Just a few thoughts. First, as said before, new writers are picked up all the time. It just requires having written a book that's of publishable quality, and
that's what's hard. Once can do that, getting published becomes much easier and is mostly just a matter of time. Basically as Theo said, it's a common myth that authors can't get their work seen because they are unknown because that's easier to believe than that it might be a problem with the book. (For what it's worth, I was completely unknown when I signed with my agent).
As a general rule, if you're having a hard time getting people to look at your work, there are clues as to what the problem is.
First, if you're sending queries but not getting any requests, the problem is most likely the query itself. Writing a good query is HARD, and a skill that takes as much learning as writing a novel. There are a lot of resources to help you, such as the Query Shark blog, or the SYW area here on these boards. You can also read agent blogs and get an idea of what they like and dislike. You generally want to have at least a 1 in 10 request rate (and plan to send at least 100 queries) to, on average, get an agent.
Second, if you're getting plenty of requests, but none of the partials are turning into fulls, then it means that there is something not working in the opening. If you only get form rejections, it could be that the writing isn't quite there yet, or the story might come across as derivative or too similar to other works. If you're lucky enough to get direct comments about what's not working, then you can try to apply those to improve the work.
Third, if you're getting requests and partials and personalized responses, and they're turning into fulls, it's entirely possible that you just haven't sent enough queries yet.
For what it's worth, I found that, personally, I could tell when I was getting close. The comments I got even for queries were
much more personalized. I was having agents ask me to submit my next book if I didn't find an agent. I had a couple of requests with "I'm sure you've already found someone for this, but if you haven't..." and that sort of thing. Even the rejections I got were, for the most part, positive.
It was very different from my first query experience, and even then I'd gotten quite a few requests. The thing is, most people don't sell the first book they query.
Paul Stewart;7988429]What writers need to do is decide what their aim is. Mine was to make money, we were $75k in debt and needed to stop bailiffs moving in.
Honestly, writing is
not a good way to make money period. A lot of people seem to think it is because the assumption is if you're published you'll sell millions of books. I've gotten this sort of comment from a lot of people.
The fact is, the average agented sale of a first book is a $10,000 advance, and you may never see more than that for that book. Unless you've managed to write several books that are all released in the same year, or you manage to get lucky enough that your book is sold for significantly more, the chances of actually making $75k in a single year is very unlikely--at least not unless you have a backlist still making sales to work with.
I think even an agented writer shouldn't expect more than $10,000 for a sale. Of course it happens, but don't plan on it. If it does, you're awesome.
Second, it takes a
long time to see money from publishing. I spent months querying the first book, and many more months querying the next. I spent more months working with my agent on revisions, and then it spent almost a year on submission and didn't sell. I'm working on a new book to go out now, and we'll see how that one works.
Some books sell very quickly, granted, but you're still probably looking at months and months just to get a publishing contract. Advances are then usually divided into two or three pieces, one on signing, one on acceptance of the final manuscript, and another on release. It can take well over a year for the book to finally be released, meaning you won't be getting that full advance up front and it might be 12~18 months (or longer) before you see the full amount.
Very, very few authors make enough to quit their day jobs. If you're in debt and worried about bill collectors, you're much better off taking up a part-time job somewhere. You'll make more and you'll make it more quickly.
If it's to just be printed and on shelves that's easy, just expensive.
Actually, I'd say this is incredibly difficult and expensive. If you mean self-publishing a book and having it on shelves for sale, that's nearly impossible.
Unless you can afford offset-printing and to take returns and offer the expected discount to bookstores, they won't stock books. Even if you can, they may not if the book doesn't look like it's very good. And even then, you're talking about a couple of local bookstores, not bookstores around the nation.
Most self-published print books are sold by hand. They might be stocked in a couple of bookstores, but most will not sell more than 75~100 copies. In fact, it's probably the most difficult form of self-publishing there is.
If like me you need or want to make money, ask yourself honestly "What do I have to offer that's better than others?" Then work out how a plan how to make money, I didn't and it was sheer luck I got through. I was actually selling a publishing house a refurbishment and get to see the people I needed to.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by this. Who was the publisher?
As Theo points out writing a publishable book is hard, getting it seen by the right people, at the right time and them investing in it. Is the hardest. Because no one knows who a stranger is and that's what all the people submitting work are, strangers.
Well, yes, there is an element of luck to it as well. There's an element of timing, too. But if you have a great book you can find a good agent, and a good agent is able to put it in front of the right people. That's what they do. They personally know editors, what the editors are looking for, and can use those connections to put your work in front of the right people. And often an agent's reputation is enough to have the book considered.
Once published, it all changes because you're known and not a stranger. It's like getting your first job, they ask you where you worked before.
Ironically, it actually gets harder to be published a second or third or fourth time precisely
because you're a known entity. You have sales figures behind your name. Publishers and book buyers look at those figures when determining future print runs and how many books to buy.
That means that if a publisher prints 10,000 copies of your first book, but you only sell 7,000, they're more likely to order 7,000 of the next, and you might see your advance decrease accordingly. Similarly, if you sell too few copies, you might see a publisher become less willing to take you on at all because they don't believe that you'll sell enough copies to make it worthwhile.
Book buyers exacerbate the problem by ordering books in part based on sales of previous books, meaning if they buy fewer, then there are fewer on shelves for a customer to buy in the first place, meaning you are more likely to sell fewer copies and the cycle goes on until you can't get a book sold anymore under that name.
It's actually
easier to be published as an unknown element than it is to be published with books under your belt that haven't sold as well as people had hoped.
Self publishing removes that hurdle. There are bloggers today earning a very good living writing as a profession. Because people come back to read their work everyday. Ask yourself if you can you write something that good?
From what I've seen, most bloggers can't. I'd actually guess that the percentage of bloggers making a good living compared to the number of bloggers total is incredibly slim, much slimmer than the percentage of published writers making any kind of money.
That's just a guess, granted, but most blogs aren't followed by very many people because they aren't interesting enough or well-written enough.
If you can learn how to write a blog and get people to see it and you're on your way.
If you can say that you have 100,000 people reading your blog, then that might help sell a book. However, a lot of books based on blogs flopped, so I'm not sure if that's still a booming part of the industry.
Now, it can help with marketing, I'm not denying that, but if you had a choice between working your ass off to get 100,000 readers for a blog for the purpose of selling a book, or of working your ass off writing a really great book, I'd focus on the second.
I think blogging is fine as a hobby if you have fun with it, but if you're trying to get a book published, then writing a great book should be the number one focus and everything else is just gimmicks.
Having a popular blog won't do you any good if your book isn't up to snuff. Having a great book when only three people read your blog will still result in the book being published.
