The Steps To Getting Your Book Published

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Plenty of people walk through Borders or Barnes & Noble and imagine seeing their name on the shelves. They want people to be able to go on Amazon and pick up a copy of their masterpiece. Maybe this book idea is for a non-fiction book that will conquer the bestseller charts, or for a novel that will knock people's socks off. Maybe their idea is for a self-help book that will help to change the world, or even for a cookbook that will light the culinary world on fire. For everyone who dreams of seeing their book in stores, the journey begins the same way: with an idea, and with a notebook and pen, typewriter, or computer. As these people write, they are alone, their world is quiet, and the journey is long. Once this portion of the journey ends, they are ready to celebrate! Furthermore, the writer wants everyone to read the book at last. So how do they make this happen? How do the manuscript pages become a book? How do the words make their way onto a bookshelf?

Well, the first thing you should know is that the solo portion of the journey is not finished at the end of the writing. Regardless of the kind of book you have written, you now must spend hours (and hours and hours) editing your work before you can show it to anyone. It's time to clean up any mistakes you made in spelling, grammar, or usage. Make sure everything makes sense. Check the pace - make sure it's not too slow and boring; make sure it's not too fast and confusing. Make sure people will actually enjoy reading it! It might be difficult to spend even more time flying solo, but enjoy it while you can. Once you complete this step, the door to world gets flung wide open!

Now, it is time to find a literary agent. Although this might seem simple enough, you have to understand that most agents receive anywhere from 100 to 200 letters every week. And they might take on two new clients in an entire year! And so, you must learn the art of writing a query letter. There are plenty of great websites to help you learn about query letter writing - in fact, many such websites are run by agents themselves.

Upon the successful completion of this step, it is time for you to move on to the most difficult step of all: waiting. Lots and lots of waiting!

It's not easy to get your book into bookstores; in fact, writing the actual book might be the easiest part. But if you can have patience and persevere all the way to the finish line, you will achieve something great, something that you can be proud of the rest of your life.