Forget Fretting
Wonderful words of encouragement on today's writing. Christina Katz delves into the time old question of, "Can I actually get published?" The overwhelming and completely positive answer? Of Course, in fact according to Christina, and some independent research I've done on my own, there are actually more opportunities for a beginning writer to be published than ever before.
Yes, I know. E-books are it, right? Not exactly. Yes. E-books have made self-publishing easy, but self-publishing can be extremely difficult to market unless you have an awesome plan. And let's face it, most of us aspiring or "prepublished" authors are looking to write for at least enough to pay the water bill one month. The electric bill would be a bonus! (Small achievable goals.. remember?)
Beyond self-publishing there are probably hundreds of NEW e-publishing houses out there that are simply putting up your book to sell on the web and reaping the benefits of being the middle man. (I can actually think of two that I am somewhat suspicious of exactly that.)
But, traditional publishing is still around and is actually more efficient than ever. Most companies have updated their services and allow you to send query letters and synopsis through e-mail. This actually speeds up the process tremendously and what used to be a 6 month wait has now decreased in many publishing houses to only 3-4 months.
As I stated in my last post, I own quite a few copies of "The Writer's Market" and every year I see more and more publishing houses that accept new authors, unagented authors, and the publishing houses themselves are growing in number every year as well.
So even though the number of actual people trying to write has increased, the publishing houses have expanded as well to meet our demands. So don't worry about it! You CAN be published, and you will. You just have to write something first!
Lisa Adams
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