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Tuesday 15 January 2013

How to publish your Novel in India


I am finally inking this article because I have been tired of answering people’s query about how to get published on Facebook chat.

So here is all the information and I hope it will be helpful for you, if you want your work to be published in India. I am writing ‘India’ again and again because when you Google search about ‘how to get published’, the first thing which comes up is literary organization which claims to search for best publisher for you. Things are much different in India and abroad, so advice number one, ignore them!

If you are hunting for publisher, it means you have completed your manuscript or you are super excited about it. A humble request to those super excited people to complete their manuscript first or you will rush into things spoiling your chances.

When you usually Google search, which is most likely for you to do because you don’t have any clue about publishing, you get a lot of search results which are unfortunately futile (not all of them but most of them.) Let’s go step by step, to make it simple.

Step1: Complete your manuscript.
Be sure of what you have written, do necessary editing and get it proof read by people you trust (which doesn’t mean distributing it to every other person) and make required changes. 

Step2: Prepare elements of submission.
You need to make a proposal/submission which you further send to publishers. So you should be ready with the elements of submission, which are as follows
a)    Synopsis(complete detail of novel in minimum words)
b)    Sample Chapters (Some random chapters. Generally three or four)
c)     CV(If you have a blog, do mention about it with your previous works or achievements)
d)    Complete Manuscript.
e)    USP, Market Potential, Target Readers (Rarely Asked but you should know about it)

Step3: Sending proposal.
After you have all the elements of submission, you need to know the submission guidelines. To get the submission guidelines, you must reach the official website of either Literary Agency or the publisher.
How to get to their website? Type the name of publisher in google and it will take you there. On the main site, search for options like ‘submission’ or ‘publish with us’ which will yield all the details. Now there are two ways-
a)    Literary Agencies: They are the agencies which have contacts with good publisher and if your manuscript/proposal is good enough, they will represent it to various publishers. I have differentiated between manuscript and proposal because even if your manuscript is not that good but your proposal has some good market value, you still have the chance.

Advantage- No headache further.
Disadvantage- They takes a part of your royalty as fees. But in a sense it’s good because they will earn as long as you will earn, which means hundred percent efforts from their side.
In an all, I won’t say literary agents are a bad idea. Some of the literary agency you can look forward to are-
Red Ink, Jekaranda, Lead start, writer’s side, Siyahi, author’s empire etc
For more you can Google search ‘Literary Agencies in India’, it will help.

Publishers: After getting the submission guidelines, mail your proposal to the given email address. Some publishers does not accept proposals by emails, so you may need to get it printed and courier it! 

After you have submitted the proposal, here comes the waiting period, which can vary from two weeks to three months generally. Bigger the publisher’s profile is, more is the time they will take for evaluation. The time is hard but don’t get restless. Have patience and wait for the best deal and simultaneously be ready for rejections, especially if you have written something out of the box. Don’t feel bad and believe in yourself. You must have seen so many of crappy books. If they can get published, you can get it too.
Some of the Publishers that you can look forward to are-
Rupa publications, Pustak Mahal, Srishti, Mahaveer Publishers, Grapevine, Vitasta, Lead Start, Grey Oak, General Press India, Gyaana, Jaico, Penguin, Haper Collins India, Random House etc
(If you don’t get info about them on Google, search in Facebook.)
Disadvantage: Fear of rejection, have to wait a lot without hoping, and because you are new, can be exploited by Publisher.
Advantage: No middle man.

Step4: Terms and conditions

After your submission has been accepted, next is the contract/agreement signing which include following details usually-
a)    Royalty(five to seven percent of MRP generally)
b)    Copyrights (Make sure they remain with you)
c)     Price of Book
d)    If they are asking any kind of investment from your side, you should not prefer them because it means they don’t really trust your work.

Step5: stay in touch with your editor

Now it has been accepted and you have finalized the publisher, stay in constant touch with the concerned editor and pay a lot of attention towards it. Super finishing is always required to make it perfect. Write Acknowledgement pages (Thank everyone you like without thinking if it’s going long, it’s your space.), get a cool picture clicked of yours with a brief bio, decide who to dedicate it and get the final draft done.

Step6:Tell your friends and enjoy
You are getting published, what I need to say more? Live your dream!

Note: If you have lot of money to spend and you want to get published only for the name sake, get some press, pay it and get published. This   
Phenomenon is called self publishing which is very rarely successful. You can also go to publishers like Power Publishers who will give necessary publicity and marketing as well.

-Harsh Aggarwal  
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2 comments:

  1. worthy information, but see to that there are few minor errors.

    ReplyDelete
  2. How to get. copyright?

    ReplyDelete

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