Whenever I whip my Sony Reader out on the train I am asked whether I’m reading an ebook on Kindle. This makes me smile. It means that the digital revolution in publishing is finally making landfall here in South Africa. Enough people are starting to know what an ebook is and what it means for book lovers and authors the world over.
Plainly put, electronic publishing is transforming the industry. Anyone who can string two words together and has the wherewithal to create the right file formats can bring out a book for others to download and read on devices, whether it be a Kindle, PC or iPhone, among others.
But this brings me to an important point. Not everyone who is releasing a novel electronically should be published. Because it is so easy to publish the written word, a lot of people who have very little real knowledge of the industry are taking it upon themselves to put their stories out there when these clearly need a lot more work.
Some – vanity presses especially – even say that publishers are doing writers a disservice by rejecting their works, that all deserve to be heard. I disagree. Reputable publishers are there to act as filters. If your writing is rejected, there usually is a good reason why.
Working through a reputable publisher ensures that the quality of your writing conforms to a certain standard, which is so important nowadays.
Readers are faced with an overwhelming variety of choices. A publisher acts as a gatekeeper. If a reader likes a particular type of fiction, they need to know that they can trust a publisher who provides their genre fix, be it action-packed thrillers or zombie-flavoured ménage a trois.
So, you’re writing or have written a novel? Before you even dream of publishing (and having a title available online is no guaran-tee of bestseller status) you need to make sure your manuscript has been polished to within an inch of its existence.
You need constructive criticism. For this, I suggest you join a writers’ group. Your mother, uncle, brother or the auntie next door cannot give you the kind of critique you need to improve your writing. Unless the auntie next door happens to be a best-selling author.
For those who can afford to, you can approach an editor and pay them to fix your writing, but that is no guarantee the manuscript will sell. An editor can show you what you need to do to improve, but unless you apply what they tell you, it’s like that analogy of leading a horse to water.
Creative writing courses are great, if you can afford them, but for us mere mortals who can’t remortgage the house, the best you can do is find your friendly neighbourhood writers’ group.
Once your manuscript is ready – as in you’ve worked through it more than 10 times – you can decide which option you want. We’re lucky in South Africa. Authors can still query publishers directly without the help of a literary agent. Go check out our big players’ websites and see what their submission requirements are. No idea whom you want to submit to? Go to your nearest bookshop and make a list of local publishers who bring out the kinds of book that match yours.
Or you could look at publishing overseas. For most of these you need a literary agent. These you can find on websites such as www.publishersmarketplace.com which offers helpful fields to narrow down your options when you run your search.
My advice here: take time to read up on “how to query a literary agent”. No. Really. Go Google that exact phrase. Then learn to write query letters because if you’re serious about being published, you’re going to write a lot of those until you can write them backwards while sleeping.
If you’re still convinced of your innate brilliance after all the big bad agents and traditional publishers have said no (or just never replied, which is often the case), you can try the small presses. These marry the best of traditional publishing with electronic publish-ing and for many they offer a toe in the door. Curious? Go check out some of the big players: Siren Bookstrand, Ellora’s Cave, Loose-id, Samhain Publishing and Lyrical Press, among others. You’ll also notice something else: romance and erotica are big sellers here in the small press pond. You may want to consider this if you’re submitting.
If you absolutely must, self-publishing is one of the ways forward, but then you must be prepared to do a lot of research. Realise that your work has to compete with a lot of material that is produced by the established publishers. Not only must it look good, it must read well.
I’m going to be brutal when I say this: the vast majority of self-published books I’ve encountered have not been up to scratch. If you don’t already have extensive experience in the media industry, rather don’t do it.
Do yourself a favour and see www.absolutewrite.com/forums
l Nerine Dorman is a freelance content editor and published author. She blogs at http://nerinedorman.blogspot.com