How do you publish your book?
and look for a traditional publishing deal
How do you publish your book? is the most common question that I am being asked at the moment as my own publication date for my book How to Leave a Group Chat is just four months away – and it’s coming quickly.
A lot of people are writing, but the publication process is shrouded in mystery, and there is no longer one linear path to publish your book like there used to be:
In the past, you would publish your book by:
1. Submitting your book to an agent, publisher or both
2. A publisher would accept your book, pay you an advance and sort out everything
It’s not quite like that anymore, so let me tell you my story, from the beginning.
This advice regarding how to publish your book is useful for writers, but why is it also useful for Digital Marketers?
Well, Digital Marketing friends, I can guarantee that you have gained a lot of useful knowledge, experience, and expertise during the course of your career. If you write and publish your own book about what you know, you will stand out from the other Digital Marketers whether you want to progress in your current company, start your own business or take on a new opportunity at a higher level. Simples!
How do you publish your book? This is how I started.
I wrote a book, and like all great ideas, this one started in lockdown when one of the few ways I had to contract people was instant messengers. How to Leave a Group Chat was conceived.
Fast forward approximately two and a half years.
I was asking the same question that you have been asking, how DO you publish your book? All of us have been writing in some form since primary school, so how to write isn’t much of a mystery, even for those of us who haven’t done it since GCSE (aka school leaving exams). Publishing isn’t something that we get taught – I don’t even recall doing anything on it during my English degree.
As I do when I have any great question, I turned to Uncle Google. But this is one area where Google didn’t clarify anything for me. Instead, the search gave me so-called publishing companies who wanted me to pay thousands of pounds to publish with them. I didn’t have that kind of money, and, as I learnt later, I absolutely shouldn’t have to pay a fortune to get a book published.
What about Amazon?
If you have vaguely heard about one way of getting published, it would be as an e-book on Amazon. Oh don’t worry, my book will be on Amazon. No publisher would let me get away without being on Amazon. But I have always had a dream to be in print, and this dream goes back to the days before e-books. Also, self-publishing, which I would have considered in the event of no alternative, requires a lot more work. So I was determined to try and publish my book via a more traditional means.
How did you publish your book via a more traditional means?
The information I needed came from one very valuable source the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook. This is the yellow pages for authors – every agent and publisher listed in here is legitimate and operational and the publication has been around since 1906.
After talking to other authors, I decided to apply to agents first, and then publishers. The logic is that only agents can reach the big publishers, and if you apply to publishers first and get rejected, then if you do score an agent there are fewer publishers that your agents are able to reach out to on your behalf. Don’t forget that you only have one try per agent, and one try per publisher.
I spent a good few hours in the library going through the Writers and Artists Yearbook making a long list of all the agents who might be interested in the type of book that I was writing. In fact, my entire summer looked like this:
I uploaded my list of agents to an Excel spreadsheet and spent my weekends applying to 4-5 at a time. This can be no mean feat – each agent has different requirements for applications, some want just an overview, some a chapter, some a pack – some application lists can outdo any job application.
It is recommended that you apply in batches and wait before applying to more, but realistically it can take weeks, months, or even years to hear back. How to Leave a Group chat is a book that is about the instant messengers that we are using now, and due to the changing technology, it will date if I leave it too long, so I had to keep going.
I applied to over 50 agents. I got some replies, and even a couple which gave me a small amount of feedback. This might not sound like much, but the odds for replies are tiny, and the odds for replies with any feedback are even smaller, so each one was encouraging.
Spoiler: I didn’t get an agent.
All over again
I then repeated the process, going through the Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook in the library all over again and making a list of all of the publishers that were a good fit for me. I continued spending weekends applying, double-checking each publisher on their website and what their requirements are.
Finally
On Friday the 25th August 2023, just as summer was setting for the year, I received an email from The Book Guild, a small publisher based in Leicestershire.
“We may be able to offer publication as a partnership project, where we share the risks and, hopefully, rewards, though we would need to consider the manuscript fully prior to making a commitment (details attached).”
A “partnership project” – also known as a hybrid publishing deal, is a newer type of publishing deal where a publisher shares the publication costs with you – usually 50/50 – because your book, although good, is unlikely to have mainstream appeal and is more of a risk for them.
I sent my manuscript the same day and I waited until another email came around three-weeks later on the 19th September.
“We would be delighted to work with you to bring your book to the market, it would make an excellent addition to our publishing list.”
So, how do you publish your book? That’s how.
As well as general digital marketing content, I will be releasing more blogs about my experience of the publishing process along with some useful tips on All About Digital Marketing.