Writing is easy, as a beginning anyway. You sit your arse down and get on with it. Over time, you get a bit better at it. Time passes and the movement of ideas from your head comes through your fingers in a pen or on a keyboard more smoothly. Finally, you get good and are enjoying what’s coming out, maybe even surprising yourself.
Publication isn’t the ‘pass’ mark of writing, and it’s unfortunate that that’s how a lot of people see it. A lot of crap gets published and a lot of good books spend years in slush piles before they reach a publishing house reader. There are many other outcomes of writing aside from publishing that are valid and worthwhile, including just the process of writing itself. Someone who plays football on a Saturday shouldn’t give up kicking a ball when it becomes apparent that they’ll never play in the Premiership.
Getting something you that you’ve written published is a wonderful bonus to finishing a piece, and if you’ve got something polished and ready to go, then try your hand. You never know how things might end up.
I’ve lifted from a post on bluechrome’s blue blog here, as it is invaluable advice to writers pitching for their first publication:

‘One of the biggest ways in which people submitting their work to bluechrome (and publishers and agents generally, I’m sure we’re not most people’s first port of call) let themselves down is by being a bit sloppy on the self editing and presentation fronts.
God knows anybody that reads this blog will know that me, me grammar and punctuation aren’t exactly bosum buddies like, but I think a lot of writers can at times forget exactly what it is that they are doing when they submit their work ‘for possible publication’, getting caught up in the dreamland of…
write it-get an agent who loves you-submit it-get signed-get published-sell the film rights for millions,
…cycle they read in the ‘How To Be A Writer In 28 Days For Fantasists’ books.
They forget that they aren’t really saying
‘Please publish my book’,
as far as the publisher is concerned, instead they are saying
‘Please invest thousands of pounds, a year of your life, a few hundred trees and what remains of your hair in the faint hope that you will make a better return on the investment than you would in an Icelandic bank’.
Which is a different perspective, when you come to think about it.
And why I get the feeling that writers don’t really consider the question they are asking, is because an amazingly small number of them seem to consider the fact that they are trying to sell their book to a publisher or agent, whether there are advances involved or not, and in these days of mass-media, they are also in the business of selling themselves, with the publisher being the first of many they have to convince that they and their book is worth the price.
OK, there are a thousand books out there (I’m sure) that will tell you what you should do when you ‘Chapter 77: Approach A Publisher’ - what letters you should write, how to tell whether they are a vanity press by the degree of enthusiasm in their response, what rights you should retain and everything else. And I’m sure that most writers at least read one of them (actually I’m not so sure) but I think sometimes writers just need to take a step back and look at the whole ‘package’ and make sure that the letters, the submission, the person they are writing to and the choice of publisher give the person receiving them the least reason possible to instantly reject them. And sometimes they could do with a bit of help.
And that is the key.
Writers, publishers get lots of submissions, and we all sit down with piles of paper and these days emails, with the best of intentions.
We sit there convinced that there is gold and are keen to find it.
We pick up the first one, carefully remove 300 strips of sellotape from the re-used envelope (amused that what used to be seen as tightness is now the sign of the eco-warrior, despite the formentioned trees the contents are asking you to butcher), check it isn’t ticking, if satisfied carefully remove the contents.
It sits there staring at us and we stare back, trying to make out the poorly photocopied letter with ‘Anvil’ crossed out and ‘Bllodaxe’ scribbled in green crayon over the top of it.
‘Dear Bllodaxe’,
but we persevere. It smells a bit musty, and maybe of cats.
But it might be a sign of eccentric genius, so we read the letter -
‘Dear Bllodaxe,
ere is te book I want you to publis. It tells about my time as a sub-Post Master in Derbysire and all the funny tings tat appened. My wife as typed it up, but we aven’t got an aitc key on te keyboard after one of te grandcildren ripped it off over Cristmas. Little sod e is, but very good wit te pooter, as e calls it. Anyways, it would be nice to ave the book by Cristmas as my broter is over from Canada and e would like a copy to take back wit im on te plane.
cheers
Alf’
Slightly concerned at this point, looking at the typed 500 pages of single-spaced double-sided A4 in front of you, smelling of cats, but we persevere and reach for the first few pages.
‘My Life as a Sub-Postmaster in Derbysire 1947-1996 (retired)’
Lots of funny tings appened wile I was a sub post master in Derbysire, between 1947 and 1995 wen I retired. I remember te first day i started and te post adn’t been delivered on time. It were quite a kerfuffle I can tell you. It only turns out tat….’
You sigh, look at the pile of misordered pages one more time and then spend half an hour trying to slide it back into the envelope.
Maybe not this time, and anyway we’re a poetry publisher who does ‘cutting edge literary fiction’, you remind yourself whilst cursing the decision to get your name put in the Writer’s Handbook, perhaps the next one will be better.
Still keen you reach for the next, and then the next and then the next three dozen.
You start to spot the flaws earlier - the crayon, the incorrect publisher name, the fact that it isn’t anything like you normally publish, and slowly your checklist changes from reasons you would want to publish the book
a. Well Written
b. Great idea or story
c. It might sell a few copies
to reasons why you don’t even need to read the manuscript, things that the writer has done or not done that make it easy for you to reject it:
a. 300 pieces of sellotape
b. Poorly presented
c. Letters that are ill thought out or poorly punctuated
d. A manuscript that is full of typos and bad syntax and grammar on the first page
e. The author spelling their name three different ways.
Anything, that gives you an excuse not to put yourself through any more torture.
Anything that makes it look as though the author doesn’t care.
So why should you?
I mean, why should you have to?
You are a publisher, you can just ring some agents and get them to send something suitable through, they know the score and always present everything so nice.
They don’t send crap like this.
They don’t waste your time.
And I think that is where Caroline and her people at BubbleCow can make a real difference. They have the knowledge, they have been there and done it and most of all they are professional.
So if you are a writer who thinks they are ready to submit their work, consider it.
If you were going to apply for a job or sell your car or do anything else where you were asking somebody to believe in you and part with their money, wouldn’t you be daft not to put the effort in?
Wouldn’t it be nice to get some cheap, quick advice that will make you stand out from the rest?
Even if it improves your submission by a few percent, it can be the difference between being published and not.
When it comes down to it, quite often publishers will have two or three manuscripts they think they can sell and have to choose between them. They can’t publish everything that they think is ‘good’ (commercially viable), so the littlest things can make a difference.
So isn’t it better to give yourself an edge if it is available?
And if you don’t, wouldn’t you be gutted if the other authors you are up against in the submission pile had?’
I think that’s about the best advice a writer hoping to see their words printed and bound can get.