This section contains information about the publishing world, publishing process, publishing options, and establishing a web presence as a writer. It is by no means comprehensive and should be approached as a place to begin gathering information that will help you ask better questions when you talk to the pros (writers who have been through the publishing process, agents, editors, etc.).
Some articles reflecting on the state of the publishing world:
Trade journals for keeping up on publishing industry news:
Articles, books that discuss the process of getting your work published:
The Writer's market
Behind the Book by Web sites listing submission opportunities with specific deadlines:
Books and web sites listing publishers (book, ebook, magazine, etc.) by market. Useful for identifying publishers who might be interested in your kind of writing (literary, science fiction, juvenile, poetry, short stories, etc.):
The Writer's marketSubmission tips:
Another avenue for getting published is to do it yourself by creating an e-book. While technically fairly easy to accomplish, there is much more work involved to doing this successfully than just transforming your literary creation into an e-book format and uploading it to a distributor. Some articles pondering the pros and cons of self-publishing vs traditional publishing:
Guides and resources on how to self-publish if you choose to investigate this option further:
Having a web presence - a web site, social media accounts, or a combination of the two - is often recommended so that interested publishers and readers can find you if they google you. There's a range of advice available on how best to create a web presence. A couple of examples:
If you're interested in experimenting with creating a web page for yourself, Mount Holyoke College students can create a web site for free using our local installation of WordPress:
While commons is great for your initial foray into building a web site, it doesn't allow you to create your own customized domain name (e.g., yourname.com) and you can only keep it for 2 years after graduation. When you're ready to move on, there are a number of for fee website builder services that will help you register your own domain name and create a site. Here are a couple of articles that list and review these services:
