Every author hopes to be published, but the road to success is not easy. Becoming a published author is like being Hercules and trying to beat every challenge while staying positive. It is definitely a herculean effort that many authors lack and finally give up on. While many authors brave these testing waters and come out victorious, there are countless who give up the dream and keep it just as a hobby.

However, there is a set of rules that most published authors follow and share with aspiring authors so that they too can fulfill their dreams of becoming published. These rules are:

Be Flexible and Ready

Being inflexible and unprepared to take criticism can be your worst enemy. Many of us find it hard to accept criticism and are not fond of making changes. However, this is not something that will work in your favor in the literary industry. Being too inflexible will hold you back and take opportunities away from you. Becoming easier to work with will get you the attention you deserve from editors, publishers and publicists.

Trust Yourself and Your Abilities as a Writer

Every author knows that what they are writing is not perfect and everything needs to be tweaked to be perfected. While editing and proofreading your novel is essential and very important, going overboard with it will ruin the work that you slaved over. Going overboard with your editing will result in losing the essence of your work, which is not what you want. A good way to avoid that is by stepping away from your work and taking a breather. Give yourself some room to think and come back to it with a fresh mind.

Be Original

Try your best to be as original as possible and stay away from mimicking another author. This is something that can easily sway you and make you a victim without even realizing it. You might be just looking for inspiration and before you know it, you are falling into a hole where you lose your own identity and start writing like the writer you love. This is a thin line that you have to tread very carefully as agents and publishers have a very tough stance against it. Editors will not be gentle when they begin to pick at your work, which can be very off-putting for authors.  

Be Very Patient

You must learn to be patient, and this is something essential. Agents, editors, and publishers are very busy people and their time is precious. They will take their time to get to your manuscript as they already have writers under their banner or they have hundreds of manuscripts to go through and do justice to all of them. It takes time for a manuscript to be approved and then published, so have faith and just be patient.

Never Give Up

The most important of all the rules in becoming a published author is to never give up. You need to keep your hopes and your momentum going at all times. It is close to impossible to get acceptance from the very first publisher or agent you contact. It is a one in a million chance and it does not happen to everyone. Authors have to look at rejection slips many times before they get that one precious acceptance, so don’t be too hard on yourself and keep positive to get through all this.