Your Name in Paperback for the First Time

It is the dream of almost every human being on earth who is blessed with the power of writing, to see his name printed on a book. It is not as easy as most people think to make it to that level. And it is neither that difficult. Basically there are two phases in the journey of a writer with his writings with him. 

• The writing phase
• The phase of getting published.

The writing phase is totally for the writer. The quality of his write-up absolutely depends upon the magnitude of  writing fever that the writer has. The more a writer writes, the more he sharpens his ability of writing. Writing is the only way to learn to write and reading provides the tools. To make my statement stronger, let me quote Stephen King here. He says, "If you want to become a writer, do two things more than any other thing. Read a lot and write a lot."

As I am not an established author, I don't want my words to sound preachy. I won't utter a word about editing, proofreading or marketing. So far I've got just three of my poems published and some others have been selected at various places for publishing. My first book is only in its way. It has been sent to various publishers and I am currently waiting for their response. 

So, at first the writer must control his fantasies of seeing his books in the bookstores across the globe, and focus only on his writing. 

Now let me talk a little about the first paperback that I got a chance to be published in. Before that, I had got my poem - Free in Chains - published in an e-magazine named Unbound. When the opportunity of getting published in a paperback came to me, I was like, I ought to do this. I had a number of my poems resting in my Sony Vaio for years (I still have a ton though). I went through all the poems and selected the one which  I considered one of my best. 'The Sparrow' was its name. I renamed it 'Veiled Wails' for two reasons, (i) It is based on the agony of nature that no one sees and no one cares about, (ii) I wanted to make it sound more professional. I submitted the poem and it got selected for the book Lifenama. It was an anthology of English and Hindi poems put together in one cover, published by Serene Publishers who are based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

I couldn't actually believe that they ranked my poem, number second in English poems. It was like a dream come true. I had got published for the first time and had made it to number second in over hundred poets from across the country. This boosted my morale and inspired me to never stop penning down my thoughts. 

After that I got published in one more book named, Roses & Rhymes by the same publishers. Two of my poems have been selected to be published in an anthology by the name of 'Voices of the World.'

I have completed my first novel this year which is on its way to get published.

Think not of getting published while writing. Never think of any reader while pouring your thoughts out on paper. Once you've completed your writing, then only a writer should think ahead. It enhances his quality of writing. What say?