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When you spend as much time writing as bloggers do, you are apt to entertain thoughts of grander endeavors. Given enough time, some of us even go as far as considering entering the mainstream, literary world. While I can’t help you get picked up by Del Ray or Aspect, using the powers of Web 2.0 I can help you transform your free floating prose to finely bound print without putting you out on the street.

Avoid The Vanity Press

Before I begin, for anyone entertaining thoughts of writing a book without going through an agent — do yourself a favor and avoid vanity presses. The problem with all vanity press schemes is that they make the majority of their money of the author. Any publisher worth their ball point will seek to make money through you, not off of you.

The way to tell the vanity press from those who may have legitimate business models is whether they promise to publish your book as long as you pay them a fee. A real publisher will offer you money for your work, a vanity press will take money away in exchange for fulfilling your dream of being in print.

The New Model

Many bloggers and would be writers don’t expect their books to be NY Times Best Sellers. A lot of us would like to see our work in print, and maybe sell a copy or two in the process. For us, systems which allow you to create a book from a manuscript and have it published as the books are sold are perfect.

That way, you aren’t forced to store a metric ton of unsold books in your basement while you futilely try to get some bookstore to take them off of your hands. Just In Time publishing companies allow you to market your book, sell them at your leisure and let someone else take care of the distribution for you. They take a small piece of every sale, and you keep the rest. If you are pretty certain that you would not be able to pen a publishing deal otherwise, it’s a much better arrangement than the alternatives.

Get Them While They Are Hot

Lulu

The best in breed when it comes to self-publishing. Lulu will allow you generate a book from a manuscript, publish on demand and set your own price. For an additional fee, Lulu will also allow you to get an ISBN and distribute your new masterwork to stores like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. If I was going to write a book tomorrow, Lulu would be the route I would choose. It is simply the fastest, easiest and simplest way to get your manuscript from thought to text. Not only that, but with its strong distribution network, there is a small chance that you might hit it big.

Blurb

Another interesting alternative is Blurb. This solution is based around a software application called Booksmart. It allows you to take any content that you can think of, stitch it together, set a layout and end up with a book on the other side. The advantage that this has over Lulu is that they don’t take a cut, as a result you become responsible for taking care of the distribution yourself. This is mainly for those people who are more interested in seeing their work in print than making a business out of writing.

iUniverse and Xlibris

On the other end of the spectrum are iUniverse and Xlibris. These two companies are far closer to traditional publishers than Blurb or Lulu. They charge a fee, pay a royalty and offer a full suite of marketing and distribution channels. If you are looking for a more classical route towards writing fame, you should give either of these services a look. The disadvantage, of course, is price. Neither of these services cater to the weekend writer. They both charge upwards of several hundred dollars for their premium packages.

Submit Online

OK, so this article is about writing a book; however, I decided to sneak in a couple of venues for those wayward short story authors who are looking to take advantage of the online landscape.

East of the Web

With about 500,000 uniques per month East of the Web is all about exposure. They accept work in most major genres and accept submissions through email. You won’t be paid directly for your work by going this route, however, I have it on good authority that agents and publishers do pay attention to the authors that are published here.

Glimmertrain

Want to earn some quick cash very, very slowly? Submit your stories to Glimmertrain. I can tell you from first hand experience that this is not a venue to go into lightly. They have a crack staff that will put your work into the slush pile faster than you can say, “cover letter”. I suggest reading some of the work that has been previously submitted and deciding whether your work fits what they’re looking for. The reward for a successful submission is $700, good luck.

Web 2.0 Roundup

I’ve given you the leading edge route to getting your work transformed into beautiful bound text, before you worry about that though, here are a few tips to help you get accepted by traditional publishing houses — in case that is your real dream.

Do Your Research. Know who your target publisher is. Read other works that have been published by them, and decide the best way to tackle your vision in terms of what they will want. The worst mistake you can make is to write without understanding the market you are writing for.

Submit a Proposal. This Involves submitting a letter to the editor with an idea of what you want to write. Basically, this is to make sure that everyone is on the same page. This is primarily a note for those who want to publish work in magazines.

Grab the Reader. At the end of the day, like everything else, in publishing content is king. Whatever you write be sure to enthrall the reader in the first page. If you can’t keep their attention in the first few seconds, it’s very likely they will never read your submission for long enough to stumble across the real meat.

Try, Try Again. Writing is a thankless field and you will likely be rejected a thousand times before anyone gives your work a second look. If you plan on making writing your career you need to have thick skin. Understand that since rejection is so common, the first acceptance letter that you read (or the first book you sell through Lulu) will seem all the sweeter.

That’s it folks, go forth and write. When you publish your first manuscript be sure to drop me a line.

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