Becoming a successful author can be a painstaking and stressful process. However, few things relate to finishing a project and seeing your title on the shelves of popular book stores and online vendors. Finding the time and effort to write a book is only half of the process; the other includes finding a publisher who believes in your project and supports your vision. Their help can be the last line in what creates a monumental piece or keeps your manuscript from ever seeing the time of day.
Before you begin your process you must ensure that you have registered your work with the United States Copyright offices. While you have copyright protection the moment you put your work in a tangible form; this organization will allow you to register your work so you have it on record. This will help protect you from the opportunity that a publisher may take your work and present it without your credit. This is a situation that may not only result in you losing control over your project, but a loss of financial means if you attempt to fight them in court.
The way that many individuals find a publisher is by sending their information out to multiple different publishing organizations in the hope that someone will pick up their work. This can be a long process but can be greatly beneficial if one group does decide to pick up your project. The information for publishing houses can be found online through a simple Google search. While you will be sure to find the information for the larger organizations such as, Hachette and Harper Collins; but you must understand that these organizations are often swamped with numerous submissions, so if you turn your work into them, you have to be willing to wait for an extended period of time. If they do like your work, you will hear a response and then go through their complete editing process before you book is completed.
Another option that many writers are using is self publishing. Organizations such as Lulu.com allow you to upload your work to their database and publish books through their network. Potential customers can search for your work on a print to order basis. This option helps writers create a revenue stream for their project while attracting publishers who can take over and push their work. The act of self publishing has opened up a number of benefits to new writers, but hasn’t been fully embraced. “Which is too bad, because careful examination suggests that this period of chaos will eventually yield significant rewards for both authors and consumers.” (Vinjamuri, 2012) With the Internet’s influence, the expectation that self publishing will continue to grow as a viable option for writer’s to produce books and attract big name publishing companies.
Once a writer has completed their manuscript they are only half way through with the battle, finding a suitable publisher can be completed in a number of ways but will reap benefits in the end.
References
Vinjamuri, David. 2012. “Publishing Is Broken, We’re Drowning In Indie Books – And That’s A Good Thing.” Forbes, [online] 5 August. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2012/08/15/publishing-is-broken-were-drowning-in-indie-books-and-thats-a-good-thing/ [Accessed 1 September 2012].
