I have been a writer almost since I learned to form a sentence, and my work has been published widely. Family, friends, and students often want to know - how does the publishing process work? How can they get published?

Here are four "steps” I've come up with to help you get published. I almost hesitate to call them "steps” because you will want to work on all four throughout your life, and you can work on all four at the same time. So maybe I should call them the four "quadrants” of getting published.

1. Improve your writing . This seems self-explanatory, yet often people are not sure how to improve their writing. They know the rules of grammar and they know how to spell (or at least, they can use a computerized spell-checker). What's next?

Most important, perhaps, is to make time to write. You can't improve if you never practice! You don't necessarily require hours and hours per day -- a regular 15-minute writing session several times a week can take you far. The key is to make your writing sessions regular.

Another way to improve your writing is to take writing classes, or to join or form a writing group. Ask at the local university or community college about writing classes. To form a writing group, try asking your librarian if she (or he) knows of other local writers, or put flyers up on community bulletin boards, inviting other aspiring writers to join you.

2. Generate a lot of writing. I know of one woman who spent years working on the first chapter of a novel. Another woman spent years working on the text for one picture book. It's difficult to get published if you only have one thing to sell! It's like a store with only one item. The more writing you have, the more likely it is that something will sell.

Even if you are not "finished” with one piece you can still start another. You might never be "finished” with that first piece. Apparently Leonardo da Vinci said that "art is never finished, only abandoned.” At some point your writing either gets published and you stop working on it, or you get tired of it and stop working on it. So don't be afraid of having two, three or even more writing projects going on at the same time.

Keep a list of topics on which you might like to write. Go to the library or bookstore, get some books with writing exercises in them, and try them out. Engage in free-writing to generate more ideas.

3. Research your markets. Read the kinds of things you want to write. You want your writing to both "fit” into that market, and to offer the reader something different or better than what's already out there. Look at books such as Writer's Market to learn about new markets - magazines, publishers, etc - which you may not be aware of.

Don't overlook local markets.

Your local magazine or newspaper is often an excellent place to start getting published, and you are likely to be already familiar with the kinds of things they publish. And once you have published something locally, it is easier to break into other markets.

4. Send out to a lot of places. Many new writers are confused about whether they should send their piece to just one magazine or publisher at a time, or to many.

My advice is to send your work out widely. The only exception would be when a particular magazine or publisher has specifically requested your work and has asked you not to send it to anyone else until they respond.

Often, magazines and publishers can take months to respond. If you sit on your hands and wait for one rejection before sending the work out again, you might be dead before it finally gets published!

I did not get my short stories published in literary magazines until I started sending each story out to thirty magazines at a time. Granted, literary magazines are an unusual breed - there are so many of them and they all publish very similar kinds of things. If you are writing nonfiction articles, for example, you will probably tailor your writing more closely to a particular kind of magazine, and then it might make sense to send to just one place at a time. But don't wait months for a response. If you have not heard after a month or six weeks, start circulating that piece again.

To help you keep track of your submissions, set up a chart on your computer. Include information such as the name and contact information of each market, any specifics they require (word length, subject matter, reading dates), your own submissions and the date you sent them, and the responses to them.

The object is to have so much material circulating out there that any one rejection hurts less. Also, the more material you have circulating, the better your chances of getting published!

I hope these steps will help you to be successful at writing and publishing.

Tell Your Friend