Definition Essay

What is a book? Some of you might say that’s a silly question. A book is ink on paper bound in a cover, according to the first definition in Webster’s dictionary. Read further, however, and you will get “a literary or scientific work, anthology, etc.” What does that mean? Simply put, it means that someone poured work and care into writing words down to inform, or entertain a reader. This paper is to inform its readers on the life of a book, from the idea that inspires to holding a printed copy in your hand and placing it on the shelf in a bookstore, and everything in between. How to publish a book, what the options are, and what the difference between the options are. What is a literary agent, what do they do, how do you get one? Writing a

“The author… writes a query letter or a proposal and submits these documents to a publishing house… An editor reads it, considers whether it is right for the house and decides either to reject it… or to publish it.” “If the publishing house decides to publish the book, the house buys the rights from the writer and pays him or her an advance on future royalties.” With royalties comes the promise of getting future books published by the same house. Having a book published this way may take years however. Self-publishing is a much faster way, taking 6 months or for an e-book only days to weeks. Self-publishing has its drawbacks though. “… the author must proofread the final text and provide the funds required to publish the book… The author is responsible for marketing and distributing the book, filling orders and running advertising campaigns.” Self-publishing can also result in stacks of unsold books collecting dust if the author orders to many printed, but the print on demand as eliminated some of this problem. “The print on demand (POD) technology now used by some self-publishing companies means that authors can have fewer copies printed- only as many as they need, in fact.” The biggest differences between the two are time, money, and control. Traditional publishing can take years, while self-publishing takes considerably less time. Traditional publishing pays in advance and takes care of marketing,

They deal with publishing houses, represent the author’s work and sell it for them. Agents are not necessary for an author to publish traditionally, however, they can be the author’s life line to reliable publishing houses and therefore are highly recommended. Getting a literary agent can be a long process, with many rejection slips. An author must find an agent with similar literary interests. For example, if a literary agent loves Si-fi novels, an author of Si-fi novels query letter is more likely to catch the eye of the agent. Now no matter how similar the author’s genre is with the agents, if the query letter is poorly written then it is unlikely to get accepted. A good query letter can be the difference between a phone call and a rejection slip. An author writing a query letter is more apt to succeed if they use a good template, one such example, found in Stephan King’s book, On Writing: page 245, goes like this… Dear :

I am a (young or old) writer in search of an agent. I got your name from (wherever the author found it) and I thought we might fit each other. ( follows a list of published works, if any.) I am seeking representation for my novel about (insert brief synopsis here.) I would be delighted to show you ( the whole manuscript if available, or a chunk of the beginning.) please be in touch and tell me if you would like to see some of my material. In the meantime, thank you for taking the time to