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| Linda Caridad, Ana Cecilia and Marielos The House of Hope, 1975 |
I am so blessed to have gotten this far in my writing journey. The manuscript is now ready for publication. There are many avenues to publication but I will explain the three that I think I understand.
1) Vanity Press - Vanity Press of self-publishing means I send my manuscript to a printing company and pay them to print copies of my book. There is no oversight, no reading of the manuscript. It is fast and affordable.
2) Printing on Demand (POD) - This is where I contact publishers who print on demand and see if they want to publish my book. Some read the manuscript and some do not. I would only go with those who take the time to read the manuscript. I then work with them to create the book cover, choose font and type size, etc. I pay for their setup services. They publish the number of books I request and sell them back to me at a discount price. I market the book and sell it to you, your friends and the rest of the world.
3) Traditional Publishing - This type of publishing is what most people think of when they see a published book. They assume every book was published by a big name publisher (i.e. Bantam Press, Harper Collins, Thomas Publishing.)
Wrong. A very select few authors get published this way. And, it's usually well-known names: presidents, Hollywood stars, famous authors, new authors who have become a household name because of their story (i.e. Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Duggard.)
The process to get published via traditional publishing starts with finding a publisher who represents your genre. My "genre" is Memoirs, Christian Memoirs, Women Authors. Some accept manuscripts from unknown, new authors, but most don't. Some require the author to go through an agent who will represent the author (in this case "Me".) The agent accepts certain manuscripts within their particular genre and will use their expertise to find a publisher. The author may or may not be paid an advance based on expected sales and then royalties.
When you asked about my experience with publishing, I had to laugh out loud. Call it 'helter-skelter'. Every article I had published was in some national magazine, and not once did I send a query letter. This was decades ago, before computers. Most of what I published was in educational magazine..."The Instructor", "Elementary English", "The Good Apple", "Elementary English," "Elementary Teachers Ideas and Materials Workshop", etc. Several of my articles were published in,"Child Life" and "Jack and Jill". The usual rate of payment was five cents a word. We owned not one copyright as we didn't even give it a thought. We just liked those nickles!!! Contemporary Press published one small book we wrote for teachers, which our son illustrated.We didn't pay to publish; they did. I am going out to the garage right now and look and see how it is copyrighted.Well, I found magazines my kids had articles in; but can't find the book. Anyhow, my publications were slap-dash to say the least. You couldn't function that way in the modern publishing world. Your book is excellent and I am confident it will be published.
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