Boy, you asked a big question! Just about everything I’ve written on my blog and various websites are geared toward answering your question.  Many of my teleseminars also talk about what it takes to get published, especially the one I did with Terry Whalin at www.askaboutpublishing.com.

So I suggest you poke around my sites, especially this blog. Also, get the Author Success Plan. That 5-part minicourse is packed with insider’s tips on publishing and being a successful author gleaned from my 30+ years in publishing. It answers your question and shows you where to start: With the A-B-C’s of becoming a successful author.

Basically, it boils down to: Having a great idea, and building a following of people who like you and your idea. If you have enough of a following, a traditional publisher will take the risk of publishing you. Or, you need to publish it yourself, and glean a following through marketing.

Publishing has been undergoing a massive sea change, especially in the past 3 years. These days it’s very difficult to take the traditional publishing path, in which you get a publisher to take on all the costs of publishing and pay you a royalty (percentage of sales–usually 7.5% of what they get after they give the bookstores their 55% discount). Publishers just don’t want to take the financial risk of publishing an author unless the author can practically guarantee they can sell a lot of books, because the author already has a large following (called an author “platform”).

But while that old way of publishing is crumbling, a lot of alternative ways of getting published are springing up. More publishers are offering “publishing services” in a sort of partnership model of publishing whereby publisher and author share the costs.  That’s one of the things Terry and I talked about in the interview I mentioned, which you can listen to after signing up at www.askaboutpublishing.com. (I send you to the Ask page to sign up just so you’ll see how a cool way to market books works. It’s call the Virtual Book Tour, and I do these for publishers and authors.)

So I suggest you do a little more research on my sites, and if you still have questions, ask! I have a form on this blog (upper right corner) where you can ask questions any time. I periodically hold FAQ teleseminar to answer questions; asking a question on the form assures you’ll be notified.

I’ve been working secretly on something for some time, and on this week’s Publishing Coach Weekly teleseminar, you’re going to be the first to know about it, before anyone else!

(Don’t worry, this won’t cost you anything, and you ARE going to love it!)

Here’s a hint: It has to do with my goal for you–to become a successful author.

On this teleseminar, I talk about what that means, AND tell you about this exciting Thing that you will be the FIRST to know about. (It’s not even up on my site or anything yet!)

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Charlene Baumbich about being a successful author. (If you haven’t heard that yet, you might want to do so at www.publishingcoachweekly.com/teleseminarreplays.html.) But I myself have a lot to say about this topic, and I can’t wait to share it with you!

If you have any question at all about what it takes to become a successful author, please ask it here.

The call-in details can be found on that page, or if you don’t have any question for now, just go here to get call-in details or listen to the replay.

Each Publishing Coach Weekly teleseminar is held at 1 p.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Pacific, for 30-45 minutes. Here you can ask your question, before or during the call. You can also get your Action/Resource Guide the day of the call. (Replays available within 48 hours at www.publishingcoachweekly.com/teleseminarreplays.html.)

The questions I plan to answer include:

• “Are there any ways to test the idea(s) one would have for a book? No sense working hard on a manuscript if it wouldn’t have market appeal.”-Barb
• “What are some good strategies for determining market interest as well as gaps in the existing book market?”–Lynne
• “If you were to write a book, how would you rank the most important things to spend time and money on? (Topic would sell or not, market, title, cover, content, etc.–not marketing, website, etc.–just the book…)”–Johnny

Plus I’ll tell you what I think is the most important quality you need to become a successful author.

It’s all here.