has anyone on mn ever written a book?

[lucykate]

because if you have, i would like to ask a few questions if thats ok?!

I'll sit here quietly and watch, as I'm writing one too.

yes id also like to get my grandma's life story published so will also watch

Are you Goobs? How int'resting. I lurrrrve reading and always have a book on the go. What sort of one are you writing? Novel?

[hopeful emoticon]

I have, I've written 3 actually and trying to motivate myself to get round to the 4th!

actually, thinking about it, justine and carrie have had books published haven't they?

what kind of book is it goober?, are we allowed to ask?

yellowbrickroad - what kind of books?, did you use a literary agent or go direct to a publisher?

They're all fiction - the first one I went straight to a publisher and got it published. The 2nd one isn't very good! I'm still working on the 3rd, I want an agent - or I want to find a way in to one of the top five publishers as I'd love a book deal that'll set me up for at least this one and my next one.

They're all fiction - the first one I went straight to a publisher and got it published. The 2nd one isn't very good! I'm still working on the 3rd, I want an agent - or I want to find a way in to one of the top five publishers as I'd love a book deal that'll set me up for at least this one and my next one.

A novel.

when it was published, did you get paid a fee or do you get royalties (or both)

i have little idea about the book publishing industry, but i know i want to write/edit one. it would be an art/craft book. am a bit baffled as to how to go about this, i have ideas, but nothing concrete enough to build into a whole book so am a little apprehensive when it comes to contacting a publisher direct as i'm not sure if thats the right way to go about it.

so how do you get published then? do write the book then send it to a publisher? does it need to be copyrighted or anything first?

I didn't get an advance but I got royalties. Not sure how it works with art / craft books tbh. With fiction you put together a submission in the form of your first 3 chapters and a synopsis (the synopsis shouldn't be longer than 2 pages double spaced). Most publishers / agents would only want submissions from something that's completed.
The best place for you to start would be the Writer's Handbook - it's got contact details for all the publishers and agents in there so you can look through and find which ones would be right for you. Then you can go onto their sites and check out their submission process.

There are quite a few published authors - maybe post under adult fiction?
or culture vultures?

Elizabeth Graham (Eliza2?) published a fab book called Playing With The Moon which some of us reviewed.

I think as long as you've got the original document saved on your computer you're safe with copyright. My dh was actually advised by someone to email his work to himself (he's a songwriter) so that it showed the date.
With my first book I think I was very lucky, I went through the Writer's Handbook and picked out ten publishers who I thought my title would suit and sent it in. 2 of them came back to me wanting the entire manuscript and one offered to publish it.

4 books published. Very, very dull textbooks though. I was a ghost writer (sort of - complicated story) and got paid by the main named writer rather than by the publisher.

have just looked on amazon for the writers handbook, there is also a writers & artists yearbook which looks interesting.

my current line of thinking on this, is to do a first project as a collaboration, and i have someone else already in mind, and i think we would work well together as our work is different but also compliments each other.

this is really interesting so far, anyone else?