The Process of Publishing

     For a moment, lets imagine that you've found yourself an agent who loves your draft, and now it's time to send your manuscript to publishing houses. Grab your tissues and popcorn, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

    The best part about an agent is that they will do the advertising part for you, but at the same time it's also the scary part. It's their job to pitch your book in a way that will make a publishing company want to pick it up. If they're not very good at their job, then you're screwed, but if they are good, it'll still be an emotional roller coasters. Not everybody is going to love your manuscript as much as you and your agent do. There will be countless rejections before someone finally says yes. 

    Now that a publishing company has decided to take a chance on you, you will be working endlessly to be polishing that story to perfection. The manuscript will go through editors and proofreaders who will tear it apart, but that's not a bad thing. If they're working so hard to nitpick through ever line, that means they believe that the story has potential, so make sure you put all your effort into it.

    After they've perfected the manuscript, it's time to choose a name. It doesn't really matter if you've already got a name you love, there's a chance they're gonna hate it and throw it out the window. Their job, when it comes to naming your story, is to attract readers. They want something that makes sense for the genre and catches peoples attention. I'm not trying to tell you to not name your books-- whatever name you come up with could be absolutely perfect, I'm just saying don't get too attached to the name. 

    Now that the names been chosen, it's time to design a cover. You might not be quite as involved in this decision, unless you so happen to be an artist as well as a writer. Either way, they will have their best people working on this until finally they have something that fits.

    Lastly, they move onto advertising. This is another portion of the process where you'll be more involved, as they might send you on book signing tours. But ultimately, it is their job to get your book into stores, and convincing others to advertise or review your story. 

    Now lets pretend you don't have an agent. It is up to you to try and advertise your book to publishing companies, and more often than not, you will find yourself out of luck. This is when you might want to turn to self publishing. There are many websites and companies that will help you with this, Amazon being one of the biggest. But the hardest part about self publishing is that the previously talked about steps, which are usually done by a team of people, are now up to you. 

    Editing, proofreading, and polishing your story are all up to you, and it's easier said than done. There are more likely to be spelling mistakes, since you only have one said of eyes instead of a team of eyes going through it. The cover design is up to you, and if you don't have any artistic or photoshopping abilities, this could be difficult. The advertising is up to you, and if you don't already have a social media following, it'll be very hard to spread awareness. But that doesn't mean it's not possible.

    When I was merely 16 years old, I had a dream of publishing a book. I put in the work, and in October of 2021, I self published my novel, Murder On Stark Street, on Amazon. Three years later, I'm working hard on other projects, but I will admit it's hard to find time for it all when I'm also balancing schoolwork, a part-time job, and volunteering as a firefighter. But I'm proud to say that since starting this blog, I've made more progress on one of my stories than I have in the past three years. I'm proud of myself for working so hard, and I plan to keep working this hard. Hopefully in the near future, you will see my name on the best-sellers list, and my books will be on bookshelves once more.