Green - Writing a Novel and Getting Published for Dummies

Writing a Novel and Getting Published For Dummies

by George Green and Lizzy Kremer

Writing a Novel and Getting Published For Dummies

Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
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Copyright 2007 George Green and Lizzy Kremer

George Green and Lizzy Kremer have asserted their moral right to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-470-05910-4

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Authors

George Green works for the Department of English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. He is the author of Hound and Hawk , both published by Transworld.

Lizzy Kremer is a literary agent and director of David Higham Associates in London, representing authors of both fiction and non-fiction. Before becoming an agent, Lizzy was a book publicist at a publishing house.

Dedication

To Linda Anderson, teacher and friend.

George

To Ed, for trying to teach me everything he knows.

Lizzy

Authors Acknowledgments

With thanks to Alison, Rachael, and Kathleen at Wiley and Georgia and Laura at DHA for their expertise and support. To Michael and Adrienne with love for suppers eaten at the keyboard and all the things that matter. Lizzy would like to thank her clients for their inspiring input (that includes you, George!) and Anthony for his wise words. George would like to thank Lizzy for a calm head, and the Department for its understanding.

Publishers Acknowledgements

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Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Rachael Chilvers

Development Editor: Kathleen Dobie

Copy Editor: Andy Finch

Content Editor: Steve Edwards

Technical Editor: Dr Jo Baker

Executive Editor: Jason Dunne

Executive Project Editor: Martin Tribe

Cover Photos: Neil Rouse/Alamy

Cartoons: Ed McLachlan

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Jennifer Theriot

Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Laura Pence, Alicia B. South, Erin Zeltner

Proofreader: Laura Albert

Indexer: Aptara

Brand Reviewer: Jennifer Bingham

Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher, Consumer Dummies

Kristin Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Product Development Director, Consumer Dummies

Ensley Eikenburg, Associate Publisher, Travel

Kelly Regan, Editorial Director, Travel

Publishing for Technology Dummies

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher, Dummies Technology/General User

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey , Director of Composition Services

Introduction

A nyone who tells you that writing a novel is easy doesnt know what theyre talking about. From experience, we can tell you that writing a novel is hard work. However, the thousands of books published every year, and the hundreds of thousands still in print, prove that hard work can pay off.

The other good news is that this book provides inspiration and support for your efforts. Youre creating something new, but you dont have to do it from scratch; every problem you face has been encountered and solved already by other authors. If you want to know how to do something, this book offers advice and examples on everything from refining your writing to finding a publisher. Welcome and good luck!

About This Book

This book gathers together everything that you need to know about writing and publishing a novel. It saves you time and effort by distilling our 20 years of novel-writing, teaching creative writing, and working in publishing into one place. If you were to plough through all the books that weve read, and have all the experiences and training that weve had, you wouldnt need most of this book, but you would need to expand your home to accommodate your library and be 20 years older. This book prevents you having to re-invent the wheel. Often writers write something and think Hmm, thats good, I wonder if anyones thought of doing something like that before? This book gives you the answers to such questions.