How To Publish A Book | Traditional Publishing 101

hello everyone Alexa Dunn here and today I am going to be talking about how the heck you get published so you want to write a book so you want to be published so you want to see your book on bookshelves well I'm going to tell you the kind of nitty-gritty well how the heck do you do that so for starters there are two primary paths for being published and that is traditional publishing and self-publishing also often referred to as Indie publishing in self-publishing you're going to take care of everything yourself this means you're hiring your own editors cover designers you research and pick out the publishing platform and format that you want to go with you pay for all of that up front and you do all of your own push promotion marketing Etc you are both writer and publisher you are in control of everything it takes to get your work published now I am not an expert in self-publishing but there are some really great resources including here on YouTube so I'm going to link you down below to some that I think that you should check out I've also made a traditional publishing versus self-publishing video that lays out some of the pros and cons of both of them which I will link to down below so that you have a bit more information but the focus here is going to be traditional publishing since I am a traditionally published author and this is my area of expertise also I find generally when people are like well how do I get published they do tend to mean well how does all of that work like I see a book in Barnes Noble how did it get there and 95 of the time the answer is what I'm going to explain in this video so this is going to sound really really dumb but honestly the first step of getting published is to finish a book you're like duh but honestly many people don't realize that you have to complete your novel before you seek representation for it before you seek a publisher you're not going to be able to reach out to Industry professionals with an idea or even part of a book because they need to see the completed package because the reality is a lot of people have great ideas a lot of people can write some of a book but not everyone can finish a book most people can't finish it and have it be really good and then even fewer people are going to complete something edit it and have it be at the level it needs to be to be traditionally published it is really difficult to be published there are a series of Gatekeepers which I'm going to go over because it's about the process of vetting a work so that it is the shiny and Polished as possible when it reaches the shelves there's just not enough bandwidth from Agents and Publishers to publish everything that's just not how the world works so it is definitely a numbers game you have to really hone your craft and then jump over a lot of hurdles to be published personally I feel it's worth it and I will link down below to my video about why I decided to pursue traditional publishing for my debut and first couple of books I do in the long run plan on doing hybrid publishing but I had very specific reasons for doing traditional publishing specifically for my category y a and honestly it's made me a better writer I've developed such a thick skin I've learned to improve my craft because if I don't I'm not going to be good enough and it's really worked out well for me and in particular a skill I've picked up is this next thing the next step for you getting published after you finish the book is learning how to edit your own work this is true for self-publishing as well these first steps you have to finish a book and you have to edit it before you can self-publish as well and editing isn't just going through the lines and maybe making it a bit prettier there's something called developmental editing no story is going to be perfect on the first draft the execution of the story there's always a better way to execute certain aspects of your idea it can be rewriting sections of your book so that it feels more active more happens it's working on your character development your story arcs Etc this isn't cosmetic editing this is deep editing so my advice here is to find critique Partners there's also beta readers but I like critique Partners this is an exchange of work with other writers where you give each other feedback to use for your editing there's a whole process of self-editing where you basically learn how to critically engage with your own work understanding it's not perfect and you have to throw some of the baby out with the bath water in order to make your work better I also have a video on learning to self-edit which I will link to down below when it comes to hiring an editor what you are going to do for self-publishing and I don't advise you do for traditional publishing those editors don't edit your book for you you always are going to have to do the Lion's Share of the work of actually developing the story editors who hire or work with at a traditional publisher they'll help you with line edits that's prose level writing and copy edits that is where they're going to correct your mistakes but copy editing is one of the last steps before that there's a ton of stuff that is all on you to do so now we get to all of the gatekeeping steps and parts of the process for traditional publishing this is where we diverge from self-publishing so there's a whole system in place in traditional publishing to have your work reviewed by most Publishers and that is the agent system the literary agent system you can't directly submit commit to the majority of traditional Publishers especially the large ones again it's a volume game so many people want to be published but the Publishers just don't have time to do all that it takes to edit type set do covers write copy etc for the books that they've purchased and review the thousands and thousands of thousands of books by aspiring writers which is where literary agents come in they are a first line of defense they do the quality control for what is called the slush slush is writers sending in a query which is a pitch letter about their work it's called cold querying you don't have to know anyone to query and the slush is what agents at literary agencies read and consider to try to find the gems which then they send on to Publishers to consider buying so I mentioned queries this is how you get a literary agent you write a one-page pitch for your book There are rules and formats for queries and I'm not going to get into too much about them I do already have querying videos on this channel and look out for a new one as well that's going to be dropping really really soon and I'll put some of my favorite query resources down below it's mostly about your book not much about you and why you wrote it you were basically writing marketing copy for your book to entice an agent to read it most often agents allow you to include five to ten pages of your book so that they can get a feel of your writing and if they're interested in Reading More they will request either a partial which is usually about 50 pages of your manuscript or a full which is of course the entire book now it's a waiting game in queries it can take a long time to query agents receive hundreds of queries a week some of them receive hundreds a day and so there is definitely a waiting process there and then once they request your book there's a waiting process there as well generally speaking the publishing process involves a lot of patience because it is not fast now you should always query the best possible version of your book make sure it's been edited like you've really worked on it and Polished it you're putting your best foot forward you usually only get one chance with an agent for a book and once they've looked at your query and your pages and rejected it that's it and there are only so many agents that you can query for a given book make sure you're researching agents because not all agents are created equal I'm going to link you down below to videos I have on red flags for bad agents because there are a ton of bad literary agents out there because anyone can call themselves a literary agent but only some of them are actually good enough to sell books always look up what these agents have actually sold and generally this means you have to be very knowledgeable about the space that you want to enter you should be reading books that are similar to the book that you've written you should understand the market well enough to know well has this agent sold any anything comparable to my book never query an agent you wouldn't want to accept representation from which means don't query bad agents I'll tell you it is better to have no agent and give up on a book than to have a bad agent a bad agent can derail your career for years and definitely kill that book anyway so I advise focusing on your best work querying the best possible people and continuing to work on books until you can get the representation commensurate with the level of career that you want to have essentially I don't think you can settle because there are levels of agents and the best agents can sell to the best Publishers and they do get the best publishing deals one last tip before I get into the best case scenario which is an agent wants to represent you and that is while you're recruiting one book I recommend working on a new project this way you feel a little less sting when you do get rejections but also in the event that that book does doesn't work out you have something new to focus on and put out into the world to query next I don't advise working on the second or God forbid third book of a series you should never write an entire series until you've sold the first one so work on something completely new that is not connected to the book that you are querying okay so in a best case scenario if an agent likes your book enough they are going to ask you for a call and they're going to offer you representation at this point you will notify all other agents with your book including queries that haven't been responded to that you have an offer when you do have that call with the agent you're going to ask for one to two weeks to make a decision this is normal never accept right away or feel pressured to accept quicker because it is courtesy in the industry to inform all other agents that you do have an offer because you want to give other agents the opportunity to also read your work and possibly offer representation I want to remind everyone that that the agent relationship is a business relationship and it is a very important business relationship you should be shopping around for the best possible representation querying honestly is a funny thing when you start querying before you have offers you are the desperate one you were desperately trying to get someone to notice you and you feel this power and balance and it shifts as soon as an agent wants to represent you all of the leverage goes to you the author and this is where it benefits you to notify other agents because if you end up with multiple offers all of a sudden you are in the position of power and you get to make the best decision for yourself and for your career I also have tons of videos on talking to agents on the phone and making good business decisions again going to link to all of those down below listen I've been with a literary agent where it didn't work out to sell my work and then I've gone on to find a literary agent who was a better fit for me who has been able to sell my work multiple times finding the right agent for you is really important as is writing a new book if the book that you have isn't working I shelved a book that wasn't working in queries to get me the agent I wanted and I wrote a book that got me where I needed to be alright so you've picked an agent you're going to sign a contract they're usually pretty standard but sometimes not again I have a video on this I have a video on contract terms you need to know which has a section on literary agent contracts so I will link to that down below as well if you have any qualms about a literary agent contract ask questions try to find someone who's more experienced in the industry whether it's an author or legal representation to look at it if you are concerned but generally most literary agent contracts are pretty straightforward and it's just an agreement about about how your relationship is going to work so what's next next usually is you gotta edit your book somewhere with your agent agents do vary in terms of how editorial they are but nowadays when it is really tricky to sell a book most are doing a lot of editorial work before they submit to editors to make sure they are submitting very polished products to Publishers so once you get through that you go on submission what the heck is submission so this is where your agent does their job agenting is all about networking and relationships I mentioned they are that front line of defense they are Gatekeepers well the Publishers depend on them to have really good taste in really good books and editors and Publishers get to know the taste of different agents and they get to know well I really trust that agent to send me excellent projects that are going to earn a lot of money and your agent will meet with these editors for lunch and at conferences and get to know their taste the kinds of of books they like to read and are likely to buy so then they take your book and they create a submission list submission is a whole process with a lot of moving Parts but generally they're gonna send your book out in rounds of submissions so to groups of editors in stages rounds can really vary in size so a round could be as small as four to six editors a mid-sized round is usually like 10 to 15 and anything more than that is considered a large round of submission agents pitch editors in different ways some of them do it on the phone some of them do it in person if they live in New York and most commonly I find is just they will pitch editors over email the same way that you are going to send out a query so it's a pitch letter for the book inviting them to read and then the editors will request to read the manuscript or not then you wait again there's a lot of waiting it's really stressful and submission really varies sometimes it goes super super fast if one editor just reads it right away and is really interested they then decide they want to buy it and so a submission can go as fast as 48 hours but it can also last more than a year the the dream of course is itself really really fast but sometimes it just doesn't work out that way you can also end up doing edits to your book between rounds of submissions so if you get rejections from many Publishers that say the same thing then you want to edit your book to address those things to make it stronger when you send it out to more editors okay so what happens though when an editor does want to buy your book you go to something called Acquisitions so this is a meaning that every publisher has many of them have them weekly but it is going to depend on publisher where all the different departments get together so editorials sales marketing publicity Etc and the editors are pitching the books that they want to buy they're going to do what is called a profit and loss statement where they basically say this book is great I think it's going to appeal to these markets and make this much money and then everyone discusses whether they like the book often the other departments have read it but not always and everyone basically hashes it out of like whether they think it's a good investment to buy your book and so you either get through Acquisitions and get an offer or you don't get through Acquisitions and it's a no I have been rejected at Acquisitions more than once it is depressing but when you get a yes the editor is going to send a deal memo and offer to your agent and it'll say we want to buy the book for this amount of money for these territories these are the royalties that we're offering and then it's your agent's job to negotiate your agent should never accept the first offer that's sent and uh if you end up with an agent who isn't negotiating you have a problem with your agent that's a whole other uh topic but your agent's job is to get you the best possible deal the best possible deal terms and this is on the deal memo side of it we'll talk about contract in a minute so they're going to go back and forth with the publisher and they're also going to inform all the other editors with your book that you have an offer so then it's a matter of whether anyone else also wants to buy your book sometimes that first publisher wants your book so bad they do something called a preempt they preemptively offer a ton of money and terms for you the author and your agent to withdraw that book from everyone else and not even give them a chance to buy it that's selling in a preamp but you can also just have a single offer and not sell in a preamp you can just sell your book to one publisher who wanted to buy it but if multiple Publishers want to buy your book sometimes you go to auction this is where different Publishers do bids and rounds to compete to win the right to publish your book or rare but it's a very exciting thing that does happen and tends to drive up the price of those books so once you've arrived at who is going to publish your book whether it's one person who offered in your agent negotiated with them or it's multiple offers and your agent went back and forth and negotiated the best possible deal for you you will agree to your book deal then your agent's job is to negotiate your contract while you are working with your new Editor to polish your book so yes you're going to do more edits this is when you do developmental edits with your editor line edits Etc your agent is negotiating your contract now there are the terms that we're agreed to in the deal memo but there's so much more that an agent does to negotiate a contract something I hear a lot from writers that they're scared of is that you sell your soul to a publisher and they own your book forever but no they don't if your agent is good at their job and negotiates a contract that works more in your favor I will say if you see a book contract where it says they own your book forever Beware of the term in perpetuity that's a bad term um I would say you should run but good agents don't let that happen to you I usually have seen those predatory contracts from situations where a publisher knows that an author doesn't have an agent so it's actually when you don't have an agent that you are more likely to get screwed over and I just realized I haven't talked to you about money something very important to know your agent is your business partner and their job is to get you more favorable deal terms that includes more money and favorable terms in your contract and for that you do give them 15 of what your publisher pays to you and the money actually goes through your agency so your publisher pays your agency and then your agency pays you again this is a relationship thing you want to go with a really good Agent and a really good agency because certain Publishers prefer to work with certain agencies where like on the back business end they're good at handling their finances and the publisher likes working with them because they're you know good to work with from a business perspective and then it's good for you because your agency pays you on time there's all this business stuff that goes into it because publishing is a business and you want to get all of these people working for you on your team so that you have the best possible experience also very very important in terms of money that I should say in traditional publishing money always flows to you the author you shouldn't have to expend any money to get traditionally published and if someone is asking you for money whether it's an agent or a publisher that is a scam and you should run away this is just part of the deal of traditional publishing they front all of the money to publish your book and therefore you are only going to get a percentage of what that book sells because they are doing the line share of the work you will typically be paid in advance against sales I also have an entire video on this because money is complicated but essentially it's a sum that they agreed to pay you in installments it's usually when you sign your contract when you turn in your book and when your book is published or just when you sign your contract and when your book is published so your Advance is broken into chunks you do have to pay taxes on it guys and it's a lot and this is they're saying we think this is how much you will earn in royalties when this book goes on sale if you outsell that Advance then you begin to earn royalties which is a percentage of every single sale again your agent is negotiating a favorable Advance a favorable payment schedule and a favorable royalty rate and then it's your Publisher's job after you've edited your book to do all of the things that are going to get it out in the world and get it sold you want to know how do you get published how do you get a book and bookstore this is how the sausage is made Publishers have sales teams and their job is to pitch your book to libraries and bookstores to get them to place orders to carry them in their stores traditional publishing has a long history of the relationship in the business so they typically are best place to get your book in to physical distribution chains it's definitely an advantage the traditional publishing has over self-publishing that's the benefit of a good traditional publisher they're Salesforce and their distribution Network there's also a whole machine of marketing and publicity there's cover design and back cover copy it's all of this stuff that your publisher does for you to create that final product of your book that is how do you get published in a nutshell glossing over tons of stuff as I mentioned there's tons of links down below because I do like to go in depth about all of these micro topics on the channel but I thought I would roll this all together as a 101 primer for those of you who just want to know well how the sausage is made I wrote a book how do I get it published I hope I've answered all your questions let me know Down Below in the comments any questions that you do have and if you liked this video give it a thumbs up I will make more comprehensive videos about publishing if you're not already subscribed to the channel go ahead and do that I post new videos two to three times a week thank you so much for watching and as always guys happy writing

Channel: Alexa Donne

Views: 122,658

Keywords: alexa donne, author tube, writing advice, how to write a book, publishing advice, traditional publishing, how to get published, how to publish a book, querying agents, how to get a literary agent, major publishers

Id: ilBvc5v9IBI

Length: 23min 21sec (1401 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 22 2019