Three authors shared their journey down the long, strenuous road to publication Tuesday night.
It was night two of the In Print Festival, and authors Mary Millar, Mitchell L.H. Douglas and Kao Yang spoke to students on how to take their idea and turn it into reality.
Matt Bell, editor of "The Collagist," joined the authors.
Each writer talked about what inspired them to write a book and moving on to finding a publisher.
Miller began writing 4 or 5 years ago to entertain herself. She was living in a small town at the time and had nothing to do.
She found a publisher for her short story collection, "Big World," from putting her stories on different Web sites.
Mitchell wrote the first 30 pages of his poetry collection, "Cooling Board: a Long-Playing Poem," as a school project.
He found his publisher when he entered a writing contest. Mitchell admitted that he has spent around $800 dollars in entrance fees for writing contests. It finally paid off.
Yang wrote her book, "The Latecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir," because there were no books that told the story of her community's journey from Laos to America.
She found a publisher when she Googled "independent publishing house" and "Minnesota". She submitted her work and, after months of waiting, got a phone call saying she'd finally be a published writer.
Yang laughed when telling the story of negotiating her advance. The publisher wanted to giver her $3,000. Yang got it up to $3,500. She was about to max out her credit card and needed the money.
Bell talked quickly about his life as an editor and what he looks for in a story submission. He said he wants a submission letter to be short and to the point. A writer should only submit his or her best work. He said writers should never get discouraged because getting a break will take time.
After telling their stories, all four answered questions from the audience.
One person asked how to know when the work is finished. The authors answered that a writer should always seek an outside opinion for that.
Another person asked how a writer finds his audience. The authors answered this question by citing their own experiences. They said having an audience in mind is a good idea, but write for everyone.
Ashley Maue, a sophomore creative writing major, came because of a class and found it educational.
"Hearing the individual stories on how they got published was really helpful," she said. "They all had individual ways of going about things."
She said the event helped her in her own quest to publish. Maue has some poetry and short stories she would like to publish and would like to write a novel some day.
Her favorite piece of advice came from Yang.
"I definitely think that it's good not to necessarily write for one group of people," Maue said. "I really like that she said that."
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