There are plenty of people out there who've written a book. Maybe you're one of them. Maybe you've thought of trying to get it published, (not on the internet, but with a real, live, bricks-and-mortar publisher). OK. First step? You need advice. You trot along to your local bookshop and start looking along the shelves until you find titles like 'Getting Published for Dummies' and 'Seeing Your Book in Print for Complete Fools'. Trouble is, there is no way on earth that anybody can write a formula for getting your book published by Traditional Publishers that works every time, and you will be sorely disappointed.
You see, getting published generally falls into three stages. First is Writing the Book. Ah, right now, you've hit problems. Sure, the advice 'for dummies' will be all about Plot, and Tone, and Point of View, but the fact is that this will vary according to what you want to write. If it's a hard-boiled detective mystery, you might choose to have tough, no-nonsense characters from the streets, talking in the local argot, swearing and blaspheming their way through life. If you want to create a Mills and Boon romance, on the other hand, you need to drop the bad language, the 'attitude', and find some sympathetic people with everyday problems to write about. So, when the advice is 'Make sure your dialogue is sparkling, witty and pithy', who are we talking about here? Does that advice apply to the type of story you're trying to create? When the advice is 'Keep your descriptions short and to the point', does that work every time, in every situation? No, the 'advice' is way, way too general, well-meaning, and, ultimately, vague and inappropriate.
Writers who find their way through this maze will then have to move on to Stage Two. This involves Preparing your Manuscript for Publication. Ah, now we are on much safer ground. This is the one time in the whole process when you can be absolutely accurate about what to do. The fact is that every publisher will want to see a manuscript neatly typed, with no spelling mistakes, on one side of A4 only, and with separated pages. That's right. No ifs, no buts. Don't think you can send in your handwritten material