Trying to publish a book used to be straightforward. You came up with an idea, spent months, if not years, writing it, then sent it off to an agent or publisher who rejected it by return. Life was simpler back then. We all knew where we were.
Rejection wasn’t necessarily based on the quality of the work. Literature is a subjective business. Lord of the Flies earned William Golding 20 rejections. James Joyce, Jack Kerouac and Joseph Heller suffered similar fates. Marcel Proust was rejected so many times that he decided to pay for publication himself. The much-repeated industry statistic is between 1 and 2 per cent of manuscripts are published. Those aren’t great odds.
What do you do? I’ll tell you exactly what: publish it yourself. In fact, even if a publisher will take your manuscript, these days you are probably better off becoming your own publisher.
In 2022, self-published authors made $874 million in sales.
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