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So you've written a book. Years of hard work and dedication have gone into the making of it. But it's finally finished. You could sit back and relax, but now you're faced with a challenge perhaps greater than the writing process itselfgetting your book published. The following article is intended to help you navigate through this process. Specifically, this article is a guide to self-publishing. Maybe you're considering self-publishing, but want to learn more about it first. Maybe you're about to start the self-publishing process but need some help along the way. Or maybe you've already published your book and are looking for some handy tips on marketing and promotion. Simply skip to the section you want and start reading!

Publishing Options

As an author, you are faced with two options. You can publish through a traditional publishing house, or you can self-publish. It is the dream of many authors to sign on with such big names as Random House and HarperCollins. However, getting traditionally published is a difficult dream to see realized, even if you're not shooting for those big names. First, you must spend many nights poring over that tome, The Writer's Market, in order to find publishers who will accept your type of manuscript. And generally, different publishers want different things from you. Some publishers ask for a biography page. Others want a synopsis or a chapter summary outline. Some accept only queries. Others will only accept submissions from licensed agents. This, of course, means hiring an agent, many of whom are reluctant to take on first-time authors. And if you do score an agent, that means splitting your profits with him or her later on.

But let's say you don't hire an agent. On average, it takes a publishing house three to six months to respond to your unsolicited manuscript, and anywhere from several weeks to three months to respond to your query. Thus, if you queried a publisher first, then sent your complete manuscript, it might take as long as nine months to hear yea or nay from them. If you receive a rejection letter back (which authors submitting their first stories invariably do), you might have to wait another nine months to hear back from the second publisher.

Maybe I can speed things up by submitting my story to several different publishers at once, you think to yourself. Unfortunately, most publishers do not accept simultaneous submissions. As you can see, attempting to get published through a traditional publisher is an onerous

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