How Do You Get A Story Published?

[cassa333]

I know a couple of people that have written novels, short stories and play mainly for their own enjoyment but wondered if any of them wanted to get them published, how do they go about it.

Do they just send it to a publisher and hope they print it or do they have to pay themselves?

I should think there are a lot of frustrated writers out there lol

[starone]

If you have written a book or even a story of any kind you need to get an agent who will help you. If he/she does not like your writing they will not take you on as a client. There are books published, I expect they are available in the library if you want to cut costs to the minimum, with a huge list of publishers, agents, all sorts of information. You have to know how to present your writing - join a class - it has to be in double line spacing, on one side of the paper. Forget about hand writing it in notebooks. Unless you are exceptional agents won't even bother to try to read it. If it is a short story then you can send it yourself to as many magazines as you can, but only one at a time. Read the magazines and make sure it is the kind of story they like. Be prepared to paper your walls with rejections. If you are a true writer you will not give up but keep trying.

[starone]

Continuation:- If you publish it yourself - vanity publishing - it will cost you quite a lot of money - and then you have the problem of marketing it. Will W.H. Smith put your book on their shelves - very difficult. You have a big problem when it comes to selling. Sorry, but I know what it is like. When I was much younger I wrote articles for the Bristol Evening Post and made a bit of pocket money doing it, but in no way did I earn a living. You have to be dedicated to writing - do some every day, keep trying.

[cassa333]

Thanks Starone.

I'm not much of a writer myself. I can't do without spellchecker and I don't know what double line spacing is lol

Do they just send a printed copy about or should they email a file? and how do they make sure no one nicks it and says it's theres?

A couple of them have written a few short stories and I sugested they get together and make a compilation or something.

[mrs_overall]

Go to the library and have a look at The Writer & Artists Year Book.
There are lots of tips on how to get published.
They also list every publisher and every publication in the UK. Lots of magazines pay for short stories.

[DTCwordfan]

There are, cassa; however the net has liberated the market in the sense of making it easier to get access.

Traditional paper is not easy to break into, unless you have an inside contact. I do but even then..... the issue being royalties and you are lucky to even see 5% of sales as your take.

The internet is, of course, developing so you aren't going to get massive volume but then that it is countered by it being a global offering, allowing for language.

There are specialist publishers out there and the thing to do is to do some research based on the genre that your friends are writing about. They can help in placement and also guidance as to proofing and polishing your text. My editor is an ex Beeb screenwriter and brilliant in his advice and encouragement, particularly in getting me to write more emotionally about my characters and, hence, the personalisation and embedding of the personalities into the readers' minds, letting their imagination take over, just as we do with a aoer book or a radio play, or something like the Archers. They will also do all the necessary spade work for placement onto Kindle and other outlets like Lulu or specialist retailers if you are into poetry, sex themes, romance, whatever.

Working with exclusivity gives a better chance for building the relationship and the royalty takes are higher, 35 to 45% usually, and that's for an unknown writer. Non-exclusivity drops this to 15 to 25%. Copyright should remain with you......

Now don't expect a fortune.....I make a couple of hundred a month from my writing, some months higher....but it pays the booze bill (actually my travel bills) but it is growing each quarter. I am probably one of the more "successful" ones - the ultimate perhaps, even though her writing is crap, is "50 Shades of Grey," in that becoming an internet hit that then went paper-viral, E.L.James was able to command a higher royalty fee from her publishers than would be the normal for a debut-writer but, even then, she is probably lucky to make 15% of the cover price.

Hope this helps

[mrs_overall]

Also, don't send anything to a publisher as it will probably be sent straight back to you unread. Most publishers will only accept new books through an agent.
The book I mentioned tells you what to send (i.e. a precis of the book and a sample chapter etc)

[Mosaic]

The third way, and one increasingly used by new authors, is to publish your own work as part of a blog, as an e-book. You can then invite people to download it, to contribute donations (!) using a paypal button, and to give you feedback. You might publish a chapter at a time, a series of short stories or the whole book.

You can save your work as pdf files and provide them to download, or use one of the free programs like Calibre to save your work in a variety of e-reader formats.

This means people can print it themselves if they are mad enough, or read online, or download to an e-reader. It reaches a global audience and costs nowt. So the worst thta can happen is someone can nick your ideas, which is a risk you run anyway.

[DTCwordfan]

As to copyright, they need to sign their contract as to defining rights etc and this ought to include copyright.

Inter alia put the following in the front of the book or whatever

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.

Name
First Edition
All rights reserved
© 2012 Name
The right of .....(name)... to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the copyright, designs and patents act 1988. This book is sold subject to the conditions that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

[DTCwordfan]

Avoid "vanity publishing" would be my advice.

[mrs_overall]

Another suggestion is to Google "writing competitions" - there are loads of them out there.

I had my own column in a magazine but it was in a very specialized field. Think if you have any particular knowledge of a subject and go from there

[starone]

Short stories are best sent to magazines, but make sure it is the kind of story that magazine likes, by reading the magazine. You don't have to buy because writers usually try to keep costs down. No good earning £50 if you have spent that amount on research, but if you go into doctor's surgeries or dentists or something like that, you can usually find a few free ones. It is no good sending a love story to a magazine that is obviously aimed at men! Send the story with a covering letter to say what it is and what you hope they will do (publish it in their lovely mag). Then you have to wait several weeks to see if they like it - they will either publish it or send it back with a rejection slip. Do not send it to anyone else until it has been sent back to you. Your friends might find that they can write in a certain way. I discovered, for instance, that I was no good at writing stories but could write humourous articles with ease. And fortunately I found a market for them. It is quite easy to write, but far more difficult to sell!!

[DTCwordfan]

Specialised writing is a completely different field and it's here that I make most of my income; that came about more by chance, starting to turn science and engineering technical blah into tiered marketing communication material and then just grew from a small client base by word of mouth and being proactive with your own approaches. For example, I am hopefully about to take on a company making cake-boards of all things and a medium-sized specialist oil services company, both generated by personal pitches, so having examples and a presentation(s) is a key factor for that. About a third of my work is "creative" writing, one third proofing others, and the rest in providing marketing consulting work on product and service positioning.

[starone]

DT is of course much more up-to-date than I am cassa, because he is still in the world of publishing and I am now very much beyond it, but the main points are in all probability the same. Presentation, etc and as Mrs. o says The Writers and Artists Year Book will give you lots of information. I had forgotten the name of this very useful book, Mrs o, and in fact had obtained a second hand copy for my own use, probably from a disgruntled ex-writer!!

[cassa333]

Thank you all so much for your information.

I will probably have to direct them to this thread as most of it goes over my head lol

I do think sending the short stories to magazines is a brillient idea. Mainly I think because I can't see why anyone would publish shorts in a stand alone book!!! The two novels I've spied are sf and I think he will have to do the leg work himself from now on ;)

Do you think it is worth sending the play to a couple of am dram groups? It is not a traditional am dram play, which are usually comedy. It is a drama with a very sad ( I cried and I don't usually) but ultimately uplifting ending.

Thanks

[mrs_overall]

Again, the book I mentioned lists all magazines that accept short stories and tells you what genre they look for, how long the stories have to be etc. You must do your homework and not send stories off willy nilly.

[cassa333]

Forgot to add one of the short stories has just won a competition in a local free paper.

[DTCwordfan]

yes, I agree with Mrs O, research and targeted "sales" is the crucial thing to achieving potential success here.

[Kefalonia]

You could always try publishing on Kindle e-books on Amazon. I tried some short stories and poems on there and it's not too tricky to do once you get the hang of it.