Any writers here aiming for trad pub?

[Pan]

Hello fellow writers!

My personal career goals for writing are to acquire a literary agent and, hopefully, one day sell a book to a traditional publisher. One of the big five would be cool, but I'm good with starting small

Does anyone else have similar career goals? Anyone tried trad pub before? Anyone want to?

Let's chat!

[RainbowCat]

I'd love to get my book traditionally published one day, but I think it will take a lot more time until that finally happens I want to publish more than one book, make a living out of it, that'd be my dream

[Pan]

That's the dream all right! Best of luck to you, it's a hard road but I think it will be very rewarding ^^

[RainbowCat]

I hope so
Good luck to you too, we'll make it one day!

[linaket]

Hey, Pan! I think we've chatted about this but just wanted to share my thoughts again.

I, personally, don't want to go the traditional pub route. I've got the skillset for it, but it isn't what I'm into. Sure, it would be nice to physically hold your work, but it isn't for me.

Writing a web serial and writing toward trad pub are very different things. I know quite a few writers here who actually write with the traditional pub conceits, and they could easily transition their story over to that kind of thing. However, web serials are a completely different animal all together.

When you write a traditional published novel, you don't have to consider the fact that your reader is being distracted in between by other media. While its good to have some lead in-and-out of chapters, for instance, it isn't as necessary or important as writing a web serial. You also need to have the proper "book" structure for traditional pub. This means chapters of specific and even lengths and hitting the story beats at exactly the right time. This timing is a lot different when it comes to writing toward serialization as opposed to traditional.

If I were to decide to aim for traditional pub, I'd have to write something completely different structurally than what I currently write. Its a different skill set in the same tool box, like making sure you use a hammer for a nail and not a drill.

I like the freedom that writing for serialization gives me. I don't need to fit pre-defined genres or twist my ideas into following traditional arcs. I can kinda do my own thing, hit beats when I want to, and not worry about typical/accepted structure for those things. For instance, I found something that had an outline for a romance novel that showed exactly how many words each arc should take up and thats just... blah no thanks.

[Snickerdoodles]

What publishing houses have such strict requirements for chapter lengths and such?

[Pan]

Some do, though I couldn't name them. A good rule of thumb for trad pub is to follow the mold and then get creative with formatting once you're established!

[Pan]

There's definitely pros and cons to both sides! I love writing serialized fiction, but I also genuinely enjoy the conformity of trad pub. It's not for everyone, though, and I acknowledge that XD

[kamakura]

I'd love to. But I gave up. I can't make money out of this and I will no be able to dedicate to full-time writing, sadly. I hope you can do it!

[Snickerdoodles]

Just gonna point out that self-publishing is totally a third option.

[sii]

I've thought about it. And I don't know if what I want to write would even get picked up by a literary agent or a publishing house.

Plus, I personally don't like the format of traditional books. In the sense that sometimes it just takes too damned long for anything to happen in them. Probably because I've become so spoiled with online media and instant gratification, but my style of writing has veered away from traditional writing in the past couple months, let alone years. I need shit to happen right now!

But if I'm being honest, I would definitely love to go the route of being traditionally published. It would be pretty cool to see my name, or my pen name, be put on a physical copy of something I worked on.

[rajillustration]

Yeah. Absolutely. But not at this exact moment. I studied Children's Lit in college so I just...learned a hell ton about children's books and my work has been in many a slush pile. I've been in spot illustrations on books that probably didn't hit B&N, and then I decided to shift my focus to other art goals because kid's lit didn't fulfill me like I thought it would (working for it is very different from reading it and painting pretty pictures). But, a part of me still loves the world of traditional publishing and so maybe later in life I'll...finally write a story that I can look at and be like "ah, I know which publisher this should go to."

[EmmyPax]

Raises Hand

I've been working towards trad pub for a while now. No big news yet, but I've had a few R&R requests from agents. I'm actively querying one of my books, and waiting for news back from several agents who have partials and fulls (plus one of those R&Rs). I already have some interest for my next project too, though that one I'm still drafting.

It definitely is true that writing for traditional publishing comes with a different set of constraints. I think they can be great sources of inspiration and creativity, if you tackle those market expectations the right way. But they do also get in the way. My latest book has had a few rejections that boil down to "love it, not sure how to sell it" and that's always a hard pill to swallow. But that's okay. Rejection is part of the industry, and you've gotta be in it for the long haul, even if you get turned down for frustrating reasons.

If anyone is looking for resources on story structure and what's generally expected in traditional publishing, Save the Cat Writes a Novel is a great place to start. I've seen some people expand the Save the Cat formula all the way to page/word count beats, like linaket was talking about earlier, but to me, those people are going overboard. I wouldn't say that kind of slavish adherence to formula is necessary, but some people definitely use it. I prefer looking more at the general story-telling principles that they're describing, then trying to adapt those.

Anyhow, good luck all! Hopefully someone pops into this forum with good news some day.

[BlunderingAlbatross]

One day I'd like to get there but for now I'm happy enough to share my novel for free on Tapas

[LadyN]

I’d like to think majority of writers here would like to get their books published. I am one of those.

[SilverLugia456]

I'm not sure where to go in the future with my writing, after reading many light novels I'm actually hoping that maybe I can expand on the Pirate's Chronicles and turn it into a light novel series that can be published. So ya it would be awesome to be able to publish a book and be under a literary agent. I'm just finding it hard to take that first step but overcoming these walls makes it worth it to reach the goals that I have set up for myself.

[ratscout]

I suppose we discussed it at length already, but surprisingly yes. I used to have zero interest in it just because, let's face it, it's a shot in the dark and incredibly unlikely to happen (plus, uh, you have to get rejected tons more than just self-publishing), but after realizing that, without a ton of money in my pocket to advertise and (professionally) edit my self-published book, I'm not likely to get a lot of attention on it--especially since I don't seem to write in popular genres and I tell kinda unorthodox stories. So I figure why not try both?

There are really a lot of drawbacks to both self-publishing and traditional publishing, though. It seems like, no matter what, you always have to conform to where the market is at for both which makes it really difficult to tell a story you're truly passionate about telling.

One thing I do appreciate about self-publishing over traditional publishing is the freedom. I feel like traditional books (particularly fantasy and sci-fi, my beloveds) are quite stale a lot of the time and stuck in a rut? I've honestly read fantasy and sci-fi books here on Tapas that are remarkably unique and different (even if they aren't perfectly written) that would probably never make it to bookshelves and I think it's wonderful that we can experience these books that in the past we never would have gotten to experience since we have the internet now.

At the same time, I can't deny that traditionally published books are more polished and that traditional publishing has a wider reach.

I dunno. Trying to gain an audience and writing is just hard unless you're willing to pander to the market.

[ISNEKO]

Having a traditional publisher would be cool. I'd like to walk into Barnes and see my shit up there while I walk passed that section completely and go pick up manga and Warhammer novels.

But, achieving this goal sorta feels like screaming at the top of your lungs next to others who are doing the same. And even if your scream sounds nicer, it can't be heard. Eh.

I'll just self-publish on Amazon when I feel my work is ready.

[darkone4587]

Honestly it depends.
I have self-published a few books (plan to do a few more to), but generally I think traditional publishing would be fine for certain stories I want to write, but considering that everything I write is pretty niche it probably wouldn't do all that well.