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Trust Your Instincts: Why Writing for Yourself Leads to Better Books

Photo by Hadley Stanfill

Today’s post is excerpted from Imagine a Door: A Writer’s Guide to Unlocking Your Story, Choosing a Publishing Path, and Honoring the Creative Journey by Laura Stanfill.

I started Forest Avenue Press in 2012 to publish the kinds of novels I love to read.

When I started, to give authors a chance, I read hundreds of pages of submissions that didn’t appeal to me. After all, I had been sitting on the other side of the editorial desk for years, dreaming of acceptance. How could I say no to a novel without reading 50 pages and seeing if the fifty-first was where the story really started?

Eventually I learned to trust my instincts. If a novel doesn’t interest me from the query letter and the opening pages, I probably don’t want to spend the next 18 months working on it. If it’s offensive to me in concept or execution, I don’t want to put my shoulder against it and move it forward into the world. Trusting myself made me a more efficient and honest reviewer of manuscripts.

This insight trickled into my writing life and helped me make a terrifying decision. After several years of writing, I cut my protagonist out of my novel.

Jean-Jacques Blanchard, my original story star in Singing Lessons for the Stylish Canary, had a mean streak and an overload of self-confidence. Everything came easily to him, as the oldest son of a master craftsman in a small village in France. Everyone liked him (well, except for me). His little brother Henri preferred the company of girls and wished to learn lacemaking. Henri was always sick or getting in trouble with the schoolmaster for not paying attention. A savvy developmental editor suggested that Henri ought to be the protagonist. The awkward one should inherit the family business because he doesn’t want to. That would raise the stakes immediately.

Slice, went my cursor, cutting deep into the story. Exorcising a bully of a brother.

Poor Jean-Jacques.

Although in truth he was given everything he wanted, so I didn’t feel so bad for leaving him out in favor of giving the story to the underdog. Singing Lessons, with Henri as the protagonist, came out from Lanternfish Press in 2022.

When I made the decision to eliminate Jean-Jacques, I had a total reframing to do. At first it felt overwhelming, but I had so much more fun imagining the new version. If this were a true 19th-century novel, of course a boy like Jean-Jacques would be the hero. The central focus of the plot. He had a confident swagger and good hair. But in my modern, magical version of 19th-century France, I could make the shy, curious boy the hero. It took an outside editor to adjust my trajectory, to help me get clearer on what I wanted to say. To teach me that I could write the kind of story I wanted to read.

Forest Avenue Press has a catalog of nearly 30 books, and many of them are sad or have hard moments. (Because plot! And life! Plus, joy falls flat without contrast.) At some point I grew into choosing projects that delight and inspire me. Books with characters I want to spend a year or two ushering toward publication, written by authors who have conjured a positive view of the world despite all the horrible things happening. I don’t publish for me so much as for community, but I can do that while picking manuscripts that don’t trigger existential dread every time I open the file.

These days, our press editorial guidelines state that we are looking for “literary fiction on a joyride and the occasional memoir.” When we’re open to unsolicited manuscripts, my committee of readers and I make explicit lists to give writers the inside scoop. Things we like. Things we really don’t like. That helps writers find us—or to bypass our open call if they aren’t a good fit.

What does this have to do with your project?

You’re committing to spend time with your story. We stack the deck against ourselves when we try to write something because we feel we ought to, not because we want to. You might lose interest too fast if you don’t truly love what you’re writing. Reading a trendsetting book and deciding to write your own witch story or post-apocalyptic tale or whatever’s hottest now can backfire because publishing is glacially slow. If you try to jump on a topic train, by the time you finish the manuscript, your project may feel outdated—likely by several seasons—to the agents and editors you query.

Dana Haynes, the thriller author, said it this way:

The First Reader for your story is you. You’d better enjoy it. Later (the gods willing), you’ll write for a literary agent, and for an editor at a publishing house, and for a publicist, and for a bookstore buyer, and for a book lover. But first you gotta write for you. Find a protagonist and a story that appeals to you. You’re going to be living with this story and these characters.

That’s another way of saying write for yourself. Not for an agent who doesn’t know you exist (yet). Not for a publisher whose taste you can only guess from a distance. Not for your writing group because they’re writing a certain genre or style.

Bookshop • Amazon

And if you get feedback from a friend or editor suggesting you make a sweeping change, ask yourself: Is that the story I’ve been meaning to tell all along? Is that how I want to spend my time? 

If not, let the advice go. Because you are your own first reader, like Dana says. When other voices come into your process, you have to center your vision while trying to imagine the story from the outside.

If this reader feels this way, is my writing doing the work I expected?

Why or why not?

What needs to change?

What needs to stay?

James Patterson Grant Program for authors has to close after one day

The program offers grants of $10,000 to $50,000 to help writers complete a manuscript already in progress but not yet sold to a publisher.

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Book sales update: April 2, 2025

Notably, children’s and YA sales grew in fiction and nonfiction, and adult fiction sales declined, a reversal from usual trend lines.

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New imprint at Ten Speed Press for young readers

They plan to publish across all ages, including board books, picture books, illustrated fiction and nonfiction, and upper-middle-grade titles.

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Indie Author Project annual contest open for submissions

The contest helps self-publishing authors gain visibility along with recognition from librarians that sets them apart in a crowded market.

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Links of Interest: April 2, 2025

The latest in AI, traditional publishing, bookselling, marketing & promotion, and culture & politics.

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AI Made Me Want to Trademark My Name. Here’s How I Did It.

Today’s post is by author Teri Case.

I was editing my third novel, Finding Imogene, on August 7, 2023, when the news broke that publishing-industry guru and nonfiction author Jane Friedman’s name had been stolen and plastered across AI-generated books on Amazon and Goodreads. To add insult to injury, Amazon wouldn’t take the shoddy books down because “Jane Friedman” was not a registered US trademark. It took a series of public posts by Friedman and interviews with worldwide outlets such as BBC and The Guardian before the fraudulent titles were removed.

She was not alone. Earlier that summer, psychological thriller author Kiersten Modglin had a similar experience, but Modglin’s name was trademarked, so the vendor immediately removed the bogus books.

My takeaway from Jane Friedman’s and Kiersten Modglin’s experiences? I needed to get a trademark for my author name, Teri Case.

A quick, discouraging search online made me think I’d only get one chance to get the application right, it was impossible to trademark an author’s name without the help of a lawyer or legal service, and while the government’s filing fee was a flat $350, the legal process could cost thousands of dollars.

I didn’t have thousands of dollars, but I did/do only have one name—one I wanted to reserve for my creative works and publications. I didn’t want someone else to put my stamp on cheap, hastily done work, and I didn’t want to struggle with online vendors to remove faux-Teri-Case titles.

So, what was this on-a-budget indie author to do?

Before I became an author-publisher in 2018, I was a C-level executive assistant. So, I dusted off my EA cap, flexed my resourceful fingertips, and got busy.

I am not a lawyer. I cannot guarantee that what worked for me will work for you, but as a literary citizen, I am happy to share the steps I took to trademark my name successfully.

Before we start

I want to share the most valuable tip I learned during this process, and it’s one I wish I had known before I began because it would have curbed some angst. It’s also a tip that no one offered online: If your application has a mistake or requires clarification or backup, it most likely won’t be denied outright. You will get a “Nonfinal Office Action” letter outlining what needs to be added or amended so the trademark office can further consider your request.

Step 1. Search existing trademarks

There’s no point in applying and spending money if the mark is taken. In August 2023, I went to the US Trademark Office website and searched to see if my author name, Teri Case, was already a trademark. Luckily for me, my name was not registered by anyone else. I had the green light to apply. You can search the existing marks for your author name or series here.

Step 2. Create a USPTO.gov account

An account and identity confirmation are necessary for the online application, but it’s straight forward and easily done. I created my account in seconds.

Step 3. Review free trademark basics tutorials at USPTO

From the USPTO’s free tutorials I learned that in order to trademark Teri Case, I would need to show evidence of two or more written works previously published that displayed and matched the requested mark, Teri Case, and they needed to be available to the public. Fortunately for me, my website’s homepage includes my name and the desired mark and has been active since 2014, my first novel Tiger Drive went live in 2018, and my second novel, In the Doghouse, was published in 2019. Stay tuned for how I included this information in my application as in-use evidence.

Step 4. Complete and submit an online application to USPTO

As an individual, I applied online for an International Class 016 trademark, identified as “A series of fiction works, namely printed novels and printed books featuring Teri Case.” Note: Do not do this. Keep reading!

As I mentioned in Step 3, evidence is required for a trademark, so I prepared a screenshot of the homepage on my website to prove the mark had previously been in use “anywhere” and took a picture of my published novels together as evidence of existence and commercial availability. Both were attached as “Specimens.”

5. Pay and wait

I paid $350 by credit card. The USPTO website has a banner at the top of the page that will tell you how backlogged they are on reviewing submissions. For example, when I applied in August 2023, they were processing applications submitted in January 2023.

The first response: April 2024

Five months after I submitted my application, I received an email response from the trademark office. My mark was not approved. But it wasn’t declined either.

Known as a “Nonfinal Office Action,” the PDF letter outlined the “Summary of Issues” with my application. The issues included:

Section 1, 2, & 45 – Failure to Function Refusal (Name of Author)Identification of Goods – Amendment Required

The letter further outlined how to fix the above issues.

To fix “Section 1, 2, & 45 – Failure to Function Refusal (Name of Author),” I needed to supply the following: Evidence of a series (includes photographs or screenshots of the covers of at least two different printed, recorded, or downloadable written works). Yes, I had already given them pictures of my books and my website, but I simply did it again.I also needed to supply Evidence of Control. They instructed me to attach an affidavit stating that as the applicant, I had published the goods and controlled their quality. They supplied an example of the necessary verbiage to include in the affidavit. So I went online and found a general affidavit and included the verbiage that the Nonfinal Office Action letter suggested. I also took it one step further and had it notarized so that there’d be no question about my identity and signature. Contact me about my template if you are concerned.I had to provide evidence the name Teri Case is promoted and recognized by others. I attached copies of book award certificates and online award lists to show that others valued and recognized the books with my name. I attached links and print outs of interviews about my books with my name. I attached a screenshot of my newsletter and website (again).To address “Identification of Goods – Amendment Required,” I needed to make one small change, per their instructions: When I first applied, I had identified as International Class 016, “A series of fiction works, namely printed novels and printed books featuring Teri Case.” Ironically, to fix this issue, I had to remove “featuring Teri Case.” My Identification of Goods could only read, “A series of fiction works, namely printed novels and printed books.” Do this instead of what I originally did.

I followed the instructions and links to “Respond to Office Action” by the July 2024 deadline they had provided. Then I waited.

Preliminary approval: September 17, 2024

I received confirmation my trademark was preliminarily approved and would be “published for opposition” for thirty days to allow people to file an opposition. This is standard procedure. There was nothing to do but wait and see if anyone would claim the mark could cause harm or damage to them or their business. So, I waited some more.

Thirty-day opposition window closes: October 18, 2024

I immediately checked online thirty days later, and my trademark had not been opposed. But it was not cleared right away by the USPTO. I suspect this was due to workloads and staff availability.

A nudge: December 18, 2024

My trademark remained in opposition flux even though no one had opposed it. So, finally, I emailed the USPTO and asked when the opposition hold would be removed. Within three days, they responded that my mark would be approved and published in January 2025.

Gold-seal approval: January 2025

I received the good news! USPTO sent me an email stating that my trademark was approved and officially published. The email included a PDF of the certificate. I also ordered a certificate for $25 because I wanted the gold-seal certificate in hand.

Before I move on, let’s talk about spam

Unfortunately, as soon as I applied for the trademark, I was bombarded by emails from supposed lawyers and legal services offering to help me make sure I filed correctly. Some even implied they were my assigned USPTO attorney. I deleted these emails. The correct emails you should pay attention to will end with @uspto.gov, such as TEAS@uspto.gov, TMTG.notices@uspto.gov, and TMOfficialNotice@uspto.gov.

You can do this!

I could have expedited the approval and avoided the Nonfinal Office Action step if I had identified and entered my mark correctly the first time as “A series of fiction works, namely printed novels and printed books.” And I should have attached the evidence of control affidavit along with the pictures of my published books and website.

To date, writing a novel is my proudest and most difficult accomplishment. Believe me when I say that if you have written and published two books, you are more than capable of applying for a trademark of your author name. It will cost you time, patience, and $350, but it will protect your name, brand, and hard work. That’s priceless.

How to Budget for Your Book Launch

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com

Today’s post is by author Joel Pitney, founder of Launch My Book.

Many aspiring authors start their book journey without a clear budget. It’s only natural. Most people who want to write a book are so caught up in the challenge of writing that they don’t spend much time thinking about the many things they will likely have to spend money on as they move from idea to published book to promotions.

But if you don’t have a clear plan, you’re going to end up budgeting by default, and this usually creates problems (which you probably already know from running your household budget!). Without a clear book launch budget, you may mistakenly spend too much money on the wrong things and not enough on the right things. And you’ll probably run out of money before you reach the end of the road.

I’ve seen this scenario play out countless times. Authors spend a large portion of their budget up front, working with a developmental editor and a copyeditor. And although these are critical steps in the creative process, they aren’t the end of the book launching journey. So it’s unfortunate when authors don’t have enough money left over to invest in the final pieces of the puzzle: creating a professional cover, developing multiple formats of the book, and—of course—promoting it. They end up investing such a tremendous amount of time and money to create a product that they can’t effectively run promotions!

I decided to write this article to help authors avoid this all-too-common scenario. Think of it as a book launch budgeting primer. I want to give you, the author, a sense of what you need to budget for within each stage of your book launch campaign, where you might cut corners and where you should not, and what kind of profits you can expect. Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to book budgeting, so I’ve tried to keep this pretty high level so you can come up with your own plan.

5 book launch budgeting principles

I’m a principles guy, by which I mean that I believe it’s important to focus as much on the mindset you bring to any task as you do to the tactical strategy. Given that book launch budgeting is so variable, I find that it’s best to focus primarily on some guiding principles that will frame your decisions about where to spend and where to save. If you want a more comprehensive breakdown of the general budgeting parameter for each dimension of the book launch process, including how much you can expect to pay, where to save and where to invest, check out my free ebook on the topic. 

1. You need to budget for ALL dimensions of your book launch

If you want to avoid running out of money before the end of your launch, it’s crucial that you plan for EVERY dimension of the process, from writing to publishing to promoting your book. In this article, I identify four main areas where you can spend money on your book. The first two pertain to developing the highest quality product possible—what I am calling production for the purposes of this budgeting exercise. The second two both fall into the marketing category, but I’ve separated them into platform building and promotion because these tend to be a little different from each other.

Production elements of your budget:

Writing and/or editing your bookDesigning and publishing your book

Marketing elements of your budget:

Building a platform for your bookPromoting your book2. DIY what you can, and hire experts for what you can’t

If we all had infinite resources, we could hire people to fulfill virtually every aspect of a book campaign, from writing and publishing to promotion. But most of us don’t.  You have to choose when to hire professionals and which areas to take on personally (aka, Do It Yourself, or DIY). This decision will depend on your time, aptitude, and interest. For example, you might have solid networking and social media skills which you can apply towards marketing, but have no experience with graphic design. So you might choose to spend money on a good cover designer while doing a lot of the marketing yourself.

3. Plan for a marathon, not a sprint

Many people, especially those who are self-publishing, think the book launch process should move quickly. Based on a lot of popular but incorrect information out there in the book world, many authors mistakenly think that if their book doesn’t succeed right up front, then it’s a failure. But that’s simply not true. Growing an audience for your book takes time, consistency, and considerable effort. So when you’re budgeting, make sure to keep this in mind. Don’t overspend on the initial launch and have no money reserved to keep experimenting into the future. Focus as much on building a sustainable platform (more on this below) as you do on running short-term promotions.

4. Don’t expect to make your money back … right away

I might be a bit controversial (and maybe unpopular) for this, but I tell every author I speak to how important it is not to expect to make your money back, at least right away. But I believe that any good plan needs to be sober, clear-eyed, and based on the truth. Most first time authors simply don’t earn back through book sales alone all the money they’ve invested upfront. Of course there are other ways for some authors to monetize their book sales beyond royalties, like selling courses or consulting packages to readers. But if we’re talking about the economics of book royalties alone, it is rare for an author to make their money back on their first book.

As Michael Larsen (author of How to Write a Book Proposal) told me in a recent interview, the vast majority of writers don’t make money until at least their third book. It takes that long to build a big enough audience for your work for you to become profitable. You have to think about your writing career like starting a business. It takes years of building a client base to turn a profit, and your first readers will cost you the most to acquire. So when you’re making your budgetary calculations, you need to think at that scale. And don’t be fooled into thinking that your first book needs to turn a profit in order to be a success.

5. Save at least 33% of your budget for marketing

This principle naturally builds upon #3 (plan for a marathon, not a sprint). While you should do a lot of the platform-building work yourself, you should set aside a decent chunk of change for various promotional activities. The thing about book promotions is that they are not one size fits all, and you’ll likely need to test different tactics to figure out what combination works for your particular book. Having money set aside will give you more freedom to experiment. Reserve at a minimum thirty-three percent of your overall budget. This will make it possible to hire for specific services that you can’t do yourself, like digital advertising, social media, or publicity.

Your own personal calculus

So how much should you budget for your launch? It depends! Some authors will hire professionals for the items we’ve explored. Others will choose to take the DIY route. Your choices depend on your budget, skillset, proclivities, and goals. It will also look different for your first book than it will if you continue to write and publish, as the audience for your writing grows and you start to earn sales income to fund future launches.

I think it’s crucial that everyone build a budget for their launch, even with imperfect information. The simple act of doing it will put you in the right mindset for running a successful launch. If you’d like a more detailed tool for building your budget, you can download my full Book Launch Budgeting ebook (it’s free!). In it, I lay out some general budget ranges for all the various components of a book launch. I also provide some concrete opportunities for where you can cut corners or DIY, and give you a sense of the “you get what you pay for” factor for each dimension. Finally, the free ebook includes a worksheet for you to build your own book launch budget.

How will IMLS cuts affect libraries?

Earlier this month President Trump ordered the closure of the Institute of Museum and Library Services. IMLS is the only federal agency that supports libraries by sending funds to state libraries.

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On the List: Away by Megan E. Freeman

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