Most people would agree that you have not become an author until you have sold at least one piece of writing. However having built up the motivation and dedication to complete your first novel you may then be phased by the task of getting it published.
Publishing your new book is actually extremely easy. There are numerous ways ranging from completely free to costing a fortune.
Of course you have to decide whether your aim is simply to publish or to make an income. Are you looking to have your work in print on your bookshelf and as a gift to your friends and family? Or are you trying for a best seller on the bookshelves of millions?
The only type of publishing that is most commonly advised against is that called 'vanity publishing'. These companies are basically only there to take advantage of a desire to get published with no serious service to do anything but provide you with copies of your own book at a high price.
Even if this is your only aim there are much better ways to design and print your book.
Classic Method
The classic method is to send your manuscript to the big name publishers. They will review your work and give you an honest opinion of its quality and whether they want to put their weight behind marketing it. However, these organisations will usually only accept your work if it comes through a literary agent. I imagine they do not have the time to sift through thousands of badly written scripts to find the ones to consider seriously. An agent will filter the submissions down to those that they feel will have a chance of being accepted.
Smaller publishers
There are hundreds of smaller publishers who you can send your work to directly. They will not only review your work but also take it through the complete stages of the creation of the book and cover and printing of the first copies. They will then help you market the book by providing it to well known online book stores. Some will then provide it to real street book shops but this is where they usually begin to provide a very different level of service.
Printing books is an expensive thing to do and so there are few publishers who will do this in the hope of sales. The big publishers will only have accepted the very best work and so are gambling on their skill of selection. The small ones usually do not have the resources to do this and only provide hardback or paperbacks when they are ordered from the bookstore. This service is called 'Print on Demand'.
Self Publishing
A much more common way of publishing your book is to do it yourself. This might sound an impossible task but is a lot easier than you may think - and is a lot of fun.
Having created your novel (or any other type of book) you can upload it to some excellent online services where you can create a book for free in any format using some very simple tools. You then have a choice of either just making it available to your friends and family or using the many services (not many of these are free) to publish the book into the online book stores and possibly street book shops too.
The new eBook revolution
However you decide to publish your book there is now only one format which you cannot ignore - that of the eBook. Every online bookstore is reporting a fast growing market for books in a format that can be read on hand-held computers like the Kindle or simply on laptops.
With the sale of your first book you can then say that you have become an author.
About this Author
David Corby
For more help in writing your first novel, creating a book or eBook and getting it published, come to my blog at:
http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-become-an-author
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