The DGA Guide to Publishing
At its most basic level, publishing is just a way of making written material available to the general public, and it has never been easier. Stories, poems, novels, memoirs, in fact all types and genres of writing can now be posted on the internet and when it comes to producing a conventional book, a great deal of help is now at hand. Over the last few years there has been a huge proliferation of companies who will, for a fee, design, produce, bind and jacket a modest print run of your book. Selling the copies from a website is an option and if you have stamina and determination, you might even be able to get copies into a bookshop. Once you can show some respectable sales figures a traditional publisher may well sit up and take notice. Investing in new writing is one of the riskiest businesses there is. There are very few people out there desperate to get their hands on the latest novel or slim volume of poems by a totally unknown writer, so anything you can do to show that there is an audience for your work is enormously helpful.
So that is one way to go. But if you feel you want to try the more conventional route to publication, then the DGA guide explains the pitfalls and difficulties that await you. It will give you some ideas on how best to negotiate your way through the labyrinth of British publishing and how to deal with a publishing contract. It describes all the stages that a book must go through en route to publication and the wider roles of author and publisher. It also explains the world of subsidiary rights and how to sell into foreign markets.