One of my favorite children’s book authors fell into his writing career in an unusual way. He was in the military and took part in a conflict that needed to be told about afterwards. A popular magazine hired a well known writer of books to write about soldiers’ accounts of the experience. This man got approached by the well known writer who interviewed him, but then because of timing or something, asked him if he could just write down the details and mail them. The ex-soldier did this, and he ended up writing it as a story and gave it a title and everything. He sent it along to the writer who ended up calling him back and telling him of his amazement at how good the writing was. “You’re a writer.”, the writer told the ex-soldier. The story got published and the newly discovered writer started writing a bunch of stories, making his living by getting paid for each one. He later became one of the best known children’s authors of all time. Of course this is a very unusual story about how to publish.
Most authors have to approach getting their books published along the usual pathways. They have to harbor a desire to write, complete a manuscript and then learn how to get published. From what I hear it usually takes a lot longer than it did for the man I wrote about. Many wonderful writers have received large numbers of rejections for long periods of time when they first decided to learn how to get published. You have to be willing to be in the process for a long haul, and you have to be ready to handle the rejection. Unless you are one of the very lucky few, making an effort to try and get your books published will probably take a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears.
