Publishing a book where to start???

[salsmum]

I've already had a book published through lulu where you can only order direct when you buy and they print to order....they do however take a large percentage of the monies I.e @£5 a copy. I would like to publish a second book but haven't lots of money to pay a bigger publisher. Can anyone offer advice on how to get my second book published ( hopefully by August) already written just need to publish. My book is a poetry book and the response to my poems has been good so far.

Get the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2017

It gives details on how to contact literary agents and publishers and all sorts of things. On the whole you'll need an agent first. They know the business and they know the publishers. Very few publishers accept unsolicited submissions.

Good luck.

You shouldn't have to pay publishers.

Agree with the above - agent, they suggest edits then submit to publishers on your behalf.

If you want to self publish then look at Amazon.

If you self-publish on Amazon Kindle and charge £1.99 upwards for the book, then you will get 70% of the money (I think they knock off VAT first) - be careful as there's something about that £1.99 figure that is a boundary. If you charge less than that, you earn only 30% of the cost (after VAT.)

It's incredibly difficult to get poetry published if you're unknown. One agent told me she didn't take on poetry because she couldn't do anything to add value (where she could edit a novel) and because the advances were so low that she couldn't bring herself to take 15%.