Get Published, Part 1 – The Second Most Important Thing You Need to Know

 How do I get published? 

This is the most frequently asked question any of us who put ourselves in a position where we claim to know must face.  More than how do you write a good story?, and only slightly ahead of how do I get an agent?

Reminds me of that old Steve Martin joke: how do I avoid paying taxes on a million dollars?  Okay, well first, you go out and earn a million dollars… 

The entire cart and horse thing is largely out of synch in the world of aspiring writers.

Truth be told… none of us really do know. 

William Goldman, the great Ocsar-winning screenwriter who was also a pretty darn good novelist, said of this business – nobody knows anything. 

Because it all keeps changing.  Because it’s art.  Because it’s driven by the whims of a fickle, sometimes clueless audience.  And mostly, because decisions are made by human beings, who by definition are flawed, and who are simply guessing.

Proof: Harry Potter was rejected twelve times.  By human beings posing as editors who thought they knew.

Other than telling you to write a really solid, wonderful and totally irresistible story – no genius there, that’s an eternal truth, though sometimes you see a story that falls short that does find a publisher, but that’s a different deal, one I will discuss later in this series – the rest is a moving target composed of smoke and mirrors and trends and guesswork and pure blind-ass luck.

The best answer I’ve come up with to the question of how to get published?

Somehow.

And so I have spent the last six months here on Storyfix.com trying to address the horse first, the thing that will lead you toward a publishing deal, the one thing that is certain and eternal.  And that’s the craft of writing a killer story that meets all of the standards and criteria publishers and movie producers are looking for.

So let’s start there.

Let’s assume you know what those standards and criteria are, and/or that you haven’t rejected them in the name of art… or misunderstood them in the name of ignorance… or more likely, simply failed to execute them well enough. 

Those are huge assumptions, ones that are the explanation behind nearly all of the rejection slips ever issued.  Because no matter what they say – it’s not right for us at this time… too close to something we’ve just done… doesn’t meet our needs… whatever – it all means the same thing: they didn’t like it well enough to buy it.  Period. 

And then, let’s assume you’ve actually written that killer story.  And that, by your best estimation and perhaps the opinions of others, it’s ready.

Don’t’ break out the champagne quite yet.

Because in that case, well, welcome to the jungle.  This, and the next nine posts in this series, will tell you how to survive, perhaps even to thrive within that dark and stormy place that is the publishing industry.

Or not.  Because the jungle is always changing, and there are always new and heretofore undiscovered ways to consume those who venture into its shadowy landscape unprepared, unaware, or even those armed with the best story ever written.

Chances are that will get rejected a bunch of times, too.

Whoever first said that life isn’t always fair was a writer.  Had to be.

So what’s the second most important thing after your story?  Answer: your mindset.

If you are hoping to be published, if you have declared that intention to yourself and to others, then you sit on a precipice.  Once you leap, or if someone pushes you (that’s what happens when we make that particular declaration to others), there is no turning back.  Gravity has you, and you will fall according to its physics and the prevailing winds of the day.

You can’t jump off half-way off a cliff.  Just as you probably won’t publish your novel or sell your screenplay without a complete and uncompromising commitment to the task.  The real question then becomes – do you know what it will take?  Are you willing to go that far, do what it takes?

There are two things you need to know at this point, about two ways to get published: your way, or their way.  They, in this case, being the agents and editors who define the industry.

The only way to get published your way is to publish yourself.  That’s a real and viable strategy, but it’s not the road to either fame, money or a writing career.  It’s an exercise in self-satisfaction, a worthy one at that, I’m not knocking it. 

But don’t kid yourself, you haven’t been published if you publish yourself.  Non-fiction writers can publish themselves successfully, but fiction writers, not so much. 

The traditional way, their way, is to have a publisher, large or small – large is better, but a much harder fish to land – who will offer you a contract to publish your book.  At their expense.  Which means, they do everything, from design to printing to distribution to marketing to accounting for the money.  Which, if there is any, they will send you a small percentage of.

The latter, of course, is what we aspire to, and therefore what this series is about.

I offer this as a starting point in this series because I talk to writers all the time, good ones, who unwittingly stand in their own way.  That become the very obstacle that will block their path toward publication, because they refuse to play the game.

They refuse to accept that novels and screenplays need to unfold in a certain manner, in a certain contextual order, and that if they don’t they won’t sell.

They refuse to accept that, in the name of art, they can’t sit down and write their story any damn way they please.  That there are no rules.  Those won’t sell, either.  Because there are rules.

They refuse to write to the standards required to get an agent’s or an editor’s attention.  They believe that simply being as good as the bestselling authors they like to read will do the trick – it won’t.  They have to be better, fresher, more compelling, more commercial. 

Publishers aren’t looking for the next bookshelf filler, the next also-ran.  They’re looking for the next home run.  And that’s what you must set out to write, and then deliver to them.

The bar is higher than you think it is. 

To publish, you have to make them fall in love. 

With your story, and to some extent, with you.

The truth about how to do that is out there.  In fact, it’s coming your way in the next nine posts in this series.  I’ll show you those standards, that high bar.  I’ll show you what to avoid.  I’ll ask you to recognize that thing within you that may be holding you back.  I’ll give you something to shoot for, and at.

And speaking of shooting, I’ll also shoot straight about the odds, the competition and those winds of change over which you have no control at all.  You must be willing to enter this arena with a full awareness of what awaits, and be willing to accept that your destiny is not completely in your own hands, only somewhat in your hands.

It requires luck, too.  But we all know we can make our own luck to some degree.

There is one thing we can completely control, in a process riddled with things we cannot – and that’s our manuscripts.  Our stories. 

Once they leave our hands, we are helpless.  How many times they leave our hands, and in what manner, is completely of our own making.  Which means that not only does the publishing proposition depend on the quality of our work, it also depends on the quality – and quantity — of our effort, as well.

In that vein, I’ll not only show you what the work needs to look like, I’ll also show you how to work smart, as well as hard, in getting it sold.

And by the way, I sold a book today.  True story.  More on that at the end of this series.

bookmark it digg it facebook it stumble it tweet it