Getting Your Book Published

book publishing class

Last weekend the St. Louis Publishers Association again offered the class "Getting Your Book Published: What You Need to Know" at the Meramec campus of St. Louis Community College. This is the fourth or fifth time we have done this, and the student reviews are quite positive. My role is pretty simple: I coordinate with the community college and moderate the four hour class, keeping things moving and offering comments as appropriate. After first having the students introduce themselves and tell what they are writing about, the following topics are covered: traditional publishing versus self-publishing, getting a book into print, book design, ebooks, and getting a book into the marketplace.

It is a lot of material to cover in four hours, but our goal is to get writers thinking about what they will do with their books once they are finished writing. We also offer resources on where they can find more information about publishing, including how to evaluate legitimate services versus the companies who are out to take advantage of new authors. As always, we had an interesting group of students who asked great questions, and it was a joy to take part in the class again this year. Hopefully a few of them will come to an upcoming St. Louis Publishers Association meeting, where they can find many people who are willing to share their own experiences in publishing or working with authors. If there is a similar organization in your town, I highly recommend checking them out.