Write: Your second step to getting published

In PublishMe's six-step process, the essential knowledge you need to become a truly successful self-publisher is easily accessible and provided freely. Self-publishing is where you are in control of the publishing process. You make all the decisions and keep ownership of the process throughout. The copyright for the work stays with you.

You may be reading through the PublishMe '6 steps to getting published' to learn enough information to get started on your project or you might already have a work completed and ready to sell.

It doesn't matter where you are in the process or what your final goal is, it can be helpful to read through each step. If, however, you wish to sell into libraries, book shops, online shops or internationally we strongly advise that you read thoroughly all the steps and the free downloads.

2. Write

Today, the amount of written material in the world is vast and more and more people are searching for information on a huge range of topics. The degree of expertise you need to write your work and/or any assistance you will require from service providers such as editors and proofreaders, or the amount of reworking the writing will require, will depend on the genre, the final goal you have for your self-published work and how you envisage it being 'published'.

If for example, you are writing your memoirs to give to family, the writing expertise, experience or qualifications and polishing required will be quite different than those required if you are writing and wanting to self-publish a novel to sell to libraries and bookshops. If you are a business, a business leader or a speaker wanting to self-publish a company handbook or a book that summarises your intellectual property and you don't have the writing expertise in-house you will need to think about contracting someone to polish the draft to ensure the end product is fully professional.

Every project is different and the decisions you make along the way will depend on your final goal for the work.

Jocelyn Watkins and Kim Gabites: Keeping The Faith
"PublishMe is great as they walk you through the process step by step and it led us to produce a fantastic book. We choose PublishMe ahead of three other publishers because once we talked to them, we knew they'd help us get what we wanted."

In PublishMe's six-step process to becoming a self-publisher, the art of writing well in the first instance is very important. When a writer plans carefully and then writes well, many costly reworking processes can be minimised.

Once you Join and you are a PublishMe member, go to MyPublishMe, click the Free Download tab and you can download free, An introduction to fiction writing and An introduction to writing non fiction information:

An introduction to fiction writing
This ebook details the skills and processes best followed to write good fiction. It includes topics such as:

Preparation and commitment
Finding your own voice
Audience
Sequencing and plot
Beginning, middle and end
Description
Narration
Dialogue
Punctuation
Who? Where? When? What? How? and Why?
Key events
Point of view
Setting
Characters
Signposting
Rhythm and pace

An introduction to writing non fiction
This ebook details the processes generally employed to write good non-fiction. It includes topics such as:

Audience
Sequencing
Types of writing
Sections, chapters, paragraphs
Signposting
Illustrations and captions
Indexing, table of contents, footnotes and endnotes

Service Providers

If you have a great idea but need help to 'bring it to life' on the page or need help with polishing the draft, click Profiles, then the Ghost-writers tab.

Under the Editing tab you will see contacts for Manuscript Assessors. Once you have written your book, you may wish to have your manuscript read and evaluated by an independent manuscript assessor. The value of this is to make sure that any structural improvements are identified before entering the copy editing and proofreading stage.

This service could be necessary if you wanted to approach publishers with your book for possible full-publishing opportunities or you wanted to sell it into book shops or a special market.

The team at PublishMe can coordinate these services for you, or you can contact and contract any of the service providers on the site directly or contract your own.

NOTE: All service providers are expected to operate fairly and state clearly what skills and experience they have within their field. To PublishMe members looking to contact a service provider, we encourage you to download the free PDF books available on the Download tab. This will give you an overview as to what to expect from the providers. Make it clear what service you require and ensure your expectations are understood. We encourage you to have any contracts viewed by an independent person with contractual knowledge so you are fully aware of what is entailed. The agreement is purely between the author and the service provider. PublishMe cannot be held responsible for the quality of service providers – work and how they conduct their arrangements with authors, but we do welcome feedback on your experience!