How to get your own book published: a step by step guide

theguardian.com:

“A top-of-her-game literary agent tells us she receives about 3,000 submissions a year,” says Joe Sedgwick, the head of writing services at The Literary Consultancy. “Of those, she requests to see the full manuscripts of about 70. Of those writers, she will take on maybe five to 10.”

Faced with these odds, many people who dream of getting their writing into the hands of readers are turning to self-publishing.

Paul Ilett self-published his first novel, Exposé, in 2014 and sold about 35,000 copies worldwide. He is about to publish his second, Exposed. “Second time around, I haven’t considered anything apart from self-publishing. I am very comfortable being completely in control of my book – its look, content and promotion.”

Ilett used Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service, which, at its most basic, doesn’t cost a penny. As well as ebooks, authors can opt to offer paperbacks and hardbacks, to be produced on a print-on-demand basis.

Darren Hardy, the UK manager of author and editorial programmes at Amazon.co.uk, says: “There are a few simple steps the author goes through to get that book uploaded on to KDP and then published anywhere around the world, and there are no fees or costs attached.”

Being “in control” also means managing every stage of publishing. Pressing the KDP publish button is free but getting a book ready for readers, with editing and design work, and then marketing it later, is not.

Ilett estimates you would need a budget of about £4,000 to produce a professional-quality book.

For starters, according to the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading, the minimum recommended hourly rate for basic copy-editing – to ensure your work is grammatically correct and free from repetition and misused