My guess is that most published authors have received at least one rejection slip, especially when they were getting started and were still officially “unpublished.” I have yet to meet a literary agent or publisher who wants to work with an unpublished author. But at one point all published authors were unpublished. So how does an unpublished writer become a published writer if no one in the industry wants to take the risk with an unpublished author? It’s the proverbial catch 22.

Published writers are people who believe in themselves, who are persistent and who, over time, figure out their audience and learn how to write to that audience. Published writers are also people who understand that a good editor is someone who knows the target audience better than the author.

Once an author knows his audience, it is his job to do his best to write engaging stories with that audience in mind. The editor’s job is to know the audience on a more intimate level and to make changes in the spirit of helping the author’s work resonate with the audience. For example, If a writer is doing an article on restaurants in New Orleans, the writer will have a general idea of his or her audience. But the writer may not know that the readers of the magazine she is writing for may be offended at writing that is too colloquial. The editor’s job is to know the specifics about the audience and to make changes to the author’s work to help the author and the reader connect.

With the right target audience in mind, the editor’s job is to correct bad grammar, to fix spelling mistakes, to ensure the story flows smoothly and to ensure the story is interesting to the publisher’s audience. In my experience with self-publishing authors, I find a reluctance to have their work professionally edited. But I think the difference between successful writers and unsuccessful writers is that successful writers understand that a good editor is making changes to the author’s book or article to appeal to the target audience.

The solution to the catch 22 of getting published is to first write for your audience and second, to work with an editor who knows your audience better than you do. If authors realize that editors are making changes to help the author connect better with the target audience, authors are less offended of the changes editors make.

You may be wondering how all this fits with self-publishing authors. Technology is opening new distribution channels for musicians, artists, writers and others. If you have a book you want to sell, you can now do so without having to go through a publishing company or a distribution company. But you still have to write a book for a specific audience. You still have to write a book is free of spelling and grammatical mistakes. You still have to write an interesting story.

Because selling direct to your target audience means that it won’t be literary agents or publishers or editors rejecting your work, but the reading public who will be rejecting it. To successfully self-publish, your work will need to go viral, which is a “techie” word for selling through word-of-mouth. If your story resonates with an audience and people start passing the word around through emails and chat rooms and blog sites and podcasts, then your story will go viral and most likely a publishing company will then want to talk to you.

Successfully selling your book, either to a publishing house or direct to your audience, requires a polished final product that only a professional editor can provide.