How to write and publish a book

Looking at the number of books published every year, it seems that just writing a book and publishing it is very easy. However, despite appearances both the first part, which is writing a book, and the second, which is finding a publisher, are not easy. Methods of writing and publishing are different, but above all you need to have a lot of patience, self-denial and time to cope with both. So how to write a book?

How to write a book

There is no denying that to write a book you need to have a light pen and an idea to describe. But just knowing grammar or using interesting words is not enough. You still need to be able to plan and think strategically. Where to start the book? From the idea for the plot. You always have to write out all the plot ideas, the ending, and make a short description of each character, so that on that basis you can formulate enough text to call it a book.

Where to get ideas for the plot from?

Copying other authors is never a good idea. You can be accused of plagiarism, which is the greatest insult to the author of books, but also the readers will not receive such a book well, because „it was already there”. It is best to come up with something on your own that is not a copy of anything else. It sounds difficult? If you don't know what you want to describe, you will probably never find a topic, so just start writing and writing until you come up with something brilliant.

Writing methodology

Every person likes to work differently. For some people writing books is a profession, for others just a hobby. This is why some people have deadlines in which they have to write e.g. another chapter, and others work when they want or have time for it. We do not have to suggest the method of work of others. We can choose the way of working that suits us best.

If you already know how to write a book, and maybe it is even ready, it is time for the next step – publishing it.

How to publish a book

Writing a book can take a month or even 10 years, but you still need to find a publisher who will be interested in publishing it or do it yourself. There are two most common methods of publishing a book: large publishing house or self-publishing (self publishing). So what to choose and how to publish a book?

How to publish a book on your own – self publishing

Self publishing does not mean that the author puts the book together himself and prints it on his home printer and then sells it. There are many professional publishing houses dealing with such authors. But not for free. Similarly as in the traditional publishing house, here you write a contract saying how much the author will earn and how much the publisher will charge for publishing and promoting the book. But self-publishing is most often used for e-books. This doesn't suit every author, but it is the first step to publishing in book form if the e-book sells well, and if it doesn't it will still be a small material loss compared to the cost of printing the entire run of the book.

What to do to get a big publishing house to publish a book?

The biggest Polish publishing houses receive hundreds of books written by young authors every month. Such books or their extensive excerpts are checked for potential and the amount of work that still needs to be done, for example, in proofreading the book. If the publishing house accepts your book project, you sign a contract for proofreading, typesetting, publishing and promoting your book, where the publishing house gives you its financial conditions. Unfortunately, only a few percent of books are published this way and you have to wait months for an answer from the publisher.

The advantage of such a solution is that publishing a book through a publishing house opens the door to all bookstores in the country. However, this does not equate to a lot of money for marketing and promotion, so if the book does not sell well it will be quickly replaced by other titles.

There are, of course, also disadvantages to such a solution. If you sign a contract, the author relinquishes copyright to the publisher for several years. This means that the possible continuation of the work depends only on the goodwill of the publisher, so if it is not successful, it probably will not be renewed. One of the publishing houses that helps to publish the book is Złote Myśli.

What else can you earn on?

Your own book is undoubtedly one of the best ways to earn a steady passive income. Provided, of course, that we succeed in writing such a book and publishing it. It is, however, quite a time-consuming process, so sometimes it is worthwhile to be interested in other ways of passive income or work at home.

Income without performing additional work or when once performed the work is profitable for a longer period of time is certainly an interesting perspective. There are a couple of ways to do this.