Chapter Two | Publishing
Updated May 2026
You’ve written your book, now sit back, relax, have a coffee and wait for the agents and publishers to come knocking at the door... Yeah, right! That’s probably not going to happen. There is a lot of advice and information out there, so do your research on how to publish. But I would like to share what I have learnt on my writing journey.
Publishing fits into two broad categories: Traditional publishing and Self (or independent) Publishing
Traditional Publishing – If you want to go through a publisher then you need, these days, to get a literary agent. There are a lot of them and they all have existing clients and thousands more who want to be one of their clients. Most of them encourage new authors to submit to them, with that health warning that they receive a lot of submissions. They all give guidance on their sites about what you need to do. It is usually via email and they normally ask for the following;
a covering letter in the body of the email
a synopsis attached which has to say everything that happens (tricky exercise trying to condense 90000 words down to 5 or 600!)
the first 3 chapters or 5000 – 10000 words of your book.
The trick is to try to get them to open the attachments, so your covering letter has to be well thought out and able to sell your concept. Then it is a question of whether they like what they read and whether it is something that is on their wish-list. Remember: they are taking the risk that your book will sell to cover their upfront costs and profit, so they will be very fussy.
Do your research into the agencies first as to who might be interested in your type of book, and then look at the agent profiles to see which agent within the agency specifically might be attracted to it. If I had a magic tip on how to get them to read your work and take it on, I would give it. I don’t. It’s hard and there is some luck involved, I suspect. But your writing must be good, and then it’s a question of what they want at the time you submit. Make sure your covering letter is professional (no spilling mistacks and it sense makes) and that it catches their attention. Most of all, be resilient – there will be rejections (and non-replies). A lot of waiting and patience is required.
Self Publishing – There are two main routes: paying for someone to do it for you, or to do the publishing yourself.
Paying – Some companies will publish your book and then want to charge you for it. There is nothing wrong with that if that is a route you want to go down (some people call these companies ‘Vanity Publishers’, rather disparagingly, I feel, as for some people it might be a good choice). Some charge quite a lot and promise much, so do your research to make sure it is what you want and are prepared to pay. I got a positive E-mail from one of these companies early on for my first book. I got very excited (naively) and told some of my family and friends I had a publisher. I was badly let down the following day when I found out they wanted to charge £2500. I felt cheated; it took away that first feeling I hoped to get when I did get an offer from an agent or publisher who were prepared to take my book because they thought it was good. Do your research before you commit.
Publishing yourself – I submitted my first sci-fi book (Quarton: The Bridge) and my first cosy mystery (Maggie Matheson: The Senior Spy) to literary agents. I was told I was close on the Maggie book by one agent, but it didn’t work out for me. I was keen to get my books out there, so I chose to self-publish through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. I don’t regret it, although it is hard work.
There are several jobs on top of the actual writing. These include: formatting; designing and producing book covers; editing and proofreading; marketing. You can pay for all these services separately without going through a ‘Vanity Publisher’ - indeed, there are many offers to help you sell your books, much of it hitting your inbox daily and AI generated - but it’s obviously cheaper if you do what you can. I’ve learnt to do these things as I’ve gone along, with the exception of the technical work around book covers. I have creative input on what I want it to look like and then hand it over to a graphic designer, someone I know.
Big advantages of this DIY approach are that you get the bulk of the money from sales - less a fee from Amazon, or whichever platform you use - and you have complete control over the process.
Promotion and Marketing is hard. You can advertise on Amazon, Facebook and through other platforms, but working through the algorithms is tricky. (Bryan Cohen - https://bryancohen.com/ - offers free advertising courses occasionally which I have used and found useful). It can be a full-time job,; one that I’m not experienced in and still struggle with today. It might be time for me to get that professional advice (but see chapter 5 for more about my experiences and thoughts on promotion.)
Social media can help get your book out there. Connecting with authors and readers via various platforms can be rewarding. There are a lot of very supportive people who want to help, and it’s free advice. Connect and build up a following by following others. Support them too and you’ll find readers and reviewers. I’ve found followers on Instagram very good, but all the talk seems to be around BookTok these days.
Getting your name known is part of it. By self-publishing, your book will be one of several million out there. The average self-published book sells about 250 copies in its lifetime, with roughly 90% of self-published books selling fewer than 100 copies. Somehow, you’ve got to get your book to stand out. Part of that might mean pushing yourself into the limelight. I’m fairly introverted, but I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone to appear on radio shows and in the local paper, as well as doing the occasional talk. With my teaching experience, plus the fact that I also write children’s books, I’ve been lucky enough to go into schools to do writing workshops. (These are in my comfort zone!) Do what you can; it might not be as daunting as you think.
Blogs and newsletters can build up your profile. I enjoy writing blogs and people seem to like reading them. They can be a good way to signpost people to your work. I use Mailchimp which is fine and the package I have is free, though building up subscribers can take time. My blogs can be found on this website and via this link. See what you think!
I do have a major tip here though: with the possible exception of social media posts , try to make whatever you publish grammatically correct and ensure the punctuation is good. I don’t always get it right, but it’s an important focus for me as sloppy writing can put off some readers. Which brings me nicely onto editing in the next chapter...