Should it cost me to get published?

As a fellow writer, I don't believe you'll have to do more than pay for the postage when you send in your manuscript. Make sure you include a cover letter briefly explaining the premise of your work in about one page. Check the publishing company's website for details on their publication requirements and use incorporate them into the draft you submit. There are official guidelines for each publishing house, and there are often subtle but important differences for each one you submit to. NEVER submit to more than one at a time, because if both accept your work you could be in legal trouble, and will likely never get a chance to be published again. Wait until your work has been rejected, which it no doubt will be several times. Even the best authors who've made the NY Times can get rejected, but you gotta just keep at it until someone sends you a check for $500-$5000 and gives your book a shot. It will be hard making your big break without an editor and an agent, but I don't know how to get either one. I asked a question about it here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AnVYQ... if you want to see if anyone has given me any good answers. There were 9 when I posted this answer, and I haven't looked at them all yet, but check it out. Hope this was helpful to you!

If you can persuade a publisher to take your work then it doesn't cost you anything. They pay you royalties, but be warned they are quite low perhaps under 20p per copy sold. It may help to find a literary agent, who at least would give you some feed back on your work. You can submit to publishers directly. Either way be prepared for a lot of rejections. Any publisher who wants money from you to publish a book is a vanity publisher. These people publish books no one would touch normally, but the author wants published anyway. Nowadays the next option is much better... Print on demand is where you publish the book yourself and people can order a copy which is printed and sent to them. If you have an ISBN then it can be sold in book stores. Have look at sites like Lulu and Lightning Source. You would sell the book to book stores for roughly half the cover price. The book costs a certain amount to print. You add on a bit more (this is your profit). Double it. If you are not selling it at cost then the print on demand people take a percentage of the total cost, so add that on. That gives you your sale price. Alternatively avoid paper altogether and just sell electronic versions as e.g. PDFs. Being an author is not a high income profession unless you are one of the very few to become a bestseller. You probably should get yourself another job to support yourself in the meantime.

First thing is to write and get your manuscript send off to the various Publishers. If some of em like your work they will willingly handle all the money end of publishing but you have to work with them on a schedule and according to their whims. U might even get an advance. If they think that you still need some improvement they will reject the work but do not be discouraged. Lots of successful authors get rejected at first. You may try publishing it on the internet through companies like Alibris etc. But this may cost u some money. Not a whole lot but some. Or try ebooks for free I think.

Depends. If you get accepted by a "proper" publisher, then no it won't cost you anything. They'll pay you, and they will market your book for you.

However, if you don't manage to get accepted by a publisher, you can publish the book yourself. You'll have to pay for this. It's called "vanity publishing". There are lots of companies that will print, say, a few hundred copies for you. It's then up to you to sell them, in order to get your money back and hopefully make a profit.

Also, there are agents who will try to introduce you to "proper" publishers. Sometimes they'll want paying up front. More commonly, they'll take a percentage of whatever you end up earning from the book.

Most regular publishers do not charge you, but their acceptance policies can be very difficult.

The publishers that charge are usually referred to as Vanity Presses. You become a client, so after you pay them they publish whatever you terll them to publish. They do not provide any editing help unless you pay for that as well. Obviously, there are minimal acceptance policies, so it will be almost impossible for your book to be reviewed by any newspaper or magazine (perhaps a web zine or something will help you out).

I have heard good things about lulu.com which is an on-demand publisher (they produce one book as it is ordered, so the per copy price is very high), but they apparently do not have any up front charges. I have not tried them so I cannot say.

The guidelines are generally such things as how the manuscript must be set up (double spaced, 8.5X11 paper, etc) and sometimes specifications about the length, the subject material, and what things they will not publish.

Buy the 'Writer's Yearbook' and read it ... that will tell you about all of the different types of publisher, and what you will need to do to get published. You CAN 'self-publish' but it's NOT the same as getting published by a regular publisher ... and the regular publisher always PAYS YOU, not you pay them ...

Vanity presses will publish anything for money. Most people are aware of this and don't feel that vanity-press publications are worth anything.

On the other hand, there is nothing dishonorable about publishing something for nothing on the Web. You may prefer to do this if in time you don't find a standard publisher (I myself publish all my stuff on the Web).

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

The answer to your question is yes and no. Yes, it should cost you for an editor and yes you should use one. There has only been one author in history who didn't require an editor. O Henry. So unless you are writing work the quality of The Gift of the Magi (and none of us are!) you need to pay an editor to put your manuscript in proper condition for sale.

Editing doesn't mean crossing your T's and dotting your I's. It means giving you margin notes that help you to craft your story and take what you have written and put it into something publishers will buy. Most editors today have worked for publishers and know what a manuscript should be like to sell. Trust them. It should cost you between 3 and 5 dollars per page based on 250 words per page. And it is worth the money. It will sell your book.

Of course you should Revise Revise Revise first. 2-3 revisions are the norm before you are even ready for an editor. So if you are only in the process of your first draft, you have a ways to go before you will be ready for editing.

No you should not pay to publish. Self publishing is a financial black hole. It is a dead end. You will pay through the nose and your book will not be for sale in any bookstores and nobody will know about it to purchase it online. In order for people to know it's online to purchase it, you will likely have to pay a marketing firm to devise a marketing plan for you. More money spent. Still no books sold.

The average self published novel sells about 100 copies or roughly 2/3 as many friends and family members as you have. Yesterday I did an author a favor and checked his sales figures for him through Ingram - the largest book distributor. His book was published by AuthorHouse. It sold exactly ONE copy, and that was probably to him. Is that what you want for your book?

I have heard tons of horror stories. Like the lady who refinanced her house to market and sell her book. She is not selling books and not able to make the payments. She is likely to lose her home soon. A self publisher convinced her to refinance.

In the recent history of self/vanity publishing only nine authors have made it to the best seller list. The only ones I remember are Wayne Dyer and The Celestine Prophecy author. They did it by literally piling books in their cars and crossing the country from store to store trying to sell them. It cost them a small fortune and a ton of time.

There is an important rule you should know about publishing. It is called "Uncle Jim's Law" ... "Money should flow toward the author - not away from him." That doesn't happen in self publishing. In fact just the opposite does.

To that I will add Persi's Law #1. "If you believe in yourself and in your book you owe it to yourself to spend at least twice as long trying to publish your book traditionally as you did writing it."

If you go to my profile, you will find I star all good Q and A regarding publishing and writing. Many successful authors have come here and posted great information for the novice author. Take advantage of it. Print some out and study them. They are there to help.

I am among those out here who radically oppose self publishing and who try very hard to educate new authors about the pitfalls. If you go to Preditors and Editors, Absolute Write Water Cooler's Bewares and Background Checks or any of the other writer beware sites, you will see self publishers make up the bulk of the Top Ten Worst Publishers lists.

My advice is to finish your book, revise it and seek out a good editor. Then learn to write a great query letter, synopsis and book proposal. Those are the three documents that sell books to publishers. They are in a way more important than your manuscript. Buy yourself a good book that teaches you how to write them.

(And by the way. Scholastic is a top 10 publisher. They do not publish books for free for kids. They do not even deal with authors. They deal strictly with A List Literary Agents who represent authors. So do not send them anything. It will get tossed into a slush room and never seen again. It will also earn you a reputation as a rank amateur. Acting professional goes a long way in the publishing business. Also NEVER send a manuscript to anyone unless they ask for it. You send a query letter and a synopsis. If someone wants to read more, they will contact you. Sending a full manuscript unsolicited puts you in the slush room, too.)

Good luck. Pax-C

I would use lulu.com to self publish if it was a choice between that and me putting up money to publish the book.

NEVER. They pay you. Of course, if you can;t get someone to pay you, and you feel like paying someone to publish it, go for it.