Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 45

When Do You Need an Author Website?

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Today’s post is by writer and literary consultant Grace Bialecki (@GraceBialecki).

A few weeks ago, I was catching up with one of my writer friends. We became close when our novels were published by the same micro-press. Their marketing was non-existent (more on that later), and an interview I’d done with her after its release was one of its few pieces of publicity.

But she wasn’t bemoaning non-existent sales. In fact, she primarily works as a translator, and she’d recently been nominated as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Translation. “Congratulations,” I said. “Put that on your website.”

“I don’t have one,” she replied. “Sometimes I post stuff on Facebook. Do you think anyone reads it?”

My inner marketer flung up her hands in horror. Target audience. Ideal reader. Building your list. Establishing authority. My friend was spurning these tenets to a writing career? But my inner artist was impressed. Damn, you can get this far without a website?

Now that I thought about it, her email signature had no hyperlinks, no cute icons, or cursive flourishes. But I’d been reading her next project, a thrillingly experimental memoir, and told her she had to have a website before she sent it to agents. She agreed that when she finished the manuscript, it would finally be time for one.

How long can you go?

My friend has been working in the writing industry for decades. She’s an acclaimed translator who supports her family with her work. And let’s say it one more time—she doesn’t have a website. Yes, she’s often paid by the project, not in royalties, but she also has her novel and future writing projects to think of. However, it has never been imperative to her success to have her work compiled on a website.

All of us humans, and especially us writers, have limited time and must decide how we spend it. As intimidating as it can be to leave the website field blank on QueryTracker, would you rather have poured all your precious resources into the query and manuscript? Or siphoned that energy into cobbling together a website?

Later, there might be a clear directive. Say you’re self-publishing your work and need a platform to connect readers with your books. Or your book has been traditionally published, and now a marketing team is telling you to make an author website. Depending where you are in your career, you may oscillate between writing and the business of being a writer. Unless, of course…

You truly want a website

My author website came at the inception of my literary career. A decade ago, I started reciting poetry at an open mic my friend ran out of his bookstore-apartment in Manhattan. At the time, I was working at a hectic start-up and composing poems in my head on my bike commute. Sometimes, I would even finish them on the subway ride to the poetry salon.

At the end of the night, as us poets got drunk enough to mingle, occasionally someone would ask where they could read my work. The answer was nowhere. I didn’t have time to submit to lit mags, much less find one who would publish my angsty bike poems.

There was a fairly easy solution to this problem, and one that I was eager to explore. I signed up for Squarespace, created a three-page website, typed up my poems on my typewriter, and posted them there. I chose Squarespace because they were hip, and we worked with them at my desk job. Also, my brother is a computer programmer, so I had a 24/7 tech support, plus he could do custom coding and make my site subtly pretty.

My inner artist has a strong sense of aesthetics so the design aspect was important. Though mostly, I loved the independence of knowing that I could guarantee my poems a place on the internet. For the first few years, I didn’t check website traffic and had no traditionally published work to link to. Yet as my writing career has evolved, so has my site.

Note: Besides the annual subscription, I didn’t invest any money into my website until its eighth year when I hired a photographer for headshots and product photos. Also note: I wasn’t paying myself or my brother for the hours we spent maintaining and beautifying it. If you’re not ready to invest the time or money (or you don’t have a nerdy family), consider these other options.

Expand your definition of website

An author website has the benefit of being an online storefront—a multifunctional space where you can sell books, compile your publications, write blog posts, and build your mailing list. However, there are other simpler and cheaper places to have a web presence where you can do much of this. One caveat is that you’ll have less autonomy, especially when it comes to building an email list, and in a worst-case scenario, could lose access or data if your account is compromised.

Here’s a short list of website alternatives:

Carrd: A quick, one-page site that’s mainly your bio and social media links.Substack: The lit community’s seemingly new favorite newsletter service with archives and paid subscriptions.Patreon: A storefront to sell any self-published work, share writing, and receive donations from subscribers.LinkedIn & Facebook: Your profile page can serve as a compilation of your publications, and you can connect with other writers.Instagram, Twitter & TikTok: The classic platforms for photos, videos, and blurbs promoting your writing and any other endeavors or updates.Linktree: a single page to list your latest links. Works well when paired with other social media.

My guess is if you’re vying for a book deal, having thousands of followers on a social platform is more appealing than maintaining a glitchy website. Or, if you’re like me and my friend, and you’re published by a press that doesn’t do marketing, having any platform will help in selling your book.

Find your why & check inside

Before you start cropping profile pictures and twittering away, take a moment to find your why. In these moments of introspection, I often turn to journaling, walking, sitting quietly, or communing with a pet.

When I first made my website, I didn’t do any of that. My why was already clear: I wanted a place where I could share my writing. Eight years later, I’ve added links to published pieces, workshops, and resources, and my why has shifted. Now it’s to have an internet storefront which represents my writing, offerings, and helps others. It’s my way of joining the writers on the block and promising to sweep my section of the sidewalk.

Once you have your why, do another check inside. What’s the easiest way to start working toward this inner reason? And does the thought of creating what will get you there spark joy? Or is there a heavy dread that you’ll never figure this out?

Listen to your body’s reaction as you consider your options and choose one that doesn’t evoke hopelessness. Be as realistic as possible about the time, energy, and money you’re capable of investing into this endeavor. This planning and reflection will help your site’s longevity and let it be a project you sustain, rather than discard like a half-baked draft.

We can’t have it all

As I wander the rabbit warren of the internet, amidst the lush writers’ sites, I find arid, abandoned ones. The contact pages are blank, links don’t work, or there’s a lone mention of a novel published years ago. A website is a virtual garden—it requires maintenance, pruning, and consistent care. Yes, we all want to be authors with exquisitely crafted novels, flawless headshots, all the followers, and a pristine website to pull it together. It’s up to you do decide what you have time for and prioritize that on your writing path.

I hope this has been helpful as you consider your options. And I would love to hear from other writers–when did you decide to start to build an author site? And what’s your why for having a web presence?

Additional reading suggested by Jane (biased toward having a site):

Why You Should Start Promoting Your Writing Before You’re “Ready”How to Build an Author Website: Getting Started GuideWhat’s More Important: Author Websites or Social Media?

When Your Characters Speak a Language Other Than English

Today’s post is by author Jyotsna Sreenivasan (@Jyotsna_Sree).

You’re writing in English, but your characters speak a different language. How do you express their words?

Here is what not to do: Do not have them speak in broken, stilted, or awkward English to indicate that they are really conversing in another language.

The most egregious example that I have seen of what not to do is in a book called The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais, which is about an Indian family who flees Bombay and ends up in France, where they open an Indian restaurant 100 feet from a respected French restaurant with an upwardly mobile proprietor. First published in 2010, this book was favorably reviewed by many outlets and adapted into a 2014 movie.

In the book, sometimes the Indian family members speak to each other in natural-sounding English, and other times in broken English. Here is an example from page 9, where the father and son are watching guests arrive at the wedding of a rich man’s daughter.

“He a billionaire,” Papa whispered. “Make his money in petrochemicals and telecommunications. Look, look at that woman’s emeralds. Aiiee. Size of plums.”

Later, on that same page, the father, still speaking to his son, says in more natural-sounding English:

“Listen to me, Hassan,” he roared over the traffic. “One day the Haji name will be known far and wide, and no one will remember that rooster.”

I assume the father and son are speaking a native Indian language throughout this conversation, and it is unclear why sometimes their conversation is in broken English, and sometimes in natural-sounding English.

On page 20, the family is discussing a recipe that’s not working in their restaurant:

“What’s this? This not like I taught you.”

“Wah?” said Bappu. “Last time you tell me to change. Add more star seed. Add more vanilla pod. Do this, do dat. And now you say it not like you teach me? How can I cook here with you changing mind all the time? Make me mad, all this knockabout. Maybe I go work for Joshi—”

“Aiiee,” screamed my furious grandmother. “Threaten me? I make you what you are today and you tell me you go work for that man? I throw everyone of your family to the street—”

The book includes many more cringe-worthy examples of the Indian characters speaking in this odd, broken English—not like any English I’ve ever heard a person from India speak.

When your characters speak a language other than English, you might think that you need to present their conversations using the word choice and sentence construction of a new speaker of English—how that speaker might sound if they were to speak English. But this would be a mistake. They are not speaking in English. Perhaps they don’t even know English.

Think of yourself as a translator or an interpreter. When translating from a language other than English, the translator or interpreter strives to be true to the literal and figurative meaning and mood of the original while converting the words into natural-sounding, idiomatic English. You will be doing the same with your characters.  To further complicate things, you might have characters who speak in multiple languages during the course of a story or novel. Maybe they speak in English with some people, and in a different language with other people.

Vikram Seth navigates a multiplicity of languages beautifully in his novel A Suitable Boy, which begins at the wedding of Savita and Pran. About six pages into the novel, we learn that some characters have been speaking in English, while others have been speaking in Hindi. The author tells us so: “His conversation with his father had been in Hindi, hers with her mother in English” (page 8). But both conversations have been written in natural-sounding English. Here is Lata’s conversation (in English) with her mother on page 3:

“Now, now, Ma, you can’t cry on Savita’s wedding day,” said Lata, putting her arm gently but not very concernedly around her mother’s shoulder.

“If He had been here, I could have worn the tissue-patola sari I wore for my own wedding,” sighed Mrs. Rupa Mehra. “But it is too rich for a widow to wear.”

“Ma!” said Lata, a little exasperated at the emotional capital her mother insisted on making out of every possible circumstance. “People are looking at you. They want to congratulate you, and they’ll think it very odd if they see you crying in this way.”

One of the things I love about this passage is that while both characters are speaking English, the mother’s English is a bit more formal (not using contractions, for example), while the college-student daughter’s English is a bit more casual.

 A few pages later (page 7) we read Maan’s conversation (in Hindi) with his father, who is speaking of a bride he has chosen for Maan:

“So that’s all fixed up,” continued his father. “Don’t tell me later that I didn’t warn you. And don’t get that weak-willed woman, your mother, to change her mind and come telling me that you aren’t yet ready to take on the responsibilities of a man.”

“No, Baoji,” said Maan, getting the drift of things and looking a trifle glum.

Although the characters are speaking in Hindi, the conversation is in natural-sounding English.

Should you mention what language your characters are speaking? Yes, if you think it will help readers understand the characters and their milieu. Vikram Seth tells us. And so does Jhumpa Lahiri, in her poignant, lovely story “The Third and Final Continent” (the last story in her collection The Interpreter of Maladies).

The main character in Lahiri’s story is a young man who has recently arrived in the U.S. He is fluent in English but speaks in a formal, stilted way in that language. Here is a conversation with his elderly landlady’s daughter (page 185):

“I come once a week to bring Mother groceries. Has she sent you packing yet?”

“It is very well, madame.”

“Some of the boys run screaming. But I think she likes you. You’re the first boarder she’s ever referred to as a gentleman.”

“Not at all, madame.”

She looked at me, noticing my bare feet (I still felt strange wearing shoes indoors, and always removed them before entering my room). “Are you new to Boston?”

“New to America, madame.”

“From?” She raised her eyebrows.

“I am from Calcutta, India.”

The new immigrant’s English contrasts with Helen’s English, who is a native speaker. Later, when his wife arrives at the airport to join him in the United States, the main character mentions speaking in his native language (page 191):

Instead I asked her, speaking Bengali for the first time in America, if she was hungry.

She hesitated, then nodded yes.

I told her I had prepared some egg curry at home. “What did they give you to eat on the plane?”

“I didn’t eat.”

“All the way from Calcutta?”

“The menu said oxtail soup.”

“But surely there were other items.”

“The thought of eating an ox’s tail made me lose my appetite.”

In this passage, Lahiri translates the Bengali into quick-paced, natural-sounding English. We can hear the characters toss these lines back and forth as they make their way to the home they will share.

In addition to conversations, a fiction writer has to think about the character’s inner thoughts. A character probably thinks fluently in their native language, even if they are struggling to speak English, so you as the writer must make your language reflect this difference. I assume that in Lahiri’s story, the main character thinks to himself in Bengali. He tells the story in the first person, and his narration is rendered in clear, educated, natural-sounding English. Here are the first few sentences of the story (page 173):

I left India in 1964 with a certificate in commerce and the equivalent, in those days, of ten dollars to my name. For three weeks I sailed on the SS Roma, an Italian cargo vessel, in a third-class cabin next to the ship’s engine, across the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and finally to England.

The main character’s voice when narrating is different than his voice when he speaks English, as well as his voice when speaking Bengali. If he were to narrate the story in the same formal, stilted English in which he speaks, we would get a very different impression of him as a character. He would be the object of a joke. Instead, we are treated to the voice of an intelligent, thoughtful man making his way from one continent to another, striving, as we all are, to live the very best life he can.

When writing characters who do not speak English, it can be helpful to be familiar with the language they are speaking. That way, you can use certain sentence constructions or ways of speaking that are common to that language even when translating the dialogue into English. For example, in Kannada (the language that my parents speak), I notice a liberal use of rhetorical questions. When I imagine characters speaking in this language, the way I write conversation or inner thoughts in English will naturally include rhetorical questions. In “Mirror” (included in my collection These Americans), a new immigrant mother is narrating the story in first person. After admiring herself in the mirror, she feels ashamed. “Who did I think I was? A princess or something?” (page 2).

No matter what language our characters are speaking, writers should strive to express dialogue and inner thoughts in a way that reflects the language of the character. If they’re speaking English, and they speak in dialect or don’t know the language well, then yes, you are allowed to render their English the way they really speak it. But if they are speaking or thinking in their native language, please take the time to accurately translate their language into fluent English, since they are of course fluent in their native tongue.

How to Develop a Complex Protagonist

Photo by Mark F. Griffin

Today’s post is by author and editor Ken Brosky (@Grendelguy).

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that the protagonist of your story needs to be interesting and fully developed. We’ve all heard this a thousand times before. It’s why you can find dozens and dozens of character questionnaires around the internet. What does your protagonist like to eat? What are their fears? What time do they go to bed at night?

All these things are good to know. But when you’re ready to plot out your story, I’d recommend zeroing in on a few specific things that are less focused on how interesting your protagonist is, and more focused on how complex your protagonist is. This complexity will drive the plot into far deeper places than your protagonist’s lunch preferences.

1. What does your protagonist want?

If it’s a murder mystery, the answer to this one is probably pretty simple: your protagonist wants to solve the murder. This desire to accomplish something will drive your protagonist to get to the end of the story. It gives your protagonist agency, which is crucial. Many weak stories have protagonists who are simply ushered from scene to scene rather than taking any control over their situation (imagine a horror movie where everyone is literally just fleeing from the killer, or a disaster movie where half the scenes involve people running away from calamity!). Your protagonist must want to accomplish something.

2. What does your protagonist need?

This is a different beast altogether. This is where things get deep for your protagonist. Something is missing. Something they don’t fully see just yet. Your protagonist wants to accomplish something … but in order to accomplish it, they need to change in some meaningful way over the course of the story. If your protagonist starts out as an immature person, they can’t get what they want until they realize this and become mature. If your protagonist starts the story as an alcoholic and they need to get sober, then they can’t accomplish their goal without first achieving this. My favorite example of this is Star Wars. Luke Skywalker wants to take down Darth Vader and the Empire, but in order to do this, he needs to understand what it means to be a Jedi (in other words, he needs to mature and acquire wisdom over his journey). This is why, in The Empire Strikes Back, it was so important for Luke to fail: he got the chance to face Darth Vader, but he hadn’t yet accomplished his need. Luke hadn’t yet matured into a Jedi.

3. What external forces are pushing back?

Your protagonist will always only be as interesting as the forces of antagonism allow them to be. This means that if you throw a bunch of easy challenges at your protagonist, the reader will grow bored and lose interest. The external forces are the obstacles that become more and more difficult as the story progresses. This is why writers often imagine a plot outline as an upside-down V: because we want our protagonist to face steeper and steeper challenges. These external forces will test them and give readers an opportunity to empathize.

4. What internal forces are pushing back?

In Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker must face Darth Vader again. As if that external threat isn’t enough, Luke faces an internal dilemma: he now knows that Darth Vader is his father. He doesn’t believe he can kill his father, and he’s conflicted. This internal conflict is what drives the emotional arc of the third act. Luke Skywalker doesn’t want to face Darth Vader again, but he’s matured and knows that he needs to. Audiences become emotionally invested in the outcome. Your protagonist should also feel internal conflict as they move through the story. And I know that can be a difficult step to imagine! So here are a couple questions to think about as you develop your protagonist:

What hidden faults does your protagonist have? As the writer, you know this person more than they know themself. Use this to identify faults that you can expose in the story.What hidden strengths does your protagonist have? This can be just as crucial to understand. Over the course of a story, you use external conflict to draw out your protagonist’s hidden strengths.

And there you have it! With these four elements, you’ll be able to create a more complex protagonist and a more interesting story.

Are You Sure You Don’t Have an Author Platform?

Today’s post is by author and educator Lena Nelson, author of America’s Youngest Ambassador.

In spring 2017, after learning that an aspiring nonfiction author would need a book proposal to find a publisher, I enrolled in a two-Saturday proposal writing class at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. After my first 8-hour Saturday that included group discussions and exercises on “who, what, and why,” I realized that I had no answer to the question that is part of every book proposal: “Why am I the best person to write this book?”

Eight years ago, when I started work on America’s Youngest Ambassador: The Cold War Story of Samantha Smith’s Lasting Message of Peace (Down East Books, 2023), I had no idea how to go about writing it. It was the Cold War tale of Samantha Smith, the ten-year-old American schoolgirl who, in the fall of 1982, wrote a letter to the Soviet leader expressing her fear of nuclear war.

This story had been part of my life since I was a child growing up in the former USSR. Samantha’s historic journey to the Soviet Union helped transform the hearts and minds of two nations on a collision course. In 1985, I learned that Samantha and her father were killed in a plane crash in Maine. So I started a scrapbook about her, the first American I’d ever seen. Thirty some years later, the scrapbook became the basis for the www.SamanthaSmith.info, a website I developed in her memory.

In 2013, Samantha’s mother, Jane, who by then had come to support my efforts, suggested that I write a book about her daughter. “You would be a perfect person to do it—you have the perspectives of both sides!” she told me. I was touched but didn’t take her suggestion too seriously at first. Not an official Cold War scholar, I was essentially just a citizen historian who assembled an extensive archive about this slice of Cold War history. I was really hoping that someone else with more expertise would use my website’s archive to write a book.

A couple more years went by, and while several scholarly articles were in the works, no one had shown interest in writing a book-length manuscript. So, I signed up for some creative nonfiction classes and had several chapters in drafts of various stages when I learned that I needed a book proposal before submitting to the publishers. On that first Saturday, when it was my turn to tell my classmates why I was the best person to write this book, I said that I didn’t really have an answer. I didn’t think I qualified just because I grew up in the Soviet Union, kept a scrapbook about Samantha (not unlike many other Soviet children of my generation), and then created a website about her and met her mother.

My professor had an answer that I didn’t anticipate: access. Somehow, I had failed to see it on my own. I was so preoccupied with the crusade of bringing this story its much overdue credit that I never paused to take an inventory of what that meant for my author platform. Since 2005, whenever someone searched “Samantha Smith,” they’d come to my website or the YouTube channel. If they had questions about the girl known as America’s Youngest Ambassador, their email would land in my inbox. I had responded to every scholarly and media inquiry about Samantha, assisted with interviews and articles, helped organize a photo exhibit in Samantha’s home state of Maine, and regularly answered emails from schoolchildren needing help with their National History Day Contest projects. I recognized locations of the photographs taken decades ago and could navigate my archive down to the very quote someone needed. “You’re a part of the story now,” Jane encouraged me.

Suddenly, I was seeing that by researching and documenting Samantha’s story for so many years, and meeting and working with Jane, I had carved out my own place in relation to it. I knew I had a great story to tell, but I simply didn’t take the time to appreciate the work I had put into my website and the relationships I had built in the process of unearthing and preserving the story.

When I started making a list of my accomplishments, I put down my website and the YouTube channel, plus noted the links to the Smithsonian article I was interviewed for alongside several others—and the op-ed I had written in 2013 for which I interviewed President Gorbachev on the thirtieth anniversary of Samantha’s trip to the Soviet Union.

I slowly realized that while I didn’t have a celebrity-size platform (or following), I did have enough of an author platform to get the publisher’s interest. And of course, I didn’t forget to mention being a former Soviet child and the fact that I worked with Samantha’s mother.

Finally, the fact that I did have something to write in that About the Author section not only inspired me to continue but gave me a certain degree of faith that maybe I was the person to tackle this after all. Now that my book is about to be released, I now see that a citizen historian writing about a citizen diplomat might be quite fitting, indeed.

The Right Way to Ask a Published Writer for Publishing Advice

Today’s post is by author and journalist Elisa Bernick.

Many years ago, I was at a book launch for a writer I didn’t know for a book I hadn’t bought. A mutual friend urged me to approach this writer with a question about how to publish the book I was working on. I hesitated for all the right reasons: I didn’t know this writer, why would he share this precious information with me? Was this the right venue and moment? I barely knew what questions to ask. Etc. Etc.

But my friend insisted he was a nice guy who wouldn’t mind a few questions. So, I walked up to him and asked if he had any pointers to offer on the publishing journey. I swear I saw smoke coming out of his ears. He was incensed that I would ask him this question on his big day, and he curled his lip in disdain and stalked away. 

I felt about three inches high. How dare I—a complete stranger and newbie writer—have the audacity to ask him for advice about something that probably took him years of rejections and hard work to achieve, and I wanted him to spill the secrets of his success in a sentence or two? (At his launch? Yikes!)

All these years later, having published two books and many articles, I still cringe at the memory. But equally distressing is that I often feel the same way when newbie writers ask me for advice. I hate that I feel this way because I want to be a resource for writers even though (and probably because) that writer was not a resource for me.

The publishing journey is hard. There are many dues to pay along the way in terms of the number of drafts written, the number of rejections received, the odds against a writer getting published and the even greater odds against a published writer making any real money from their books. When a newbie writer (and a complete stranger) blithely asks me to sum up all that hard work and tie it up with a bow, I feel tempted to do exactly what that writer did years ago.

To save you from an equally cringy fate, here are some tips on what to do before approaching me or another published writer with questions about how to get your book published.

Be a serious writer who understands the drafting process. Please don’t approach me (or have a friend “connect” us) until you have written several drafts of your book. Bonus points if you’ve had beta readers or an editor look your manuscript over. That gives me a sense you have the persistence and intentionality at the book-writing stage that’s required for the publishing journey.

Ask specific rather than general questions. This makes our conversation valuable and efficient. General questions get general answers, which are not very helpful. Specific questions mean you’ve put some thought into this process and have already taken the time to research the publishing industry, which assures me you’re not expecting me to give you book-length answers about things readily available online and in books.

Have a concrete sense of your publishing journey. Before reaching out, please write a book proposal (Jane’s got a great free template you can use for nonfiction books!). This will give you a better sense of your publishing goals, and it will give me a better sense of how to help you reach them. This document will be the basis of our conversation, and it will allow us to get into the nitty-gritty details of publishing (such as how to effectively research small and academic publishers to exponentially increase your odds of getting your manuscript read).

Have a little background on me and my book. If you’re writing fiction, please don’t approach me—approach a fiction writer. If you want to be published by one of the Big Five, approach a writer who has been published by a large publisher. I write nonfiction and memoir. My books were published by a small publisher and an academic publisher. I can offer specific information about my own publishing journey and its tradeoffs (going with a small or academic publisher keeps your books in print for a long time, which can potentially make up for a small or non-existent advance). But I will have only general information about working with a larger publisher.

Do me a solid and buy my book. There are rarely shortcuts in publishing. Writing a book is an art form but selling that book is business. It’s important to be strategic from the get-go and understand that publishing is transactional—not only in terms of money but in feedback and camaraderie. If you want me to be interested in your publishing journey, please take an interest in mine. Buying my (or another published writer’s) book before asking them for advice is both a strategic move and, more importantly, a respectful thing to do. Buy my book, tell me what you think of it, and then let’s chat.

I really do want to be a resource for other writers, just as I wish that writer long ago had been a resource for me. If only I’d bought his book and asked him to sign it, and if only he’d taken a moment to say, “Actually, this isn’t the best time to chat, but I’ve got some pointers on my website.” And if only I’d done the research and found suggestions like the ones I’m offering here, my publishing journey might have been just a little bit easier (without that awful cringing).

To Set Beta Reader Expectations, Have an Honest Conversation

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It also features first-page critiques. Want to be considered? Submit your question or submit your pages.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Book Pipeline. The 2023 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest awards $20,000 for unpublished manuscripts across 8 categories of fiction and nonfiction. Over the past year, multiple authors have signed with top lit agents and gotten published. Register by May 25.

Question

Are there specific guidelines for beta readers? I recently agreed to be one for a writer who had not even tried to spell check let alone address structural issues. My understanding is that a beta reader should be given the manuscript just before it is revised to go to the agent or publisher?

—Beta Reader

Dear Beta Reader,

Beta readers are the angels of the literary world, but as your question points out, serving as someone’s beta reader doesn’t mean agreeing to read whatever a writer throws at you. It’s okay to set some expectations.

While you can Google tips for working with beta readers and beta reader etiquette, the relationship between author and reader often varies based on what role you’re playing in the manuscript’s development.

There are three primary types of beta readers.

1. Readers from your target audience who enjoy stories about specific topics or from specific genres. Their main job is to share what they liked, what’s not working for them, and whether they’d buy the author’s book. It’s possible to ask these readers for specific feedback on issues like world building or character development, but it’s important to remember that these beta readers aren’t editors and they’re not expected to play one. Some readers are paid for their work, but most are not.

2. Sensitivity readers and subject-matter experts are skilled readers who are always paid for their work. Authors hire sensitivity readers when they need feedback on specific aspects of their projects, such as making sure BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ characters aren’t falling into stereotypes or serving token roles. Subject matter experts will confirm whether what you’ve written about quantum physics, or a surgical procedure, is accurate and believable. It’s best to engage these readers just prior to querying or publishing a manuscript. That means it’s gone through all the stages of the writing process, from drafting and revising to proofreading.

3. A third type of beta reader is the writing friend. These are often people authors know through critique groups, classes, conferences, or online communities, though the best readers are people who’ve never read the author’s work. Often writer friends will perform this task for each other at no cost.

Writers who serve as beta readers often read work that runs the gamut, but the best time to serve in this role is after several drafts have been completed—one to get words on a page, one or two to arrange them into what looks like a story, and a few additional ones to address issues like pacing, time management, or character development. Feedback from these readers is likely to be more substantial than what you’d receive from a target-audience or sensitivity reader but won’t be as specific or solutions focused as what you might get from an editor.

Once you know what kind of reader you are, have a conversation with the author to see if you’re a good match. Doing this is essential, because many authors have a poor sense of how far along their manuscripts actually are. While it’s clear you’ve already agreed to serve as someone’s beta reader, that doesn’t mean you can’t go back and have this conversation. In fact, doing so could be a gift to you and the author—especially if the errors you’ve encountered have dampened your enthusiasm for their work.

Before you agree to beta read, ask for a one-page synopsis of the book and the author’s deadline for receiving feedback. If the deadline doesn’t work with your schedule or the premise doesn’t speak to you, respectfully decline.

Still interested? Dig a little deeper by asking how many drafts they’ve completed and what work they’ve done to support the manuscript’s development. Two red flags to look for are: new writer who hasn’t taken any classes and first draft.

If their answers suggest the work isn’t ready, tell the author you’d love to read their book after more work has been done. That’s because great beta readers have fresh eyes, which means they only read a manuscript once. Spell out what “ready” means based on your role, so they know when to contact you.

If you decide to work with an author, you can try to set some guidelines, especially if you get the sense the author hasn’t done this before or is being haphazard in their approach. For example:

The book will be submitted by X date in X format. While target audience readers typically work with print copies or PDFs, writing friends and sensitivity readers typically need the ability to offer in-text comments in MS Word, Pages, or Google Docs.The document will be double spaced, paginated, and include numbered chapters.The author’s name and title will appear in the document’s header.A comprehensive spell check and read aloud will have been completed prior to submission.

Even with these protections in place, it’s ideal to have a first chapter “trial period” as part of the process—for everyone’s benefit—so you can bow out if the work simply doesn’t resonate with you, regardless of the reason.

Usually authors ask beta readers several, specific questions about the manuscript. If this is a focused reading on something like character development, then you might know these questions in advance. For more general readings, you might receive questions later in the process, so they don’t color your perception of the story.

Early conversations and guidelines often lead to happy collaborations, but sometimes guidelines aren’t followed, you might discover the work isn’t ready, or something in the manuscript doesn’t speak to you. If that happens, it’s okay to stop reading and say you’re not the right reader for the book. It might feel awkward to do this, but it’s a blessing for both of you. Writers who know problems exist can address them, and either resubmit when the work is ready, or find someone who’s a better match. Meanwhile, you’ll maintain your enthusiasm for the writer or work.

On behalf of authors everywhere, thank you for your service. We love you. We need you. We honor and respect all you do to support us.

—Lisa Cooper Ellison

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Book Pipeline. The 2023 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest awards $20,000 for unpublished manuscripts across 8 categories of fiction and nonfiction. Over the past year, multiple authors have signed with top lit agents and gotten published. Register by May 25th.

When Your Publisher Gets the Cover Wrong—Very Wrong

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Today’s post is excerpted from the new revised edition of Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive by Joni B. Cole (@JoniBCole)

This story starts about eight years ago, with the arrival of a much anticipated email from the publishing house where the first edition of my book, Good Naked: How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier, was in production. Wrote the marketing coordinator:

Dear Joni,

Attached is the final version of the cover design for Good Naked, which the designer has asked me to pass along to you. Please note that the white gridlines are watermarks that won’t be present in the finished product…

Even now, years later, I get aftershocks thinking about the first time I opened the attachment and saw that cover design. There, filling my screen, was the image of a naked woman’s body, full-frontal, lingering in the shadows against a smoky backdrop. She was cut off from the neck up and knees down. Against the dark backdrop, two pink circles (representing the Os in the book’s title) drew the eye to the woman’s breasts. Her slender fingers formed a V, framing her pubis. And just below her private parts, spread across her silken thighs, was my book’s subtitle—How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier.

In summary, the proposed cover for my book—a cheerful and practical writing guide based on my decades of experience as an author and teacher—depicted a nude, headless woman, beckoning book browsers from the shadows like a back-alley sex worker.

Here, I feel compelled to state that I have nothing against back-alley sex workers. I also will concede that, yes, my writing guide has the word “naked” in its title, but so do a lot of other books, like Naked Statistics, which has a pie chart on its cover. So, when the designer saw the title of my manuscript, what made him think of soft porn? Why did he design a cover better suited to an entirely different type of book, say Fifty Shades of Writing?

I reread the email to make sure I had not misunderstood.

Final version of the cover…Please note that the white gridlines…

Could the marketing coordinator who had written this email to me be any more misguided? How could she think that a few barely perceptible gridlines on the enclosed image would be my primary concern, when there was my name—Joni B. Cole—attached to a work suggesting much more for sale than writing advice?

This story comes to mind as I think about feedback during the publishing process. In this situation, I, the author, was the one tasked with providing feedback, despite being told the cover design was “final” and despite my fear of consequences. I worried that my book was already on a tight production schedule. Could the designer refuse to make changes? If I refused his refusal, could the publisher delay my book’s release, or even pull it from their list? Would I end up blacklisted from the industry, a note on my file listing me as unpleasant, uncooperative, and unwilling to do nudity?

All sorts of worries, real and irrational, cluttered my thinking. But, given the situation, I felt like I had no choice but to reject this cover wholesale. I imagined my new release displayed in the creative-writing section of my daughter’s college bookstore. (And she thought I had embarrassed her in the past!) For moral support, I showed the cover to a few friends, seeking their reactions:

“Is this a joke?”

“Whoa! I thought maybe you’d been exaggerating.”

“Is it me, or is that woman about to get busy with herself?”

The only positive comment about the cover came from my friend Dan. “It’s not that bad,” he shrugged. “Maybe it will sell some books.”

Yeah, right, I thought, and maybe people will assume those are my silken thighs. But that doesn’t make it right.

My friend Dan did make a valid point. Helping a book sell is indeed one of the main considerations when designing its cover. Depending on your publishing contract, you may not have much, or any, say in the final design, and that isn’t completely unreasonable.

Few authors double as designers. Our forte is plot points, not graphic concepts. We may be too wedded to our own artistic sensibilities, right down to our favorite colors. (That dusty rose looked so nice on my bridesmaids’ dresses.) Meanwhile, we aren’t thinking about the big stuff that professional cover designers know to consider. Stuff like, What is in tune with your book’s tone and audience? What is most likely to draw a browser’s attention? What is on trend? Is the type readable from a distance? Is the cover going to work when it is in the form of a one-inch-high icon on Amazon?

In short, if you do have a say in the final design of your cover, just be sure to carefully weigh your tastes against the designer’s eye and marketing expertise. What looks good on your wall won’t necessarily look good on your cover. Also, be aware that you may not love your cover at first sight, but in the end you have to ask yourself whether you will be proud of putting it out there. Remember, people actually do judge a book by its cover, so you don’t want to get in the way of having your new release make a great first impression.

You also don’t want to be one of those authors. My friends who work in publishing have told me stories—oh, how they have told me stories. The following is just one of them. An author of a scholarly book received a cover whose image was one of her choosing, but she was so unhappy about the other elements (apparently the color of the subtitle made her “vomit”) she spammed the designer, the art production manager, the managing editor, the director of the press, and even the CFO. The one person she couldn’t immediately harass was her editor, who was away at a week-long conference. The press director called the editor and told her to “rein in her author,” which was no small task. In the end, almost everyone at the press stopped taking this author’s calls, and while the cover issue was eventually resolved, the author chose to communicate solely with the managing editor after that point.

While much of this chapter has dealt with feedback related to your book’s cover, typically this is the issue (as well as your book’s interior design) where you may have the least input, depending on your contract. Almost every other step of the publishing process, however, invites two-way feedback as you work with your developmental editor, your copy editor, and the marketing team.

As noted in another chapter in this book, it is important to speak up if you truly disagree with, say, your developmental editor’s suggestion to drop the first three chapters. But before you react or overreact, just keep this in mind: My gawd, you are working with a real, live professional editor! (And, trust me, if your real, live professional editor is bored by your opening, your readers are likely to feel the same.) Also, I would not recommend crossing your copy editor, not unless you are the kind of person who knows the past tense of the verb forsake, all 430 uses of the word set, and whether this is the correct spelling of Kyrgyzstan.

All this to say, don’t fail to put your foot down when necessary, but also listen, really listen to the professionals. Be open to their advice, and carry that open-mindedness through every step of the publishing process, from the finalization of the manuscript, through the production of the actual book, through sales and promotion. There is feedback … and then there is feedback from people who make their living publishing dozens and dozens of books a year.

“Trust the process,” as one of my editors once said to me. “The author-publisher relationship is not a competition. It’s a partnership, a dynamic. The publisher is invested financially,” she reminded me, “so they want your book to succeed in every way possible.”

And here I had assumed she’d been working so hard on my manuscript simply because she was my friend.

Epilogue

In case you are curious about what happened to that naked woman on the “final” cover of my writing guide, here is the rest of the story. As soon as I saw that image, I called my editor in a state of high dudgeon. As it turns out, he shared my low opinion of the cover choice, but the designer had voted him down. “Don’t sweat it for now,” my editor told me. “Marketing is on your side as well.” This begged the question: Who was this designer with such sway he could override both my editor and the folks in marketing?

Weeks passed. My print date drew near. Each time I checked in on my sex worker, I was told that the designer remained reluctant to remove her from my cover. As a seasoned author, I am not afraid to speak my mind, but I am also not big on ultimatums. “Replace that cover—or me and my book are walking!” For me, it still feels like a miracle when a publisher accepts my work. It was unfathomable to think I would do anything to jeopardize my “forthcoming release,” two words I love dropping into every conversation. But I just couldn’t accept that cover. This felt bigger than a battle over design. This had the stink of misogyny.

Finally, I got word. Fifty Shades of Writing was no more—I would see a new cover option for Good Naked by the end of the day. This news came in the form of an email from the same marketing coordinator who, weeks earlier, had sent along the original design. In this message she wrote:

Dear Joni,

I’m sorry for your sleepless nights…I don’t know whether I should be putting this in writing, but in all my time here, I don’t think I’ve ever been this opposed to a cover design. I’m rather ashamed that I knuckled under and sent it to you anyway, and I can only imagine how you must have felt.

Later that afternoon the designer put together an alternative with the image of a fountain pen beside a notepad, similar to the clip art used in dozens of writing-related blogs and a far cry from capturing the energy and tone of my book. In forwarding this iteration, the marketing coordinator had failed to delete the designer’s email to her, which I am sure was not intended for my eyes—“See if she’ll like this one,” he had written, as if I were some diva with an endless list of ludicrous demands—No, I said blue M&Ms! Not green! Not red! Blue!

Given I felt my cover deserved more than clip art, I hired an outside graphic designer to submit a different concept. The publisher ultimately chose this cover option for my book, though I heard through the grapevine that the Fifty Shades of Writing designer didn’t like it. (Perhaps he was distracted by the white gridlines?) So, all’s well that ends well, though this story has one more chapter.

Amazon • Bookshop

About a year after the release of Good Naked, the publishing house went under, which was a real blow not just because it orphaned my book, but because of all the talented and lovely people who worked at the press, and all the meaningful titles it had released to the world for almost fifty years. I was lucky to find my own happy ending, however, as Good Naked was picked up by a different publisher that invited me to create a second edition. Oh, and it was love at first sight when they showed me their revised version of the cover!

Now, in my better moments, when I think about that designer with whom I so fervently disagreed, I try to let bygones be bygones. I hope that he found employment at some other publishing house, assuming he is no longer living out his male fantasies on the covers of other authors’ new releases. But if the challenge of my own cover struggle has taught me anything, it is this: There is good naked, and there is bad naked, but only one of those can help you write more, write better, and be happier, and it is not the one that has anything to do with soft porn.

How to Write Nonfiction When You’re Not an “Expert”

Photo by Darina Belonogova

Today’s guest post is by book coach and editor Liz Green. Join us on May 31 for Memoir or Self-Help?

Worried you’re not enough of an expert to write your book? That’s OK. You don’t need to be the annoying expert who knows it all. There’s another—far more effective—approach you can take when talking to readers.

Let’s start here: What do you think I want from you? What do any of us want from any interaction with another human being?

Entertainment. Information. Compassion.

Right? Think about it.

What are you looking for when you have a chit-chat with your partner in the kitchen, or get talking to a new acquaintance at one of those awkward networking sessions, or sit down next to Auntie Edna at your cousin’s daughter’s wedding?

I bet you do NOT want to hear Auntie Edna brag about how her kids are sooooooo great, so accomplished, and so much better than your kids.

Cut it out, Auntie Edna.

In your book, no one wants to hear how you’re the be-all, bestest-ever, super-dooper, way-better-than-them savior of humankind. It’s as annoying as Auntie Edna after a glass-and-a-half of chardonnay.

Readers DO want assurance you know what you’re talking about, and they wanna sense they can trust you. But you don’t have to brag about being the best for that.

A much more effective route is to entertain, inform, and show compassion.

Imagine Auntie Edna polishing off her second glass of wine at the wedding reception, and leaning in to share some juicy stories about your cousin’s escapades at his new job, then quietly informing you of her daughter’s impending divorce (so you don’t put your foot in it by asking how the hubby is). Picture her gently asking how you’re feeling after those rough few months you’ve had, while she tops up your own wine glass.

How do you feel about Auntie Edna now? We like her better, right?

Bucketloads of humanity

Rather than being “expert enough,” you need to know enough about your subject to write about it honestly and insightfully. And beyond that?

You need to be human.

Entertaining.

Informative.

Compassionate.

I assume that even without being “an expert,” you still have something to say—something you suspect others will benefit from. So share that with bucketloads of humanity, and you’ll be just fine.

This approach will shift your book from:

“Do this! Then do that! Listen to the expert!”

to

“Let’s have a chat. I want to share something with you.”

It shifts it down the spectrum from strict self-help to being a little (or a lot) more memoir-y. Conversational. Story sharing.

The brilliant thing is you get to choose how far down the spectrum you go. You can choose to position yourself:

As the authority standing on stage, giving an epic, powerful talk.As the admired teacher in a small classroom setting, guiding students by the hand.As the trusted friend sitting at the dining table, chatting over a cup of tea and whispering heartfelt advice.

Or anywhere in between.

Note from Jane: If you want to learn more about the spectrum of self-help to memoir and how to choose where your book will sit on that sliding scale, join us for on May 31 for Memoir or Self-Help? (Recorded if you can’t make it live.)

First Pages Critique: Reduce Repetition to Better Seed the Mystery

Photo by Valeriia Miller

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It also features first-page critiques. Want to be considered? Submit your question or submit your pages.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Book Pipeline. The 2023 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest awards $20,000 for unpublished manuscripts across 8 categories of fiction and nonfiction. Over the past year, multiple authors have signed with top lit agents and gotten published. Register by May 25.

A summary of the work being critiqued

Title: Return to the Auberge
Genre: mystery/thriller/crime

We’re all a surrogate for someone. Emyla’s twin sister died at age six and now Emyla avoids mirrors. When she reluctantly revisits the French auberge where she worked twenty-two years earlier, she is forced to face not only her tragic memories of the Fleury family who once owned it, but her guilt surrounding her sister’s death. Layers of the past gradually invade the present, until Emyla is forced to decide once and for all to either bury her guilt, or tackle it head on.

First page of Return to the Auberge

“I’m not going.”

That was Dr Emyla Brace’s response, yesterday, to her brother’s final attempt to force on her an all-expenses-paid week in the South of France.

And she’d meant it.

So why in hell was she sitting in her Clio outside Alastair’s fancy North Oxford apartment at the soaking crack of dawn, poised to risk her life speeding to Heathrow because her brother couldn’t drag himself out of bed?

Cockroaches. That was why. Or her father’s ultimatum? Maybe a bit of both.

The end of the British summer hammered on the windscreen, mimicking Emyla’s percussive fingers on the steering wheel. She glanced at the dashboard clock: 06:10.

Six on the dot. Right. Why wasn’t Al ever on time?

Pulling her coat tighter, she peered through the rain and dark at the porticoed entrance. At the empty space where he should have been standing ten minutes ago. She grabbed her mobile from its holder and tapped the screen. On the voicemail prompt, she hissed, “Wake up, lazy sod!”

Continue reading the first pages.

Dear Debbie,

Thank you for submitting your work. Your story about dealing with the death of a twin is very intriguing, and it reminds me of two recently published novels that take on this same topic: Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet (2020) and Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire (2017). My recollection of Hamnet, however, is that it focuses on the parents’ grief and how it influences Shakespeare to write “Hamlet.” Home Fire, from what I have heard, is more about burial rites than about loss, much like the play it reimagines, Sophocles’ “Antigone.”

In any case, both these books are considered literary fiction rather than mystery/thriller/crime, as you’ve categorized Return to the Auberge. In some ways, your novel is reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train in that the characters, like Emyla and Alastair, travel from London to the South of France. But as in all of Christie’s books, the emphasis is on who committed the crime, while your novel looks to be more of a character-driven mystery. And what a unique and accomplished main character it features in Dr. Emyla Brace!

Your premise—that Emyla must decide to either bury her guilt regarding her twin sister’s death or tackle it head on—is also impressive. However, I didn’t quite see a mention of her sister, direct or indirect, in these opening pages. It’s possible that Emyla’s and Alistair’s sister will be referenced in upcoming pages, whether during their flight to France or once they arrive there, but I would recommend somehow alluding to her from the get-go. Possibly Emyla recalls a memory about her sister as she is waiting for Alastair. Maybe the trees lining Alistair’s street—or a park Emyla sees in the distance—remind Emyla of where she and her sister used to play when they were little. Or perhaps when Emyla notices the porticoed entrance to Alastair’s building, a deep-seated memory about the last place Emyla saw her sister alive suddenly surfaces? To avoid making the reference to her twin too heavy-handed, Emyla might quickly brush away thoughts of her, suggesting that they are too painful to deal with.

The mystery elements might also be emphasized. The rain certainly gives the story an eerie tone, but currently it comes up several times, not only by means of the (wonderfully vivid) phrases “soaking crack of dawn” and “drizzly charcoal dawn,” but also via the hammering and drizzling on Emyla’s windshield, the puddles Alistair steps through, his waterproof jacket, and three direct mentions of the word “rain.”

In place of some of these lines, you might focus on the moment Emyla notices blood on her finger, which further adds to the eeriness of the story. The line, “Some blood wipes off easily…It doesn’t stick to you, seeping through your skin, merging with your own until you no longer know where it ends and yours begins” is thought-provoking since Emyla seems to be referring to something dark that has nothing to do with the prick on her finger. In place of “’Em! Huh? Airport. Right…’” which might be too casual a dialogue exchange to follow Emyla’s comment, could Alistair try to guess what Emyla means? Or could Emyla mutter “never mind” because she realizes she’s said too much?

On a more practical note, you might better explain how and when Emyla injures herself. If it’s when she puts her phone back in its holder, is this because the plastic holder is broken? The passage in which Emyla tells Alistair that her father is disowning her also creates excellent suspense, as does “the familiar tightening of her chest muscles,” so these lines might warrant elaboration as well. Maybe Emyla experienced this same feeling when her sister died? And her father also threatened to disown her back then, or so she assumed?

In addition, it would be ideal if you could allude to the book’s title in the opening pages. If Emyla worked at the auberge at age 18 and her sister died when they were six, then it’s unlikely that her sister died there. But according to your pitch, it sounds like there’s a link between her sister’s death and the Fleury family that once owned the auberge. Is there a way to shed some light on what it is without giving away too many details? If not, is it possible to hint at how Emyla’s twin died? If, for example, she drowned, then maybe Emyla dreads all bodies of water, including puddles, and feels anxious when Alistair pulls his suitcase through them. (That said, if she avoids mirrors, as per your pitch, then shouldn’t she look away—rather than describe her hair length and color—the second she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window? Alistair can always be her “mirror” and tell her how she looks once he gets in the car.)

Alternatively, if her sister died of an illness, could Emyla briefly reflect on the fact that she went into medicine to find a cure for the disease that took her sister’s life? (That said, is Emyla a surgeon or a GP—better known as a PCP, or primary care physician, here in the US? Both specialties are mentioned.)

The question you might be asking is how you will be able to pack all this information into the opening pages without overloading them with backstory, and the answer is that it will be tricky, but it can be done! You might start by toning down repetitive details, not just the rain but also Emyla’s resentment of Alistair’s tardiness. It’s one thing that she tells him he’s late, but maybe she doesn’t also need to leave him a voicemail saying, “Wake up, lazy sod!”

And unless Mrs. Pratchett turns out to have witnessed Emyla’s sister’s death or has something to do with the Fleury family, maybe her frustration with the early morning noise can be skipped as well? Some of the pop culture references might also be reconsidered, such as Emyla’s Bon Jovi posters and her mention of Erik Erikson and Eric Morecambe. Although I’m a fan of Bon Jovi as well, I’m not convinced that Emyla’s musical tastes as a teen matter at this point in the story. And not all readers—this one included—will have heard of Erikson and Morecambe.

This is not to suggest that all cultural references must be universal, but other aspects of the story might take priority, namely Emyla’s guilt about her sister. She expresses her guilt about the trip—that it’s “her fault” because “if she hadn’t turned forty, [Alistair] wouldn’t be generously forcing lavish holidays on his big sister.” But as a grown woman, wouldn’t Emyla know that she can’t control her age or the gifts she’s given? What if, instead, Emyla worries that she will be blamed if she and Alistair miss their flight, just as she (believes she) is blamed for everything?

To reiterate, your premise about the loss of a twin is fantastic. So too is your setting in that there’s an evergreen interest in novels set in France. And while the opening to your story is a pleasure to read, it would be even more compelling if it set the stage for the mystery regarding how Emyla’s twin died and why she feels guilty. Now it’s a question of making sure this comes through at the very beginning of your book.

Thank you again for submitting your first pages for review. I hope these comments are helpful!

—Sangeeta Mehta

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Book Pipeline. The 2023 Book Pipeline Unpublished contest awards $20,000 for unpublished manuscripts across 8 categories of fiction and nonfiction. Over the past year, multiple authors have signed with top lit agents and gotten published. Register by May 25th.

Harnessing the Power of TikTok: From Self-Published to Traditionally Published Author

Todays post is by author and editor Julie Gray.

As a writer and a developmental editor, I experience the same highs and lows as the writers I work with. Trying to get an agent and a book deal seems like looking for a needle in a haystack. It’s easy and understandable to get frustrated and give up. Likewise, publishing independently sounds like a confusing marathon without any guarantee of actual sales.

In 2019, I queried agents with my manuscript, The True Adventures of Gidon Lev: Rascal. Holocaust Survivor. Optimist. The manuscript is unusual, and I knew pitching it would be difficult. It’s a book about writing a book about a Holocaust survivor. In other words, I used a meta-narrative to frame and contextualize Gidon’s life story and memories.

I was right; my queries were not successful. After a few months, I gave up. The book’s subject, Gidon, was 83 years old at the time. I decided to publish the book independently so that Gidon’s dream would come true while he could enjoy it. That was in 2020, during the pandemic. Gidon got the book he is so proud of, and to my delight, the book got a starred review in Kirkus and was included in their best nonfiction of 2020 list. It also won an Indie Reader award.

The process of publishing the book independently was an invaluable education for me; I learned every step along the way, from uploading to learning about keywords to getting blurbs and more. I’m really glad I did it. The book sold modestly, but that was okay; Gidon was happy, and I was (and am) also proud of the book and the awards it won.

About a year after the book came out, on a whim, Gidon and I decided to try TikTok. We had no idea what we were doing but figured that #booktok could help us sell more copies. And it did at first. But slowly, our account shifted away from the book toward Holocaust education in general. Today, we have almost half a million followers. Gidon became a TikTok sensation. With a platform like ours, maybe now a literary agent would be interested in the book—even though it was already out as a self-published book.

The accepted wisdom is that it is tough and exceedingly rare for an indie writer to cross into traditional publishing. Who hasn’t heard the extraordinary story of Hugh Howey, whose “Silo” is now airing on Apple TV+ (it’s great, by the way!). There is also the story of Andy Weir, whose book The Martian started as chapters on his website and became available on Amazon for 99 cents. The rest is history. And there are others, too. So–it is possible–but I did not have massive book sales as leverage. But I did have half a million people on TikTok who loved Gidon.

I decided to give querying a shot. What did I have to lose?

I wrote a query letter that started off by acknowledging upfront that my query was unusual. I told the story of the book and its trajectory and, of course, included the surprising phenomenon of TikTok and the resultant media coverage of Gidon. I kept it to one page and hit send eighty-four times.

Reader, I got an agent. Very quickly. In fact, our agent replied on the same day that I sent the query. We signed a contract a month later. Now, an entire “team” is working on our project together with us.

Wait—what project? Well. Because our book was published independently and had had some exposure to the public, our agent (and team) decided we should write a proposal for a different book, something that is similar to The True Adventures, but broader in scope, to include Gidon’s life today, as a Holocaust educator on the world’s biggest social media platform. If this second book does well after publication, then we can discuss rereleasing the first book. This was not exactly what I had in mind—but it is an unexpected opportunity.

The story of The True Adventures is unconventional, and I cannot say it has been a big success quite yet. But it is an example of how things can work out in unexpected ways. By having the audacity to query with a book that had already been published independently, I was able to give new life to the project in general. The takeaway for you, dear writer, is that there are many approaches to getting your book out there to readers. It might happen with a manuscript you wrote five years ago, with a new cookbook you decide to write, or because your manuscript wins an award or otherwise gains attention. Don’t give up. Anything is possible.