BEE Books: What To Do When You’ve Completed Writing Your First Book?

Writing a book is a journey that drenches the mind and the heart. It pushes you into an abyss of emotional turmoil, sleepless nights and scratched out paragraphs. But the moment after your story is written is a special one. A repertoire of words and feelings lies in front of you. It is a tremendous feeling! So don’t forget to celebrate a little.

But what’s next, though?

Do you wish to keep your story to yourself or share it with the world? The latter, I’m guessing. So once you decide that you want to get your manuscript published, begin looking up publishing houses that you’d like to submit your manuscript to. Unless you want to self-publish.

Proofreading is the first thing you must do after you’ve completed your novel. It may seem like an easy task, but it is a really tedious job to go through the entire novel and making sure that there are no grammatical errors or spelling mistakes. Also, there is nothing worse than having someone else point out an error. Especially if they’re the ones who are going to put their money behind the novel.

Also, don’t forget to come up with a catchy title for your story!

Now, to begin, you’ll have to send out a query letter or a proposal along with the manuscript to the publishing house of your choice. Make sure you know, and mention your genre, so that it’s easier for them to know what kind of book they’re dealing with.

You’ll surely feel confident after sending out your first few queries but don’t get disheartened if all of your proposals are rejected. Rejection is a part of the game. Even the best-selling authors faced rejection countless times before finally getting published.

The first few rejections are more or less inevitable, but look on the bright side!

Even if your manuscript is rejected, you’ll get an honest feedback from the publishing houses. Family members or other close friends, unless they are also writers, are far more likely to say something like “I really liked it.” rather than the constructive criticism that you actually need.

Once you have received the feedback, you can go through your novel once again to evaluate it. You may or may not feel that maybe it can be better, though it is hard to believe once you feel that your novel is complete.

Another important thing that a writer must do in today’s world is be his own marketing agent and build an interest for his novel.  If you can start to build momentum and the level of interest for your work, you can really sway the decision of agents and publishers who are going to invest in you and your work, and can get demand for your book at a solid level before it’s even published.

Social media is extremely useful and easy for building interest for your work. Maintaining a blog and updating details about your writing journey will help you grow a fanbase and interact with potential readers of your work. It is always an advantage to have such an outlet.

You can also move on to your next novel, if you have something on your mind.

So there’s quite a lot to be done after the mere writing is finished. But it’s all good stuff that will make you better and help you improve your craft!

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BEE Books is an Indian publlishing house headquartered in Kolkata. We have our regional office in Delhi. If you have any queries regarding publishing assistance, please feel free to mail us at: query@beebooks.in