How do I get published?

First thing - copyright your book. Check you government webpage for information on copyrighting.

After that, you can look online for a list of publishers and their mailing address (or email, since some publishers prefer it that way). once you have a good list, you can start shipping out your manuscript. Don’t get discouraged if the first few don’t accept you - even Harry Potter was rejected a number of times before a publisher finally picked it up.

Also, your manuscript needs to follow a specific format or most publishers won’t touch it. My publisher sent me this info, and it’s what I follow for my own books:

-We need your manuscript as a single word processing document created with Microsoft Word software. -Your book needs to be at least 48 pages or 10,000 words.

We prefer: -An 8.5” x 11” layout with 1” margins all around -Single spacing -Just one space after all marks of punctuation (even after a period) -Paragraphs indented with a single 0.5” tab (not the space bar) -Times New Roman typeface -Twelve-point type, and no headers, footers, or page numbering

Chapter Formatting

-If you want your chapters to begin at the top of the next page, please insert a “hard page break” (CONTROL+ENTER) at the end of each chapter to take the cursor to the top of the following page. -Keep in mind that hitting the ENTER key several times to move the cursor to the next page will cause spacing problems when your 8.5” x 11” manuscript is repaginated for the 6” x 9” book size.

You shouldn’t have to pay a publisher unless you go with a self-publisher (I would actually recommend this, since you get to keep all the rights to your book).