Promotion of Your Work

Promote yourself like mad if you want to be a published author. Even mediocre writers have got success in publishing by pressing their advertisement of their work. If you are phenomenal writer, but don't have any real contacts or publicity, your work will rarely get read.

Writers these days have to be half business and half pleasure. Although an agent and a publisher helps, it is good to know business and marketing so that you don't get cheated. You want to be able to understand what your contracts mean, and what your book marketing is all about. When you are writing, write for the enjoyment of it. But after the writing, you have to consider how to sell it. Art is enjoyment, but its result, to put it in the hands of public, is an entirely different realm that we should try to understand.

Don't Give Up on Publishing Something You Love

Be persistent with publishers. Even if you have submitted a piece to a magazine and they rejected you, keep sending work to that same magazine every issue after until you get in. The worst that can happen is that the publisher will get slightly irritated at you after a year of sending your submissions every issue, and even that is rare. Publishers appreciate, generally, a writer who strives to become better and better every day.



Many great authors have received rejections for what we now call masterpieces. R.K. Narayan's Swami and Friends, an award-winning classic heralded as one of the greatest novels written in English from an author from India, was rejected by innumerable publishers. But one editor from London believed in Narayan's talent.

It only takes one person to believe in you in the publishing world. Finding that person can be a matter of chance, luck, or persistence.

Make a Publishing Goal

Make a goal as to how many pieces you want to submit to publishers. For me, my goal is to submit one work of mine to a publisher every week. The more you submit, the less you feel down about rejections. If you submit only one piece per six months, one rejection will sting much more. If many submissions are circulating at the same time, than you can hold on to more hope.

Not only is submitting lots of writing important for your morale as a writer, it is a good feedback system. You get to see what editors and the public enjoy. Usually, a piece that you enjoy will not be the piece that an editor or the public will enjoy. Sometimes a piece that you despise is liked by others very much. 

It may take a while to publish your first piece, but if you keep submitting, it is inevitable that you will be published. After a while, an author builds a momentum. After a few years of submitting your work to publishers on a regular basis, you may have work being published every week or two weeks.