Want to get published? On paper, your chances are almost nothing.
According to the International Publishers Association, traditional U.S. publishers released 338,986 new titles in 2015. The number of manuscripts submitted by hopeful authors is many times more. In fact, the number of new titles cited by the IPA is arrived at only after publishers, by their own admission, cull around 98 percent of the manuscripts submitted to them.
That means, dear readers, that you have a 2 percent chance of becoming one of those 338,986 newly minted authors. On paper, you’re competing against around a hypothetical (but likely accurate) 16 million other submitting writers across the entire publishing market.
But paper is for writing, not living upon. I’m going to tell you why these figures are misleading.
Let’s take a closer look at your authorial competition. Of those 16 million writers submitting manuscripts, a large percentage will make a fatal mistake at some stage of the writing and publication process. And with each mistake, more and more of these writers are eliminated.
Keeping in mind that these numbers are more for illustration than hard science, we’re going to examine some of the most common mistakes that knock would-be authors out of the running, so you can bypass the pack and become a part of that prestigious—and attainable—2 percent.
*Disclosure: some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links, meaning that I earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. However, I only link books and films that I absolutely recommend, and would have linked anyway for the enrichment of my readers. All opinions are my own.
Your Premise is Undeveloped
Screenwriting teacher John Truby, in what might just be the greatest book on writing of all time, “Anatomy of Story,” claims that 80 percent of novels fail at the premise. This means that 80 percent of your competition is destroyed before they even write their first chapter. You’re not going to be one of them.
Your premise succinctly tells you what your story is about. It is, as Truby says, “your story stated in one sentence.” If you can’t write that one sentence, you don’t yet know your story well enough. It’s that simple.
Within that one sentence, a well-developed premise gives an instant sense of what event kicks off your story, who it is about, and where your story is going. This gives you the most important thing you could possibly have before you begin writing: direction. Without a strong, clear premise, you’ll be wandering in the literary desert for years.
A great premise takes time and experimentation. It must be utterly unique—novelty sells. You must choose the right genre in which to place your story, or it won’t find a market. And most difficult of all, your premise should be capable of becoming the root of a story you can continue on for hundreds of pages.
Develop your premise, and you instantly take your number of competitors from 16 million to a little over 3,200,000. And we’re only at the first step.
You Haven’t Taken the Time to Learn How to Write
This may seem obvious, but if you want to write, you must take the time to write. You’re going to be competing against not only other first-time authors, but a slew of published pros—you’re going to have to be capable of writing at their level.
There’s a secret to learning how to write well, and I’m going to give it to you right now: tamp down that ego and stay teachable. And then get reading.
That’s it. That’s the big secret. There are many paths to learning how to write, but they’re all locked behind this one gate. Keep it open.
If you want to become a better writer, start with reading. Read widely—even in genres you don’t normally enjoy. Make notes on what works and what doesn’t, about what makes you feel and what bores you.
Attend conferences and listen to published authors as they dole out tips. Read renowned books on storytelling, most notably John Truby’s “Anatomy of Story,” Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” K.M. Weiland’s “Structuring Your Novel,” and Stephen King’s “On Writing.” If the avenue is open to you, audit a few creative writing courses at your local university, or take them as electives if you’re already attending as a student*.
No matter what your income or situation, you can learn how to write. And if you remain teachable as you do so, seeking out critical feedback in order to sharpen your skills, you’ll eliminate another large percentage of your competition. Let’s put that number at about 50 percent—in my experience, about half of submitters never bother learning how to string a sentence together.
So we’re at 1,600,000 competitors now. Not so shabby. But let’s keep going.
You Don’t Know Your Market
I’m going to tell you something you may find difficult to hear. Writing is not just an art. It’s a business. And the next few career-derailing mistakes in this list reflect that.
At some point in the writing process—preferably early on—you’re going to have to step back from the creative flow and perform a market study.
This simply means that you’re going to find a list of bestselling books that are similar to your own, and you’re going to write out how your own work is similar enough to sell just as well, yet different enough to build on what came before rather than simply existing alongside it.
Furthermore, you’re going to find out who buys these books, because these people will be your target audience. This means that you’re going to have to know your genre intimately. Are you writing YA? Horror? Epic fantasy? Literary fiction? Each has its own audience that you must get to know before you even think of sending off a query letter.
This is particularly important for nonfiction, because agents and editors will expect a market study as a part of your book proposal. But even in fiction, showing that you know who your readers are instills confidence in an editor that you know the business. That counts for a lot.
In fact, if my experience as an online magazine editor is indicative, it might just get you ahead of another 50 percent of your competition. We’re down to 800,000.
You Didn’t Follow Submission Guidelines
This mistake is a sneaky one that eliminates a surprisingly huge number of submissions. Publishing houses and literary agents usually have a strict set of guidelines that can include manuscript length, font, margins, and more. Some publishers take only email submissions, while others take only mailed stacks of paper. Some want full manuscripts, while others want partials. Some accept unsolicited submissions, and others do not.
The point is this: whether you’re submitting to an agent or an editor, you must read the submission guidelines carefully. Read every word. If they’re looking for a specific genre, you must adhere to this. If they want a certain number of pages, take heed. One mistake here can instantly earn your manuscript a trip to the bin, along with about 25 percent of your competition.
We’re down to 600,000.
You Didn’t Bother Building a Platform
Finally, one of the brutal blades that cuts down writers along the path to publication is a rather new one. The lack of a platform can be lethal in our age of social media and easily-created websites.
They key here is visibility. If a writer already has several thousand followers on social media hanging on their every word, that is much easier to translate into sales, and because money is what’s going to be on your publisher’s mind, this is paramount.
You don’t need millions of adoring fans to have a platform. You just need some way of being heard, and a few people to hear you. Get on WordPress and design a simple website—this is vital. You can use a template to easily create one.
Now, start writing great content for your site that will attract the same audience as your book (assuming you did your market study). Be patient, and consistently create content that gives your readers something useful to chew on.
After this, jump on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram and start linking to that content. People will notice. They’ll read, and maybe even sign up for your newsletter. Before long—poof—you’ve got enough of a platform to show that you know how to promote yourself in the contemporary world.
This is a tough one for a lot of authors, and so let’s say that another 50 percent of your competition doesn’t make it because their platform simply isn’t there. We’re now sitting at 300,000 other writers.
You’ve Got a Chance
If you follow the above steps, you’re not competing against untold millions. You never were. The commonly-cited 2 percent of authors who get published isn’t quite so difficult to join as you may have thought.
And when you take things down to the microcosm of specific genres and individual publishing houses and agents—because you’ll never be competing against the entire market, as a whole—that 300,000 turns to 3. Just 3 other manuscripts sitting beside yours on the editor’s table instead of hundreds. Imagine that.
Never let anyone scare you away from writing by showing you what the publishing industry looks like on paper. You’ve got a much better chance than you think, and if you pay attention, you might just find yourself looking at your name sitting on a bookstore’s bestseller shelf.
Now, get writing. After all, your chance is zero if you never start.
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