The 12 Steps of Getting Your Book Published

1. Write your first novel. Read it over. Despair, then drink. This is normal. Now buckle down and rewrite it. Like fifty times.

2. Polish the words to a diamond shine and submit the manuscript to literary agents. Toast yourself. Count all the chickens, don't worry about hatching them first.

3. After no response from agents, or the usual no thanks, keep writing, sucker, turn bleak. Despair. Drink.

4. Half sober, attend a writers conference where, in comparing yourself to other writers, you feel less confident and more unlucky. Pay an expert to give you encouragement to keep submitting your novel.

5. Submit to more literary agents. Experience minimal enthusiasm, maximal self-loathing.

6. Receive an acceptance letter. A literary agent in NYC wants to rep your work! Weep. Rejoice. Break out the Champagne.

7. Prepare the proposal and synopsis. Hold your breath as your agent submits your work to top publishing houses. OMG, the film option, you can smell it!

8. Pray. Twitch. Worry. Fret. Have panic attacks. Drink.

9. Wait and wait. Lose confidence, lose heart.

10. Wait another year. Hope lightly, drink heavily.

11. Reclaim your work from your agent. Sculpt it in order to fit a totally cool publisher's submission guidelines. Submit and forget. Move on with your life.

12. Receive an acceptance letter from the totally cool publisher. What? No! Yes!! Weep. Rejoice. Buy Champagne and put it on ice. Chill until the release of your book.

Good news: Salt Publishing will release Songs of the Maniacs on October 1, 2014. Check out their Modern Dreams imprint, a new line of edgy urban fiction, here: http://www.saltpublishing.com/modernd...