Students always complain that creative writing teachers never talk about publishing. Well, this week, I schooled them, and I schooled them good. You can check out the links in the right-hand column under “Publishing a Book 101.” I also had them read excerpts from Carolyn See’s MAKING A LITERARY LIFE, Betsy Lerner’s THE FOREST FOR THE TREES, Gerald Gross’s EDITORS AND EDITING, Eckstutt and Henry’s THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO GETTING YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED, and Ted Striphas THE LATE AGE OF PRINT. It was a lot to take in. Here, Marvin Madison Jones takes it all in and makes sense of it all. In his own words.
The publishing world is a very mysterious world similar to that of Willy Wonka’s factory. No one knows what is going on up in there. The people involved hide their secrets well and do not write about the process of getting a book published very often. First book authors are left blind to the shenanigans and happenings that go on during the publishing process.
Being part of Cathy Day‘s Lit Citizenship class I have been presented with many of the ugly truths and surprising information about the publishing process and I should share some of them with you.
Be warned that some of this information might be a bit disheartening to some writers but also remember that these are only some parts of the publishing world not all. Every single writer has a chance at success, you just got to find the write publisher and people that will treat…
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Literary Citizenship 