What has the publishing experience been like for everyone?

[Susan Boulton]

For me; good and bad.

Good; had two books published, and a lot of short stories. Got into anthologies I never thought I would stand a chance at being picked for. Had fellow writers say my work is good, had professional editors, and agents say the same. Had an agent for awhile. Never made a huge amount of money, made some. Met a lot of nice people on the way. Made a lot of good friends.

Bad, very bad, had some horrible experiences, which left me hating the whole publishing world at times. Met some right ego laden (insert rude word here) people, some that hated my work without reading it, some who just wanted to make money out of me, or use me to worm their way into friendships that benefited them i.e. use me for any contacts I had. When I didn't or wouldn't, then trashed me in public.

Don't write to publish now. If and when I write it is firstly for me, secondly for anybody silly enough to want to read a badly drafted story.

 

[Ambrose]

I am fortunate in being retired on a pension and have self-published 3 books, including one sf novel which I have not paid to remain available on PoD. They make little money, but just having copies for friends and family is itself sufficient reward. And the recipient's reactions are interesting/amusing!

 

[Guanazee]

I've had success with traditional publishing in the children's market. My first picture book, Hattie Hates Hugs, is currently available for preorder and will be released by Beaming Books in April 2022. My second picture book should be announced in the next few weeks and is being published by a Big 4 in 2023. I've had two adult SF shorts published through affiliations of this forum.

Since this is a SFF community you might be interested to hear that I am currently working on a R&R for a Big 4 publisher for a STEM-informed space sci-fi chapter book for ages 6-9. I feel SF is really lacking for that age group and I want to help fill it. Crossing my fingers and toes for that one. I am agented. Without an agent, my work would unlikely be seen by the bigger trad houses. I got my agent after securing a book contract as a result of a Twitter pitch party. The full story is on my blog, website in my siggy.

I have a couple of other picture book R&Rs and exclusive submissions out. We'll see. I have no intention of looking into self-publishing for children's works that require extensive illustrations, like picture books and younger chapter books. I'm also working on a fantasy/horror MG novel that I probably wouldn't attempt to self-publish either because it's hard for self pub works to get into the school catalogs and library databases. That takes a whole nother skill set that I don't have and don't want to learn.

However, I think self-pub can work out great and I would consider it if I ever write novels for adults or YA. You hear horror stories with any kind of published works, even traditional ones. At your stage, it's more important to look at the quality and, to a lesser extent, the number of your critique partners/groups and beta readers than the route to publishing.

Good luck!

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Just a quick question, and not to derail the thread, but is it common to get a novel printed and stash it in free lending libraries/ random locations?

Actually, yes. There's a group called The Book Fairies that has members who hide books worldwide. Sometimes they also work with publishers and authors to organize a book hiding campaign to promote new books.

 

[JS Wiig]

…to organize a book hiding campaign to promote new books.

This sounds backwards…

 

[AnRoinnUltra]

Thanks @Laura R Hepworth , fair play to them. That's more or less what I was thinking of -had in my head to illustrate the story in the style of propaganda, and make out like it was real ...but it might not pan out exactly like that. The free roadside libraries seem like as good a place as any to start as there's always a fairly eclectic mix of stories in them. -appreciate the link.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

This sounds backwards…

Lol. It does, but, from what I've seen online, they 'hide' them in easy to find places and then make a bunch of social media posts about hiding it to get people excited about the book and go looking for it. Basically like geocaching for books.