Advice for writers wanting to publish

I’ve been down the writing road for a while. Along the way, I learned concepts that some never hear about.

You cannot justify what the reader reads.

This was one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp.

I spent over a year writing a novel, but my friend Lily got confused about the plot when she read it. She liked the idea of it, but the story was too confusing to her. It never occurred to me before that something I wrote could baffle another person so much.

You won’t be there with every reader when they buy your book. You can’t sit with them and explain it if they get confused. It’s your job beforehand to make sure your story is as clear as possible. If a reader says your story is confusing, you can’t argue that.

Your book isn’t for everyone.

Everyone who reads your genre won’t like your book. There are some books out there that some readers can’t connect with. Every reader is different.

For this reason, you won’t be able to please everyone. But it is good to have different opinions in society. Not everyone can or should like your book.

Our job is to get the most people possible to like it. But when some don’t, it’s not the end of the world.

Not every critique is something you should listen to.

For the same reason I mentioned above, some critiques will be harmful. They’ll make you believe your story is garbage and should never be seen again. Because, for them, the story doesn’t connect. Some of their ideas of what you should change may be the exact reason another loves your story.

Critiques are ideas. Other writers/readers express their ideas of how to improve your story the most. Ideas can be wrong though, so you don’t have to follow them all.

Take each critic with a grain of salt. Some critiques can lead to the best ideas.

Writing the book is (arguably) not the most important part. Neither is editing.

Sounds weird, right? But it’s true. It took me forever to realize this. At the time, I thought I was close to to publishing soon. I could get an agent, an editor, and a publisher in the next few months! Simple, right?

Well, to get a traditional publisher, most writers get a literary agent. These literary agents give each writer one chance to impress them. That chance is not them reading your novel. Most agents won’t even look at your manuscript. Instead, they look at a query letter.

Successful query letters are about half the size of a word document. That means you have about 250 words to impress an agent. It doesn’t matter how good your novel is. If you don’t have a good query letter, you won’t get an agent.

There’s so much negativity.

The writing field can be full of negativity, and there’s a high chance you’ll meet resistance. That includes:

• Why haven’t you published yet?
• Where’s your second job? You know, the job that can actually give you an income?
• You’ll never be able to publish a book. It’s too difficult.
• You’re still working on that book? It’s been years.
• Don’t submit to that publishing company. You’ll get rejected.

I know it’s tough, but there are also people who will push you forward. If not, I will. You can get published. You can get your books sold. Trust me, you can. It gets better. I promise.

It takes forever to start.

Your first few books will always be the hardest to write and sell. Getting yourself out there is it difficult too and takes a while to happen. After writing the book, editing takes longer than that. Making a query letter now? That’s going to be a few extra months. Waiting to hear back from agent who wants to publish you? That’ll be a few extra months or sometimes years.

It can take so long. But if you’re doing something every day, you’re climbing that mountain. After everything, it’ll feel amazing. I promise. The view from the mountain is worth the climb.

Hope this helps!