random thoughts
December 9, 2008I was cleaning my pad last weekend and was happy to find out that I only have 14 books left unread! Not bad. It used to be 32!
And what’s more exciting was the fact that I have more than 50 books ready to be given away for Christmas. I know some friends will be elated to receive them.
But the most exciting part of my weekend cleaning engagement was the rediscovery of my high school journals which were just sleeping inside a green box. I browsed through the pages and couldn’t help but laugh at my entries.
I’ve been writing journals since I was eight and I once dreamed of being a published book author on detective stories when I was still reading Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. I became more imaginative when in 6th grade, I started reading Robert Ludlum and Agatha Christie (thanks to my best friend who owns a whole library of novels written by authors of different genres).
But will I ever get to publish a book? That still remains a million-dollar question. Publishing entails more than just dreaming of having a book displayed in bookstores. It takes dedication, discipline and a firm decision to finish the manuscript. Not only that, when published, the writer must be ready to face all kinds of critics and must be willing to take the risk of succeeding or failing. I will expound this in another post.
As I was randomly musing on all these things about publishing, I stumbled upon a succinctly written article on how to publish. It’s very helpful especially to those who are seriously working on a manuscript for publishing.
It’s very helpful to me, at least.
Nice article. The point about finding somebody else to edit one’s work is a good one. The challenge here is finding one that doesn’t bankrupt you. Most of the professional editors I’ve found charge more to edit POD books than those books are ever likely to earn in royalties or directly sold copies. That is, several thousand dollars or so.
Malcolm
I agree with you. The editing business, I think, has become so commercialized that it endangers the life of the industry. Editors should be there to help good materials get published and not just earn money for themselves.
That’s just my two cents’ worth. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for visiting my site.
Dedication is the Key!