Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 6

How to Write and Get Published in 10 Easy Steps

Write a bad first draft.
Take a break from it and work on something else.
Revise the bad first draft into a semi-good one.
Get fresh eyes on second draft.
Keep working on something else.
Revise again.
Submit widely.
Keep working on something else.
Send out a new thing.
Repeat from 1.

Tips for Writing Openings in a Continuing Series

Show reaction from the climax of the last book—someone has paid the price.
An overview scene showing destruction, growth and beauty that have changed from bk 1.
A dialog between characters arguing over the implications of the past or choices for the future.
Remind the reader of the rules of magic.
Avoid spoilers for plot/revelations in bk 1
Humor/self-consciousness about character flaws.
Trial or other consequences of the end of bk 1.
Hero is forced into uncomfortable parades/speeches
Ender’s Game ending for hero, seen as villain
Let some time pass or at least show worldview has changed dramatically

Contract Basics for Beginners

I’m not a lawyer or an agent, but I am an author who looks over contracts and reads carefully every single word before I sign anything. I think every author has an obligation to do this, no matter how much you trust your agent (and I trust mine implicitly). You just never know when a mistake has been made, and you just need to know what the nitty-gritty is IMHO. I remember that the contract I signed with SoHo for The Bishop’s Wife stipulated that I had to turn in bk 2 on Jan 1 of 2014. When I turned in the ms to my editor, she was surprised. She had completely forgotten what my contractual obligations were, but I hadn’t. Anyway, here are some basic things I think you should look for.


What is the advance offer? How is it divided? Into two pieces (signing, delivery) or three (signing, delivery, publication) or four pieces (paperback publication)?
When is the due date for the ms(s) contracted?
What is the percentage you will get as a royalty? (Often you get a different percentage for different sales, but there is a “regular” percentage for normal sales).
Are there any bonuses for selling more books—like an increase in percentage for royalty if you sell over 10,000 copies, for instance?
Do you maintain foreign rights for your book or does the publisher keep those?
Ditto for film rights, audio book rights, play rights, and so on?
Will accounting on any subsequent books be combined with the first one? This means that all the books have to earn out before you get any royalty on any of them.
Does the publisher have right of first refusal on a new manuscript? Any manuscript at all or a specific genre? (More specificity is better)
If yes to #8, how many days do they have to accept or reject it? (Fewer days is better)
Do you have the right to any stories you write in the same world as the book you are contracting or do you have to get permission from the publisher to sell those? (This usually means that you can’t move your series to another publisher, but it can extend beyond that).
(There are publishers who put things into contracts like eternal rights to all manuscripts you ever write. Do NOT sign something like this. Ever! No matter what the publisher says to you about how friendly they are, how much they love you and your book and how hard they are going to work to promote it, what matter is what is in the contract.)

How to Write a Good Query Letter

Use a simple 3-step letter (first paragraph about agent, second paragraph about book, third paragraph about you).
Be professional. Use good grammar. Keep typos to a minimum.
Don’t sound crazy (I always think this is the biggest reason that queries get auto-rejects).
Actually read the guidelines on your desired agent’s website.
Be concise. If you don’t have any credits, just say you’re a debut. There is nothing wrong with being a debut. If you haven’t met the agent personally, don’t worry about it. Keep description of book to 3 good, workable sentences.
Show that you know something about the market and that you are a reader. This means don’t mention the most obvious possible books as comparisons.
Don’t send out queries until you have finished your actual manuscript and have been through at least one round of revision.
Don’t overthink it. This does not have to be the most amazing letter ever written. The goal of a query letter is to get someone to read your pages.
If you get no requests, consider revising letter.
If you still get no requests, consider revising ms (particulary first chapter). Or writing a new one.

When You Can’t Fix This Book

(I tell beginning writers a lot that sometimes it's more useful to move on to another manuscript than to try to fix an old one, but here are some of the reasons I've seen for not being able to fix a book)

1. It’s a book you started years and years ago.
2. It’s actually a book that you first wrote as a kind of tribute to a certain book/writer that you love.
3. There are world building problems that you can’t address without changing the whole plot.
4. Your characters are immature or not multi-dimensional.
5. There are too many inside jokes.
6. It’s a book that’s really fanfiction.
7. You don’t love this book or feel a passion for it anymore. It feels like a duty to get it right.
8. Every time you’ve sat down to revise it, a million new gremlins start appearing out of the woodwork, showing new problems with it.
9. You love parts of the book that don’t show up on the page because they’re waiting for book 9 to come out.
10. Nothing happens in it. It’s all set up.
11. You wrote this book to please a teacher/parent.
12. This book is a thinly veiled excuse to get back at someone in your own real life.

What an Advance is and How Royalties are paid

An advance is an advance against royalties. This means that your publisher makes a giant guess about how many copies of the book will sell and then pays you that money up-front (though to be fair, sometimes they’re making less of a guess and they’re just paying you what they think they had to to keep you from publishing with someone else).

In order to figure out how many copies of the book you have to sell to “earn out” (which means getting money later, after the advance check when the publisher has actual book sales data to tabulate), you have to do some quick calculations. Let’s say your book sells at $20 and you get 10% of the hardcover sale price. That means you get about $2 per book. If you got a $10,000 advance, you’d need to sell 5,000 copies. But beware that not all sales will give you this “regular” royalty. Some sales are to book clubs which pay a flat fee which you split with your publishers. Promotional copies given away for free don’t count. And some retailers (like Amazon or Walmart) won’t pay full royalties to you, the author.

You will be sent a twice a year royalty statement from your publisher and it will tabulate each kind of sales. These can be tedious to read, but I recommend them anyway. You can see whether your book is selling more as an ebook or a hardcover, as an audio book, in the US or in other countries (like Canada). You can see book club sales. You also get to see what your publisher holds back as “reserve against returns.” The reserve is often higher in the first months after the sale of the book, since people tend to return more often in the first flood. After that, the reserve will usually go down.

It takes about 5-6 months for the publisher to get the royalty statement to you after their internal departments have calculated how many copies of the book you have sold. That means it may be almost a full year after people have purchased your book that you get paid for them. Which is why an “advance” seems only fair, since it’s often not that far in advance. Advances often get split between an amount paid at the signing of the contract, an amount paid on acceptance on the manuscript by your editor, and a final amount paid on the date of publication.

You can ask to audit the publisher, though this happens rarely. If you really think something fishy is going on, talk to your agent about a problem. And yes, this is another reason that you want to have an agent before you get into the publishing biz.

When This Person Isn’t a Useful Critiquer

(Every once in a while, I get into a critique situation where one person is just not there for the right reasons or is genuinely not a good match for the rest of the group. In these cases, I think it’s wise to ignore the criticism of this person. Hopefully, you have a critique leader who can gently suggest that this person should stop monopolizing the critique session.)

Does this person admit they’ve never read (or liked) the genre of your book before?

Do they mock parts of your book that you think are the best part of it?

Do they ask you questions about your book that make no sense to you?

Do they criticize everyone for reasons that seem crazy?

Do they pick on tiny details that really make no difference to the bigger picture?

Do they have a hobby horse that comes up no matter what?

Does one person in the group get a pass because they’re a friend?

Are their favorite books all ones that were published a generation ago?

Do they hate everything new that has been published?

Do they want characters to do things that are offensive?

Remember, You’re Selling Yourself

If you’re afraid of revealing too much, you won’t write your best.
Your deepest fears should be on the page.
No straw men allowed—you have to believe your villains are right on some level.
Your subconscious is creating your characters and plot—drill down deep for more.
You can only tell the truths you have lived yourself.
Your characters are all aspects of yourself
The story you write now will reflect who you are now.
Writing may be the best therapy you ever do—and the hardest.
The people you know and love will appear in your fiction if you intend it or not.
The more truthful you are to yourself, the easier it will be to write.

When Your Work is Ready to Submit

Have you workshopped it? (Some people do sell without workshopping, but it helps to have other eyes look at it).
Do you know where it will go in the bookstore? (If you don’t, don’t imagine that someone else will be able to figure it out necessarily.)
Do you think it is better than Harry Potter? (Don’t send it in if you have wildly inappropriate expectations about mega-bestsellerdom).
Have you looked at agent websites? Do you have a list of people you want to send to?
Are you revising it on a micro-level?
Have you started something new?
Do you know what problems there are with it that you can still fix? (Don’t send it in if you can make it better.)
Have you changed so much as a writer that selling this book would get in the way of a better career? (Don’t send it in.)
Are unrelated people asking you if you’ve submitted it? (This is a good sign it’s ready to send in, though not the only sign.)
Are you fiddling with it regularly, changing things back to what they were before, and then back again? (Time to send it in.)

Who You Should Take Criticism From

Your editor
Your agent
A professional you have hired to help you.
Critique group members who get what you’re trying to do.
Yourself. Seriously, you are your own best/worst critic. Set a book aside for a while and then take a good, close look at it. Write your own notes. You’ll find a lot of what you need to hear is in your own heart.

And remember—once the book is finished, you can’t change it anymore. There’s not a lot of point to criticism then. A book isn’t a widget where customer feedback might help you make a better one in the future. I think too much of that kind of feedback is apt to make you think of your creativity as a customer service representative, and that’s not what I think creativity is for.

Who You Shouldn’t Take Criticism From

Random goodreads/amazon critiquers.
Your mother/father/family members (good or bad, really)
Non-professionals, even if they are readers
People who work in publishing but not in a genre that you are writing in
Anyone who hasn’t actually read your work.