How to Publish a Book
A guide for the budding author
Inspired after Gabi Abrão’s lists on her Substack.
Be a little older than you are now. Consider the impulse to publish, particularly if you’re under the age of twenty-five. Think about the life to be lived and the immense encapsulation at hand.
If a book is a vehicle, where is it taking you? Do you want to park it in the garage and admire its detail, or drive it around and take people for rides?
What is the reader’s journey? Plot a travel map for the experience you wish to share. Be sensitive commanding someone else’s time.
Notice what’s around you and what you don’t like. Some of the best promotions of learning is what not to do. Use this as a foundation for direction.
Cultivate a ravenous curiosity toward what is happening in your community. Who visits your local bookseller? Where do the other writers in your town hang out? Do these spaces exist, or must they be made? Greatness fosters local support.
Think about all of your favorite things and the countless minds it took to make them. Reflect on your inspirations and compose a team in your head of similarly motivated companions. The editing process makes the manuscript a book. The design process forges a brand. You are Frodo. The designer is Gandalf. Your editor is Samwell Gamgee, your publisher is either Aragorn or Boromir. The proofreader is Legolas, obviously.
Practice writing a book description in increasingly smaller spaces; a paragraph, two sentences, seven words. This practice is fantastic for all forms of copy or thrusts at describing concepts. Poetry flows and cuts when it is aware of the space it uses.
You’re always writing poetry, even when you’re not writing poetry.
As such, it’s important to study and listen to poets. This practice also enables one to scry aspects of the future.
It is equally important to know when to not listen to poets, as some of them can wield their precision implicitly toward malice.
Your books are constant ignitions of conversation, especially between yourself and your writing. Be gentle toward yourself as your craft grows and your taste develops.
Mastery in any medium is about consistency. Dress for the weather, take your time. Finding enjoyment in the method, even before the benefits appear, will plant your footing somewhere nurturing and unfuckwithable.
Nice how-to, comrade samizdat.