Shawn L. Bird

I’m getting asked a lot about how to be published these days.  I’m not exactly an expert in this field, because I’m still in the process of having my first novel published.  However, I’ve been researching and I know the steps so I’m happy to share with you.  I can talk about resources for putting together queries, finding agents or publishers, etc.  It’s fairly straight-forward stuff, available all over the internet. (Check out www.writersdigest.com for a start).

None of that information is valuable if no one wants to read what you’re writing, though.  Publishing is a business. Your work has to be timely and marketable.   So let’s look at the basics.

1. story

What are you writing about?  Is it worth reading?  Is it interesting? Is it funny? Is there a proper story arc (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement)  Do you lead the reader through with tension?  Do they want to keep reading?

 Is the topic current?  If the topic has been exhausted already (i.e. I wouldn’t want to try to market a vampire manuscript at the moment!) or if it is  dated, you need to find a modern, interesting angle to your work.  Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was a classic with universal themes, but not many modern readers were on the edge of their seat flipping its pages.  Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice with Zombies, however, put an new spin on the classic and brought readers flocking to it.

2.  pace

Have you edited your work to ensure that it grabs the reader and doesn’t let go?  Have you cut and cut and cut so that the reduncies have been removed?   Have you started us in the middle of the action so we’re instantly captivated by the characters and conflict?

3. format

Do you actually know the conventions?  Do you know how to spell correctly? How to format your dialogue correctly?  How to punctuate?  How to craft sentences?  How to paragraph?

Go look at the books in the library.  Study those of your genre.  If you manuscript doesn’t look like those published works, it is less likely to be accepted by an agent, editor or publisher.

.

These are the main pointers I’ve learned at the many workshops and in the many writing books I’ve stumbled across in the last couple of years.   The lack of these things appears to be the bane of the agents, editors and publishers.  They repeat the same things constantly, so obviously the writers aren’t listening.  You want to make it as easy as possible for them.  Give them a great idea, great writing, and a great format.  Show them you’re going to make it easy to work with you. 

Write well little writers!