Your life stretching back many years has been such an interesting and exciting one and it's the perfect moment to tell the whole wide world all about it. In fact, for the last dozen months or more, you've been working all hours on an autobiography manuscript, a masterpiece destined to become a book.
Difficult to believe, but you are not the only would-be writer who has been working extremely hard on a daily basis, turning out and condensing the intricacies and experiences of your life and times onto the written page. You are merely one of hundreds, of authors-to-be, dreaming of discovery by a major - and extremely eager - publisher just waiting to turn your literary endeavours into a prize winning tome.
Wakey, wakey!. It's just a childish dream. You've got more of a chance of winning this week's UK loterry! Hey but don't let that dose of realism stop you dreaming. Head on over to your favourite search engine - Google is good and so is Yahoo and grab a list of publishers. Each will have a webpage explaining not only how to submit your autobiography, but also to where and to whom. Simple!
Instructions will be different, of course. You might be able to submit a chapter or two by means of an online form. Or you might have to post them an actual printed copy. Pay close attention to formatting instructions. Then chill and forget all about it for at least the next few weeks or months.
Notice the bit saying if you haven't heard anything within three months or so then you've to assume your autobiography memoir has been turned down? You did? Good for you.
OK now it's all about patiently waiting. Days and weeks drag slowly by. Doubts are beginning to creep in. It's easy to justify the zero response. What do publisher know anyway? Not much judging by how many publishers allowed Harry Potter slip through their grasp. Plenty more on the list to submit to.
Months now turn into yet more months. Time is moving on. The doubts begin but you're not ready to give up the ghost. Someone mentions book agents. Great idea. Yes, get someone else to do the hard work. Their 10-15% commission rate seems reasonable.
Back to Google and Yahoo and Bing and before you know it a second list is in your hands. Once again, you can submit online or send a printed copy. The waiting starts all over again. Weeks and months pass by.
The doubts begin to appear once more even although you still firmly believe your autobiography is more than good enough to enthrall the great reading public.
Maybe it's at this low point that the penny finally begins to drop. You look at all the best seller offerings on Amazon and realise the number of celebs dominating the listings. When you also start reading about some of the lesser well known authors, telling all about how they got their book published, you also realise how lucky they were to have had a friend of a friend who happened to have a contact in the industry.
However, my dear author, all is far from lost. A new phenomenon is quietly revolutionising the printing industry and it's called Print On Demand (POD).
And there are dozens of companies out there offering the service and looking to take your money. Some are top of the heap, real pros with a top-notch service second-to-none, like The Choir Press.
So how good a job do they do? Find out by following the link within the resource box. It'll take you to a page and a book called No Easy Road by Patsy Whyte. Buy the book. Not only will you enjoy this autobiography, but you'll be able to see and hold and touch a quality product.
But the downside is, POD will cost some hard earned cash. But if you have the belief in your autobiography, and you want to see it in glorious print, then perhaps it's a price worthy of paying. Print On Demand is customer-driven. Best of all, there's no requirement to stock a thousand copies in a shady warehouse somewhere. That's what POD is all about, printing on demand as and when, whether supplying one customer or 500.
Little wonder more and more writers-in-waiting are looking at Print On Demand and bypassing the usual route into publishing. And there's also money to be made, too, if you can hijack the marketing potential of the web and Print On Demand. But that's another part of the equation.
If you can't take rejection and still want to see your life story in print, then self-publishing and Print On Demand may be the way forward.
