Publishing is a funny little secretive business and that means I'm discussing this in very general terms, but when I was just starting I wondered what expectations lay ahead should I take this writing seriously. Some of this comes from my own experience, some from things I've read/been told. I hope it's helpful, in terms of setting expectations.
Note: I am not yet published so there is a whole other end of the process beyond this that I don't know about.
I also haven't included self-pubbing here, simply because I don't have experience of it, but it'd be fascinating to hear the process for that, too.
AGENT/SMALL PUBLISHER - For genre work, there is a valid choice to be made betweeen aiming to get an agent or aiming to go direct to a publisher. Some large publishers (Gollanz, for instance) do still take direct subs but the majority take from agents only. Small publishers, however, take subs directly.
I've gone for a mix. I've taken the offer from a small publisher for my trilogy (3 offered on it in total) and an agent for my next book. That decision was mostly made by the type of books - the trilogy is a classic-style space opera which traditionally do well with small publishers, where my other book is a more mainstream (sci fi, though) YA, and, given that returns for YA are lower (per book), generally, than adult, it makes sense to shoot high.
Many authors now mix conventionally published with self-published, which is a really viable way of doing things.
THE PROCESS OF GETTING AN AGENT/SMALL PUBLISHER
Choosing an agent - there are loads out there, big and small, and it's hard to know how to find a match. I found Twitter useful for gauging my feel for an agent and, once I had interest, the detail of assessing whether they were what I wanted took a bit of time. Things like, did they sell books? Did they seem to be approachable? Were they editorial in approach? (I wanted that, others may not.)
Now I have one, I do understand the hoops placed before us a little more (but it still frustrates me to see great stuff getting rejected for others). An agent needs someone who'll put their head down, do revisions in a timely fashion, and mostly work at those without extensive, daily, questions. The way you approach an agent tells them a lot about whether you'll work well with the revisions ahead.
I revised my book three times before my agent offered rep. Each of these was an extensive revision. I've revised it three times since - two of these were substantial changes. Add to that that I'd used a professional editor prior to the agent and a rewrite from that, I'm looking at the book having been written eight times, honed each time. That process has taken me about 18 months, during which time I've been working on other stuff.
Competitions are another viable way of seeking an agent- Twitter run a lot of them and there are often top agents in the pot. You need a cracking pitch, though (something I've never excelled at.)
At the end of that time, I still don't know if the book will find a home. The submission process, which I don't know much about yet, is like another query process, this time between the agent and the editors at publishing houses. It can take ages, years in fact, and there is no guarantee of finding a home. Sometimes, like with querying you have to go back and revise to get interest.
After you do sell the book, the publisher will ask for revisions and, if you're lucky enough to get a deal on both sides of the pond, you'll have proofs to read of both versions.
For the publisher - a different set of challenges lay ahead. I've had a variety of offers, some with advances, some without, and the decisions came down to three key parameters:
The contract offered - one was boilerplate and pretty poor, for instance
The advances/royalty model - what are you being offered? How likely are you to see a return? Is it on net or gross? There is loads of stuff that needs thought about and I reccommend a trip to Absolute Write (website) should you find yourself in this position, they have loads of good advice on contracts.
The distribution - this can be the killer for a small press. It's hard getting stock on the shelves of bookstores and bookstore presence drives sales. But if there is good distribution in place and you can create a buzz you might slip it into the odd outlet. But without distribution, or slow distribution, this is much more problematic.
REVISIONS
I've been pretty open on my blog here about the revision process. Also, I have a couple of pots in the pan, which complicates things, but most of my time is spent editing at the moment, with limited time to create. (The challenges are keeping me sane on that level, and the odd short.)
Revisions have taken, for me, two main forms:
Changes in characterisation, tone, point of view focus, key story elements, character arcs. These are big edits which are a ground up review of the whole book because continuity will catch up with you if you only change sections. Each takes me something like 6-8 weeks to do for a c. 90-100k book, and that, given feedback, seems quick. These are the painful ones, where you ditch scenes you love, and sideline characters you're fond of, and generally turn the book into something new. For each book I've got to the point of semi-completion I've done at least six of these. For my first book I've done about 12.... So, um, make sure you really, really love that book you're writing because you will be in and out of it many times
Continuity/tightening revisions - Control + H is, sometimes, the most used function on my keyboard. Searching for key overused phrased (turning, clenching, looking, that sort of thing) and constructions that occur too often (normally pointed out by an editor and painful to review because they feel right to the writer), searching that I've done data pad and not datapad throughout, that sort of thing. And changing 'he saw the large bird landing and climbed on the bird's back' to 'the bird landed and he climbed on its back' to bring the word count that's threatening to implode with all your extended story arcs from the last base-up revision, back down.
These edits bounce backwards and forwards between writer and agent (track changes is useful.)
Some edits fall between both of these types.
So, um, that's my broad experiences of the process to date. I remember Teresa, early on, saying if you could write and you stuck at it your odds were good of getting published. I think that's, essentially, true. Because sticking at it is long and tiring and a little soul-destroying, and it's a million miles from the idea of gaily sticking a pen behind our ears and being a writer. I genuinely don't think any book that's out there that's good and honed and reads well took much less work. But I kind of wish someone had mentioned it at the very start and actually told me what sort of marathon lay ahead (and I'm doing well for how long I've been writing), so that when I decided I'd like to become a writer I'd known how much time I'd need to devote to it, and maybe made a learned choice between novels and shorts and aspirations.
Anyway, hope it's helpful.
Note: I am not yet published so there is a whole other end of the process beyond this that I don't know about.
I also haven't included self-pubbing here, simply because I don't have experience of it, but it'd be fascinating to hear the process for that, too. AGENT/SMALL PUBLISHER - For genre work, there is a valid choice to be made betweeen aiming to get an agent or aiming to go direct to a publisher. Some large publishers (Gollanz, for instance) do still take direct subs but the majority take from agents only. Small publishers, however, take subs directly.
I've gone for a mix. I've taken the offer from a small publisher for my trilogy (3 offered on it in total) and an agent for my next book. That decision was mostly made by the type of books - the trilogy is a classic-style space opera which traditionally do well with small publishers, where my other book is a more mainstream (sci fi, though) YA, and, given that returns for YA are lower (per book), generally, than adult, it makes sense to shoot high.
Many authors now mix conventionally published with self-published, which is a really viable way of doing things.
THE PROCESS OF GETTING AN AGENT/SMALL PUBLISHER
Choosing an agent - there are loads out there, big and small, and it's hard to know how to find a match. I found Twitter useful for gauging my feel for an agent and, once I had interest, the detail of assessing whether they were what I wanted took a bit of time. Things like, did they sell books? Did they seem to be approachable? Were they editorial in approach? (I wanted that, others may not.)
Now I have one, I do understand the hoops placed before us a little more (but it still frustrates me to see great stuff getting rejected for others). An agent needs someone who'll put their head down, do revisions in a timely fashion, and mostly work at those without extensive, daily, questions. The way you approach an agent tells them a lot about whether you'll work well with the revisions ahead.
I revised my book three times before my agent offered rep. Each of these was an extensive revision. I've revised it three times since - two of these were substantial changes. Add to that that I'd used a professional editor prior to the agent and a rewrite from that, I'm looking at the book having been written eight times, honed each time. That process has taken me about 18 months, during which time I've been working on other stuff.
Competitions are another viable way of seeking an agent- Twitter run a lot of them and there are often top agents in the pot. You need a cracking pitch, though (something I've never excelled at.)
At the end of that time, I still don't know if the book will find a home. The submission process, which I don't know much about yet, is like another query process, this time between the agent and the editors at publishing houses. It can take ages, years in fact, and there is no guarantee of finding a home. Sometimes, like with querying you have to go back and revise to get interest.
After you do sell the book, the publisher will ask for revisions and, if you're lucky enough to get a deal on both sides of the pond, you'll have proofs to read of both versions.
For the publisher - a different set of challenges lay ahead. I've had a variety of offers, some with advances, some without, and the decisions came down to three key parameters:
The contract offered - one was boilerplate and pretty poor, for instance
The advances/royalty model - what are you being offered? How likely are you to see a return? Is it on net or gross? There is loads of stuff that needs thought about and I reccommend a trip to Absolute Write (website) should you find yourself in this position, they have loads of good advice on contracts.
The distribution - this can be the killer for a small press. It's hard getting stock on the shelves of bookstores and bookstore presence drives sales. But if there is good distribution in place and you can create a buzz you might slip it into the odd outlet. But without distribution, or slow distribution, this is much more problematic.
REVISIONS
I've been pretty open on my blog here about the revision process. Also, I have a couple of pots in the pan, which complicates things, but most of my time is spent editing at the moment, with limited time to create. (The challenges are keeping me sane on that level, and the odd short.)
Revisions have taken, for me, two main forms:
Changes in characterisation, tone, point of view focus, key story elements, character arcs. These are big edits which are a ground up review of the whole book because continuity will catch up with you if you only change sections. Each takes me something like 6-8 weeks to do for a c. 90-100k book, and that, given feedback, seems quick. These are the painful ones, where you ditch scenes you love, and sideline characters you're fond of, and generally turn the book into something new. For each book I've got to the point of semi-completion I've done at least six of these. For my first book I've done about 12.... So, um, make sure you really, really love that book you're writing because you will be in and out of it many times
Continuity/tightening revisions - Control + H is, sometimes, the most used function on my keyboard. Searching for key overused phrased (turning, clenching, looking, that sort of thing) and constructions that occur too often (normally pointed out by an editor and painful to review because they feel right to the writer), searching that I've done data pad and not datapad throughout, that sort of thing. And changing 'he saw the large bird landing and climbed on the bird's back' to 'the bird landed and he climbed on its back' to bring the word count that's threatening to implode with all your extended story arcs from the last base-up revision, back down.
These edits bounce backwards and forwards between writer and agent (track changes is useful.)
Some edits fall between both of these types.
So, um, that's my broad experiences of the process to date. I remember Teresa, early on, saying if you could write and you stuck at it your odds were good of getting published. I think that's, essentially, true. Because sticking at it is long and tiring and a little soul-destroying, and it's a million miles from the idea of gaily sticking a pen behind our ears and being a writer. I genuinely don't think any book that's out there that's good and honed and reads well took much less work. But I kind of wish someone had mentioned it at the very start and actually told me what sort of marathon lay ahead (and I'm doing well for how long I've been writing), so that when I decided I'd like to become a writer I'd known how much time I'd need to devote to it, and maybe made a learned choice between novels and shorts and aspirations.
Anyway, hope it's helpful.
