Getting Published

My first attempts at getting published were reasonably successful. I targetted some religious publications and produced several articles which were accepted and paid for. I tried to follow the advice which seems to be given in all books about writing for profit - choose the people and places that you will approach with ideas and written materials very carefully. Do not waste time by writing to publishers who have nothing to do with the subject area that you want to be writing about. I have continued to write for a variety of magazines and journals, and it is certainly the case that if you can gain a reputation for producing readable material to a deadline then your ideas and suggestions for other articles are likely to be taken seriously.

I have also sent off a few draft chapters and ideas for full length books. Some of these have been turned down, but my last effort received a warm-ish reply and the suggestion that I go ahead and write the book. At the time it was impossible for me to do so to the very tight deadline they proposed. But they did chase me up the following year and ask if I was still interested. This certainly gave me the confidence to believe that my sample writing was of a professional standard, and that my ideas, and the manner in which I presented them, were at least worth a traditional publisher taking some time to consider.

But in the end I have not chosen to take the traditional route to seeing a full length book published. I have chosen to self publish.

I begin the self publishing journey

This is hopefully going to be an ongoing description of my journey from unpublished author to self published author. I am not a failure. The reason I am choosing the self-publishing route is because I want to retain control of the publishing process and of my own manuscript. I have already had some articles published, and I had a publisher take an interest in a sample chapter of a non-fiction book I sent to be considered.

Getting published is not always easy. But it is getting easier.

But I want this project to be special to me. I want to be able to choose the font, the layout and spacing, to edit the text, to add some pictures perhaps.

I have chosen to self publish with Getting Yourself Published, a local publishing partner. I'll describe here in due course how I am getting on.