Let's say you have a book or three in you and want to get the first published by 2014.
Unless you are a public figure, the octamom or a Navy Seal, its harder to get an agent than it is to get a book publisher. And, by the way, its impossible to get a book publisher. SO - unless the title, treatment and marketing plan you devise looks like a winner from the moment they pick it up, you don't stand much of a chance of getting a house to pick it up and put a nickel into it.
You can self-publish all you want for very little money, but unless you have a Seth Godinish 1000-member tribe hanging on your every word, you'll be selling the books out of your trunk from now until you go on Social Security.
What you want is a real publisher to take an interest, and give you an advance, and do the marketing, and send you checks twice a year from now until you're dead, and then to send checks to your grandchildren.
What is more likely is the publisher won't see it unless an agent they trust and have worked with on revenue-positive projects before says, "I have a new author with a piece that I think will work for you." And to get that to happen, you've got to convince an agent that you aren't a one-hit-wonder, but a sharp mind with a sharper wit, a unique perspective, a marvelous way of sharing your perspective, and a network of people who will pay to hear your perspective.
Oh, and that you'll do the work necessary to polish your craft.
Oh, and that the second and third book will be out a year after the first book gets traction, and a year after that, too, and you'll be working EVERY DAY from now until then to get the word out.
As for your THREE books, let me suggest 2014, 2015 and 2016 as your most prolific years, and the years that, with a TON of work, blood, sweat and tears, have a slight chance of padding your retirement account nicely. Here's what you need to do this afternoon...
1. Choose the project MOST likely to get noticed and put the other two aside.
2. Download "How to Write a Book Proposal" by Michael Larsen (my first agent) and organize the skeleton of the book EXACTLY as Michael suggests (so that it becomes salable from the get-go to an agent).
3. Watch the Oscars tonight and pretend they're giving the "Best Picture" award to the film based on your first book.
4. Take tomorrow off and read Michael's pdf (free) and do EXACTLY what he tells you.
5. Oh yeah, and buy me lunch when it hits the NYTimes Best Seller's list. And the most expensive wine on the menu. I'll toast to your success.
He who began the good work in you will be faithful to complete it, but you still have to show up.
(PS - Yeah, that's me on the floor, writing my first book. It was about a duck who couldn't quack. Turns out he could quack. He just didn't think there was much worth quacking about.)
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-genre/nonfiction-by-writing-genre/book-proposal-exclusive
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