u/IronicHoodies

Hello everyone, I have finished my first book. I have a very good English literature and language skill level, and my book itself is very emotional and great. I've had 2 other authors and 1 publisher read through it. I've grammar- and spelling-checked it probably well over 42069 times.

However, I do not have 6-7 k to publish it. What can I do? What are my options? Does anyone know of a very kind publisher that would maybe do it for free? I know it's a long shot.

I'm thinking of writing a story where 2 characters being in the same environment (probably school or a workplace) but having two totally different worlds (one being popular and one just trying to be a regular human). I wanna write them in a way that they develop a fuckship together but it's not forced. Like they just so happen to be in the same bed a lot of times that eventually helped them build some babies. I don't wanna force them into a situation like being force to be in the same team or being stuck in the same place. I want them to still be living in their own world and are still somehow building a relationship but it's not forced.

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I've reached 500k words trying to do that but I still only have 10 characters: the main protagonist, two guys orbiting her, the gay wizard, the hot villain, my protagonist's mom who dies, God, and I guess MC's dog if it counts? I also tried to add a French guy so that I have some diversity but I don't know if that's ok because I'm not french and don't have french friends. It's super hard to do because you have to write the back stories for all of them so that they're super fleshed out and realistic but I can't do that while juggling my part time job and 10 hours daily playing Balatro.

how do you guys do it?