Book publishing (fiction)?

[Dahnsouff]

Has anyone ever done it? 

If so, any advice? 

[Trav Le Bleu]

Well Fez did (The Unbelievables by David Bevan), but his account isn't active anymore.

 

Wasn't fiction though. I'd be interested to know too. When I was much younger I submitted two novels to be published, neither taken up, though one publisher returned an encouraging letter that suggested I'd only just missed out.

 

This was pre-social media, I imagine self-publishing is much easier now.

[Dahnsouff]

Yeah the whole Kindle Publishing malarky makes it easier seemingly

[reynard]

13 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Has anyone ever done it? 

If so, any advice? 

Depends on how serious you are.  If you want to just self publish there are many ways of doing this.  Lots of printers around who can print etc. I think you can do it through Amazon even?

If you want to do it properly then buy or take out of the library the Artists and Writers yearbook.  The new edition will be out in July. This list all the relevant agents that you can contact. etc. The people behind the book also run courses I think to help people wanting to write books.

Sending manuscripts direct to publishers is pretty much a waste of time as only around 2% of books published come from what is called the slush pile.

Agents submit manuscripts to publishers who they think will be interested. 

 

If you want to just publish yourself then I'd look for a company that can print and help design etc. I've seen many self published books over the years that look terrible because the jacket is awful. Also consider how you want to publish. You don't have to have a physical book you could just publish  an ebook version.  pretty sure this is where amazon kick in. There have been egs of self published ebooks becoming physical books taken on by major publishers but they are few in number.

Edited yesterday at 07:33 by reynard

[LanguedocFox]

FWIW I self-published a novel on Amazon/Kindle in (I think) 2013. It was great fun and it sold a few copies. I do know something about design and typography (I used to work in the business years ago) which made the process relatively easy. It is fairly straightforward so I should think anyone with reasonable intelligence could handle it.

 

Back then you could only publish on Kindle, but I think these days you can self-publish digitally printed books on Amazon which are fairly cheap, but I’ve never tried that.

 

DM me if you want to talk specifics.

 

[David Guiza II]

15 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Has anyone ever done it? 

If so, any advice? 

I believe the best course of action is to contact literary agents with a view of becoming their client, who then in turn contact the publishers. 

I think the majority of bigger publishers won't deal with unsolicited requests direct from the author.  

[EnderbyFox]

Stay away from British London, they really messed up the publishing of my friends book "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs" 

[Trav Le Bleu]

12 minutes ago, EnderbyFox said:

Stay away from British London, they really messed up the publishing of my friends book "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs" 

You're friend Ramses?

[David Guiza II]

25 minutes ago, EnderbyFox said:

Stay away from British London, they really messed up the publishing of my friends book "Business Secrets of the Pharaohs" 

They did a pretty handy print out for my friend's life coaching business, so they're not all bad.