I often get asked a lot of questions from people I know about book publishing - "What's a manuscript?" "What's a beta reader?" "When will your book be published?" etc. I wish it were just one easy answer but for us writers, we know it's far from just 'writing a book and publishing it.'
There are a ton of steps in which a writer has to go through in order to be published and it often takes a very long time to get published. Here, I'm going to explain the writing and publishing process.
The first step is pretty obvious - have an idea and write your first draft. It's definitely not as easy as it sounds. First drafts take a lot of time and frustration. It takes constant outlines, plot and chapter summaries, character sketches, etc. only to go back and change it multiple times.
The next step would be to get beta readers (you could do this before or after your editing, in my opinion). Beta readers are people that you trust the most to read your manuscript and get their opinions on it. Your manuscript goes through a 'trial,' and your beta readers are the first to test the waters.
Once the first draft of the WIP (work in progress) is done, then comes the editing. This is probably the longest (and my most hated) part of the writing process. The writer or their editor, or often times, a combination of both, must comb through the draft very carefully. This means editing everything from the content itself to copy editing, line editing, etc.
Now that all the editing is done and your WIP is ready to be submitted to an agent! Yahoo! You will need to write a query letter to an agent to see if they will represent your work. This can take an awfully long time and will often lead to lots of rejections.
Once you find an agent, they will work with you to get your book published with a publishing house. With any luck, your WIP will be picked up by a great publisher.
