From the course: Sell Your Novel to a Major Publisher

Overview of the entire publishing process

From the course: Sell Your Novel to a Major Publisher

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Overview of the entire publishing process

“

(mild music) - This is what I like to call the life cycle of a novel, the overall process of selling a book from start to finish. I'll list the steps for you here with a brief explanation, and then I'll go into each in much more detail in the subsequent sections of this course. Step one, writing your novel: this step is a tad bit obvious, but before you can sell a novel, you kind of have to, you know, write one. Get your brilliant idea down on paper in a first draft. For most people, this is the hardest part. But if you've already done that, then you're halfway there. In the next section, I'll share some tips and advice for outlining and writing a sellable novel. Step two, revising your novel: this step includes collecting feedback from friends, family members, neighbors, avid readers and other writers, basically anyone you can get to read your novel and give you constructive feedback. You don't have to take all their feedback, but it's important to have it so you can decide which critiques you'd like to incorporate in your future drafts. Also in this section, we'll talk in more detail about the revision process and how to get the most out of your revisions. Step three, getting an agent: once you have a draft that you think is the final, final draft, as good as it's ever going to get, it's time to start looking for an agent. These sections of the course are entirely devoted to the topic of agents, why you need one, and how to maximize your chances of getting one, including my proven recipe for writing an awesome query letter and my top secret tool for publishing success, the Magic Query Maximizer. Step four, submitting to publishers: after you've secured an agent, the next step is for that agent to submit your manuscript to editors at various publishing houses. In this section of the course, we'll talk about what this means and how this works, and what you should know about the submission process. Step five, selling your novel: if everything goes well, you'll finally have your first offer and then your first sale. In this section of the course, we'll talk about what to expect from this, what goes into a publishing contract and other important information about that first publishing deal, including foreign rights, e-books, film deals, future book options and other ancillary topics. Step six, releasing your novel: in this section of the course, we'll finish up with some brief information about what happens after you sign your first book contract, including an overview of the publishing process from book sale to publication, also some tips about marketing, publicity, book covers and working with your new editor. So that's the overview. Are you getting excited yet? You should be, this is exciting stuff. If you're like me, selling a novel is your dream. And this course is designed to help you achieve that dream. So by all means, get excited. Now let's get into it.

Contents