give up. Put out the doobie and practice "BIC". (Butt In Chair in front of paper, typewriter, or computer.) Writers write.

Good luck with your efforts. The world needs more writers...

As for writing---It sure beats "working."

 

I agree with almost everything you said in your post, which contains inspiration as well as good advice. One little word caught my eye, however, and although harmless, it brought a shade of a smile across my weary eyes.

I'm curious that writers have actually admitted to you, even in casual conversation, that they don't seek to get published, because they can't be bothered to make their stuff good enough to publish. I'm not doubting what you heard, but are you sure you didn't hear it with an agent's ear, or perhaps daresay a publisher's, or editor's?

Reason being that I have just had to traverse through several pages of Thomas Harris' new novel (or as the prolific Stephen King would write: Thomas Harris's...), and if there's one thing which is standard through almost every bestseller of all average mainstream bookstore shelves is the cheesy, corny, claptrap aimed solely for the air-headed middleclasses, or in other words, approx. 95% of book buyers and people who have actually some spare moments in their life when they can actually engross themselves in some pages.

If Thomas Harris wrote the book that ought to have been written would anyone have bought it? Maybe they would, since he has already made his name with Silence of the Lambs.

Rather than picking a book whose story would curl your toes and chill your spine, the reader is subjugated through a tireless catalogue of a trendy delicatessen of regargitated morsels of ideas from the previous books, before embarking on a journey through classy Paris and 'villagey' Lithuania. Of course, no middle-class drivel would be complete without the quintessential reference to Japanese culture, and most people's ignorance of their own. This particular example was no exception.

Add a few Christmas cracker joke-sized delvings into the protagonist's mind, plus a few interesting gossips that the writer has picked up on his travel since the last time he wrote a book (about 7 years ago) and has managed to work them into his script, and you have what a publishing company will call a marketable product, or as has already been pointed out: a good book. Although in this case, I've noticed that it is moving down the shelf closer towards the bargain bin by each day.

There are many ways to look at the way we live, and it isn't always easy to say who is right, or wrong.

We know that the world we live in revolves around money, and art has, for those who depend on money (either from happenstance, or simple worship of the greenback) become fused with it.

So, maybe those writers can't be arsed to make their books good enough to sell.

Then again, they might just not want to 'sell out'.

 

truthfully i don't want to be published...if i wanted to be published i would have been by now..my mother keeps pushing me to get my writings published..i just couldn't care about getting published..i write for myself not for other people..if i wanted to make to make money i'd become a lawyer..i write because i want to become a better writer...maybe someday i'll try and get published but only if i feel it's right for me...i'd get a job in an office if i wanted money..i write because it is a pssion of mine..i do not want to make my passion into something i do just because i need food on the table...it's not nesicarily a "selling out" mentality, just simply i feel that it's something i do for myself and i want people to read it, but i don't want people like oprah reading it...

 

depends on the writing

some of my writing is just too personal for me to want to accept money for it

other of my writing I want to get published so that it can be more availible to the world (honestly, it's not going to get nearly as much attention for free as it would if it made bestseller)

I want my ideas to get out there, I want to share my imagination with the world, I wouldn't mind the money of course (in fact I would love the money), but for me that's not what it's about
and if it is for you, I don't think you should be a writer

 

You are totally wrong - your royalties are paid after ALL publishing and promotion expenses have been recovered from sales of the book. In other words - neither the publisher or the author make any money until the book has paid for itself - the publisher may, if they have an exceptional talent on their hands or if they feel they have a dead cert of a seller, advance a loan against future royalties. Most published authors dont make enough money to live on from royalties and have other jobs. 99.99% of authors are not given an advance on royalties.
Being a published author is a business not a artistic endeavour - its 100% hard work and very little money unless you are one of the lucky 0.01% of published authors

ALL that a publishing house is- is a company that bets money on authors. If they think youre good enough they publish you, but its about money not talent - of course if youre talented you pull in the money - but its by no means all that they need from you, talent also needs to have a good sense of where the market is going and to have written a book worth reading

 

People write for different reasons. Some of us go through withdrawal if we don't write. Emily Dickinson had her poems specially bound and then tucked them safely away in a chest in her New England home. Her brilliance wasn't discovered until after she died. A lot of us like the idea that our writing can be sent out into the world (while we're alive) to be discovered and appreciated by others. Like any desire to create and share, there is the element of ego involved.

For the last few decades I've been trying to wrap my mind around the whole hippie phenomenon. Finally, about four years ago, I stumbled on a way to explore the era that hadn't been done before. Although the drugs and the music and the political activism were integral to the hippie experience and have been much written about, I found that the literature of the time had been largely ignored as a grouping and very much overshadowed by the Beat literary movement. The counterculture and the whole hippie thing was so much bigger than the Beat scene, even though the Beats provided most of the philosophy and bohemian outlook that followed them. The counterculture also generated some great prose, though not a cohesive literary movement, like that of the Beats, who were actually comprised mostly of writers/poets/& jazz hipsters.

I couldn't tell you how many rejection letters I've received from literary agents for my great American hippie novel, but when I sent in a proposal to write about the literature of the Hippie Counterculture, a contract offer quickly followed. It's a scholarly exploration, though not devoid of fun, so I won't be getting rich on the thing. Yet I like the idea that people will be able to read the magic that came from writing this book. Namely, The Hippie Narrative morphed into more than a literary study. It surprised me how well it worked as a cultural history, too, by working chronologically, chapter by chapter, through the works of Ken Kesey to Richard Brautigan to Hunter S. Thompson to Tom Robbins (with other titles in between).

I can't speak for all contracts, but this publisher ( www.mcfarlandpub.com ) had a very simple contract paying 10% on the first 1000 copies and 12% on sales receipts above 1000. They pay all marketing costs. I think the key in non-fiction is to have a well thought through, and cleanly presented proposal. (You don't need a finished manuscript). I wish I knew the answer for how to get a book of fiction published. In any event, my book will be out in two weeks or so, so I'm psyched. You can get it on Amazon or through the publishers web site.

I agree with so many of the earlier comments. Writing isn't an easy path, but it's never boring.

Scott

 

hi Scott,
i would be interested in obtaining a copy of your book.
please provide the title, or isbn, so that i can find it.
i sell books on amazon and elsewhere( i dont write 'em, just a peddlar)

 

Thanks for your interest. I'm told that the book will be available in early February. Here's the info and a link:


From the Publisher:

The Hippie Narrative
A Literary Perspective on the Counterculture
Scott MacFarlane

ISBN 0-7864-2915-1
notes, bibliography, index
[256]pp. softcover 2007

$35
Not Yet Published, Available Spring 2007
McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers. Jefferson, NC


Description
The Hippie movement of the 1960s helped change modern societal attitudes toward ethnic and cultural diversity, environmental accountability, spiritual expressiveness, and the justification of war. With roots in the Beat literary movement of the late 1950s, the hippie perspective also advocated a bohemian lifestyle which expressed distaste for hypocrisy and materialism yet did so without the dark, somewhat forced undertones of their predecessors. This cultural revaluation which developed as a direct response to the dark days of World War II created a counterculture which came to be at the epicenter of an American societal debate and, ultimately, saw the beginnings of postmodernism.

Focusing on 1962 through 1976, this book takes a constructivist look at the hippie eraÕs key works of prose, which in turn may be viewed as the literary canon of the counterculture. It examines the ways in which these works, with their tendency toward whimsy and spontaneity, are genuinely reflective of the period. Arranged chronologically, the discussed works function as a lens for viewing the period as a whole, providing a more rounded sense of the hippie Zeitgeist that shaped and inspired the period. Among the 14 works represented are One Flew Over the CuckooÕs Nest, The Crying of Lot 49, Trout Fishing in America, Siddhartha, Stranger in a Strange Land, Slaughterhouse Five and The Fan Man.

for preordering:

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-2915-1

 

That's one of the best commercials I've seen in here. Well done!