Improbable Press Blog — Publishing

By Atlin Merrick Spoiler alert in the first paragraph! The difference between vanity presses and small presses is you pay the first one to work with you, and the second one pays you to work with them. That's mostly it. Or let's put it another way: with a vanity press or self-publishing, you assume most of the risk of publishing your book. When you work with a small press, they assume most of the risk of publishing your book. If you self-publish or use a vanity press you call the shots because you're paying. You decide if your book is...

By Atlin Merrick Writers often ask if I want to look at the first draft of the novel they're writing for Improbable Press. It's a sensible question with what may be an unexpected answer for most new writers: No, please, I do not ever want to see the draft of your novel. Ever. What is a First Draft? First draft—what does that even mean? The answer depends on you, actually. If you're the kind of person who plots everything—who knows your book is going to be fifteen chapters, in chapter eight the orphan will find his parents, in twelve the soldier with her rare...

By Atlin Merrick Do pitch again. Sometimes an editor or publisher rejects your story or book but says "we really like your style, but we're looking something with more B, less A." For the love of all that's holy they just gave you a leg up in getting your book further along the process, please take it. All right, sure, maybe you don't want to put a lot more B into your book and that's fine. In that case pitch them another book, this one more B-centric. Do follow the yellow brick road. As an editor, when I turn down...

Writing rules are bunk. If you only get the words on the page after standing on your head and yodeling, then that's your writing rule. In my experience as a working writer and editor though, there are three single-sentence rules that help get your lovely yodel-infused writing published. 3 Tiny Tips for Getting Published * Read and follow the publisher's submission guidelines If your preferred publisher's guidelines ask for Victorian vampire fiction and you send a contemporary vampire story, you've ignored their guidelines and you'll be rejected. Please, don't do that to yourself. They know what they want, so give...

You’ve written tens of thousands of words of short stories, fanfiction, character development, and you want to sell something damn it. Obviously you’re already a writer — you write, so that makes you a writer, that's the rules — but now you want to be a professional. A professional is paid to write. Even if she makes £1 she’s a pro. She was paid. So, how do you do it, how do you make that first sale? I know it seems hard (it did to me), because you get a lot of rejections or just silence (which is worse? Is...