My assumptions from your question is that you have a book (or nearly have finished a book) and would like to have an established publisher publish it. Apologies if this is too narrow.

Given these assumptions, your greatest challenge is getting a publisher to take a look at your book and give you some feedback. Getting a rejection letter is a win, of sorts. At least, someone cared enough to take a look and offer an opinion. There are more writers than ever with more books than ever, and publishers are very selective because so few books make a profit in the marketplace and they only want the ones that they will do so. Makes sense, right?

Authors are left with these options:

1. Keep trying until you succeed somehow
2. Give up.
3. Publish the book yourself through a so-called “vanity press” — a book printer looking for ways to keep their presses busy. This costs the author a bundle and results in unsellable inventory, oftentimes.
4. Publish the book yourself through a print-on-demand service like Amazon KDP or Direct2Digital, or others. This can be fun and rewarding — and inexpensive — but has a learning curve and may end up requiring that you hire some editing, design, formatting, or production management help from an expert. (Still better than a storage unit full of books you can’t sell.) One possibility outcome is that you hit a nerve in the marketplace and sell lots of books, or at least enough to keep you writing. Another great result would be if your success was noticed by one of those established publishers that sent you a rejection letter and instead they send you an offer letter. This DOES happen because established publishers didn’t get that way by accident and today’s self-publisher industry is their farm system where tomorrow’s superstar writers can be found and developed. Makes sense.

Good luck. Reach out for more if you like at publisher@touchwoodpress.com.