First and foremost, you DO NOT send an unsolicited manuscript to anyone. All they’ll do is just throw it in the trash; no reputable company accepts unsolicited material.
Second, you DO NOT contact publishing companies. No reputable publishing firm accepts non-vetted material.
Writers don’t need publishing companies. They haven’t needed publishing companies for more than a decade.
Writers also shouldn’t self-publish. With the maturation of the indie publishing community, there are professionals (the exact same professionals who work for publishing companies) who can help any anyone with a manuscript go from writer to author.
Kindle Scout is a “reader powered” publishing program offered by Amazon where authors can submit their new never-been-published books and be considered for a publishing contract by Kindle Press.
Books that make the cut will be published by Kindle Press. They’ll receive a publishing contract with 5-year (renewable) terms, a $1,500 advance, 50% eBook royalty rate, and Amazon’s “easy rights reversion” so you can get your book rights back when you’re done.
What makes this program unattractive is the 20% lower royalty rate than if you’d published through Kindle Direct Publishing yourself. This rate is still 35% higher than if you’d published through a traditional publisher, so it’s kind of a push in my book.
What makes this program something you should look at is the advance (it’s not much, but it’s more than you’d get if you published yourself) and the all important “featured Amazon marketing.” If you’re an author, you know that writing the book isn’t the hard part; it’s getting people to know you’ve written a book. Amazon – the 800 lb. gorilla in the room when it comes to selling books and eBooks – sells more books than everyone else combined. If they’re going to feature your book, then – by all means – you should welcome that!
Question: What are some tips that can help me successfully publish a book through a major publishing house?
Answer:
Well, to start with: you don’t publish. You write. Once you’re done writing, you write query letters to agents to attract one. The agent will get your book to a publisher. The publisher will get your book into bookstores.
Now, as for tips:
Answer: Well, your question starts off with an incorrect assumption.
Self publishing does work. It’s worked for hundreds and hundreds of years. Poor Richard’s Almanack was certainly a success – it was printed starting in 1732. William Blake was very successful self-publishing his work starting in 1783. Jane Austen was pretty successful – although, to be accurate, she went vanity press before there was a vanity press. Walt Whitman? Successful. Marcel Proust? Another success. Virginia Woolf? Success.
More successes include: Alexandre Dumas, Amanda Hocking, Anais Nin, Barbara Freethy, Beatrix Potter, Carl Sandburg, D.H. Lawrence, David Chilton, Dean Wesley Smith, Deepak Chopra, e.e. cummings, E.L James, Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Stein, H.M Ward, Henry Thoreau, Hugh Howey, Irma Rombauer, J.A. Konrath, Jack Canfield, James Redfield, John Grisham, John Locke, K.A Tucker, L. Ron Hubbard, Lisa Genova, Margaret Atwood, Mark Twain, Michael J. Sullivan, Richard Evans, Rudyard Kipling, Stephen Crane, Stephen King, T.S. Elliot, Thomas Paine, Tom Clancy, Upton Sinclair, William E.B. DuBois, and Zane Grey.
