Big or Small or Any at All

Both in my position as erstwhile professor and in my true vocation as a writer, I have come to realize that understanding the publishing world is essential to becoming a published writer. Those of us write because we “can do no other,” but if we want to be read we have to play the game.

There are hundreds of publishers out there. The internet has led to a proliferation of presses, mostly small and of limited distribution. They can easily get your book on Amazon, but with millions of books already there, getting it noticed is difficult.

Once upon a time there were a couple dozen major publishers. They have been bought out by one another until now there are only the “Big Five,” until recently the “Big Six”: Random House (which recently acquired Penguin, one of the six), Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon and Schuster. You cannot get published by any of the big five without an agent.

Smaller, independent publishing houses (Indies) will often look at material without an agent’s intervention, but they are swamped with submissions and often, at least in my experience, they will neither acknowledge receipt of your materials nor will they bother to send you a letter rejecting it.

It used to be that “simultaneous submission” was a mark of bad taste: you should send your book to one company only and politely wait for their rejection, then start all over again. Now, however, such a process is a sure way to lead to disaster. You can submit to multiple places simultaneously. Just be sure to inform the others once your book has been accepted somewhere.

And, of course, self-publishing represents an option. Famous writers, like Mark Twain, sometimes had to pay to be published. Self-publishing today is easy, but success at it is hard. You need to be prepared to promote your book because nobody else will do it for you.

Amazon has easy self-publishing templates. The down-side of this is that many, many people now publish books that should never have seen the light of the web. There is nothing to stop you from publishing good or dreadful work.

Most of us find getting published at all a challenge. Great success stories have come from those who’ve persisted, however. If you’ve got something to say, and a bit of talent, you might even eventually reach one of the big five. Until then, keep on writing.

Comments

Dusty

My, this thing is dusty. My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic. No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third. With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give. Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out. I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again. I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut? My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago. Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction. Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up. I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best. When you’ve been writing for half a century, you l

Neglectful Parents

If I was a parent I’d be accused of neglect. I have to say 2017 was the least published year of recent memory. Not that I’ve been neglecting my fiction, but I had a non-fiction book accepted and I work full-time and commute to that job—you get the picture. I’ve also had a personal epiphany. If you can write, you should get paid for it. I know a publicist (not my own; I don’t have one) and she says she won’t let her authors even write an op-ed if they don’t get paid. I guess I’d never get published then. My Medusa novel had a flicker of hope for a few moments. A publisher actually wrote back asking for the rest of the manuscript. That’s never happened before. Then the editor disappeared. Even called me by the wrong pseudonym. I’ve gotta wonder about that because the second half of the novel’s even better than the first. While looking for an agent for my non-fiction (couldn’t find one of those either) I came across several who said they liked quirky ficti

Too Much Writing?

Has this ever happened to you? Have you written a story that you’ve completely forgot? Not only completely forgotten, but made unfindable? I play games with my stories and sometimes the joke’s on me. Okay, I suffer from graphomania. I write constantly. I do try to keep organized—I use a spreadsheet that has all my submissions on it. It has rejection/acceptance dates (mostly rejection). Lots of information. I decided to list on it every story, whether finished or in process. There are far too many (mostly in process). When I finish a story I often submit it. If I get burned, I’m shy about resubmitting. I often rewrite at this stage. Then, when I feel brave enough, I try again. The spreadsheet is color-coded. There, in the color that indicates finished and ready to submit is a story cryptically titled “The Password.” I don’t remember this story. I can’t recall what it was about or why I thought it was ready to publish. Looking through my electronic files,

K. Marvin Bruce

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