I would love to write a fiction novel!

[WeirdEyes]

Has anybody out there written a novel and gotten it published? I've been wanting to write a book for YEARS, but flip-flop on the who, what, when, where, and how. Anybody have any tips? TIA!

 

[onecoolmama]

No, but you should do it!!! Go for it!!

 

[alabamaalan]

AUM offers creative writing classes in Community Education a few times a year, including how to get published.

 

[WeirdEyes]

Thanks for the info, Alan. I was going to check into something of that sort. I also found out that one of my favorite novelist is willing to assist new writers. I'm going to e-mail her and see what she says. However, as busy as she is, it might take a while. Right now she is on a book tour. She writes historical fiction, mysteries, and reference books...she used to be a Marine Biologist....brilliant lady!

 

[Serena]

I would write your novel and worry about being published later. The classes on creative writing may help too.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

www.literarymarketplace.com

That's a good place to start when you do try to get published. Most big publishers will not accept manuscripts from writers who do not have an agent. (I work in the publishing industry for one of the "big guys" and we get a lot of calls and letters from people wanting to be published and I always direct them to that site.)

You can also look into self publishing. I believe Barnes and Noble has a self publishing thing where you pay to have your book bound and are assigned an ISB number and everything for it.

What types of novels are you writing?

I write childrens stories. I have not submitted any for publishing as of yet though. I'm sort of teh same way, I keep changing things and I don't feel I have completely finished it yet.

Keep writing. And when you finish it, try to get it published. The world can never have enough writers and good books as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ScarlettO]

My sister wrote AND did the illustrations for a children's book and sent to 2 publishers and never heard anything. My Mom is friendly with a local author of children's books and let her see it , but she really didn't offer any advice.

Nowadays it seems that lots of "over the hill" movie stars and musicians are writing children's books. I guess you have to have a recognizable name to get someone interested.


If you have a local Author willing to help, you need to actually have a manuscript written, not just the desire to write one.

 

[EsmeraldaX]

It is actually easier to get a childrens book published with a seperate author illustrator. I don't know 100% why but that is what we've always been told at work.

I think it is because the publishers like to be able to match up author /illustrator themselves. Sometimes the author / illustrator will be the same but it is more common to find seperate ones. Also, if the publisher really likes the drawings but hates the story or vice versa they have a harder time convincing an author to stick with them and let them pick the author/writer.

Usually an author who is also the illustrator will be first and foremost an illustrator and fairly well known.

Celebrities do have an advantage of name recognition, but often they will not be the writer & illustrator. They'll be one or the other.

As for the reasons why most big publishers require an agent submit the manuscript for you, the reason is simply overload. My company used to accept "unsolicited" manuscripts but they would get in seriously hundreds a day and most of them were really bad.

I'm not trying to belittle the work these people did, but trust me, they were really bad. It would take the editorial assistants who screen all of the manuscripts before passing them along days to get through one days worth of manuscripts. They just could not do it and since the best ones tended to come from people who had agents we changed to only accepting manuscripts submitted through agents. GOOD Agents will usually only accept you as a client if they really think you can get published.

Don't be disheartened if you are turned down 100 times before someone offers to publish you.

Regardless of genre, publishers only put out about 20-30 new books each season. Usually it is even less than that. If you've written a great crime novel about a woman detective who solves cases in a rural area it would not matter if it was the greatest novel of all time if the publisher had already filled it's crime novels slot for that season.

The same with childrens authors. There has to be a niche to fill. We get over 100 AWESOME ABC / COUNTING books for kids a season here. These books are all great and very worthy of publishing, but we can only publish so many ABC/COUNTING books per year.

A lot of people get frustrated when they are turned down, and some stop trying altogether figuring their books just are not good. But the truth is, just because you don't get published by a company does not mean they don't LIKE what you've written. They may just have no need for anything in that genre or style right now.