Common Mistakes Made By Authors and Writers in Getting Published

Writing a book and becoming a published author is a common dream. As Harry Beckwith wrote in The Invisible Touch, “If you want to change your life, write a book.” But writing a book is no easy task. There are few people who can just sit down and crank out a few hundred pages. Most of us have to work hard at becoming a writer and published author, often taking months or years before completing our first book. So what differentiates someone who eventually does become a published author from those who only write for a short time before giving up?

Following are the nine biggest reasons most first-time writers fail to become published authors.

Unrealistic Expectations

Don’t expect to get rich off your book or writing, even if your book or writing is considered a success by publishing standards. The vast majority of books fail to earn out their advance, and the vast majority of writers don’t make tons of money. Instead, develop a personal marketing plan to leverage your career off your book or your writing. Rather then trying to make money on the book or writing itself, use your book and writing to open doors, promote your credibility, and build relationships with readers.

Writing Without A Contract

Never write a book, essay, or article without a signed contract. Instead, prepare a polished proposal and two sample chapters or a query letter. Publishers are increasingly selective about the titles they accept. Often, less than 1 in 20 titles proposed are published. Writing a book or article that isn’t accepted is not a good use of your time.

Read the other seven mistakes first time authors and writers make in getting published here.

American Indian Novel Traditions: Muting White Noise

James Cox takes the title of his book from Sherman Alexie, for whom “white noise,” the static that remains on a television after broadcasting ends, represents “the oppressive noise of white mass-produced cultures, the loud demand to conform to the invader’s cultural belief system or be destroyed” (p. 11). Cox takes “white noise” to signify a broad history of colonial domination and erasure, which Alexie and the other novelists he considers write to resist. The introduction to Cox’s book, “A Cup of Water,” states his purpose to demonstrate how Euro-western and Euro-American literary and popular narratives, which almost always “culminate in the absence of Indians” (p. 13), support ongoing colonial dominance and produce real-world consequences for living Indians; and to explore the strategies used by some contemporary Native fiction writers to intervene in these colonial narratives of conquest, to render them powerless and suggest that “conquest, as imagined by non-Native authors, did not take place” (p. 18). Cox argues that his study “implements Osage scholar Robert Warrior’s proposal … that, in any scholarship on work by Native authors, the ‘critical interpretation of those writings can proceed primarily from Indian sources,’” (p. 4); thus he intends to avoid “academic colonialism” by privileging the voices of Native writers in his own interpretations (pp. 4-5). If reality is constructed by stories, and if, as Greg Sarris observes, “In oral discourse … no one party has access to the whole of the exchange…. [O]ne party’s story is no more the whole story than a cup of water is the river” (quoted, p. 16), Cox wishes his own “cup of water” to resist the narrative flow that justifies domination and to “nourish” new plots for Native people (pp. 16-17).

Read more about Muting White Noise: Native American and European Novel Traditions here.

Nine Rules to Follow for Agents and Editors

Becoming a successful independent author or writer
requires a lot of work: not only do you have to write, which is hard
enough, but you also have to get your work published. There are many
ways to see your writing in print, all of which are important if you
want to be a successful indie writer. In this article I’m focusing
on getting published by a book publishing company. For tips and resources
on getting published in other formats, you can check out the main Independent
Authors and Book Marketing Page here.

Getting your manuscript or book published by a book
publishing house is not as hard as some make it out to be. Beyond having
a solid idea and well written manuscript, there are nine general rules
that you need to follow for success.

#1: Know Your Competition and Explain How Your Book or Proposal Are
Better

Competition exists for pretty much any idea and every book ever written
or published. It is critical, therefore, that you as an author or writer
understand how and where your book fits into the market. Even if you
are writing fiction or a narrowly targeted biography – it’s unlikely
that there is not some other title that the potential reader may be
comparing to yours. On the other hand if your book truly has no competition,
is this perhaps a sign that there is no market? Likewise, you can’t
just argue that your book is for everyone and ignore the competition.
That is just not the case.

The key is to know your competition and explain to the editor or agent
how your book or idea is unique, better, and worth taking on. Furthermore,
your knowledge of the competition and the place that your book fits
within it can be successfully used to market and promote it once it
is published. Having competition doesn’t mean you don’t
write your book (in many ways it may be an incentive to write a book),
it just means you need to be aware of where your book fits in.

Read the rest of the nine rules to follow when submitting your book or manuscript to agents and editors here.