You’re here because you want to learn how to get published. What small steps can you take first, before you send your work out into the world? There are all sorts of writing books out there and online articles about becoming a writer, I’ve written some myself, but what do you actually need to do first? Before I tell you how to get published, I’m going to give you some of the basics of living the writing life. Set these up and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a writer – that is making writing a regular part of your life – rather than simply talking about doing it one day or taking the notoriously unreliable ‘doing it when inspiration hits’ route. AND you’ll be well on your way to becoming a published writer too.
Have a look at your schedule and decide when you can fit in some writing time. Consider where you’re going to write and whether you need complete silence or you prefer to be around other people. This doesn’t have to be every day but try to make it regular if you can, simply because that means you’re more likely to turn up and do it. Consider what gets called your ‘big rocks’: holidays, events, birthdays, big work projects, and work around them. Take the kettle test if this is difficult.
I suggest that you mark your writing sessions in your diary or on a calendar or write them up somewhere you can see and treat them like a job that you have to turn up for. Then celebrate by being nice to yourself afterwards. This sets up a positive reward value in your brain. I’ve written a short book about how to find time to write. Find out more here.
You can write on a tray in bed, at the kitchen table, at a dedicated desk, at the library, in a rented office space, in a café, on trains, or outside on a park bench. (Which would you prefer?) Your writing space can be dedicated to writing, and permanent, or portable and temporary.
As with being nice to yourself, this sets up a positive reward value in your brain.
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about creating ‘cues’ that will make habits easier to establish. That might be the cup of coffee you drink before or during your writing session, or the reminder you set on your phone.
Establishing a writing habit is important because (like exercise) the more you do it, the easier it gets to turn up. Write one page a day for a year or two pages every other day (or about 1,600 words a day for a month for NaNoWriMo fans) and you’ll have a book written, daydream about how ‘one day’ you’ll write a book and you won’t.
Actually you only need a notebook and a pen to get started but for the medium term, think about whether you prefer to write on a desktop computer, on a tablet, on a laptop or in a notebook, for example. You could also use a hybrid approach, working on a computer and taking notes long hand as you go.
Note the word ‘preferred’! Doing what you prefer is important because you’ll be more likely to do it! Your preferred venue will also dictate how you write to a certain extent. If you want to take your writing out and about and sit outside to do it, a notebook may be easier. When I wrote my short story collection on location, I wrote in a notebook and typed the stories up onto my computer later.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need an idea in order to start writing. But it will make it easier to turn up and write in your dedicated writing space if you have some exercises or writing prompts to start you off. Here are some places to find ideas:
So there you have it, the basics you need to get started as a writer:
I’ve got two more to add, and they’re to do with the writing community.
This is a term coined by the former editor of literary journal Tin House, and discussed at the beginning The Business of Being a Writer by writer and editor Jane Friedman. It means celebrating and promoting the work of your fellow writers and supporting them. In turn, they support you. This might mean:
I’ve included books and organisations that have helped me or my students in this post, for instance, without affilate links, and that’s a small / free way for me to say thank you.
Develop a support network of fellow writers informally (at university or on social media for instance) and more formally, by joining a local writing group, or an organisation for writers. Try your library. You could also try your local writing organisation like New Writing South down here in the South of England or an online one like TLC’s Being a Writer or Jericho Writers. Writing retreats – like those offered by Arvon, festivals and other events are another way to receive support and to meet like-minded people.
So now you know the basics of being a regular rather than an ad hoc writer, how do you get published? We can break that down into two categories:
I’ve used the plural because a career as a published writer is always about publishing more than one thing.
We can also use a different two categories:
Or another two:
Or another two:
These pairings create binary paradigms – ideas about publishing that form in our heads made up of two options. For example, a writer might think: I’ll either self-publish or I’ll traditionally publish or I’ll publish to kindle but I won’t do print copies or I want a big five publisher and not a small press. All examples of binary paradigms in operation. Let’s think about things a little differently.
Here are the various routes to publication. They overlap with one another:
The traditional route means going through a publisher. That is, not self-publishing. Excuse the double negative, but not self-publishing is not actually ‘traditional’. A Christmas Carol was self-published in December 1843 to catch the Christmas market, for instance, and yet we tend to think of Charles Dickens as ‘traditional’ in more ways than one. But this route gets called traditional. Enough said. We can think of the traditional route as:
YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY. If a publisher is charging, they are not a traditional publisher. If you’ve going traditional in the UK the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook is your friend! In my book How to Write a Novel and Get It Published I go into more detail about routes to publication and you can discover more about the traditional route by downloading the free sample at the bottom of this post.
Self-publishing means doing it yourself or at least project managing the process yourself. You can take the DIY approach and try to do almost everything for free. At the other extreme, you can take the ‘done for you approach’ and pay thousands. Consider return on investment before parting with any cash! I suggest that your first step should be to seek help from Alli, the Alliance of Independent Authors as they have a directory of information you can use – to avoid the dodgy dealers out there – and a guide to doing it for almost free. Weigh up your options carefully before taking this route. Self-publishing is like setting up a small business if you intend to get an ROI – and always takes time and money. The other routes can learn from this one. The freelance business skills needed are also applicable to the other ways of getting published.
Taking the small press route is very similar to the traditional route. You are less likely to need an agent and the advantage is that you may find a route to publication for material that wouldn’t be taken on by an established or large press. Small presses often have submission widows, so make a note of when they fall. I suggest looking at the Mslexia Guide to Independent Presses and the Guillemot Guide to Very Small Press Publishing. You might also like to go along to the Small Press Fair at Conway Hall in London or look into the Northern Fiction Alliance.
The Mslexia guide in particular will give you a wealth of information on who publishes what. Try to get published by any journal the press also runs (they don’t always but often do) because that will get you on their radar. Always support the press by sharing on social media, buying and reviewing their books, and attending events. Some ask you to buy a book before submitting but you should make this a regular practice anyway if you can afford it.
If you would like to set up your own small press, much of the process is similar to self-publishing, or at least it helps to learn what that involves. Look at the Mslexia and Guillemot guides.
The digital first route is available via publishers who champion the ebook and may or may not publish in print. The biggest player is Bookouture. Self-published authors often publish digital only – often with Amazon KDP – or focus mainly on the digital route, only printing copies to sell via Print on Demand if they attend an event where they can reach customers face-to-face.
Crowdfunding is less often used by self-published authors but there is at least one book about it – as with any crowdfunding indy authors would use Kickstarter or similar. The main crowdfunding publisher is Unbound. They are the same as a traditional press apart from (crucially) you have to sell the book to readers before it is published. Therefore, the platform building is done in advance and is extremely important. All self-published and small press authors need to platform build in the same way in order to be successful – trad published authors can rely on their publicity team to a certain extent. It’s just that the crowdfunding model forces you to do it upfront.
So that was a run down of how to get a book published. What about different types of writing? What are the best routes? There’s no hard and fast rule, but generally speaking, here’s how it works:
Identify what you love to read first. That will give you BIG CLUES re where you should send your work and what route to take.
Here’s how to take small steps or in other words, how to publish something small. If you’ve never been published before, try these not so easy seven steps:
This isn’t the only approach, but it’s probably the least stressful. I hope you’ll give it a go. I haven’t talked about competitions here, but that is another route to publication you might like to consider. To help with that I have made a ‘list of lists’ of calls for submissions, including competitions. In the UK, Writing Magazine includes a directory of opportunities so does Mslexia, which I’ve found useful.
So there you have it. How to get published, in a nutshell. Start with the basics, because if you get those right, you are much more likely to be successful as a published writer. Remember that the route you take usually depends on what you’re writing and that submission guidelines will be particular to each opportunity. The next step is to set up systems to make your life as a working writer easier. Find out how in this post.
Good luck on your publication journey and happy writing,
Lou xx
P.S. Here’s a free sample from my book How to Write a Novel and Get It Published. You can download it as a PDF by clicking here.