Episode 43: How to Get Published

K
Hello, my beautiful cinnabar moths, or any type of moth you’d like to be, welcome to the Writer’s Triangle, a podcast about publishing and all things books. And today we’re going to actually be talking about how to get published. And we’re going to, I’d like to talk about how to get published with the Big Five with the ad press with the micro press, self publish, just what is the process of of getting published? And I’d like to do a sort of, then and now retrospective, looking at how publishing How did you get published 20 years ago? Versus how do you get published now, what things have changed what things have stayed the same? Because I really want this podcast to be a love letter to authors, because I absolutely love authors, and I want authors to succeed. And I absolutely love all of the books are being published in the world, I think the world needs more books always. And I have a voracious appetite for reading. And that’s why i i Open cinnabar moth because of my love of books and wanting to contribute something positive to publishing and support those underserved voices, and those what I felt was underserved stories and, and main characters, and you can check out episode zero to find out my passion for, for publishing it and why I decided to start cinnabar moth. So I wanted to talk a little bit about how publishing was 20 years ago versus publishing today, and how you could get published one two years ago, and how to get published today, what’s changed and what’s different 20 years ago, getting published really was about relationships. And it really was about you had to, to know someone so cold calling, where you just send out a query letter where you don’t have that personal connection, and the query letter just really wasn’t done or wasn’t very successful for folks 20 years ago. And, and that comes down to how you build those relationships and how you get to know presses and how you get to know people who are in the industry, I think starts with building relationships with other authors. Because I feel like authors create opportunities for other authors when there’s good intent on both sides in a good and positive relationship. And to just give an example, when I opened cinnabar, moth publishing, my husband wanted to be our first book that we published, and I didn’t want that to be our first book, I wanted to publish an anthology. Start with that, so that I could meet a lot of authors and get to know a lot of different authors to have opportunities to buy books from a lot of different people and a lot of different points of view. And my husband was was pretty insistent that that, you know, I want to be the first book and I said, Okay, you can be our first book, if you bring me two other books, because I’ll be happy with three books, and then do and then start the anthology. And that’s what happened. Chad bought me two other authors. And then I started and open submission calls for our Anthology. And while I was working on ion ology, our third author, helped us land our fourth author, because they got to know each other, and based on their experiences and what they wanted, they both decided to design with us. Then, through getting to know everybody, I’ve talked about this before with Cam theology. Almost all of the books we’re publishing for the next couple of years come from authors who were in our winter anthology. And then we have a couple of authors who are not in our winter anthology that that we’re publishing. And interestingly enough, and I find this really fascinating is authors who we did want to publish, but for whatever reason we weren’t able to, but kept a positive relationship with have sent us authors that we are now subsequently publishing and also authors in the anthology, who knew of other authors with books that hadn’t been published. We’re also publishing them.

K
So those author’s connections really help people get their foot in the door, especially when a press has no open submissions. So now open submission means that they’re not open to cold calling. So you can’t just query them because if you send a query and I don’t know you, I’ll see I’m sorry, our submissions are closed. However, if an author is comes out to me and says, Hey, I know this other author, they’re a great person. And I think they have a great book. When you give them a chance, when you just look over the book, is it okay? If they send you an email? And I usually say, yes. That brings me to the next part of it. And that is happening. How do you meet these authors? Right, having a good critique circle with various authors and various critique partners, and various critiquing style, I think is beneficial to writing and beneficial to making those connections, a great way to make those connections. And that’s the same as it was now and, you know, 20 years ago. So for me, I do think having good author connections and building that good support system around you so that you have someone to talk to you about the publishing process and someone to talk to about their lived experience in the publishing process, and their lived experience with with publishers. And for me, it’s a it’s an easy thing to do, right? Because everybody needs critiques. And so going, and joining these critique circles, you’re able to read other authors works, and also get a beat on your work. And having multiple critique groups that you belong to allows you to find those types of critique groups that make that fit who you are as a writer, and what you want to at every stage of writing. For me, I think writing has three stages, right that very first time, then, you know, do I have an idea is, does this feel good? Does this feel like a story? Is this worth chasing down and fleshing out? Unless if you have that burning desire that no, this is the book you were meant to write? Secondly, looking at, okay, what phase in the editing process Am I right, because there’s the writing, getting the story out, and then there’s the editing with story development, and also grammar and structure, and pacing. And then there’s the final is this polished. And at each of those stages, everyone has their own temperament, whether they want an easy critique, or it’s just gentle, nudging them closer to, to what people enjoy. And other pupils want a really, you know, hard critique. And some people want a mix and something in between. So having those multiple critique groups that you belong to, you can get those different types of feedback. And also it widens the net right of, of how to connect with authors, you get more authors with, the more groups that you belong to. Being an author requires just an amazing amount of reading, because they’re researching your own story, your you know, if you’re in a critique circle, you’re reading other people’s works. And if you’re wanting to get published or signed by a specific agent, you’re looking at, hopefully, you’ll look at that agent and see who are the authors that they’ve signed? And if you’re looking at a publishing house, who are the authors that publishing house has signed? And what type of books have those folks written? What type of authors are, you know, are? Is a specific agent drawn to what type of authors isn’t? Is a press drawn to? And also, what type of stories are they promoting? What is their mission statement? What is their ethos, and every agent, every publishing house has what they’re looking for. And they have an idea of what they’re on the hunt for what they’re wanting.

K
And you can find that by just visiting their websites, or going to a library, or looking at a library electronically, sort of mixing the then and now and reading up on them and reading up on the books that they’ve they’ve published. So all of these things are public in the public domain. And by using a library to research a press, how you can do that is libraries have information on presses, libraries, have information on publishing. Libraries also have sample contracts, and books. So you can read the books for free, you can do the research for free and get to know other authors that way and sort of see what’s their writing, what’s their, their genre, one star style across many different books. And also, warehouses author publish, a lot of authors are published at multiple presses and multiple publishing houses. And some authors have also had add multiple agents. Looking at that information, you can find that information out by looking in their books for the most part. And then that gives you a sense of Okay? One, what level is, is this author at if they’re, you know, they have a billion followers and they’ve sold, they’re a best selling author, they’re going to be a little bit more difficult to know. But best selling authors are like 1% of the the authors that are better polished and professional authors. So that makes you know them not as, as laughter or difficult to reach if you’re looking at the mid range.

K
And if you’re looking at an author that has multiple books, and, and multiple publishing houses or a single publishing house, then you can become their fan, get to know them, and then reach out. And I love all of our authors. And they’re really great at being friends and being friendly, and showing information and being transparent, which is very much my my thinking on how I want authors to be. And we have a discord where authors can hang out in pockets if they want to, and get to know each other a little bit. And they follow each other on social media. And that’s a really beautiful thing. So what hasn’t changed in the past 20 years is needing to have those relationships needing to have a reason why a press or an agent is going to pay attention to you. What sets you apart from everyone else. So after you do your research, there are a myriad of ways of getting to know an author, there’s old fashioned, you know, letter writing, which is now emails. And there’s also looking at what writers groups they belong to what talks do they attend, what talks have they given, and looking to attend and, and view those talks. So that’s something that’s never going to go away in my mind. And another thing is, by talking to authors and getting to know them, you can find out the real of every level of publishing. And for first time authors, something I find really surprising is how many first time authors thinks think that their advance is going to be between 5050 $1,000. And that’s what basic research will tell you. But that’s not the case. For most first time authors, the most, the people getting those authors are usually in the 10% range for first time authors. But the majority of first time authors are not getting not signs up in advance. That’s really rare. And some people come in with the hope that their book will go to auction, and less than 1% of books go to auction for any author, that that’s really rare. And that’s because the nature of how a book goes to auction. And how book goes to Ashkan is it has to be right on the pulse of what everyone’s looking for reflecting what’s going on in the world. And having that that own voices that mix up own voices being of the time. And a story that reflects the stories that are being told in the world. Those types of books go to auction, but having that type of book requires a lot of luck. Because when I guess you can write with with that purpose. But that requires some really fast writing. Because it has, you have to write it before that cycle is over. And if you look at at any movement, movements have heat and movements burn bright for a while, and then they go down to a slow burn and a slow boil. Or if people are studying working on it, but it’s not what everyone is thinking about. And it’s not what the hot topic of the day is. So having that window it’s really 30 to 90 days. If you’re writing to write, you’re writing to try and go to auction it needs to be own voices that needs to be of the day. And it needs to be about something that’s happened in the last 30 to 90 days is the best and closest and then even that’s not guaranteed. So I’m just giving what my research and what my insider by being able to talk with agents about the real event and talk with publishing houses about the real of it, and how those those types of things happen. I have insider knowledge because it’s the groups I belong to and I want to share that with you, because I absolutely want you to succeed. But I also want authors to have realistic expectations, having a realistic expectation of what positive and productive and good cells are for your book comes from talking, and getting to know other authors and hearing their numbers and getting to know them well enough and intimately enough that they will share those kinds of things, and belonging to groups that talk about those kinds of things that are very honest.

K
So that you can know Hey, is self publishing the way to go? Should I be chasing a specific publishing house, or a specific agent? When looking at chasing a specific agent that goes down to or publishing house that goes down to getting to know their political beliefs, getting to know their ethos, getting to know what they want to publish? And where do you have that point of reference? Where do you have that point of agreement, that point of crossover, that’s going to help you when things get rough, or when things don’t go to plan. And with policy, more often than not things don’t go to plan. And publishing is the logging, it’s really rare that someone gets signed and published in the same year, it’s super rare that someone gets signed and published in the next two to three years. So when you sign a contract, and you have a publication date, that publication date is everyone’s best hope for the book, if they don’t have your full manuscript with all edits approved. So once you have a manuscript with all edits approved, that’s when the public the publication date gels and becomes firm, rather than being a soft goal and everyone’s hope, every contract, and I think, you know, again, this is where libraries can come in handy. And have been, you know, back in the day kind of thing is looking at the different types of contract to be aware that every publishing contract has, you know, delivering the manuscript, and final approval for the manuscript or a completed manuscript. And that means making sure your development edits have come through, and all of them have been approved, as well as all of your grammatical edits and the final edit for for publication. Once you have that, then you have an approved manuscript. And once you have an approved manuscript, then that publication date becomes firm, and you know, that you’re going to publish, and that’s when most presses will pay the advance. Some presses pay the advance upon signing. And if you get paid in advance upon signing a contract, rather than upon delivery of the final, the final finished, completed approved manuscript, there is a chance that your book may not be published, or it may not be the publication date, that is in the contract. And that’s because you have to have that approved manuscript for that publication date to be there. And if you can’t deliver an approved manuscript or something happened in the editing process, it will, it can get stuck, or it can result in your book not being published. And we have some authors that have been in the process of doing the development edit for over a year, God bless them, and we appreciate them. And their books finally are ready, when their books are finally ready for publication, then we get that that final date and place and say, Okay, we’re ready to go. And it can be really fast. A publication date can come up really quickly at that point, or it can still be a longer way. Here’s what the publishing house.

K
Sometimes authors can’t deliver their manuscripts on time. And that’s how you can get that that earlier publication date is if someone drops out and because life happens, right? Or another publisher, or another book that was also vying for a similar or close to publication date might fall through. And so there is a sort of prioritizing and pecking order based on that. And that might not be what people want to hear. That is the truth amongst all publishers. And I hope that, that if you have relationships with the publishing house, that they’re transparent with, what the process is going to be from signing to publication, and what you can expect and that they’re open to any questions that you ask. And I encourage everyone to ask questions when you have an offer an offer. Ask questions before you have an offer. Ask questions after you sign. Never be afraid to ask questions. And for me, that’s a huge red flag. If you’re, you know, communicating with anyone and they stop answering questions, or they get defensive or angry because you’re asking questions. huge red flag on the play, right that this relationship may not be what it seems, because you want to have a good relationship and a positive relationship, and an ability to trust each other. So if something goes goes wrong with with a date or a date have to be pushed back, having that good communication and having them say, I still believe in you do you still believe in us having those good check in having open channels of communication, I feel is is vital to the process, and vital to the relationship. And also, communication is necessary for marketing. You know, talk to every agent, every author and every press that you’re reaching out to, that you develop a relationship with and ask them about what’s marketing? Am I expected to market my book? What are you going to do to market my book? How can I support that, and that gives you an idea of what to expect post publication, there are some, some authors, sadly, that have had the experience of signing with a publishing house that does zero publication, and they didn’t get an advance. And so there are no funds for marketing the book and the book does kind of it’s out in the world, but it’s not able to reach anyone. And even if you have a huge social media platform, or even if you have a large reading group, or you know you belong to a book club, it still there still needs to be marketing outside your own sphere of influence, or your sphere of reach and connection. And that’s something that’s been true since the beginning of publishing, looking to the modern era, and I’ve touched on it a little bit with social media. Everything I’ve suggested will also help you build your social media platforms. By getting to know authors, y’all can follow each other, getting to know presses, you can follow them. And most presses have a magazine that they’re attached to that attach to the press, presses of all sizes, happiness, and submitting. And also have contests of submitting to contests. Submitting to magazines, helps you build relationships with publishers, helps you build relationships with when ezines and helped you get published and become a professional author and also helps you build your platform when you have that cross promotion going on on social media. And social media is a great way to follow somebody get to know them, and strike up a relationship with them so that you have these disclosed conversations and these intimate conversations, because it takes a while to get to know someone to the point where they are comfortable talking about money, right? Because you need to know how much does it cost to publish, to Self Publish, and succeed at it and do well. And what is success in self publishing and every other level of publishing, and talking to other authors and getting the relevant because I think Google is amazing. But Google is a search engine with an algorithm. So what you search, it’s going to give you things that are like are similar to that, the more you click on things, some people think that that makes it it’s smarter, in some cases it does. But it also creates an echo chamber when it comes to doing research. And that’s why these personal relationships are so helpful.

K
Because when you’re getting looking at different resources on the internet, how do you vet them? How do you know, which are credible and which are not because they’re all trying to get clicks. They’re doing whatever draws people to their, their site and their articles. And that’s also where looking at libraries come in handy. And in the modern era, I love that you don’t have to travel and that you can get a library card for just the E portion of the library in any city in almost any country and have access to all of their electronic files, to be able to borrow the files and an audio files. Not just amazing. I wish you know, back in the day that that was available to me, I had to physically go and you had to live in the city and such. And I love that. And I think that’s wonderful. It also provides you the ability to join different websites that have information on agents and publishing houses and their return times for feedback and looking at what are they saying on their websites that they want? And also looking at author’s website and that’s a quick way to know okay, what’s everything in this author’s catalog? Because now you have three ways to get that you can get that from a publishing house. You can get that from an author’s website. And you can also get that from like Amazon or a library or on Goodreads. There’s so many ways now to get that. And that’s another another benefit. When you’re looking to publish, I think every author needs to have a Goodreads author’s page and an Amazon author’s page. And, you know, claim the books that you write claim your writing, but also review other people’s writing.

K
And that’s another way to get to know authors, looking at books reviewing those, those best sellers, those surefire I know what I’m getting, I know what this theory is about, I know what this author is about, that’s a great way to get a lot of reviews quickly out there and relationships. But also looking at when I click on this book that I know I love, one of the other titles that are being suggested to me on any electronic platform, or in any catalog. That’s so crucial and important, right to see some of the authors that may be more accessible, and don’t have such a huge following, that they won’t see your Mitzi when you mentioned them, or they won’t see when you’re supporting them on social media. And that’s going to build appreciation and goodwill with the publishing house that publishes them, and also the author as well as their agent, and can help you get agent agented. Or, or signed. Another great thing to do is to get to know your local bookstore owners, and how you can get to know your local bookstore owners, you know, going in and buying books and striking up conversations with the people that work there, attending events that they hold there and, and letting them know that you write and a lot of book owners know a lot of writers and getting to know your the writers in your local area. Also on social media, joining a lot of different writing groups and going and joining different talks, and listening to the presenters, getting to know the presenters, getting to know the people who set up and organize the different events, so that you can, again, make those contacts, but also be in a position of being able to go into a bookstore, once your book is published, ask them to publish or ask to be put on the roster for one of their events. And the same with the events. So basically, it comes down to relationships. And that’s what hasn’t changed in the past 20 years. And what has changed is that the price point for building those relationships is can be zero, you don’t have to pay any money to get to know people now because of social media. And I think that’s amazing. You don’t have to pay money to do any research or you don’t have to travel to do anything, to do any of those types of things or seize any of those types of opportunities. And I think that’s a beautiful thing, because even your local bookstore has social media nowadays, right? So you can get to know Look your local bookstore by promoting their social media posts, and get to know them that way. So everything can be done in the virtual sphere now. And I love it because it makes it accessible makes it affordable. And it takes down all of those barriers, and I think it’s beautiful, and it also creates transparency. Something I’ve always found interesting is that there are best selling authors that have very, very small social media followings. And there are authors that the books aren’t doing as well that have huge social media followings. So having a social media platform is good for networking. It’s also good for promotion. But it doesn’t guarantee success. There is no one surefire way to guarantee best seller success. So looking at what is success beyond that can be helpful when you’re going into wanting to publish your book and when you’re thinking about writing your book, and gathering information through those relationships will help you understand what successes have helped you get published at the level you want to get published, or exited if that’s your goal, or self published smoothly. So yeah, relationships. I think I say that a lot on almost every episode that is down to relationships and publishing industry and I don’t think that’s ever going to change because we’re all people and at the human level, at our most basic level, we want to connect we want to be seen heard and validated. So making those personal connections will help you be seen heard and validated while you’re seeing hearing and validating others and always be behind always Be respectful and I think that you’ll be super successful as an author in terms of getting your book published and reaching all of your goals and remember that publishing is the long game. And I wish that I could say there was an instant and fast way to success if there was I’d absolutely share it with you and I would absolutely get it to, to all of our authors. Thank you to all of our beautiful setup I’m off to tune in every week. I really appreciate it and everyone needs the channel. Thank you so much.

K
If you’re watching us on YouTube, please be sure to give us a like and subscribe and if you’re watching on one of our other platforms, can you please head over to YouTube and give us a like and subscribe we that would really help the channel grow and I really appreciate it. So once again, thank you to all our beautiful cinnabar moths or any kind of moth you’d like to be. You can even be a butterfly but I’m not Mariah Carey and I’m not trying to bite her rhyme. Talk to you soon. Bye