Lingua Translations

I’ve been involved in publishing for over a decade now as an author, editor, and project manager; however, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I decided to move into self-publishing. Indeed, my first few projects involved consulting for others and, now, I am involved in my own, personal projects. It has taken a while for me to come back around to my own works, but in the process I learned how to minimize time and expenses in producing a book and getting it to market.

This short article will not try to explain every aspect of book publishing in detail, but it will brush on a few of the important topics. I have a few other book projects in the making that will detail the book self-publishing process; however, in the mean time, this should give you a good basis of understanding.

— The Idea —

The most difficult part of creating your manuscript is deciding on the topic. We all have ideas. It’s part of our being. Ideas pop in and out of our heads all day long; however, we usually dismiss many of them as useless or too simple to be of use. You would be surprised at how many people want “simple” and easy-to-understand information! Readers want books that teach, inform, and entertain.

Book publishing templates are cover templates that are generally used by self publishing companies. Most mainstream publishers tend to use different cover designs for every book that they publish, but that is not to say that they won”t have generalized templates for certain genres. Mysteries and romances are subjects that respond well to the template form as this makes it easier for genre aficionado to pick out the books they want to read from a shelf full of assorted titles. People don”t seem to be put off by the fact that some publishing houses do work with book publishing templates so long as their work is out in the public domain.

While templates used to be something that only regular publishers and self publishing companies worked with, there is now a plethora of websites offering downloadable book publishing templates. If you are self publishing then there are now websites aimed specifically at the self publisher; these sites provide a huge choice of cover designs and it is relatively easy to find something that suits your particular genre or niche – a major consideration when you are publishing something you hope will be popular.

Most book publishing templates are designed to work with manuscripts that have already been converted to PDF format, although it is possible to load your template and then send the whole thing to PDF. There is an increasing tendency for authors who may have had their manuscript rejected by mainstream publishing houses to go the self-publishing route.

Publishing is an extremely competitive business. There are three main ways to go about getting your manuscript published; through an agent, directly through a publishing company, or by taking the increasingly popular self-publishing option.

The best way to improve your chances of getting your book published by a traditional publisher is to find an agent who will ‘take you under their wing’ and add you to their list of clients. Publishing companies very rarely read or pay any attention to unsolicited manuscripts (i.e. a manuscript submitted by an author NOT by an agent). Therefore, you are in a much more likely to get your manuscript published if you have an agent.

Unfortunately, getting an agent to agree to take you on as a client is almost as hard as it is to get a publisher to read your work. Agents give your work approximately 20 seconds of time before making a decision to either pursue you or reject you.., and 90-99% get rejected. It is tough!

So getting an agent…

- There are hundreds of Literary Agents in the UK. You need to target those agencies that handle the kind of writing that you do. So, get a copy of the ‘Writers Market UK 2008’, or the ‘Writers and Artists Yearbook 2008’. These list literary agents, telling you what genre of writing each agency deals with.

- You can contact the Association of Author’s Agents (www.agentsassoc.co.uk) or the Society of Authors (www.societyofauthors.net) who should be able to point you in the right direction, and provide a list of suggested agencies that would suit your novel.