In Which I am Mistaken for an Expert

I debated for some time on whether or not I should tell anyone I worked with in my day job that I had a book out. My first instincts were against it. I was hoping to avoid my pseudonym becoming connected to my real identity, and I was hoping that my books would sell without my having to beg my colleagues to buy them.

That didn't happen to quite the extent I would have liked, and so I eventually decided to advertise my book around the office and tout for sales.

I got one, the reader of whom later praised it, and I would have got another if the book hadn't been kindle only.

More recently (i.e this morning) I also received this email from a colleague in the business whose name I had heard but whom I had not, to my knowledge, had the pleasure of meeting:

I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping for some advice? My girlfriend is about to finish off her first book but neither of us have any idea of what the first step is in trying to get it published. Can you help?

I was rather taken aback, not to mention amused by the idea that someone might consider me an expert simply because I had published one book on Amazon. Nevertheless, I had no wish to appear rude by refusing to say anything, so I wrote him the best reply that I could. I repeat the reply here so that, if anyone should happen to read this and feels that I have been talking out of my arse, they will offer a correction in the comments that I may get back to this man and his girlfriend as swiftly as possible before they make a mistake based on bad advice.

Here is the reproduction of my reply:

The first question your girlfriend will need to ask herself is whether she wants to try for traditional publishing or go for self-publishing. Traditional publishing gets you exposure and your work into bookshops, but you can’t guarantee that it will ever get published as you are dependent on the gatekeepers liking your work. Self-publishing puts all of the onus on you, but on the other hand it also means that no one can stop you getting your work out in front of an audience.

Traditional Publishing:

I don’t know what genre your girlfriend is writing in, so I don’t know if there are publishers in that field still accepting unsolicited queries or submissions, you’ll need to trawl the web to find out. If there are then she can try them, but most publishers these days prefer to rely on agents to sort through the slush pile for them, so she might be better off looking for an agent who will accept unsolicited queries. Each agent and publishers will have their own guidelines on what to submit to them somewhere on their website.

If you can find an agent then they will shop your work around to publishers. If a publisher picks up the book then they will take care of the editing, cover etc. However if you submit a book shot through with typos to an agent or publisher it probably won’t get a thorough consideration, so once it is done your girlfriend might want to consider getting it copy-edited herself – there are people who will do this for a fee if she can afford it.

Self-Publishing:

Nowadays self-publishing on platforms like amazon or smashwords is quite simple, and the websites themselves make it quite easy to follow the correct process. There are still some scammers out there, but they are easy to spot because they’re the ones asking you to pay them to get your book published. No reputable publisher or self-publishing platform will ever do that.

That said, if you do go the self-publishing route then you will probably have to spend some money on one either cover or editing

Cover Art: when self-publishing, you have to supply your own cover. If you or your girlfriend have or know someone who has good photoshop skills you might be able to do this yourself/get them to do it for you. Otherwise you will probably have to pay someone to make you a cover (Amazon has a free cover creator function, but I didn’t think the range of images was all that great). I paid an artist to create my cover because I had an idea in my head but no art skills to create it.

Editing: Having spent money on the cover, I wasn’t willing to spend more getting it edited, so I got a friend to go through it for me and spot typos. Alternatively you can pay to have the manuscript copy edited, or even content edited if you really want.

I want to say that I’m far from an expert just because I’ve done it, and you can find out much more information from actual experts online. But this is hopefully a start for you.

In both emails I have omitted the usual courtesies at the beginning and end to preserve the anonymity of the person concerned.

So, what do you think? Did I get it right?