What steps/actions to take if no one wants to publish you?

[King Leonidas]

Publisher to publisher, doors in face, no returned calls, just posts on your facebook wall from mom telling you how much she loves your book.

Where does anyone go from here?
What can they do?
What are the options?

[david c,]

a) rewrite

b) write another one

[Alaylen]

Have you tried getting a literary agent yet? Most publishers will just simply toss your manuscript into the trash without one. Research some literary agents and go from there. If you already have tried to get one, your manuscript may need some more editing. Agents will only want to represent a book if they know they can get a publisher to buy it so make your manuscript stronger. If this doesn't work, you have to know when to just shelve your manuscript and work on a new one.

[Jacco]

Yeah, agents would be the first thing to go research. They had a lot more sway with publishers than authors do.

If that doesn't work, you can always e-publish it on Kindle, Nook, iBooks, etc.

If you still don't want to do that, you can self publish and get printed copies, but its expensive and you have to peddle them yourself.

[Wings]

Maybe it's not your book that is the problem? Maybe you should have another look at your cover letter, query letter, synopsis or bio. I've read through books, internet etc that agents/publishers would throw your book in the bin if they dislike the way you wrote your cover letter etc. Have a look at that again.

Another thing you can do, is to join a critique club. You send your book to them and they will read it and give you honest feed back. More than one person will read it, so that's even better for you.

Another common problem (and I admit I have done this a few times) for example, you have finished your book and sent it to a publisher saying it's a fiction, but when they do look at it. They're like "That's not fiction, that's a young adult novel. Does this person not know what genre their book is in?" Then they bin it.

Spellings or bad grammar, they will bin it.

If the story line doesn't fit, they will bin it.

If the book is a cliche, they will bin it.

Most publishers won't take you on unless you have a literary agent. That could be one of the reasons why they have refused??

If you have any spare money, go out and buy yourself the Writers and Artists Yearbook and look through Editors, proof readers and critique groups. This book will have the website and contact info. Send your book to a critique person first, let them read it and give you feed back and fix it. Once that's done, send it to an editor and let him fix your spelling and grammar. You can also get them to fix your query letter and synopsis too. It is expensive but it's worth it if I had the money. Put twenty notes away per a week and let it build, then whack it off to them.

If there's still no luck for you, then yes try looking into self publishing but do make sure you send your book to an editor etc. Because many people get their book self published and later realise at the amount of spelling mistakes etc that's in their book. Most self publishing will take your money and not even do what they said they would.

Another thing, beware of self publishers. There's so many sad stories about them, they're well known for taking your money and leaving. Other times, they publish only a certain amount of books.

When you're entering into self publishing, you need to know everything about marketing etc That way your book will get noticed.

Remember, there's many authors that have been refused so many times by publishers and agents but it only takes one to accept you. I think Jane Green got refused around 70 times and even then, it was when she was around her 40's that her book became a best seller and made into a movie.

Don't give up, there's thousands of agents and publishers out there. It only takes one.