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How to Choose the Right WordPress Theme for You

Note from Jane: This week, in partnership with Writer’s Digest, I’m teaching a 2-hour tutorial on how to create your own website in 24 hours or less, focused on WordPress. Click here to find out more and register.

When starting your own website from scratch—using WordPress—one of the first and most important choices you’ll face is what theme to use. Your WordPress theme will affect how your site looks and feels (the aesthetics), but it will also affect its functionality (the bells and whistles). Some themes are extraordinarily simple and bare bones, while others have a learning curve of their own!

Side note: If you have money to invest in your website, you could hire a designer to develop a unique and customized theme for you. While that may seem an ideal scenario, some writers may not have enough knowledge or experience to tell the designer/developer what’s important to them in the site design or functionality. That’s why I typically advise writers get started on their own at first, then after 6 to 12 months, once you’ve had time to “settle in” to your site, you know better what you want. However, if you’re building a site that ought to be savvy and professional from day one, go hire a developer!

Every semester, I help my digital media students navigate the theme selection, and I’ve seen how choosing the right theme (based on the needs of their content) can contribute to a frictionless, enjoyable experience for the visitor, or be a disaster. Fortunately, it’s easy to change themes, although keep in mind that for sites that have been around a long time (and have lots of content)—or for sites that use a very unique theme with special functions or presentation—then you’ll have a lot of “remodeling” to do whenever you transition from one theme to another. (Example: When I transitioned my own site in late 2014 from Twenty Twelve to Vantage, it took me roughly 12-18 hours to “refit” everything, and I still had many hours of other tweaks after the fact. I’m a special case, but I put that out there as a warning not to assume changing themes is quick and easy.)

Here are some the key questions I ask when choosing a theme.

1. Who created the theme and is it being actively improved or developed?

Not all themes are created equal, and some theme developers are better than others. Obviously, you want to choose a theme that appears to be robust and of high quality, as well as a theme that’s keeping up with WordPress core updates.

If you browse or search the WordPress Theme library, you can easily identify who created the theme, when it was last updated, and look at its ratings. Unless you’re savvy with code, avoid choosing very new themes, since they might be buggy—unless they’ve been developed by a really stellar source (such as WordPress itself!).

In the theme library, you can also find a link to the theme’s “demo,” where you can click around and see its different features and layouts.

2. How many people are using the theme? How easily can you find help or look for solutions?

The WordPress Theme library also tells you how many people have downloaded the theme, which is useful to know. The more people use that theme, the more likely you’ll be able to find other people who might experience the same bugs as you, or who develop solutions or add-ons specifically for your theme.

Some themes—especially those you pay for—come with a support community, where you can post about any problems you experience and get hands-on help. This is of course a huge bonus.

3. How much does the theme depend on great visuals?

Some WordPress themes are driven predominantly by stunning, full-width visuals (photos that stretch across the screen). Or they have homepages that are mostly images, with a little bit of text. Maybe it’s belaboring the obvious, but don’t choose image-driven themes unless you have good reason—e.g., you’re a photographer, illustrator, or someone else with good-quality visuals to upload.

4. Is the theme really only suited to blogging? What are the homepage options?

WordPress automatically favors a blog-driven layout on the homepage. If you don’t plan on blogging, that makes it a bit tougher to shop for themes, because the theme’s default design probably puts the blog front and center. Therefore, themes may look “bloggy” even if their homepage allows for extensive customization.

When browsing themes, look closely at how much power/control you have over the homepage presentation. See if there is a special template for the homepage (see next question). Favor those themes that don’t seem to put the blog front and center. My theme, Vantage, is a fine example.

5. How many page templates and post templates does the theme offer?

Every WordPress theme offers a starter set of page templates and blog post templates. Each template offers a different configuration for the page or blog post. For example, my theme offers the following page templates:

Default template (main text area, plus one sidebar)
Full-width page (text runs the full width, no sidebars)
Full-width page, no title (same as above, but it removes the title of the page)
Page Builder Home (a special feature of my theme that allows me to build a page column by column and row by row)

The fewer templates available, of course the less freedom you have to customize each page on your site. Some themes have incredible levels of customization related to these templates, while others offer almost none. The description of the theme should make it clear what your options will be, and its demo site should show you the various page or post templates.

6. What widget areas does the theme offer?

WordPress sites have widget areas where you can embed all the “fun” or interactive stuff on your site, such as social media badges or icons, email newsletter signups, and book cover images. Widget areas are typically in three places: the header, the sidebar, and the footer. (If you scroll to the bottom of this post, you’ll see my four widget areas in the footer! Not to mention my sidebar widget area.)

Confirm what widget areas your theme offers, and make sure they appear where you want them. I’ve noticed a trend in theme design where widget areas are invisible—and/or there might only be one—and for most authors, this is a mistake.

7. How are featured images used, if at all?

Some themes make heavy use of “featured images,” which are images tied to very specific pages or posts that end up getting used across the site in different ways. This means that if you fail to upload a featured image for any page/post, then part of your site design will end up looking crappy, because it has no featured image to display.

In my theme, you can see featured images at work on the homepage (when looking at the row of recent blog posts), as well as on the blog archive page.

Sometimes, the “featured image” functionality becomes important when transitioning to a new theme, especially if featured images get used in a different way than your old theme. (Basically, it can mean a lot of increased labor.)

8. What are the customization options, if any?

Every theme offers some level of customization, even if it’s fairly minor. For instance, most themes allow you to customize the site header in some way, and perhaps choose from a few color schemes. Be careful; more customization isn’t always good. Sometimes it means more opportunities for your site to “break” or behave poorly.

9. If you’re blogging, does the blog post presentation have everything you want (or don’t want)?

Always check the blog post template and what kind of information it emphasizes (or not). Some themes don’t include very basic information, such as the post author or date. They may not offer an author bio box at the end of posts. They may emphasize the date of the post when that’s the last thing you want emphasized. And so on.

10. What’s the learning curve?

If you end up paying for a theme, then you’ll find that themes can become very powerful, which increases their complexity, and in turn increases the amount of time you have to spend learning how they work. For those who are still new to WordPress, I recommend holding off on purchasing a theme until you know what WordPress can do on its own. That way you’re in a better position to evaluate the features of paid themes, and if they’re providing you something really special or valuable.

Some Wordpress Themes I Like

Keep in mind that if you’re using the free WordPress.com, your theme options will be limited. If you’re self-hosted, then you can choose and install any theme you like.

I’m very happy with the theme I’m using, Vantage, which is uber-customizable. However, it’s likely too complex for someone new to WordPress.
Any of the themes produced by Automattic (creators of WordPress) are worth consideration.
Michael Hyatt’s Get Noticed theme is a premium theme with strong support, geared toward authors.
I discuss 5 free WordPress themes for writers.
My students have had good results with: Edin, Zoren, Publisher (more visual)

Are there themes you highly recommend? What have you learned about choosing the right WordPress theme? Let me know in the comments.

More Advice on Author Websites

The Basic Components of an Author Website
Self-Hosting Your Author Website: Why and How to Do It
Building Your First Website: Resource List
The Big Mistake of Author Websites and Blogs
Get Started Guide: Blogging for Writers
WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without

Don’t forget: This week, in partnership with Writer’s Digest, I’m teaching a 2-hour tutorial on how to create your own website in 24 hours or less, focused on WordPress. Click here to find out more and register.

5 On: Hannah R. Goodman

In this installment of 5 On, Hannah R. Goodman:

passionately defends YA fiction against a recently published negative opinion of adult readers of the genre
illustrates a time in which the element of luck inherent in marketing worked in her favor
shares a list of earlier marketing and promotional efforts she undertook as a self-published author that will likely disabuse anyone of the notion that self-publishing is the easier route to publication

Author and writing coach Hannah R. Goodman is represented by Erzsi Deàk of Hen&ink Literary. She is the founder and editor of Sucker Literary, which features emerging YA authors, and the founder of All The Way YA, a group blog of writers telling the real deal about writing and publishing YA fiction.

Hannah’s  YA novel, My Sister’s Wedding, won the first place award for the Writer’s Digest International Self-Publishing Contest, 2004, children’s book division. She published the follow-up, My Summer Vacation, in May 2006, which went on to win a bronze IPPY in 2007. She’s published young adult short stories in several literary journals and anthologies. She also has written columns for the Jewish Voice & Herald.

Hannah is a member of AWP, SCBWI, and ARIA,  as well as a graduate of Pine Manor College’s Solstice Program in Creative Writing, where she earned an MFA in Writing For Young People. Currently, she is completing a Certificate of Graduate Studies in Mental Health Counseling. She resides in Bristol, RI, with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.

5 on Writing

CHRIS JANE: You more than write and edit YA fiction—you’re also a passionate YA advocate. What is it about YA and/or middle grade fiction as a genre that ignites you?

HANNAH R. GOODMAN: The ages of thirteen to eighteen were filled with painful yet funny adventures and experiences in my life that have to be shared in all their humiliatingly hysterical glory. I’m self-deprecating by nature, so it follows that I would capitalize on all my mistakes and moments of embarrassment in my writing.

Also, I’ve been a teacher of teens since I was a wee, young adult—so I’m very much in touch with their growing pains. They struggle to accept that the world isn’t fair, that sometimes people will not behave how they want them to, and they believe wholly in magical thinking (“If I think something is going to happen, it will”).

From dealing with the disappointment of the first sexual experience to the anger of when someone doesn’t love you back, being a teen means we cross the threshold out of childhood, then hover at the door of adulthood for a few years, longing to both move forward and yet also step back.

My personal growing pains revolved around unrequited loves and friendships. The boy I longed for throughout high school gave me crumbs of attention. The crowd I wanted to be in (or so I thought) seemed to run too hard and fast for me to keep up. It wasn’t until I graduated and went to college that I realized what I wanted in high school was a romantic notion of love and friendship that was based on the idea that I want what I cannot have, and not on mutual connection. Additionally, when I was in high school, I felt like I was the only one experiencing all these disappointments, while everyone else was busy being spectacular athletes or having these great romances and feeling awesome about themselves.

Working with teens today, I’ve had the popular athlete in my office and the quirky introverted artist, and when they tell me their stories of hope, pain, and disappointment, they are all very similar. And that  is also something we can’t comprehend until we leave our teen years—we are not that different from one another.

Where do your basic plot ideas come from?

My own teenage years (I still have every diary from fourth grade on up) and my students. I borrow from all and just move things around to disguise. Most recently is the short story in Sucker Literary Volume 3 called “A Different Kind of Cute.” This came directly from one of my many humiliating moments in high school involving a boy. The hot, popular soccer player I’d been crushing on all year in tenth grade asked me to meet him at the homecoming dance. I get there and he comes right over to me completely drunk. He gropes me, tries to stick his tongue down my throat, and then proceeds to throw up on my shoes. He is kicked out of the dance. I’m brokenhearted, but more disgusted and disillusioned. We never speak again. The End. (I’m both exaggerating and truncating this a bit, but that’s essentially what happened).

I always wondered what might have happened if he (a) hadn’t been that drunk and (b) hadn’t gotten kicked out. Additionally, I had a student, years ago, who had a crush from afar on a boy who eventually asked her to prom. The night was a disaster. He brought her to prom and dumped her for her best friend. She didn’t dance one dance. Her story and mine came together and inspired me to write about the disillusionment of teenage crushes.

What specific issues are important to you to explore in YA fiction that are unique to your audience’s age group?

The imperfection and complexities of relationships are something that, when we are teens, we just don’t get. We have a very all-or-nothing attitude when we are young—girls, especially, want that contact all the time on the phone, hanging out, doing everything together, and when there is a wrinkle in that, we tend to not be very forgiving. So I like to explore the complexities of relationships in adolescence—not only with peers, but parents and teachers.

This is because of my own complicated history of pursuing inappropriate (the grown-up word) relationships in high school. I chose the absolutely wrong people to be in relationships with, from best friends to boyfriends. And, at the same time, I had some amazing close friendships that I still have to this day—but I don’t think I valued those good, healthy relationships back then as I probably should have.

I always wanted to fix a broken bird or tame a wild coyote. If someone was not in need of a codependent experience, then they were boring to me. Looking back, I understand both myself and the birds and coyotes so much better and without the judgment and resentment I felt back then. I can see all sides of a relationship now, and it’s very healing to my inner child (I am studying to be a psychotherapist right now, so pardon all the warm and fuzzy and woo-woo stuff) to be able to write from multiple perspectives. So when my main character is angry or sad, I don’t write her story (even if it’s from first-person) in a singular way—I aim to widen the perspective through the setting, through props, and through the dialogue of other characters. You still get an angsty, self-conscious teen, but the view of her experience is wide.

What subject matter would you not explore in your fiction?

I will probably never write about abuse of a child from an adult. It’s too devastating and horrible for me.

I get the sense there’s a feeling in the YA community that young adult/middle grade fiction needs defending. Who are the people criticizing YA fiction, what are they saying about it, and what is your response?

My response is that we generate the most money for Hollywood, so the people can hate all they want. The criticism comes from snobbery and small-mindedness. Case in point, this Slate article by Ruth Graham, “Against YA: Adults Should Be Embarrassed to Read Children’s Books.”

In my quest to deepen my answer to your question, I did a bit of Googling, and when Graham’s article showed up, it made my stomach hurt. Let this woman go on with her dislike of YA. But as I pointed out above, YA fiction generates a lot of money for people. This woman, who claims to hate YA, sure seems to know a lot about some of the most popular YA books—you’re going to tell me she spends all this time reading things she hates?

Not to mention, Graham’s article about her hatred of YA generated over 82,000 Facebook shares. She’s benefiting off “hating” YA, which, by the way, I don’t believe she does. Again, why read all that if you hate it? It’s like people who say they hate Howard Stern and yet don’t stop listening; they critique him so thoroughly that you know they probably spend three hours a day with their ear to the radio. If you genuinely hate a thing you spend so much time on, well, please get yourself a therapist.

My response to this is, I feel sorry for anyone spending so much time and energy hating an entire category of literature (and yes, it is literature). What I think Graham and others fail to see in YA literature is the authors’ chutzpah to portray the quest of the “other” in a conformist society, and that this is invaluable in today’s sociopolitical climate, where there is a movement to bring equality and acceptance to the “other.”

From YA’s inception with The Catcher in the Rye (probably the first book we called YA), YA literature offers diverse protagonists and a three-dimensional perspective on growing up. Here are a few examples that speak for themselves:

In Wonder , by R. J. Palacio, the protagonist, Auggie, has a rare facial deformity and struggles with social isolation while trying to make his way in middle school. Because the story is told from multiple characters’ POV, we get a very wide perspective of Auggie’s experience.
In J. D. Salinger’s classic, The Catcher in the Rye, while we do see the main character, who struggles with depression and anxiety, through a first-person lens, Salinger creates round secondary characters who offer, through their dialogue, a more fleshed out experience of Holden’s breakdown.
And in Meg Kearney’s The Secret of Me , a novel in verse, a teenage girl who is adopted explores the meaning of the adoption to herself, her family, and her experience growing up. The lyrical language and the authentic voice of the narrator provide a story that is about the many facets of exploring who we are and where we come from.

Many other YA books provide the same multi-layered character development and rich plot lines: Some Assembly Required, The Duff, Feathers, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and My Heartbeat, just to name some of my personal favorites.

Characters and themes in YA lit vary and offer a wide perspective of the teenage experience, which—let me remind haters—we have all been through and, having survived, continue to walk around with the scars. To hate YA is to hate your inner teenager; it’s to hate a part of yourself. I think those who criticize YA are simply afraid to remember their own teenage pain. They want to forget their childhood and pretend they popped out as fully formed, sophisticated adults. On my new YA blog All The Way YA, we’ve tackled the subject as well with “People ‘Against YA.'”

5 on Publishing

What was one of your more exciting victories, whether on a search for an agent or while looking for a marketing opportunity, and what did it take to achieve it?

Landing in Publishers Weekly in 2011 and my (now) agent emailing me and asking to see my work because of that article. It was a fluke achievement, in my mind. I’d created Sucker Literary, and the awesome Tanya Whiton from the Solstice MFA Writing Program sent out a press release about it. Somehow Publishers Weekly received the release and asked to interview me. That article did so much for me in terms of exposure and connections. It launched Sucker, meaning I went from fifty twitter followers to hundreds within hours of the article being released. For me, that was a big deal. The submissions to Sucker went from a handful to hundreds, as well. People all over the planet emailed me to be part of the staff (which grew to about fifty within that week).

Just a few weeks later, my now agent emailed me to say she’d read the article and read my post on the Sucker blog and liked my voice. Would I send her something? For a writer who had been trying for years to get some kind of foot in the door, this was huge. The effect was viral on a small scale compared to others who have self-published something and it has taken off (Fifty Shades, etc.), but for me it was significant.

Over the four years of Sucker, our writers and staff members have gone on to sign books deals and get agent representation. Some of the people we mentored, but didn’t necessarily publish, went on to get the very same story we worked on published elsewhere—all because of the work we did together.

Although, ultimately, Sucker is on hiatus because it simply is a full-time job (we mentor writers whose stories have potential instead of just flat-out rejecting them) and I’m focusing on my own writing, now, as well as finishing up another degree, I still believe in the concept of a literary collaborative where people help one another to be better writers and publish, together, as a group. Someday I will go back to Sucker and do another volume. Just not right now.

What was the hardest lesson to learn as a self-publisher?

It’s much harder than you think—and I’m not talking about financially. I’m talking about emotionally and physically. The reality, for me, has been that self-publishing is too much work if the goal is to sell a ton of books (you gotta pound the literal pavement and the cyber pavement all day, every day, like it’s your job).

The lesson I learned was that I had to shift my perspective on self-publishing. Self-publishing, for me, is about sharing my work, and the bonus is if I sell a lot of copies. Self-publishing is about exposure and the writing community for me, as opposed to it being this money-generating business. It’s about art and expression. It’s taught me that I’d like a book deal, please.

What marketing tactics have you tried, and which were the most and least successful? Were there any surprises—ideas you thought would be a sure win that flopped, or ideas you were skeptical about that turned out well?

It’s hard to summarize everything I’ve done to market my work because I’ve been at this whole thing since 2003, when I made my first major marketing move with an unpublished paper manuscript entitled My Sister’s Wedding. I’ll share with you how I tackled publicizing that book because that’s the one were I pounded pavement the most (I also was a lot younger, at the time, with more energy and only one child):

Months after finishing edits on My Sister’s Wedding with a well-known “book doctor,” I called a local radio show that focused on books and reading and asked if the host would be willing to read it. Not only did she read it, but she had me on her show to talk about My Sister’s Wedding (which she loved). She also encouraged me to self publish it, which I did, knowing absolutely nothing about self-publishing.

Fast forward to the publication in February of 2004, one month after I gave birth to my first-born child. I began what would become a three-year publicity blitz. When I say I’ve pounded the pavement, I actually did; I put my baby on my back and carted around boxes of books to local and regional bookstores, handed out sell sheets and press releases. While baby napped, I emailed every single person I knew personally, and then every single school district, with the same sell sheet and press release. As a local high school teacher, I had a lot of connections to other teachers and used that to my advantage, landing on school summer reading lists. My campaign was wide—I sent press releases to recovery bookstores across the country (alcoholism is a major theme in the book), mass emails to every single high school within the tri-state area and to all local papers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and walked into countless high schools and middle schools to hand-deliver free books and sell sheets.

I emailed all local members of SCBWI, as well as the president, with information about my book. I even emailed Judy Blume! Her assistant actually read my book; Judy, I guess, was too busy. I donated a class set of books to the Alternative High School in Providence, RI, and did a book signing there. Having kids wanting my autograph was pretty cool! I landed the front page of the Newport Daily News (my home town) and was featured in the Bristol Phoenix (where I lived and continue to live) and the Jewish Voice. I sent letters out to over one hundred book reviewers (and heard back from about twenty). I sent a free copy of the book to JACS, an organization that deals with Jews who have alcohol problems. I sent emails out to recovery bookstores across the US, and a few actually purchased several copies for their stores. I sent letters and emails to every library in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. I also emailed TV shows and radios shows, which landed me on two popular local AM radio stations several times.

All this lead to winning the 2004 Writer’s Digest Self-Publishing Award, first place in the YA/children’s category, which led to several well-known agents reaching out to me to read my work (one of whom I did sign with and later left). Also, people actually started to call me to do speaking engagements or run workshops on publishing and writing—Brown University (woot-woot!), Stonehill College, and several adult-learning institutions, as well as a whole bunch of high schools and middle schools. Libraries reached out from Rhode Island to Massachusetts to Connecticut—I remember when a few actually paid me to speak, and the crowds were over one hundred people. I was asked to do book signings all over Rhode Island. (The one in my hometown was pretty amazing to me—we sold a hundred books that day, which is incredible for a small-town high school English teacher. I rode that wave for a few years.)

Did this work? I guess so, but it depends on how you define work. It got me my first agent, but we stayed together for almost four years and she never sold my book. My ultimate goal had always been to get a book deal. All the pounding of the pavement had been fueled by the idea that it would lead to a book deal. As the years went by and I didn’t, I stopped pounding the pavement as much. Today, I focus on social media and my agent, and I attend events that our local author association hosts. I do a few events a year, but that’s it.

I realize that I’m a writer first and foremost and that I need to focus on that. Not to mention, my life has grown since 2003. I have another child and a business, and I’m back in school. In order to continue to do what I was doing, I’d have to give up some of these other things—which are non-negotiables. Most importantly, doing all that work and not having it lead to what I wanted was very disappointing (depressing). Now I focus on doing events not for the sake of pushing product or trying to gain attention from a publisher, but for connecting with other writers and learning more about my craft.

I’ve tried everything—seriously. I think what I’ve done that ultimately helps (but certainly hasn’t led to some big break) is being very visible. Also, I have good ideas and am not afraid to try them. Like creating Sucker or All The Way YA. Both have landed me more and more exposure. I’ve been on radio shows, TV shows; given talks, book tours, book signings; press releases; blog tours; giveaways; contests; etc. The thing about this all is that I’ve never had a thought that anything was a sure win. Entering the Writer’s Digest contest in 2004, for example, was similar to creating Sucker, kind of just this thing I did that actually turned into a bigger deal—I got my first agent because of it. And, as far as being skeptical—anything marketing-wise that costs money, I’m skeptical about. But that’s just me.

You write at All The Way YA that you’ve developed a strategy to overcome the reactionary envy that springs up when you see writer friends announcing publishing deals. You have an agent, which undoubtedly creates similar envy in writers receiving rejection after rejection from literary agencies. Before signing with your first agent, what did you imagine having an agent would be like, and what has been the reality?

Way, way, way back when I signed with my first agent, I thought we’d just get a book deal. I thought, Well, this person is a successful agent who has sold a whole bunch of books; I’ll be next. The reality is that your agent is not a magician, and I’m lucky enough to have someone who believes in me and continues to submit on my behalf and be there to help me dry my tears when a rejection comes in. I’m especially lucky because both of my agents have been that way.

When I first started writing, I had ideas about what would make me feel like I’d achieved something: Geez, if I can get even one short story published in a literary magazine, I’ll know I’ve made it. What were your early goals as a writer once you started taking writing seriously, and what would it take now (with the understanding that goals constantly shift) to make you feel you’d accomplished enough?

These questions are coming at an interesting time for me because I don’t think about my writing in that way anymore. My early goals were, as you say, to just get one story published, and then it became get an agent, and then sell a manuscript. And, just to add, I never didn’t take my writing seriously. I was always serious, from the time I wrote my first short story at age ten. But I also always assumed that I would “get there,” get a book deal. I had that young person’s perspective of “Life is fair,” that if I worked really hard, I would get a book deal. Now, as the years go by and I continue to not get the book deal, the goal may be the same (get a book deal), but I assume nothing.

I know for sure that you can be the very best writer, a hard worker, and still not get where you want to be with your writing. My philosophy now is to enjoy the journey as if it were the goal.

Thank you, Hannah.

How to Sell Your Screenplay (for Absolute Beginners)

Note from Jane: This article first appeared in Scratch magazine. It has been edited and updated for my site. It discusses the most common paths to production for a first-time screenwriter.

When I was a creative writing undergrad, one of the most memorable success stories we talked about was the Good Will Hunting script by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The script was started by Damon as part of a writing class assignment at Harvard. When he moved to Los Angeles to live with Affleck (they were both trying to launch acting careers), they finished the story together, making it their first completed script.

In an interview, their agent said, “I read it over the weekend and I was blown away. It’s almost an impossible thing to get a movie made that is written by two actors who want to star in it, when no one knows who they are.” Even though the script went through a major overhaul, and it took another three years before the film hit screens, it won Damon and Affleck an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

If that was an extraordinary story in the mid-1990s (and it was), then it feels even more like winning the lottery in today’s market. One film consultant interviewed by the BBC in 2014 said that more than a hundred thousand scripts go into the system each year, and about three hundred movies get made—and maybe ten of those originate from first-time writers.

It makes book publishing odds look stellar.

The sober truth is that very few original stories from untested writers end up being made into films. Ben and Matt are outliers. If you still have stars in your eyes after reflecting on your chances, there’s yet another reality to consider: the process of selling your spec script—an unsolicited, uncommissioned work—is far more likely to score you offers to write other scripts for the studios. Put another way, a spec script’s job is primarily to show off you and your writing chops so you can build a career out of paid screenwriting gigs. Pitching your spec with the limited intention of landing an option or sale for that exact story is nearly guaranteed to be an exercise in frustration.

However, if you don’t at least play, you can’t ever win, so let’s look at the most common ways that scriptwriters try to get in the game.

Remember: An unknown writer cannot sell an idea. You must have a spec script to start playing, and it needs to be between 100 and 110 correctly formatted pages for a comedy (a little more for a drama).

Should You Use Script Consultants and Coaches?

Anyone who’s seen Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s film Adaptation (2002) has some familiarity with the business that’s sprung up around screenwriters seeking guidance on improving their scripts. In the movie, Nicholas Cage’s character, a struggling writer, attends an industry seminar (that you can attend in real life) by the infamous Robert McKee, author of the bestselling writing guide Story.

One of the pros of working with a consultant is that you begin to learn what the studios look for, particularly in rewrites, which means beginning to understand notes. In Hollywood lingo, notes are ideas or revision suggestions about the work; it’s critical to be able to accept feedback, because screenwriting is a very collaborative medium. Scriptwriter Jeanne Bowerman, editor of Script magazine, told me the most valuable part of her writing process was finding and working with a mentor.

In perhaps the most BS-free book ever on screenwriting, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, by industry vets Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (writers of Night at the Museum), you can find the following warning: “A guy who talks about screenwriting but who’s never sold a screenplay is not a screenwriting guru, he’s a lecture circuit bullshit artist.” In a nutshell, they advise that writers stay away from gurus who are prone to blathering on about that heartfelt story that needs to be told. Instead, focus on how you’ll write a movie that studios love, which must be one thing, and one thing only: entertaining. Garant and Lennon have no patience for the writer who’s hanging all his dreams on one brilliant screenplay. Their motto is “always be writing”; every piece you write opens doors to other jobs, and the process feeds on itself.

Selling Your Script at Pitchfests

Ever attended a writing conference with a pitch component? Some say that writing conferences got the idea from Hollywood pitchfests. A pitchfest is just what it sounds like: an intense, anxiety-producing opportunity to talk to industry insiders about your script. As in book publishing, there is a fair amount of criticism of the pitchfest concept—those who say that hardly any agents or editors sign deals with people they meet at such events, and that the event organizers profit off the naive dreams of new writers.

They are profitable events, to be sure, but the key as a pitching writer is not to have any expectations going in. You shouldn’t expect to sell anything at a pitchfest. Rather, it’s a bona fide opportunity to build a network of industry contacts and get valuable feedback. You can get some idea of whether what you’re working on is of value and marketable. And, best of all, you get to practice pitching, which is an essential skill in the screenwriting world. Bowerman says, “I got all my pitching skills by going to these fests, so that when I went out to HBO to pitch, I’m sitting there without a bead of sweat on my forehead because I’d had all this practice pitching. It takes the mystery out of it.”

While pitching well takes practice (having a natural charm and persuasive manner helps a lot), there are a few rules to follow. The Garant-Lennon guide offers the following tips:

Your film should be easy to describe in terms of other successful films. It’s always okay to invoke the name of a film that’s made a ton of money.
Keep the pitch short. No matter how much time you have, always be able to describe your movie in one sentence.
Rehearse your pitch before delivering it. You shouldn’t have to read anything from note cards.

Ideally, before you begin the pitching process, you should have an arsenal of materials ready to show or send if requested, such as a logline, one-sheet, synopsis, and treatment. Just about any published screenwriting how-to guide offers strong examples of these materials, along with a list of do’s and don’ts. (See the resource list at the end of this article.)

Regardless of how well the pitch goes, Bowerman says that most people waste the opportunity by failing to properly follow up after the event. Even though 99.9 percent of the time she gets a pass after sending in her material after the pitch, the first thing she asks is, “Do you have any notes for me?” If the person likes her writing, she asks if she has an open door to pitch her next project, or if she can be considered for a writing assignment. Whatever happens, she stays in touch, whether that’s through social media or some other method. “Now that they’ve met me in person, they know I’m human, they know I don’t drool on myself, they know I can present myself well, then they see me on their computers every day, and they forget I live in New York. You have to know how to work them,” Bowerman says. Of the 117 Hollywood people she’s pitched (she keeps track), 89 are still in her network.

Getting Attention Through Contests and Online Pitch/Listing Services

These potential paths to production are lumped together because their value often depends on the specific qualities of the service or contest.

First, contests: If you finish very well in a competition, it’s easier to get your work read, period. Studios, producers, and agencies frequently look at the winners of established contests. However, most winning scripts don’t get sold or produced; contests tend to be judged on artistic merit, not commercial viability. When evaluating a contest, research how well the winners have done—did any deals follow? Will the contest get your work in front of real industry contacts?

It’s possible to evaluate online pitch and listing services in the same way; these sites basically offer paid services and list your work in a marketplace where industry insiders can browse properties available for sale. Lists like The Black List and The Tracking Board are widely known and respected in the industry—plus you get feedback on your work. SpecScout is another reputable one.

Finding an Agent or Manager to Sell Your Script

If you don’t like the idea of paying for play at an online pitch site (or at a pitchfest), you can try cold-querying agencies with your project. It’s not dissimilar from querying a literary agent. If an agency agrees to represent you, it will pitch your spec script to its contacts inside the industry. However, most agencies aren’t open to hearing from unknown writers and, even if they are, the query process takes persistence and patience—and often an appetite for talking on the phone to assistants. There’s a much bigger chicken-and-egg problem in Hollywood than in book publishing. You need an agent to submit your work, but agents won’t take you unless someone is already interested.

That’s where the manager comes in—and some experts say a manager is a better way to go, although many writers have both an agent and a manager. Agents specialize in one aspect of your career, such as selling your feature films. Managers consider everything you do, look at the big picture of your career, and are more likely to nurture new talent. Either an agent or a manager can help spread the word about your script, but only agents are regulated by the Writers Guild of America. Neither should ever ask for a reading fee.

Whether you score representation depends partly on whether you’re seen as a one-hit wonder. Agents and managers want to represent writers who can continually generate saleable scripts. In their guide, Garant and Lennon say that sending out your script cold is probably the least likely way to get an agent. They write, “A method that will have a much higher success rate would be to write a short script, funny, scary, or touching, and shoot it. Get it up on YouTube or FunnyorDie (or the hundred other sites like those). … Try ANYTHING. … Even if it’s thirty seconds long and only on the internet, a finished product gives you a huge advantage over a script on paper.”

Working Your Connections and Relationships

If you’ve heard that it’s all about who you know, you heard right. Probably a smarter path than reaching out cold to agents and managers is to find someone you do know—a person in the industry who can offer you a small break—because Hollywood operates on relationships. If you don’t have any connections, you have to be adamant about making some, whether that’s through pitchfests and pitch sites, hiring consultants, entering contests, or using opportunities presented by social media (try #scriptchat on Sundays).

In the Gotham Writers’ Workshop guide, Writing Movies, the editors write, “While it’s true that a great script will sometimes speak for itself, even the masterpieces, more often than not, need help from the inside. Without it, getting your script into the right hands, while not impossible, is a tricky proposition that requires luck and pluck. It’s extremely helpful to have an ‘in.’ … Consider anyone and everyone you know and have ever met in your lifetime. And everyone means everyone.”

You’ll find this theme echoed again and again in every scriptwriting guide, as well as by industry insiders and experienced scriptwriters. So much depends on having the right story shown to the right person at the right time. While talent is part of that, access and timing are equally important, which means your success can be largely out of your control. What you can control is being a relentless advocate of your own work, and developing a network of potential representatives and buyers—as well as promoting all those new stories that you’re prolifically producing.

Guides and Resources for Selling Your Script

If you’re interested in attending a pitchfest, two of the most well-known are The Great American Pitchfest and the Hollywood Pitch Festival.
IMDbPro offers contact information for representation—and everyone else—in the entertainment industry.
The best comprehensive guides I found on breaking into the film industry are Writing Movies for Fun and Profit , by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon; Writing Screenplays That Sell , by Michael Hauge; Writing Movies , by the Gotham Writers’ Workshop, edited by Alexander Steele; and The Screenwriter’s Bible , by David Trottier.

3-Hour Book Publishing Class With Me & Agent David Fugate

This summer, I’m proud to be speaking at one of the academies at the World Domination Summit in Portland, Oregon. My academy is a 3-hour session on how to get your book published, in partnership with literary agent David Fugate.

Attendees of the World Domination Summit can register for $29, but non-attendees can also join us for $59. Click here to get your ticket.

Here’s a full description of what we’ll cover.

Introduction: It’s Not a Question of If. It’s no longer a question of if your book will be published, but how. There are an incredible range of opportunities for writers today; we’ll help you decide which way to go based on what you want to achieve.
High-Level Overview of the Current Publishing Landscape. Learn about the key paths to publication in today’s ever-evolving industry, and the strengths and weaknesses of each, including (1) “big 5” style traditional publishing requiring an agent, (2) self-publishing, either entirely DIY and/or with service providers, and (3) smaller independent presses that don’t require agents, which tend to vary dramatically.
The Traditional Publishing Path. Learn how to research the market, prepare professional submissions materials, and approach editors and agents with your work. For nonfiction: Understand how to come up with a great concept and write a proposal—plus what is required from a platform standpoint. For fiction: Understand how to get your manuscript in the best shape possible, then write a query and synopsis. Attendees will: Learn the most common reasons that projects get rejected; avoid the pitfalls that plague first-time authors trying to get their work accepted; understand how to assemble professional submission materials; receive a list of helpful resources for researching and understanding the market.
How to Be Your Own Publisher. Understand the value of self-publishing, what types of projects it’s well-suited for, and how you can produce a top-quality book that’s indistinguishable from Big Five titles. Get a thorough understanding of the services, distributors, and resources available.
No Matter How You Publish: Best Practices for Launching, Marketing, and Promoting Your Book. Learn how to successfully market your own book, whether or not you have the support of a publisher. Get case studies on authors who’ve done it well, the steps they followed, and how you can build a plan that’s customized for your work and target audience.

Click here to register.

My Experience Working with Amazon Publishing

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Note from Jane: Today’s guest post is from Carol Bodensteiner (@CABodensteiner), author of the self-published memoir Growing Up Country and the upcoming Go Away Home via Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing.

Unable to land a publisher after I wrote my first book, a memoir, I cast my lot with the indie world. I enjoyed the control, and good sales put money in my pocket. So when I completed my pre-WWI-era novel, Go Away Home, in July 2014, I didn’t even look for a traditional publisher.

Imagine my surprise when six months later an email arrived in my inbox from an acquisition editor at Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing. I felt like the average teenage girl sitting at the soda fountain counter who is spotted by a director and cast in a major motion picture.

Every author I meet is curious about how that happened and what it’s been like. I’m only a sample of one, but here’s my experience.

How did Amazon find your book?

Acquisition editor Jodi Warshaw told me she was first attracted by the many positive reviews. It was gratifying to hear that all the work I’d done to get reviews—fifty-plus reviews in the first few months—was worth it. When Warshaw read the story and loved it, she contacted me—first to say how much she enjoyed the story, then to talk about whether I’d be interested in partnering with Lake Union, an imprint of Amazon.

Why did you sign with Amazon/Lake Union?

Skeptic that I am, I contacted a knowledgeable author friend to see if this was legit. She told me the only reason not to sign was if I was selling head over heels on my own. I was selling okay, but I spent thirty years in marketing and public relations and knew how much more could be done. Since there can’t be many with greater marketing expertise or a better email list than Amazon, this is what really hooked me.

What happens to a book once it’s acquired by Amazon?

I hired professionals to copy edit, proofread, and design the cover of Go Away Home before I published. I felt good about the book, but I always believe good can be better. Amazon/Lake Union sent the manuscript through developmental and copy editors and a proofreader. I was closely involved every step of the way. Editors suggested; I acted. We talked on the phone and exchanged emails. The editing was detailed and time intensive. I liken the editing to going to the gym. With hard work, I come out a toned, tightened, stronger version of me. After going through this new round of editing, the story is the same, but tighter and stronger. I was pleased with the first edition; I like this new edition even better.

I was involved in the same way with the cover re-design. I provided input to the designer, and we went back and forth through a number of concepts, identifying the right look and feel. Though the original cover garnered reader raves, Warshaw felt a new cover could do a better job of signaling the place in time. Initial reader reactions are that she was right. To see what my readers say about the new cover, check out my blog.

What does Amazon Publishing pay?

My contract with Amazon/Lake Union prevents me from talking specifically about royalties, but what I can say is they are consistent with industry standards. True, I will make less on each copy than I would have as an indie author, but where I would have sold thousands of copies on my own, I anticipate that I’ll sell tens, maybe hundreds of thousands with Amazon marketing muscle behind me. The expenses Lake Union picks up for editing, design, production, and marketing are substantial (all money that came out of my pocket as an indie author). As one example, here is an ROI look at BookBub promotions I ran. At the moment, the trade off feels worth it, but time will tell. The new edition launches on July 7, 2015.

What’s the downside to Amazon Publishing?

At this point, I don’t see one, but here’s a potential stumbling block that Lake Union’s Warshaw brought up: Amazon Publishing focuses on digital marketing. If an author’s main goal is seeing stacks of their books in traditional bookstores, Amazon may not be the right publisher for her. This does not mean that Amazon doesn’t provide physical copies. They do. But they don’t put sales people on the street to fill the shelves.

What’s the upside to Amazon Publishing?

Two things.

Amazon marketing muscle makes me salivate.
People. Because I worked twenty years in a marketing agency, I was used to having specialized experts upon whom I could rely. With Lake Union, I once again have a team working with me. I’m delighted.

What about the next book? Amazon or indie?

My contract with Lake Union is for this book only, so my options are open.

How to Find the Right Critique Group or Partner for You

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Today’s guest post is from Brooke McIntyre of Inked Voices, a site where writers workshop in small, private online groups.

Finding a writing group or partner is a lot like dating. There’s an element of searching and an element of matching. You’re looking for people you can share a piece of your creative self with, for people you want to spend time on, for people who can help you become a stronger writer—a tribe or community. So a good fit is important.

More than ever before, there are many options for finding a group, wherever you live and whatever your schedule. There are large groups and small, in person and online. And each group has its own feel.

Below I’ll share some things to consider when looking for those special someones. Then, I’ll share some places to look for partners.

What to Look For in a Partner or Group

One of the things I find most rewarding at Inked Voices is helping people match with writing groups. Here’s what I’ve learned about what makes for successful partners.

1. Shared Direction, Similar Stage

When writing partners share a direction—such as a goal to publish, a desire to keep up a consistent writing practice, or a hope to make writer friends—they’re often looking for the same sort of commitment to each other.

When writing partners have comparable experience writing, learning about craft, or publishing, they’re starting from a similar place. An experienced writer in a group of newbies may get frustrated. On the other hand, having a few new writers in a more experienced group is usually fine. Stage matters more for the group as a whole, and each person brings unique talents that may stand out more than their experience.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

What is your writing experience?
Do you have material to share now? Or are you looking for a group that will help motivate you through the finish?
Do you have a consistent writing practice?
Where do you want to go? Why are you interested in this group?
What else are you doing to meet your writing goals? Do you read blogs like this one or books on craft? Have you taken classes or attended workshops?

Where you are today matters. But where you want to go and what you will do to get there is more important when looking for a match for the long haul.

2. A Workable Pace

Pace is a tricky one. It seems simple: how frequently do group members submit material or meet up? But really it’s about a balance of your own time and energy and balance within the group. The pace should move with enough oomph that you make progress. However, a fast pace can overwhelm; a slow one can feel unchallenging or like people are not writing. Either extreme leads to people quitting the group.

What’s your own writing pace? Many overestimate how much writing we can realistically produce, especially in the excitement of a joining a new group. I’ve been guilty. Plus you have to consider how much time you have to give thoughtful feedback. For both questions, err on the conservative side.

Think about how much writing you produced this month and in the previous two months.
Count on spending at least thirty minutes reading and commenting on each submission—more for longer ones. Ballpark the time commitment by multiplying time to critique by number of group members (don’t include yourself) by submissions per person per month.
For in-person groups, pace equates to how often members meet. Consider how frequently all members of the group can make the logistics work.

Ideally, there is a balance between giving and receiving feedback. Sometimes people have spurts of creativity and produce more. Or life happens and they produce less. It often works out over the long haul. If members start to feel like they are critiquing but not writing, things have fallen out of alignment. Prepare to be flexible; a pace that works for an entire group all the time is unlikely.

3. People Enjoy the Writing and Feel Comfortable Critiquing It

Most of the time in a writing group is spent reading and giving feedback on other people’s work. It should be fun. Maybe you won’t love everything. But if you like most, you’ll enjoy the reading and become invested in the stories.

It’s hard to know that you’ll like the work until you actually see it, but there are some good proxies. What do you like to read? What are your favorite genres, books, and authors? When a writer says she likes Ursula K. Le Guin, certain people come to my mind. When I see a short fiction writer who likes Jhumpa Lahiri, another set of people comes to mind. Some groups assess this fit by requesting a sample of your writing.

I see many groups organize around genre, such as speculative fiction, free verse poetry, or creative nonfiction. Broader groups, like women writers, or “anything short,” are great for people who write and read across genres and who enjoy critiques from a variety of perspectives.

If you participate in a broader group, consider finding a buddy in your genre, especially if your genre has particular conventions or rules. Picture book writers think about page turns, mystery writers introduce the criminal early and quietly, romance ends with optimism. Your buddy can give you a nudge when you stray out of bounds.

So, How Do You Go About Actually Finding One of These Groups?
Writing Associations

Writing associations are a great place to find groups or partners. Meet people in person through regional meet-and-greets, educational events, or by volunteering with your local chapter. Let your chapter know you are looking for a group; it will probably want to help.

Some associations have an online option to find partners. The Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators has the “Blueboards,” a private forum where members can post the kind of group they are looking for. People reply, and then members may organize the group as they like. American Christian Fiction Writers has a large online critique community called Scribes, through which members often find smaller groups of critique partners. Romance Writers of America has an online critique partner matchup search for members. Members opt in to be searchable when setting up their profile. People interested in finding partners search subgenres and location for matches.

Conferences and Retreats

Conferences are a great way to stay energized, feel the power of a big community, and learn more about craft. They’re also a fantastic place to meet critique partners (thank you, Lisa, for starting a conversation with Elena and me at SCBWI national in 2014!) Conferences unite people with a common interest, be it shared genre, location, or both. Plus, conference-goers are often at the same stage. Many have at least one completed manuscript, and they may even be getting feedback on it at the conference.

Here are some ways to meet critique partners at conferences:

When chatting with people, mention your interest in starting a group. Even if that person isn’t interested, he or she can connect others to you.
Start a sign-up sheet (ask the conference organizer to make sure it’s okay first).
Tell the organizers you’re looking for a group, and see if they have advice.
Participate in critique roundtables. If you enjoy other people’s work, approach them afterward and see if they might like to exchange material.

Shaw Guides has a thorough listing of writing conferences. Writing associations and Facebook groups are also good sources for leads. Google brings up plenty of options: try typing in the name of your genre or region plus writers retreat or writers conference. Here is a write-up on some of the major retreats.

Meetup

Depending on where you live and your genre, there may be writing groups organized through Meetup. These groups typically meet in person and are organized by one or more individuals in your area. To find a group, search terms likely to appear in a group’s description like writer, author, poet, writing, writing group, picture book, novel, or screenplay.

Check out each Meetup’s “About us” tab to find out the thrust of the group. There are workshop-style, networking, and “shut up and write” groups (where people clack away and share work time). Drill down into previous meetings, their location, and attendance. Some Meetups appear very large—here in New York, there are Meetups 300, 500 and 1,000 people strong—but actual participation is smaller. It could be a consistent core of ten people. Or you may find different people attend each time. Message the group admin with your questions or attend a meeting to find out whether it’s a fit.

Participate in a “Mo”

NaNoWriMo is the big fish, but many other Mo’s have sprung up on the heels of its success. Beyond getting you writing, a Mo is a great way to find some community and maybe a long-term writing group.
Camp NaNoWriMo takes place in April and July and is open to all writers, including poets, short fiction writers and children’s writers, in addition to novelists. Writers set their own 10,000-plus word count goal for the month and participate in a twelve-person online cabin. Cabinmates see each another’s word count progress, cheer successes, and commiserate when things get tough. If you love your cabin, get their contact information and keep working together after the event ends.
NaPoWriMo challenges poets to produce thirty poems during National Poetry Month each April.
Children’s writers can participate in PiBoIdMo for picture book ideas beginning the last week of October and ReviMO for revisions in January. There’s even RhyPiBoMo for writers of rhyming picture books in April.

Other Networking Opportunities

To find local groups, try networking in your community. Chat up local bookstore staff or your savvy librarian. Scan community bulletin boards or post to your neighborhood listserv. There may also be regional networking groups in your area, like the New York City Writers Network, that focus on connecting writers. Ask around or search the name of your area plus writing community, writing group, or writers networking.

To network for online partners, try social media or check out some of the online forums. There are many Facebook groups for writers, some set up for the purpose of manuscript swaps. Join them to find a group of like-minded writers. After you’ve oriented to the group, post that you are looking for partners and go from there. To find a group, search within Facebook or see what Facebook suggests for you—this works best if you have writing information in your profile.

Use a Twitter event like #PitMad to look for partners. If you like the person’s pitch, reach out to the author and start a conversation. Other pitch events include the Women’s Fiction Writers Association’s #WFPitch and Dan Koboldt’s #SFFPit for science fiction and fantasy writers.

Finally, there are many online forums for writers to check out for networking and critique, including Absolute Write, Hatrack River Writers Workshop, The Mystery Writers Forum, Great Writing and myWritersCircle.

Online Critique Sites

Many online critique sites use technology, such as inline commenting, critique deadlines, private discussion boards, notifications, and writer profiles, to enhance the writing group process. Most of these sites are private to protect individuals’ work. Writers can participate in site-wide critique communities, large private groups, or small ones, depending on the site.

Online groups typically run on a credits or points system, where credits are used to submit work and earned for giving critiques. Sometimes, the credits system also works in conjunction with a queue system (basically, your submission waits in line for its turn).

Critique sites generally attract serious writers interested in improving their craft. Check out the technology and community to see if it’s a fit for you.

All Poetry is a writing community for poets. Poets may post their work to the sitewide community for comment, and premium members can start their own writing critique groups. Basic memberships are free, silver are $5.95/month, and gold are $14.95/month. Read more about memberships.

Critique Circle is an established writing community that uses a queue system. Members use credits to submit work to the queue and receive credits for stories they critique. New members have access to a separate newbies queue for their first few submissions as they learn the ropes. Premium members can create private critique groups with their own queue, ideal for groups using the site. There are basic, premium and premium gold memberships, each with its own benefits. Premium memberships are $10/month, $34/6 months or $49/year. Preview the site by checking out their YouTube tutorials.

Critique.org is the parent site of the well-known Critters.org site, which offers critique for science fiction, fantasy, and horror writers. Critique.org evolved from Critters to spread its popular format to other genres, including literary fiction, mystery, romance, and more. Critique.org genre groups are large and operate via email based on a queue system. When a writer’s submission reaches the top of the queue—usually about a month—the manuscript is emailed to the group for feedback. Members are expected to critique approximately one manuscript per week. The site is free and runs on donations.

Inked Voices is a site for writers looking for smaller critique groups and for pre-existing groups looking for a place to run their writing group online. It includes private, invitation-based groups, video lectures on craft, and a sitewide forum. Members search individual or group profiles to find partners and also get personal assistance matching. I also periodically facilitate three-month peer workshops geared towards members new to writing groups or still looking for the right fit. Memberships are $10/month, $75/year (discounts for pre-existing groups). Check out the demo on our homepage or see a screenshot tour.

Ladies Who Critique is not a critique site, but a place for writers looking for writing partners or groups. Join to create a profile about yourself and what you’re working on and search for other members with similar interests. Participate in genre discussion groups to meet people. The service is free. Read their FAQs.

The Next Big Writer offers a variety of private and public writing groups of varying genres and sizes, as well as online writing classes and an annual contest. Groups can be public or private and each can elect whether to use the site’s points system. Authors control who can see their work, whether site connections, group members, or a broader audience. Basic memberships are free and include participation in one group, while premium memberships allow participation in up to ten groups. Premium memberships are $8.95/month, $21.95/quarter or $69.95/year. See a demo on their About Us page.

Scribophile is a critique community with groups, contests, a helpful blog, and a discussion forum. Writers submit work to the site-wide community or to private groups using points. Either way, work is private to the site. Groups are generally larger and genre-focused and there are many options available. Premium members get additional tools for formatting documents and showcasing their work, and can post more than two works at a time. Free basic memberships. Premium memberships are $9/month or $65/year. Read their FAQ.

SFNovelist is a critique workshop targeted to writers of hard science fiction. For every piece you submit, you must have critiqued that number of words for another member. Members join for a free trial and then commit to an annual membership of $10. Learn more about how it works.

Writers Café is a large community of writers that includes contests, groups, critique, and a forum. The site is completely free. Read their FAQs.

Writers-Network.com is a critique community that uses the queue system with credits for submissions. See the features in their free and pro plans here. Pro is $3 to $4 per month, depending on length of subscription.

Writing.com is a large community of online writers with a sitewide community for critique, the ability to join and create groups, and numerous contests. Members can store their manuscripts in an online portfolio and can control privacy of their submissions, whether private to the site or publicly viewable. There are five levels of membership, including a free plan.

Review Communities

Many of the big publishers also have online communities. These sites are generally more about getting reviews and the possibility of publisher discovery. The highest-rated submissions get read by the publishers, sometimes leading to manuscript requests and/or book deals.

Figment (Random House)
Authonomy (Harper Collins)
Book Country (Penguin)
Swoon Reads focused on YA romance (Macmillan)

Wattpad is similar to the sites above, but is not affiliated with a particular house. Wattpad writers often post their work in chapters, and some have built large reader followings in the process, leading to book deals for some members.

YouWriteOn is a hybrid between a review community and a critique site. Writers upload work for review, which gets randomly assigned to another member. Members then are expected to give random reviews. There are certain months for writer feedback and development and other months where editors from Random House and Orion read top-rated submissions.

Email and WordPress Groups

Many email writing groups operate through Yahoo Groups. Try several searches to get a list of candidates to explore.

Hunt for other email and WordPress groups by Googling; scan beyond the first few pages of results. Internet Writing Workshop members join a critique list for manuscript exchange; participation requirements are listed on the site. The Desk Drawer is an email group that shares submissions and critique on writing exercises posted each week. NovelPro is for serious writers who have completed a 60,000+ word novel. Swirl and Swing is a private WordPress-based critique group for poets.

Final Thoughts

There are many paths to a writing group. Prepare to put in some elbow grease into your search. See what strikes you and give it a try. If it’s a fail, try again. It usually takes some persistence to find the right group. But once you do, it’s gold.

Email Newsletters for Authors: Get Started Guide

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Note from Jane: This article originally appeared in Scratch. It has been edited and updated for my blog. Also, next month, I’m teaching a 7-week course on email newsletters for writers.

Early in actor Bryan Cranston’s career, when his gigs were primarily composed of guest-starring TV roles in Matlock and Murder, She Wrote, he sent postcards to casting directors about his upcoming appearances. He told the New Yorker, “I knew 99 percent of them wouldn’t watch, but my face and name would get in front of them, and it would plant the subliminal message ‘He works a lot, this guy!’”

Later on, when he received three Emmy nominations for his role as the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, he took out “for your consideration” ads promoting his work. He said, “The whole idea is to put yourself in a position to be recognized for your work so opportunities increase. False humility or even laziness could prevent that.”

If Cranston’s career had begun in the Internet era, his communication tool of choice might have been the email newsletter rather than the postcard. While email lists have many uses (from selling your books to delivering paid subscription content), their most immediate use for freelance writers and authors is to keep readers and professional connections informed about what you’re doing.

Regular email contact with your readers creates a long string of impressions, so that your name stays at the forefront of their mind. When an opportunity arises—a book club needs a new book to read, a publication is searching for a freelancer to hire, a journalist is looking for a good interview subject, or a conference needs speakers—people are far more likely to think of you if they frequently see your name.

Because most people are overwhelmed with unwanted email, it may seem counterintuitive to categorize the email newsletter as one of the more effective, even intimate, forms of digital communication. However, email has so far proven to be a more long-term and stable tool than social media, which is constantly shifting. Emails can’t be missed like a social media post that disappears in readers’ feeds as more posts follow it. You truly own your email list, unlike Facebook or Twitter accounts. And if you use people’s email addresses with respect (more on that in a minute), those addresses can become resources that grow more valuable over time.

Even the New York Times’ David Carr says email is “very much on the march” as a publishing technology.

So let’s take a look at the big picture first, then at how to set up the technical operation.

Developing an Email Newsletter Strategy

Getting started with an email newsletter is simple and also free, but let’s review a few principles before getting to the technical aspects.

Decide on your frequency and stick to it. Your efforts will be doubly successful if you’re consistent with your timing. For example, freelance journalist Ann Friedman (no relation) sends an email newsletter that reliably arrives on Friday afternoons. Weekly is a common frequency, as is monthly, but the most important criterion is what you can commit to. If you choose a low frequency (bimonthly or quarterly), you run the risk of people forgetting they signed up, which then leads to unsubscribes. The more familiar with your work your subscribers are (or the bigger fans they are), the less likely you’ll encounter this problem. High frequency is associated with list fatigue, when people unsubscribe or stop opening your messages. Fatigue is higher with weekly or daily sends, so daily sends tend to be more appropriate for news- or trend-driven content. For example, Alexis Madrigal does a daily send called 5 Intriguing Things.

Keep it short, sweet, and structured. Hardly anyone will complain that your emails are too short; the more frequently you send, the shorter your emails should probably be. It can also help to deliver the same structure every time. Every newsletter Ann Friedman sends has links to what she’s recently published and what she’s been reading, plus an animated GIF of the week. I send a 2x/month newsletter Electric Speed that focuses on specific digital media tools and news of interest to writers.

Be specific and honest about what people are signing up for. You should create a newsletter sign-up form that tells people what they’ll get if they subscribe. The sign-up for the Brain Pickings newsletter by Maria Popova says, “Brain Pickings has a free weekly interestingness digest. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles.” It’s also helpful to link to your newsletter archives or to an example (after you’ve sent out a few).

So what do you put in this newsletter? The only limit is your imagination, and while the intent is to keep your name and work in front of people, you also want to keep things interesting—which means trying to provide value or otherwise focus on other people or quality content. Ask yourself: What do you love sharing with other people? What are you already curating or collecting? What do people ask you about all the time? What do you have special insight or expertise on?

For example, in each monthly newsletter, bestselling thriller novelist C.J. Lyons offers a Q&A with another novelist. This accomplishes several things: it offers something appealing to her readers, who are thriller fans; helps out another novelist, who gets increased visibility to an audience of twenty-thousand-plus subscribers; and gives Lyons a means to serve her community in a valuable way.

Handling subscriber fatigue. Because the word is now out about the power of email marketing, it may feel like every journalist and author has a newsletter. You may receive several a day and have little time to read them all. Study your own behavior with such emails: How much do you read? What catches your eye? Where’s the value that prevents you from unsubscribing? Assume subscribers won’t open every message and will skim your content. For this reason, it’s important to:

Have a unique subject line for every send to differentiate the issues.
Make your content easy to scan at a glance, assuming that makes sense for the content you’re sending. Subheads, lists, bolded text, and other visual cues can help readers quickly find what interests them.
A table of contents is essential for length newsletters, and sometimes even short ones!
Include important links at least twice, if not three times.
For really important items (anything that requires an action step), use a high-impact visual: a high-contrast box, an accompanying image, or a button.

Because so many newsletters focus on “great things I’ve read/consumed”—which adds to people’s time burden—be sensitive to the commitment you’re asking from readers to pay attention and take your recommendations seriously. Is it possible to go against the grain and save people time? What if your readers want to simplify and don’t need more stuff to do? See the end of this article for more suggestions about long-term growth and management—or what happens after you get started and discover you need to evolve.

Starting and Building an Email Newsletter List

Before you start building an email newsletter list, you need to have your own website or blog. You could start by putting out calls on social media, too—Rusty Foster’s media gossip newsletter “Today in Tabs” got its start that way.

But in the long term, social media calls aren’t the best solution, since they require active marketing on your part and are reliant on time-based feeds and platforms controlled by others. Putting a sign-up form on your website (see instructions below) is an essential marketing strategy: the list should grow without you having to do anything, assuming your site gets even a small amount of traffic.

Aside from your own website, the only tool you need is a formal email newsletter service that automates the subscription process, stores the subscriber email addresses, and archives newsletter issues. Some of the most popular services are:

MailChimp
TinyLetter
Constant Contact
Campaign Monitor
AWeber

I use MailChimp, have tried TinyLetter, and used CampaignMonitor when I was at VQR. All of these services offer very similar features and pricing. I like MailChimp because it’s easy for non-tech people to use and is free until you reach 2,000 names.

Most email services work on a double opt-in basis. This means that when someone subscribes to your newsletter, she has to confirm again (by clicking on a link in an email) that she truly wants to subscribe. This is a best practice and will avoid your building a poor-quality list.

This brings up one of the biggest rules of running an email newsletter: While it is possible to manually add names to your list (without confirmation), never add someone unless she gives you permission to do so. The No. 1 reason email newsletters get a bad reputation is because people break this rule all the time. Just because you connect with someone on LinkedIn or through a conference, or she posts her email address on her website, doesn’t mean you have permission to add that person to your email newsletter list.

Before you start sending or publicizing your email newsletter, take care of the following housekeeping items.

Customize your automated subscribe/unsubscribe forms. You can customize the header, the text, and what information you collect from subscribers. To get the highest number of sign-ups, you should only ask for the email address and subscriber name (and even make the name optional). However, you can ask for nearly any kind of information you like, and use that information later to target your messages to specific subscribers. That makes your list more valuable, but it will reduce the number of sign-ups. You can also customize the confirmation, thank-you, and unsubscribe messages that people receive.
Decide what mailing address to use. Federal law requires that anyone sending email in bulk or for marketing purposes include an unsubscribe option (this will be included automatically in your messages), and also a physical mailing address. Individuals who want or need to maintain privacy often fudge on this; Ann Friedman’s emails come from “The Best Lil’ Bungalow in Los Angeles CA 90026 USA.”
Add the sign-up link or code to your website. Regardless of the service you choose, it will provide you with several ways to offer your sign-up form to subscribers. Generally, you either link to the sign-up form directly at your service’s site (e.g., MailChimp), or you can embed the sign-up directly into your website—on a page, a post, or on a header, footer, or sidebar area. You don’t need to know or understand code to do this; providers like MailChimp give you the code to paste into your site and it works automagically. You will get more subscribers if you embed the sign-up into your site. (See this site’s footer area for an example.)
Decide whether to include an “ethical bribe.” Some people offer a free digital download to entice people to sign up for their email newsletter. While this will definitely boost your sign-ups, it can also lead to lower-quality names, or people who will unsubscribe once they have the freebie.

A final note about your list: Pay your readers the utmost respect by never selling their information or sending strong, impersonal sales and marketing messages (also known as blasts). Most people will sign up for your newsletter because they want to hear from you personally. Maintain subscriber trust by keeping the messages as intimate as possible and in your voice.

Other Types of Email Newsletters

There is much more to the world of email marketing and email content strategy. Consider if any of these models fit your work as well:

RSS-based email newsletter. You can schedule and design emails to automatically send whenever a specific RSS feed is updated. In plain English, this means that if you have a blog (or other RSS-based media), you can schedule daily or weekly emails to go out that include notification of new posts, excerpts of posts, or the full text of new posts. (Note: This functionality can be had for free through WordPress.com and Google FeedBurner, but you have no or very little control over what the emails look like and what content is included.)
Paid subscription. Some services, such as MailChimp and TinyLetter, allow you to charge subscribers to receive your email newsletter. It probably goes without saying, but before you charge, think carefully about what content you’re providing that would motivate people to pay, even if it’s just a few bucks. In this scenario, your content shouldn’t focus on marketing yourself, but on serving a readership.
Auto-responders. These are a way to automate a series of email messages that people receive in a very specific order upon subscribing. Common uses of auto-responders include self-study courses via email (which can be free or paid) and a series of introductory messages that help people understand your universe of offerings. Auto-responders make sense for writers with very complex or extended online content or offerings, and are also used by internet marketers to funnel people toward the purchase of high-value, high-price products.

Long-Term Growth and Management of Email Newsletters

If you’ve already experimented with email newsletters, then you know the toughest part is long-term engagement and list growth. You can feel it when your list begins to stall, when even you aren’t that excited about putting out another issue. Don’t hesitate to shift strategy when your content feels stale and your metrics flatten or decline; your readers are likely suffering from the same boredom you are.

My own newsletter has evolved several times over five years. It began as a periodic update about new handouts, worksheets, and presentation slides I had created for conferences. After two years, it became a general roundup of cool stuff I liked. This past year, I more strongly focused on digital news and tools I’ve discovered that have the potential to make authors’ lives more easy, efficient, or productive. I’ve also created two additional lists for people only interested in my blog content. The incredible thing: there is almost no overlap between these three lists.

While you should pay attention to how your subscriber list responds to your messages (your open rates and click rates), since these indicate where reader interest lies, consider the following to boost engagement:

Be direct and conversational with your subscribers: Ask them at the end of your newsletter to respond with what they liked or didn’t like. Ask them what they’d like to see next.
Consider adding a reader-contributed segment to your newsletter to build response, interaction, and open rates.
Over time, segment your list to better target your messages. Most email services offer very sophisticated segmentation tools, which allow you to send to a specific type of subscriber. You can segment your list from the get-go by asking people for more information during their initial sign up (give people several options that ask them their preferred frequency, focus area, etc), or you can make an executive decision by segmenting some subscribers (e.g., the low open rates) onto their own list to prevent list fatigue. More lists or more segmentation doesn’t necessarily mean more work for you; rather, you are better targeting your messages, and sending most often to people who are highly engaged, and very selectively to those who are not.
Serializations can work wonders. This is why auto-responders are so effective for things like 30-day courses, because people are on the hook and looking forward to the next day’s lesson. If you’re a fiction writer or poet, you can use the same technique with readers or give yourself the same creative challenge. While it needn’t be daily (or even weekly), what could you divide into installments, or how could you leave people with a bit of a cliffhanger?
The BoSacks newsletter, focused on the magazine industry, always begins with an interesting image and a quote, then ends with another, often amusing, image. Regular readers open up the message and scroll to the end just to see what’s there. How could you close your newsletters?

It’s easy to pigeonhole email as a very practical (even boring) communication, but it can be used as a creative publishing medium that’s easy to read, share, save, and later repurpose into something else. What if you had a limited-time email newsletter that delivered a specific story series? What if you changed the theme of your newsletter every month (kind of like Grant Achatz’s Chicago restaurant Next, which changes style every few months)? What if a reader had to search for clues in each newsletter? Expand your idea of what email can do.

If you’re interested in learning more about email newsletters, sign up for my 7-week course, which includes a critique component.

More Resources

No Unicorns: The Right Way to Grow Your Personal Mailing List by Paul Jarvis (99U)
For a strategic overview of how emails can be used as part of an author’s book launch campaign, read Ed Cyzewski’s post here at my blog.
How to Create a Self-Paced Email Course by Paul Jarvis (Smashing Magazine)
Copyblogger offers a free ebook on email marketing

Interview with Jane: Art of Commerce Series

It was a pleasure to be a guest over at 0s&1s interview series, The Art of Commerce, where I had a conversation with editor Andrew Lipstein.

According to their site, The Art of Commerce sits on the corner of literature and the marketplace, asking the age old question: “Who’s got the right of way?” They talk with writers, editors and entrepreneurs about … anything. All conversations are “manuscript-first,” meaning they were typed as you see them.

In my interview, we cover building a digital presence, serendipity, querying 15 years ago vs. now, agents vs. self-publishing, crowdfunding, the future of publishing & more. Here’s a little snippet:

If you can help authors make the best decisions of their careers, I’m going to assume you can prevent them from making the worst decisions of their careers. What are some common mistakes you see authors make?

Everyone’s in such a damn rush. I’m unwilling to blame it on instant-gratification culture (that’s too easy), but there’s a real lack of patience. Patience to make a piece of writing better, patience to research agents-editors-outlets, patience to network, patience to get comfortable with social media.

Also, many people are confused about the role of social media or other online activity (e.g., blogging). They put it before the writing or the message. Let’s be clear: the work comes first, in 90% of cases. (Sometimes the blogging is the creative work. Sometimes the social media can be the creative work, too.) But for writers who want to write traditional things (books, essays, etc), you build off the work itself.

Click here to read the entire interview.

To Outline or Not to Outline Your Novel

by rafaelsoares | via Flickr

Today’s guest post is from blogger Tania Strauss of NY Book Editors.

For many writers (myself most definitely included) the hardest part of writing is starting. One thing that can mitigate this difficulty is planning ahead in the form of an outline, or at least jotting down notes on character and story.

The question of whether or not to plan, and how much planning to do, is a particularly weighty one when it comes to novel writing. Because novels are heavily reliant on structure, and because they are such a massive undertaking by any measure, outlining might seem both practical and necessary—a way to make the abyss of the blank page feel a little bit less … well, abyss-like.

But is outlining actually necessary? Of course not.

When it comes to writing a novel, the only thing that is necessary is actually, you know, writing it. How you get there is entirely up to you. But should you outline?

Though advice often comes in the form of absolutes (you must write every day; you must show, not tell; you must kill your darlings), I’m wary of them under any circumstances, and I think they’re especially useless when it comes to process. While not knowing how to proceed is a very common problem, the particular psychological hurdles of starting (let alone finishing) a project are individual. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Zadie Smith has a great essay on craft in which she names two categories of novelists: the “macro planners” and the “micro managers.” I recommend you read this piece—it’s smart and enlightening, and might help you think about your own process in a more deliberate way, as it did with me. However, while I recognized plenty of my own habits in what Smith described, I don’t quite fit into either one of her categories.

I’ve started two novels in the past two years, and have gone about planning them in different ways. They’re different kinds of projects, with different storytelling goals in mind, and as such they’ve developed differently in my head.

The first novel is more plot-oriented. External forces, such as setting and historical events, play a strong role in putting the story in motion. I have a very solid sense of what will happen to my characters because of these factors, how their emotional stories and relationships will be affected, and what the crisis points will be.

As a result, it felt natural to do a broad outline of this novel, sketching each character’s overall story and planning out several pivotal plot points. And the writing I’ve done has been non-chronological—I penned several big scenes and key character moments as they became clear to me, figuring that eventually I’ll put all the pieces together and smooth it all out into one coherent narrative.

The fun of this strategy is that it’s like putting together a puzzle. The hard part is that conceiving all the smaller moments that hold the novel together is incredibly challenging. To make it all work, I’m probably going to have to change some (or maybe a lot) of what I’ve already written.

The second novel has involved a nearly opposite approach. This one is a deep character portrait, where the narrative will be driven by psychological and emotional forces rather than external events. I know exactly who my protagonist is, what her voice will sound like, where she’s coming from, and the internal journey I want her to take. But how I’m going to get her from point A to point B, in terms of exactly what will “happen” to her, is something I’m figuring out as I write—starting at the beginning and going forward, this time.

The pleasure of this is that writing is like living my character’s life alongside her—rather than be omniscient, I discover things as she discovers them. Sometimes I’m absolutely astounded by the way the story seems to write itself when I work this way. But when I get stuck (and I do get stuck), I’m very much staring at a blank.

As a result, I think that when I get back to this project it would be useful to try plotting it out a bit. But I didn’t need an outline to get started—establishing the character, her voice, and the key conflicts of her story was more than enough to get me through some very promising first chapters.

So my advice about planning your novel is this: do whatever will give you the confidence you need to get started.

If diving right in works for you, that’s awesome. If you need an elaborate outline, write an elaborate outline. However, if you do outline, I want to give you two points of caution. The first is not to get too married to that outline—the act of writing often causes our ideas to shift, and feeling like you have to be loyal to your initial plan might wind up holding you back. The second is, do not obsess over your outline instead of actually writing your novel.

There definitely comes a point at which planning a book ceases to be productive and morphs into a neurosis. Usually this is a semi-conscious attempt to avoid the scary leap of faith that is facing a blank page and filling it with words.

You don’t want to fall into that trap, because then you’ll wind up with no book to show for all of this planning. And why would you be reading advice about how to write books if you didn’t want to actually write one? So get to it!

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, check out the NY Book Editors blog, where you can find more editing and writing advice.

5 On: Jim Thomsen

In this 5 On interview, editor Jim Thomsen discusses freelance editing, story craft, favorite authors, and his own authorial aspirations.

Jim Thomsen has been a full-time, self-sustaining book-manuscript editor since 2010 and has worked on more than five hundred projects for nearly three hundred clients.

His specialty is the line edit, which he defines as a “second line of defense after the developmental edit and before the copy edit.” Line editing improves the quality of the prose, red-flags story implausibilities and inconsistencies, removes unnecessary repetition, checks the subtleties of word usage, and restructures sentences and paragraphs so that they flow more smoothly together.

He also does developmental editing for select clients and structured copy editing. His clients are primarily self-publishing genre-fiction authors, and traditionally published authors who write on spec or don’t trust their in-house editing process.

Jim came to manuscript editing from the newspaper world, where he spent twenty-four years as a reporter, copy editor, and managing editor. He lives in his hometown on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and can often be found exercising his delete key in one of the island’s many coffee shops and pubs.

5 on Writing

CHRIS JANE: From what you’ve observed in your experience as a fiction editor, what do novelists need the most help with (even if they aren’t necessarily hiring you for that particular service): copy editing or content editing, and what kind of problems are you seeing (in that area)?

JIM THOMSEN: Content editing. They also need copy editing, but everybody needs copy editing, even if you’re the most erudite and educated writer on Earth. What I find more problematic—and more intriguing—is how writers struggle with the basics of story craft.

Probably the three biggest problems I’ve encountered in my work with nearly three hundred clients are:

A relentless need to put the story on pause and explain the backstory to everything. To those clients I say, “Would you want to watch a movie that’s dominated by voiceover narration?”
Dull, hi-how-are-you, subtext-free, squarely-on-the-nose dialogue that subverts the smartest maxim I’ve ever heard, from author Amy Bloom: “Dialogue isn’t conversation; it’s conversation’s greatest hits.”
The failure to imbue every passage and page with what my favorite writing-craft guru, James Scott Bell, terms “pleasurable uncertainty.” In other words, a failure to understand what keeps readers turning from one page to the next. What I’ve found is that a lot of writers don’t really want to torture their characters on the road to happiness or catharsis; they just want to write thinly veiled wish-fulfillment fantasies.

You’re working on your own novel, a murder mystery. Who are your favorites in the genre who are writing now, and why?

It’s more a character-driven crime novel than a traditional mystery. There are surprise reveals, but the story doesn’t hinge on them. Probably my favorite crime novelist, and my most direct influence and inspiration, is Peter Abrahams, who writes lean, rich, watertight tales of dark but hopeful humanity, and does so at every level—middle-grade, young adult, adult, and as of this year, a new series for young children. He’s my hero because he’s never given up amid a lot of highs (having Robert DeNiro star in the film adaptation of one of his books) and lows (having played himself out in the book industry under his given name). He just keeps trying new things while staying true to himself and his voice, and if one thing doesn’t work, he simply tries something else. And, relatively late in life, he’s hit it big under his pen name, Spencer Quinn, with a prolific and wonderful series of detective novels—sort of cozy and mostly not—that are narrated from the point of view of a dog.

I had the privilege of meeting him last summer at my hometown bookstore and had the chance to tell him that his books, for me, were “portable MFAs in perfect writing craft,” and that he has the best show-don’t-tell game in the business. He seemed startled but pleased.

Others I admire include Stephen Dobyns, Carl Hiaasen, Lou Berney, Wallace Stroby, Steve Brewer, Lynn Kostoff, Max Tomlinson, Don Winslow, Scott Phillips, Sean Doolittle, George Pelecanos, Gillian Flynn, Alissa Nutting, C.J. Box, Michael Koryta, Richard Price, Karin Slaughter, Bill Cameron, Johnny Shaw, Donald Westlake, Elizabeth Little, Gwen Florio, Theresa Schwegel, and Peter Leonard.

You’ve said one of your tasks as an editor is to strip away “artifice, ornamentation and overwriting that gets in the way.” Many writers take pride in the personal styles they cultivate over many years, and some are sparer with words than others. For those who would say they’re not “overwriting” but simply writing true to their style, can you offer an example of ornamentation that could be considered part of the author’s style and an example of that which gets in the way of otherwise clear writing?

To me, there are two kinds of offending writing along those lines. One, as I said above, is over-exposition. If your story depends to an extreme degree on the events that precede it, I would suggest that your story probably starts in the wrong place. I occasionally have clients who write fantasy and sci-fi novels in which they seem more interested in building a world than in telling a story. I understand that readers of such books have a certain tolerance for a certain amount of that, but the story’s the thing, and some get that less than others.

As much as it pains me to say this, as I’m a huge fan of his, one of the worst offenders in this regard is Stephen King. He is a great fair regular old-school yarn-spinner, but, my God, he sometimes takes the long way around the barn, to borrow an expression of my dad’s. And while he’s generally got good instincts, he sometimes loses his way in the thickets of his backstories and side stories and, and as a result, has written a good many novels (Dreamcatcher, Duma Key, Lisey’s Story, Bag of Bones, etc.) that I consider nearly unreadable.

The other kind of offender to me, is the writer who subordinates character, story, setting, and practically every other structured story value to “voice.” I’m not saying it’s wrong, because that’s for the writer alone to decide, but … well, here’s a little sidebar about my editing practice: I make it clear that I look to take on projects with the goal of sharpening them, line by line, for their maximum commercial potential while preserving their integrity. If the authors aren’t on board with that, if they just want straight copy editing in the service of a book I know has no chance to find an audience, then I’m not really interested in the job.

A lot of voice-driven writers seem to insist on limiting their audience as much as possible out of their insistence that it’s perfectly okay to pull a reader out of a story and ask them to admire the author and their bag of prose tricks. And many of them, after an initial flurry of critical infatuation and commercial success, see their sales sink as their acts become tired. Tom Robbins comes to mind, as does Lorrie Moore and David Foster Wallace and Aimee Bender and William Gass and Martin Amis. There’s a not-so-fine line between challenging a reader and wearing them out through a willful insistence on the primacy of interior voice above all else. Some writers’ voices broadcast on our personal frequencies; most do not, is my observation and experience. I prefer working with authors who have a strong voice and an equally strong storytelling sense. I wish there were more Richard Prices and Elmore Leonards and Laura Lippmans and Shirley Jacksons out there.

One of the worst offenders is a book you and I have discussed privately, the much-praised “literary thriller” Descent by Tim Johnston. I could go on for some time about how awful I think that novel is, but in the context of this question I’ll simply say that it wholly subordinates story values to voice, and in doing so, it makes for a dreary, draggy reading experience that’s not redeemed by the self-conscious prettiness of the author’s fussy, overpolished prose and empty, masturbatory exercises in subdued mood. Much has been made of the author’s credentials in higher academia, and that unfortunately gives ample ammunition to those who despise “MFA writing.” And I think that’s an argument we’re all tired of.

Which writer(s) taught you the most about writing, whether how to or how not to write?

Lots, and at various stages of life. I found my love of crime stories, and the first inklings of my own crime-writing sensibility, at age ten or eleven, when I literally alternated between children’s stories like the Encyclopedia Brown and Three Investigators mysteries and the true-crime books from my mom’s shelves: Helter Skelter and The Stranger beside Me and Blood Money and the like.

As a lonely, isolated boarding-school student, I discovered the power of robust writing and powerful imagination in the stories of Dean Koontz and Clive Cussler and Stephen King. I also, later, discovered the danger of becoming too infatuated with King, that in trying to tap into that turbocharged literary energy of his, it was too easy to go off the rails.

As a college student in the mid-1980s, I discovered Vintage Contemporaries novels (seduced by slick packaging like the pastel-sporting malleable Reagan-era suburbanite I was!). Through writers like Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, Mary Gaitskill, Ethan Canin, and T.C. Boyle, I discovered the new pleasure of cooled and even chilled prose, of polishing sentences until each became a vacuum-sealed package of exquisite perfection.

That didn’t last, but from them I took away my first lessons about writing as rewriting, writing as craft. They taught me something not only about craft but experience—in short, to get some. These young writers sailed in Maine and hitchhiked through Greece and ranched in Australia and had sex and took drugs and talked philosophy and spent nights in jail and woke up naked almost everywhere. Me, not so much.

In recent years, through my editing practice and my own growing powers of critical curation, I found my people and my place: fiction that uses crime to say something larger about a time and a place and the people who inhabit them. Its practitioners include the folks I listed above, as well as my very favorite, Peter Abrahams. (And also, now, Stephen King, who won the this year’s Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel for his first novel of crime fiction, Mr. Mercedes.)

I won’t get into the whole genre vs. literary thing here, but suffice it to say that there is a lot of fiction that is packaged as genre for marketing purposes but actually strives to say as much about people and place and change and challenge as the highest-minded novels packaged as literary fiction. Those are the books I like to read, and the books I want to write.

Now and then you also write book reviews. What two key pieces of writing advice would you give writers as (a) an editor, and then (b) a book reviewer?

As an editor:

The best writing comes from what you leave out, or take out—what you obliquely and even teasingly suggest but don’t spell out. Done with good instinct and skill, that creates that essential sense of “pleasurable uncertainty” that I think every work or fiction or narrative nonfiction should have.
Torture the hell out of your characters, especially the ones you love, with conflicts equally external and internal. Readers don’t want to read about characters who are happy and get happier. Whether your story is driven by character, plot, or voice, your book should contain no shortage of gains and reversals and, ultimately, resolution—or at least a broad hint toward one.

As a reviewer:

Be clear about your motives. The book world is one of relationships, and we are constantly counseled to be nice and not damage our standing or ambitions in that world, but honesty is the higher value in my opinion. If a book is bad, there is value in making sure others know it. If it is good, the same. But a review full of pulled punches to preserve an unspoken agenda is useless. I have nothing but contempt for those who say they write only positive reviews. There’s too much puffbucketry in the world as it is.
Show your work. Just as good writing involves showing not telling, so good criticism involves backing arguments with specifics and clear rationales. Strive to analyze, not opine. If you can’t or won’t, then likely your reasons for writing the review are less than honorable ones—jealousy or personal pique toward the author being at the top of that particular list.

5 on Publishing

It’s been argued that writers are better off waiting to find a publisher who can provide quality editing rather than self-publishing and hiring a freelance or independent editor. The rationale is that freelance editors, unlike those at publishing houses, don’t have an official system in place to ensure quality. I can understand why writers might come across that advice and think, “Good point. What’s at stake for a freelance editor I hire? How do I know they’re going to do their best, and that their best will be any good?” How do you respond to this concern?

I can speak only for me. I do no marketing. I land jobs by word-of-mouth, and I think that’s because after much fumbling around in my early years as a freelance editor I found my confidence and craft and niche as an editor who can not only do rigorous copy-editing but demonstrate a sharp eye for what works and doesn’t work in a story. Those elevated stakes bring a fair amount of personal ego as well as professional pride into every job I take on, and I think both are reflected in my spirited manuscript notes and editorial memos. They show my clients that I have skin in their game and am not just another bloodless professional.

That heightened involvement is why I think I have a number of loyal return clients as well as a steady steam of inquiries from prospective clients in my inbox at any given time. Just as I want to see passion in a client’s writing, so the client wants see passion on a near-partnership level in my editing. And they get it from me, and it’s all genuine. I’m nearly fifty years old. I don’t want to waste my time doing work I’m not passionate about just to make money. That’s why I’ve passed, possibly to my detriment, on periodic opportunities to do steady but soulless contract copy-editing work. Being a style-spouting automaton without permission to speak up on story problems is not at all interesting to me.

I understand the concern some people have about the editing of self-published books. In publishing-house editing, the editor gets veto power over story and word choices. Ideally the relationship is seen and practiced as a partnership between writer and editor, but if there’s a disagreement, the editor, often in consultation with the marketing department, gets to win the argument because the editor’s employer owns the rights to the book. In self-publishing, the writer always gets the last word, no matter how strongly the editor feels about their choices. It’s a legitimate concern that often comes down to how much the writer is willing to learn and to let go. And I will admit that I’ve had clients who have simply refused to take my best advice, and taken into the world novels that in my opinion are not ready to be published and, as a result, are doomed to fail. Not to say I know everything, but I’m definitely more objective about the work than the authors are, and that’s not a small thing.

That doesn’t mean that editing in the traditional houses is always superior. A few years ago, I wrote a published review of a mystery novel that was put out by an imprint of one of the Big Five publishing houses in New York. The novel was awful, and not just in the usual ways. The story was so rife with errors of consistency and continuity, it became clear that the novel had received only a copy edit and a “coverage” edit for its commercial prospects, and not a true developmental edit or an absolutely crucial line edit.

From what I hear from my traditionally published friends and clients, good wall-to-wall editing of a given book is less the rule than the luck of the draw—not just the right publishing house, but the right agent and the right acquiring editor and the right team assembled by the acquiring editor. If there’s any break in the links of that chain as it’s being forged, the book can be doomed. And given how short-staffed publishing houses are, and how often editors and agents change jobs or leave the industry, I suspect a substantial percentage of books are ruined between the time a manuscript is acquired and the galley hits the printer.

What’s your feeling about the level of time and attention writers put into their own work before looking for an editor? Do you get the sense you’re seeing a lot of first draft work, or do the projects you receive seem to have been considerably edited/revised/reworked such that you’re receiving a last and best draft? What do you think is the writer’s responsibility when it comes to pre-editor editing?

It took me a couple of years to get my bearings on this. And before I understood the levels of necessary rigor that must accompany every manuscript once it’s handed off to someone like me, I worked on a lot of “vomit drafts”—unrevised, uncritiqued first drafts. And at times got deep into the work before I realized I was dealing with something that couldn’t be saved.

That led to some awkward and painful conversations and forced me to figure out that I can’t really be the best line editor I can be for a client unless the client does their part. That usually means (a) one or more revisions on their own before they hand off their manuscripts for critiques from writing peers; (b) more revisions based on those critiques; or (c) work with a developmental editor in lieu of (a) and (b). Nobody is good enough to bypass this process, and nobody should hand a vomit draft to an editor and say, “Here, you fix this.” If for no other reasons than (a) I’d charge much more for such salvage work than you’d be willing to pay; and (b) I can’t respect a client who isn’t willing to work as hard as I am.

To be a successful writer, you have to be a successful professional. And that means understanding that your hardest work begins where your first draft ends. If you don’t get that, then I don’t want to work with you. Life’s just too short. Well, mine, anyway.

Had any of the books you’ve edited been rejected by a publisher before you worked on them and then accepted post-editing, and if so, what do you think did the trick—professional polish, added commercial appeal, trendiness…?

I don’t know for certain that I’ve worked on a book that was rejected by a publisher, then self-published (after my editing) and later picked up by a publisher. I do know of several instances in which the author of a self-published book that I edited was approached by an agent or a publishing house. What I was told in those cases was that the books in question were in “hot” genres or had hit a “sweet spot” of sales and review averages (on Amazon) that made somebody in the book industry think there was more money to be made from the book with a wider marketing and publicity campaign, as well as a fresh edit and a new cover concept.

I would say those offers were rejected about two-thirds of the time, as the author essentially said, “Well, hell, if I’m doing that well on my own, why shouldn’t I keep on doing well on my own and making 100 percent of the profit?”

In some cases I know the offers limited the authors’ rights and profit potential. When the offers were accepted, the authors got pretty good advances, or were signed for multiple books, or being published traditionally was their endgame. I would say all had decent but not outlandish platforms; they all did what they were supposed to do in building bridges in the book community and connecting with readers through the big social-media channels. In general they demonstrated themselves to be enthusiastic, personable ambassadors of their work, with work ethics to match.

You’ve said you’ll probably self-publish your novel when it’s ready. Why? You’re writing in a highly marketable genre that typically appeals to publishers.

One, I know the odds of success as the traditional publishing industry defines it are long; and two, I’m too much of a control freak to cede control to others who may not have my best interests at heart. And three, my novel is rich in the setting, themes, and culture of my hometown region (Kitsap County, Washington state), so why not try to sell as many books to people who relate as strongly as possible to what’s in my book? So, given my history and my connections where I live, I’m planning a local-immersion strategy for my book that involves a lot of personal connection, from library to book club to neighborhood pub to coffee house.

The authors I admire most—friends like Craig Lancaster and longtime neighbors like Jonathan Evison—have built their readerships one hug or handshake at a time. As such they have devoted fans who like them as people as much as they like the books the people produce. I like that. I like the idea of selling me as well as a book. To me, that is the proper platform for lasting success. I’ll do that while making my book available on the commonly accepted national and global channels like Amazon. But it’s not necessarily my goal to go on a national bookstore tour or have my book for sale in the Barnes & Noble in Evansville, Indiana, or be reviewed in the New York Times. I see those things as byproducts of success, not hallmarks. I’d rather see if I can sell ten thousand copies within a fifty-mile radius of my house.

You pay close attention to the world of writing and publishing (and frequently engage in conversations online that are strong in opinions, but logical and fair). What do you see in today’s publishing climate that is encouraging, and what do you see that frustrates you?

I’m encouraged that people are still writing, still mostly enthusiastic, and still occasionally making a living at it. I’m encouraged that there is so much good writing-craft advice that’s so easily accessible and affordable. I’m encouraged that virtually every doomsday prediction about book publishing has largely failed to come to pass.

I’m frustrated by the fact that publishers still treat most authors like shit, and that authors are largely content to be treated like shit as the tradeoff for continuing to be published, however usurious the terms. I’m frustrated at the preteen tribalism of many authors, who united against Amazon—a company that’s made a lot careers and money for authors—and then fell strangely silent and acquiescent in the face of transparent outrages like the industry-standard 25 percent royalty on e-books. I’m frustrated that so many writers lack the courage to work with their own voice and vision, and instead chase the market with the futile mindlessness of a dog chasing a car.

And I’m frustrated that writing is so damn hard some days. And encouraged by the fact that I never get completely discouraged by such days.

Thank you, Jim.