A Premed publishing a novel. Possible or Impossible? What are the chances?

[Raihan Mirza]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

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[DoctorPLASTIC]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

I did. It was on the search for the cure of cancer and its ramifications on the industrial society and its class system.😴

 

[UMP]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

i don't see why not... I've had a few friends write extensive fictional "papers" (a couple starring me as the loveable idiot 😉 ) I think if you put as much time in to it as some pre-meds put in to WoW you can do it

 

[MattD]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

Well, I think that being a pre-med is irrelevant to the endeavor, but I'm sure it's quite possible, and I'd bet that it's been done many times before by college students. Anyone can write a novel, look at that Rowlings lady, she's richer than the queen and had no special writing training. Just like any hobby, you just hafta put the time into it. Have you done any writing before. Everything I've ever heard from novelists says that it's important to start off with short stories and such, to develop writing skills. Perhaps you could start off writing some short stories with some of your ideas, and getting feedback from friends about them. Your school probably has a literary journal that may publish your short stories, and depending on the genre there are lots of commercial publications out there that publish short stories regularly that might buy them from you. Good luck! What's your novel about by the way?

 

[notdeadyet]

There are a fair number of folks who've published novels while in college. There are even a few who did so in high school.

But relatively speaking, very few novels people write ever get published. If you want to write for the joy of the writing, hab at it. If you can't imagine writing unless you know that there will be gold or fame at the end of the rainbow, don't bother. It's a very poor bet.

I play guitar, but with the understanding that I'll never make a living at it.

 

[notdeadyet]

On a side note, I just finished a medical thriller type book that was fairly good. I flipped to the back and found that the author is currently a medical student at Stanford.

So if you can't seem to write, blame the muses, not the amount of free time you have. Most med students don't seem to have the spare time to watch a movie. I don't know how this dude pulled it together to write a book.

 

[Raihan Mirza]

I did. It was on the search for the cure of cancer and its ramifications on the industrial society and its class system.

What was the title of your book and what was the your name as the author? I want to see if I could if the book.

i don't see why not... I've had a few friends write extensive fictional "papers" (a couple starring me as the loveable idiot ) I think if you put as much time in to it as some pre-meds put in to WoW you can do it

Do you remember the title of the papers your friends wrote and their names as authors?

On a side note, I just finished a medical thriller type book that was fairly good. I flipped to the back and found that the author is currently a medical student at Stanford.

What was the title of the book you read and who is the author?

 

[notdeadyet]

What was the title of the book you read and who is the author?

"Isolation Ward" by Joshua Spanogle.

 

[omegaxx]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

I got 3 great novels in my brain right now. The likelihood that even 1 will materialize? Very small as I don't even have the stamina finish a 3000-word short story.

Now I really think writing is more about discipline and stamina than anything. I'm sure that many many people have wonderful ideas inside their heads. Only very few actually convert them into a novel/movie/communicable form.

But at least there is reading🙂

 

[gujuDoc]

Omegaxx,

I'm with you on that one. I coud think of a lot of random ideas to write about but my attention span for writing would go after a bit. Oh and as long as I'm responding to you I just want to know that I prefer soccer to American football as far as football goes. I saw that discussion in the HMS thread. 😉

As per writing a novel, there was that Harvard undergrad chick who did that as a highschooler but then her novel was found to be a completely fraudulent piece in that it was ripped off of another story already written by someone and published that she read.

But the point is that publishing can happen but its not easy.

 

[DoctorPLASTIC]

What was the title of your book and what was the your name as the author? I want to see if I could if the book.

Sure. Would you like my address and social security # too? I mean its not like we are anonymous in these forums, so I might as well tell you!😴

 

[paranoid_eyes]

write the novel if you feel compelled. don't just do it to increase your chances at getting into med school, because it is EXTREMELY hard (even for people who do this for a living) to publish a novel, and frankly it just isn't worth the trouble if you're doing it for ur med school app. If you are really serious about this then good luck-it is possible with hard work and lots of perseverance.

 

[notdeadyet]

I coud think of a lot of random ideas to write about but my attention span for writing would go after a bit.

Yeah, there's an old quote that every journalist has a novel inside of him- and that's where it should stay.

 

[omegaxx]

Omegaxx,

I'm with you on that one. I coud think of a lot of random ideas to write about but my attention span for writing would go after a bit. Oh and as long as I'm responding to you I just want to know that I prefer soccer to American football as far as football goes. I saw that discussion in the HMS thread. 😉

As per writing a novel, there was that Harvard undergrad chick who did that as a highschooler but then her novel was found to be a completely fraudulent piece in that it was ripped off of another story already written by someone and published that she read.

But the point is that publishing can happen but its not easy.

😍 More love for the truly beautiful game!

I don't know if anyone would want to read something written by an ugrad though. Writing is truly one of those things that comes with life experience. There are exceptions of course. Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" when she was 19--an ugrad by today's standard, but her life experience up to that point had also been quite a bit by today's standards. But in most cases, even the greatest writers have written mostly pathetic stuff when they just started.

 

[NonTradMed]

Being premed has nothing to do with being able to publish a book. Plenty of college students, or college age students have published (mostly short stories, but some have done novels). Being premed won't hurt or help your chances any. If you want to publish a novel, go for it.

 

[ssquared]

Michael Crichton published his first novel while at Harvard med....and look where he is now. He's a whole lot richer than he would have been as a plain old doctor, that's for sure.

But getting a novel published is a royal pain. My roommate is in the process of trying to get her first novel published and she's been trying for over a year. It's a great Catch-22: you can't get published without an agent, but you can't get an agent unless you're already published. Or have lots of money. But I'm assuming you have neither...so good luck. And all of this is assuming that the great novel in your head actually materializes on paper, which is a feat in and of itself.

 

[yomama'sdoctor]

What was the title of your book and what was the your name as the author? I want to see if I could if the book.

Firstly, don't ask that kind of thing over a public forum. Secondly, if you want to write book, try getting your grammer straight

A friend of mine is writing a book...she's taking a year off to do so. Another friend wrote a book during undergrad. I think it's an amazing endeavor, but by no means impossible. If you want to write a book, go for it.

 

[sejin8642]

Go for it. Who knows if you could be another J.K. Rowling

 

[CptCrunch]

If you pay enough money, you can publish anything.

http://www.iuniverse.com/

 

[MonkeyNuts!]

During an information session with University of Maryland Medical School they were talking about ethics and described this premed who had published a book and applied to medical school and had gotten in. Right after she graduated it was found that she plagerized major parts of the book. She was stripped of her MD...

 

[coffeebythelake]

Firstly, don't ask that kind of thing over a public forum. Secondly, if you want to write book, try getting your grammer straight

Thirdly, if you tell someone to use proper grammar, you should use proper spelling.

 

[Kfire326]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

I know someone who published a novel in HIGH SCHOOL, then got accepted to the BA/MD program at my university, and proceeded to publish ANOTHER novel while in college.

 

[searun]

I was thinking. I have a really great novel that I plan on writing. After I am done writing it I really want to get it published. Is this possible? I know there is a big deal going on with the amount of money that goes with publishing a book and finding an editor who is willing to edit my novel, but has there ever been a premed who was successful in publishing a book? What are the chances that a pre-med can publish a novel by the end of his 2nd or third year of undergrad?

It depends on whether or not you can write as well as James Joyce or Hunter Thompson. Well, can you? Can you write a sentence as well as Dylan Thomas can write a line of poetry? When I go to sleep, will your words reverberate in my dreams? Are you so good that you can shape my dreams?

 

[BleepTastic]

Can you write a sentence as well as Dylan Thomas can write a line of poetry? When I go to sleep, will your words reverberate in my dreams? Are you so good that you can shape my dreams?

Totally.

Anywho, the OP question is kind of a weird one, almost like after writing this novel, it's a given that it will be published. Anyone can write a novel. As a premed, I had plenty of free time and I probably could have written a couple novels in the time I spent frittering away on Snood and Jello shots.
Besides that, there isn't much of a financial investment in the actual publishing. You just finish and edit your book, send it out to every relevant literary agent you can get your hands on and if it happens to strike their fancy, which is unlikely, then it's on track to be published. It's just that easy!

 

[Tired Pigeon]

Thirdly, if you tell someone to use proper grammar, you should use proper spelling.

 

[ssquared]

It depends on whether or not you can write as well as James Joyce or Hunter Thompson. Well, can you? Can you write a sentence as well as Dylan Thomas can write a line of poetry? When I go to sleep, will your words reverberate in my dreams? Are you so good that you can shape my dreams?

I only wish all the published books out there were examples of wonderful writing. 🙄 Turns out nowadays you get can all sorts of crap published.

 

[yomama'sdoctor]

Thirdly, if you tell someone to use proper grammar, you should use proper spelling.

I'm not the one writing the book...besides, that's what spell check on word processing is for 🙂

 

[63768]

Thirdly, if you tell someone to use proper grammar, you should use proper spelling.

PWNT!

also OP, do whatever you want. if you've got the time to draft a book and get it published, go for it. it's not going to increase your chances of getting in drastically but might make for some conversation. if i were you, i'd focus on getting a high GPA and MCAT.

 

[gujuDoc]

I only wish all the published books out there were examples of wonderful writing. 🙄 Turns out nowadays you get can all sorts of crap published.

Eh different people have different tastes. Someone out there might be liking it.

 

[gujuDoc]

During an information session with University of Maryland Medical School they were talking about ethics and described this premed who had published a book and applied to medical school and had gotten in. Right after she graduated it was found that she plagerized major parts of the book. She was stripped of her MD...

Wow!!! Sounds like that case with that Harvard indian girl who plagiarized from some american person's teenage novel during highschool.

 

[PEN15]

Of course you can write a novel. Will it get published? Maybe, but that depends on who you know. Will anybody read it? Once again you need a credible publisher AND excellent marketing.

Bottom line, write because you enjoy it not because you expect something out of it.

 

[DocBR]

Why publish one? Just lie and say that you wrote one like this D-bag.
http://my.break.com/media/view.aspx?ContentID=167119

Ok, in all seriousness, if you want to write one, write one. Do not worry about nay-sayers and skeptics. If it is good, hopefully it will be recognized and published.