Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Roads to Publication, Part I


The road to publication with a golden, big-time trade publishing company glistening in the sun can seem steep and daunting at times. It can also be rough and full of ruts, potholes, hairpin turns, and dead ends. Perseverance is crucial. A writer needs to be committed to consistently trying to better her story-telling skills and her writing. While traveling this road, some people hone their skills and build their confidence by writing for other markets. They take side trips down other roads toward other publishing options.

The educational market is one such other road or option. During my time as a textbook editor, I wrote and published books for the school market. For each book, I was paid a one-time fee. No, Grab That Crab! and Run, Sid, Run! would never be reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly. Nor would Three Pigs and a Wolf or Make Room for a Makeover, but I had fun writing these books. Plus, kids read them in schools and may still be reading them. Writing these books helped me to develop important skills and learn more about the publishing process. And writing these books gave me some publishing credits to share with agents and editors.

Of course, while writing for the school market, I kept working on my own novel, which came to be Dog Gone. I never stopped puttering along the road to the big, beautiful, trade publishing house. I simply veered off to publish elsewhere. This, for me, made traveling the main road a little less intimidating and frustrating.

Have you published or considered publishing in more than one market? Have you written or considered writing an article for a magazine or newspaper? Perhaps something for the school market?

Next week I will introduce you to author Linda Benson. Linda has published two wonderful novels, Finding Chance and The Horse Jar, with Mondo Publishing, an educational publisher. The week after that, I will introduce you to someone special who has published in the magazine markets. So, stay tuned for more on the many roads to publication.

9 comments:

  1. Well, I have definitely written articles and stories for childrens magazines. No luck with a book yet...

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  2. I'll have to look for your stories and articles--that's great! As far as a book goes--"yet" is the key word. Perseverance is part of the game, right?

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  3. Great reminder that there are lots of opportunities to get published, not just books! Way to go with all your success! This is awesome to read about!

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  4. That is very cool that you wrote so many books for the school market. That is amazing! As a former teacher, I can appreciate it all the more. I have a book of facts about birds set to rhyme that I'd love to sell maybe to an educational publisher but not sure if that's the right route. My dad is a nature photographer, so would love to use his pics. We may even self publish for the family.

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  5. Thanks, Terry! I'm so glad you enjoyed this. I am hoping this three part blog will be interesting to readers out there.

    Kelly, I didn't realize that you were a teacher--that's awesome!!! And the book of facts about birds sounds really interesting. Have you checked out The Literary Marketplace? It's a great overview of publishers.

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  6. Loved this story, Cynthia, and I think that it's very true that there are many roads to writing success. I used to be the editor of a "newspaper" aimed at tourists and wrote "news" stories about our different advertisers. Even writing advertorial type articles about the local rib joint I honed my writing skills, and of course during my down time I was working on my own novels.

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  7. That's great, Alissa! That editor job sounds fun, and you still had time to write the novels. Perfect!

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  8. I haven't found the 'big-time trade publishing' outfit as yet, but I still write short stories and articles for the local paper. I have a submission in with an educational publisher and I'm hoping for good things. While it might not be something many writers aspire to, I definitely want to have something that fits into school/literature type reading. Odd as it may sound, that's one of the things that will tell me that I'm a good writer.

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  9. Good luck with the submission! And I don't think it sounds odd to think of publishing in the school market as a measure of writing ability. The school markets I have worked with have a different criteria depending on the project, but the writing has to be worthy, for sure--as is true for short stories and articles, right? So many roads. : )

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