AboutSusan Rand Expertise I can answer questions about the elements of fiction and non-fiction writing: how to get started, writing techniques, re-writing, etc. I will NOT write for you, do critiques except from my website at http://pygmypress.com, or give you ideas. I will not answer home-or-schoolwork questions in any category. If English is your second language, please say so, and I will make an exception. Please submit no more than one or two questions at once, as I tend to go into detail in my answers.
Experience I wrote my first book in 1957 and have been writing and studying writing since. I have a BA in Written Communications, and have taught writing both privately and through adult education for 15 years. Have also edited (fiction books) for an online publisher and edited/wrote more than 100 articles for realsexed.com. Currently writing web content and mentoring beginning writers.
Question I have been writing stories and poetry since I was a young child. I have always wanted to write a book and have it published about my life experiences. Whithin the last couple years my story has completed itself. I believe very strongly in my book, though it is not yet complete. There is a lot to tell, but the main point of it is that I experienced a very unique, spiritual (not religious) experience that I would like to tell and share with others. I feel it would have a tramendous impact on those who read it. I did want to explain this before asking my question: I would like to be able to find a professional or professionals who would be willing to read and edit my book, legitimate professionals, not con artists. And people who could help me to find an agent to get it to the best possible publisher when it is complete. Any and all resources that can and will help me. I deeply believe that, when it is finished, anyone who reads it will feel it is a remarkable story I am telling. That many people would be enlightened and touched by this book and it is certainly worth the effort I am willing to put in to do everything I can to get it on the market. Any andvice, any help you can give me would be so appreciated.
Thank You,
Carolyn Fallon
Answer Dear Carolyn:
It sounds as though you have a lot of faith in your work which is good, because you're going to need it. Getting a book published is a long, hard slog punctuated with disappointments. If you want to be published, you must rise above them all.
First, you must finish a first draft so that you have something to work with, and then perhaps a second, and possibly even a third.
Second, you must pay someone to edit it, or study up and learn how to do the job yourself - this is the cheap, but extended method - it may take months, or even years.
Third, you must ship it around to agents until somebody agrees to sell it to you. You can find agents on the net. Your best bet for publication is probably the Christian market, which I believe is a little easier to penetrate than the secular side. Check in Writer's Market for publishers of Christian material. Read what the book says about them to see if they will read your 3 chapters and a summary/synopsis or if they want you to go through an agent. If you have contacts in the business, so much the better - exploit them.
A successful writer needs talent (the ability to learn), endurance (ever try typing an entire book?); a willingness to change things if an editor requests it; the skin of a rhino and the kind of blind faith that leads lemmings off cliffs,plus a sizeable portion of luck. But above all, she needs persistance: the ability to send the thing off again after 482 rejections. (Some books have collected as much as 700 rejections before being accepted).
If you are at some point accepted, then the real fun begins. You are likely to be asked to pay for your own advertising, do your own distributing (driving around to bookstores with your car full of books you have yourself purchased); persuade all your friends and relatives and their friends and relatives to buy a copy and give back your advance (if there is an advance) if sales do not reach that level.
Yes, it's discouraging. It's to try to save you wasting time on a futile effort. In my experience, a real writer cannot be discouraged. So if all this only fans the flames of your ambition, follow the steps above.
I hope this has helped. If it has, a nice rating would be appreciated. I am proud of my "straight 10" record over 140+ questions.
