Okay, so .. I would call myself a pretty good writer, and think I can have success in the writing industry. I have a question though. The answer will not sway my decision to continue writing or get me down in any way; I am just wondering. If I take my time and write a novel, my first ever, what is the difficulty of getting this said novel published? Anyone got any advice or anything for me? Thanks in advance, Marla
We often talk about this here, so I guess there is information on several old threads. There is no easy answer to your question, since a lot depends on the quality of your writing, the 'publishability' of your novel taking into account current or emerging trends, and...I guess luck, and contacts. You won't know until you spend a lot of time writing and polishing your novel, unfortunately. There's no guarantee at the end that you will manage to get your novel published. If you look on writing it as a valuable and enjoyable learning experience, and keep up your morale, then you will be able to handle the tough task ahead of you.
The difficulty will depend on circumstance. However, if you are a) a decent-to-good writer who b) has a story involving at least one interesting character and c) you actually do finish the novel, then d) get three or four people who read a lot to look it over and compare what they say so you can fix any plotholes or ambiguities . . . then you will probably get that book published, although you may have to try several editors before one likes it. The issue, of course, is that it doesn't always work out that way. Many people take a while to get their craft skills up to a decent / good level. Other people have a hard time actually finishing a book once they start. And many, many want-to-be-writers do not write much. BUT if you can do the steps I outlined, you'll get published. It's not a question of whether, just when.
If you can write a novel that hooks the reader, use some interesting creativity, get people to give you feedback and refine the story till it flows logically, you might get your novel published.
for a new, unknown writer, on a scale of 1-10, it's about a 12... see posts above for why... the sad fact is that only .03 percent of the hundreds of thousands of mss submitted to agents/publishers each year ever get published... that's only 3 out of every 10,000... and not all of the rejected ones are poor efforts... many truly good books get passed over [often for mediocre and even awful ones] due to poorly written queries, or bad luck/timing and other causes that are beyond the writer's control...
All it takes is one editor to love the book and push it through. But really, why stack the odds against yourself? Why write just one book? Write multiple books... publishing is, in the end, a numbers game (as long as your writing is, of course, good/publishable quality). Also, learn to write really good query letters and accurate, short synopses. All this will help your chances of getting a book published. (And what everyone said above- gotta have all the things that make novels good, but that's the writing side, it's a given you should have the writing side covered before you think about publishing)
