Chapter 2

This is the first draft of the opening paragraph for chapter two of my novel The Blood Gate. It is still part of the editing process, so please feel free to add any comments and these will be incorportated into the next draft:

'King Excelsior’s kingdom had once been great. It had stretched from the Ultama port to the furthest fire atolls in the frozen north. And at its heart was Excelsior’s palace on fortress island of Enore. Lush forests covered the rocky slopes, and pure white beaches sliding down to the calm seas. The brilliant sunlight poured like golden honey over those fragrant woods and cool, clean springs. The hamlets that dotted the coastline had been prosperous places that circled the deep blue lagoon, rumoured to be the source of Excelsior’s powers.

Of all the great sorcerers, Emmitrius Excelsior was the mightiest. It was said that he could summon fearsome demons from the very fires of the underworld. Some claimed to have seen him walk through the air as if his feet wore wings. Others said that he could make a person see whatever he wanted them to by sheer force of will. Whatever the truth, Excelsior’s rule was long. And absolute.

Little is known of how Excelsior’s kingdom came to its end. All that is certain is that the end was violent. Bloody. And sudden.'

A short guide to a high mountain

You’ve written the book. Your friends loved it. You’ve edited to within an inch of your sanity.

And it’s finally ready. Ready to take that leap into the unknown world of publication.

Publishing is an alien world to most of us. Unless you have worked in the industry, you probably have no idea who it works. Here are a few tips that you might find useful in your journey.

Unpublished authors can send their manuscripts (sometimes abbreviated to MSS) to publishers. Publishers call these unsolicited manuscripts, and they often end up on what is known as the ‘slush pile’. The chances of being selected from this pile are small, but not uncommon. Your work must stand out from the rest!                         Photo credit: Flickr

Approach is everything. The best way to get a publisher’s attention is to do your research:

Figure out what you are selling. This may sound obvious, but defining your book into something that a publisher will see as a sellable product can be harder than you thing. Find out what genre your book falls into, do research at a local library, and write a short pitch for your book and synopsis. You might find writing guides and ‘how to’ books helpful with this.

Investigate the companies you apply to. Make sure you send your sci-fi novel to a publisher that creates sci-fi books, and doesn’t specialise in romance!

Call and enquire. If you have questions, ask people in the know!

Find out about covering letters, and what your company likes to see in a submission.

List your credentials such as previous publications and competitions you may have won,

Follow the manuscript formatting rules for that company. If the publisher just wants a chapter, don’t send them the whole book.

Investigate all of your options when considering publication. Your book may suit traditional publication, or e-book publication. You may want to self-publish or crowd source the funding for your book. There are lots of options. Consider booking on to a writer’s course with a publication element, where you may get the opportunity to speak to people in the industry. The advice you can acquire may be invaluable.

You might also like to consider obtaining the services of a literary agent to help you. They normally take a commission, much like a publisher will. But their interests will be the same as yours – they want to make sure you publish your work. Make sure you select someone you can tryst, and someone that specialised in the genre you write.

This is not an exhaustive list by any means. There will be many pitfalls along the way. But if you truly believe that you have a cracking story to tell, and can actively market that, they you have a fighting chance of publication!

Image of a Writer

Most emerging writes will tell you that the hardest part of starting out is getting your first publication.

It is very easy as a new writer to become disillusioned with the industry as a whole. The eternal chicken and egg problem. Publishers want manuscripts from authors that have already been published, but how do you get published if no one will take your work?

Approach your burgeoning career as a writer in the same way as you would approach your day job. To achieve your goal (publication, or whatever that might be), you will need to take steps to achieve it.

A writer once told me that the best way to go about getting published is to take every possible writing opportunity you can find, and most of that will be work you do for free. But it is all good experience, and you will find that the more opportunities you look for, the more you will find.

Start simple:

Create a CV.

Take a copy of your current CV and extract everything from your previous jobs that relate to writing in any capacity (reports, spread sheets, children’s activities etc.). Write a new CV with all of those details highlighted.

Take opportunities within the workplace.

Those emails that Charlotte in the communications team has been sending around begging for good news stories for the website? That internal newsletter? Maybe even a proposal for new equipment or presentations for colleagues. These are all great opportunities to hone your writing skills, and depending on your work place’s policies, you may be able to keep copies of your work as evidence of your skills.

Take opportunities outside of the workplace.

If you are part of a group in your spare time (community watch, social clubs, sports clubs), there may be an internal newsletter that you could contribute to. Write letters to your local paper, write short pieces for local charities for free, or join local writing groups that publish analogies.

Write a portfolio.

This is essentially a CV that details all of your writing achievements. Collect together everything you have ever written, and go online to find information on how to structure this. Usually, you would put together extracts of your pieces into a document, and include information about yourself as a writer and details on each piece (when it was written, what it was for, how long the piece is etc.)

Set up a Blog or Website.

Technophiles may baulk at the idea of designing their own web page or blog. But these days there are some fantastic tools around that walk you through the process. Try Google’s Blogger service and set up your own basic template, and get blogging!

I guarantee that once you have had a go at a few of these steps, you will start to feel much more like a professional writer. This will give you confidence when you make your first approach to a publisher.