It's So Hard to be Published Books

I was over at Jill Elaine Hughes' blog, Throw Novel From the Train II today (first time and lurved it) and in one of her posts, she was discussing just how hard it is to get published and named a few books with titles such as "78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might" by Pat Walsh and "Some Writers Deserve To Starve: 31 Brutal Truths about the Publishing Industry" by Elaura Niles and it got me to thinking about my own how to book that will be coming out soon on the very same subject.

Walsh's book is described as an insider's blunt, practical, and laugh-out-loud funny guide for the unpublished, filled with advice that may actually help them get into print.

For the hundreds of thousands who buy writers’ guides every year, at last there’s one that tells the ugly truth: writers who can’t get published areusually making a lot of mistakes. This honest, often funny, book shows them howto identify their own missteps, stop listening to bad advice, and get to work. Drawing on his experience as founding editor of MacAdam/Cage, Pat Walsh giveswriters what they need—specific, straightforward feedback to help them overcomebad habits and bad luck. He avoids the optimistic, sometimes misleadingdirections often found in publishing how-to books and presents the industry asit is, warts and all. Here is the first guide that tells writers just what theodds against them are and gives them practical tips for evening them.

Niles' book is described as...

While commitment and craft can take writers to the top, most will fail withoutthe insider savvy needed to navigate the publishing industry. Not just anotherhappily-ever-after writing book, this guide provides:-Twenty-seven cold, hardtruths about the realities of getting published, including Nepotism Happens andWriters Rarely Help Other Writers. -Easy-to-digest, quick lessons that are bothbrowsable and succinct -A tough love approach to instructing and motivatingwritersBoot camp and charm school all in one, this book will toughen up writersso they can survive and thrive in the publishing world.

I've not read either, but from what I've heard, they are excellent books to help the writer/aspiring author open up her/his eyes and see the industry as it really is. You wouldn't jump in a raging river with your eyes blindfolded, would you? Of course not. The more you know, the more your chances of avoiding the pitfalls along the way.

And this is the very same reason I feel that more books like these should be out on the shelves.

Sometimes we hate to see the writing on the wall, but if we could just take these words of wisdom, and learn from them, I have a funny feeling that not only would be become more prolific, we could avoid all those silly, stupid mistakes that writers like myself have made in the past and become even better writers, and better promotors, too, for that reason.