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Querying & Submitting in 2023: Q&A with Jeff Herman

Jeff Herman is the author of the long-running marketplace directory Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, now in its 29th edition. He’s also the coauthor of Write the Perfect Proposal. He has presented hundreds of workshops about writing and publishing and has been interviewed for dozens of publications and programs. His literary agency has ushered nearly 1,000 books into publication, including many bestsellers. He lives in Stockbridge, Mass.

On the occasion of the release of his 29th edition, I asked Jeff the following questions about today’s environment for querying and submitting work, given his decades of experience in the industry.

Jane Friedman: I’m hearing a new level of frustration from writers about agents and publishers who don’t respond at all to queries and even requested manuscripts, not even to send a form rejection. Do you think it’s true there’s been an increase in “no response means not interested,” and if so, what do you make of this?

Jeff: I don’t think any agent or editor can accurately assess if ignoring or ghosting prospective clients has become more common in recent years, but I can be candid about my own experience. It’s always my intention to respond to each author’s submission. That said, I sometimes don’t, at least not in a timely fashion. Why? Because I don’t always get around to reading their submissions. This doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy or that the work isn’t publishable (how can I know that if it’s unopened and unread?). There’s an old Jewish saying, You can only dance at one wedding at a time. I think that sums up why so many writers never hear back.

Most nonfiction authors realize they need some kind of platform—visibility to the intended readership—in order to secure an agent. One question that gets asked a lot: How big of a social media following is necessary? Based on your conversations with agents or publishers, do you think there’s a magic number that makes a difference? Or are agents/publishers looking at this more holistically? I guess what I’m asking is: Just how important is social media?

Tough question to answer. In my opinion, the power of an author’s platform, which includes a social media footprint, is in the eyes of the beholder. And even when someone clearly has a huge platform that leverages a large advance, the book’s sales more often than not never recover the advance. I’d like to say that publishers have learned that a great platform won’t necessarily convert into great book sales, but I’d be mistaken. The platform/sales metric is a moving ball with a mind of its own that doesn’t care what everybody thinks is supposed to happen. Some editors probably suspect that some advances are too high but will go along to get along. And bidding wars usually override smart math. Regardless of reality, publishers want to believe that platforms matter. It follows that writers and their agents need to accommodate their belief system.

Memoir seems to lie in a gray area as far as what materials authors need to prepare. Some agents/publishers want a full manuscript, some want a proposal. Maybe some even request both. How do you advise memoirists to navigate this efficiently? Should they prepare a proposal before starting the submissions process or start by trying to sell on the basis of a manuscript?

In my experience, memoir can be sold on the basis of a traditional nonfiction proposal. However, I think it will need an expansive outline of at least 250 words per chapter and at least 2500 words of sample text. This should be enough to enable editors and agents to assess the work’s viability. Sometimes they might request more, which is a good thing.

If an author has been self-publishing for some time, and decides they want to pitch a new project, should they disclose that in the query letter? If their self-published titles didn’t sell very well, will that be a problem for securing agent or publisher interest?

Bookshop • Amazon

If the self-published book has sold more than 1000 copies, I think most traditional people will think that’s pretty good. However, if the sales were due to a one-time promotion and the current Amazon ranking is poor, I advise briefly mentioning the book(s) near the bottom of the query. Interested editors and agents will want the writer to explain why their new book won’t share a similar fate, which can be challenging. Fortunately, most book professionals know that most self-published books don’t accurately reflect what the writer might have achieved with a traditional publisher. In such scenarios, the writer will have to make extra efforts at proving they are in a much stronger position to sell sufficient numbers of the next book if attached to a traditional structure.

Based on the book Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents, 29th Edition. Copyright © 2023 by Jeff Herman. Published by New World Library.

How Author Platform Connects to Author Brand

Photo by Peter Aroner on Unsplash

Today’s post is excerpted from Brand the Author (Not the Book) by Karen A. Chase (@KarenAChase).

Certain words and phrases are bandied about all the time in publishing, but they don’t always make sense. One of the biggest is author platform. You may have attended enough writing seminars and conferences to recognize that even people in publishing aren’t consistently using the term.

How and where authors reach readers: that’s platform. It’s a combination of four factors, and let’s use the TV show Gilmore Girls to help visualize it.

Message: an announcement shouted to the citizens of Stars Hollow from the gazeboTarget Audience: the Stars Hollow citizens gathered to hear itPlatform Tools: the gazebo and the directional signs to itBrand Elements: the gazebo they see and experience

If your message and tools are built effectively, those in your target audience will be so invested in your platform, they will personally deliver that message to anyone drinking coffee with Lorelai and Rory at Luke’s Diner.

If you need to run off and watch a few episodes to understand my analogy, I’ll wait here. For those who have already seen the show, let’s start with the author message…

1. Author message (the announcement from the gazebo)

I know you have something to say. You wrote a book! But your author message is not the subject of that book. Rather, your author message is tied to why you wrote that book.

For instance, my first novel, Carrying Independence, is about a guy hired to help gather the final signatures on the Declaration of Independence. But why I wrote this story has nothing to do with the document. I firmly believe we can learn about ourselves by traveling and engaging in history.

Sure, other authors are also motivated by one or both of those things, but when I couple my belief with my particular brand of humor and unbridled nerdy enthusiasm, my author message becomes intrinsically mine. It becomes my purpose, and one my readers can experience with me. They can #TravelWithAdventure while #ChasingHistories, too.

For some authors, the reason they write is to provide an escape. For others, it may be to debunk faulty thinking. Once you define your message, you must figure out how to share your message.

2. Target audience (the citizens gathering around the gazebo)

These are the loyal readers most likely to gather around your gazebo (real or virtual). If you are a young adult (YA) author, yet your Twitter feed and primary contacts are moms and librarians, you’re not speaking directly to your readers. Or, as I said to a YA author with this problem, your target audience of teenagers is talking about books in the cafeteria while you’re hanging out in the teachers’ lounge sounding like a boring grown-up. Yes, librarians recommend books, but authors should connect with the bullseye of their target—the people most likely to jam their noses into your book and who will then turn to their friend and say, “You also have to jam your nose into this book.”

Your readers hang out in certain places online and physically. They have other books, magazines, movies, vocabulary, and activities they love (or hate). For example, if you write Georgian romances, your readers are likely women ages 16 to 65 who read Jane Austen, follow Colin Firth, know the difference between corsets and stays, and might be members of Regency societies.

3. Platform tools (the gazebo and directional signs to it)

If all you have is a gazebo from which to sell your book, your readers will consist of only those citizens who happen to come to the town square. That means you need to think bigger, broader. A platform tool is anything a reader will engage with that comes from you. If they can see it, touch it, or hear it, it’s a platform tool. If you’re a cookbook author or your novel includes recipes in the back, your loyal readers may even taste it!

Tools, like directional signage pointing to the gazebo, are the means by which your target audience finds and engages with you. What are your primary tools? Your book(s), website, and newsletter. You also have social media, advertising, publicity, presentations, and even printed materials such as bookmarks and business cards.

However, not all platform tools are effective at capturing your particular target audience. YA readers are less likely to be on Facebook than on Instagram, for example. And AARP events and retirement communities won’t be ideal places for middle-grade authors to give presentations. Examining your goals and existing assets will help you narrow down which tools are best for you and prioritize which ones to build first.

4. Author brand elements (the gazebo they see and experience)

Going back to our Gilmore Girls reference, when the citizens of Stars Hollow gather around to hear your message at that gazebo, what pray-tell does your gazebo look like? Does it look like a faded Victorian postcard, the colorful Barkcloth of Uganda, or a sleek Aston Martin à la James Bond? Brand elements consist of the author photo, the colors on your materials, the fonts that grace all your printed materials, and the way all those elements work together.

Brand elements are not designed using the cover of your books because each book design has its own set of brand elements. Book covers can vary wildly. You might not always have the same publisher or designer. You might write across genres as well. Three of your books could be repackaged and their covers redesigned.

Because book design does not affect your long-term author image, choose brand elements by considering your message, audience, and platform tools. You must also restrain yourself and keep these elements simple. Too many fonts or colors can lead to inconsistencies. Having fewer elements can contribute to greater longevity. All these brand elements, platform tools, and messaging come together to be your …

Author brand

An author brand is the experience readers have when they hear your message and interact with your particular platform tools. Think of the brands you are most loyal to. What do you see? How do you feel about them? If I say Coca-Cola, you can see the swirling font, the red color, the shape of the bottle. You might also get nostalgic about those warm and fuzzy holiday commercials with the polar bears. All of that adds up to how you feel about the brand. The same applies to authors.

Every effective brand has these three characteristics going for it: Unique. Consistent. Authentic.

Unique. REI branding is different from Patagonia even though they both sell outdoor gear. Look at branding for Sadeqa Johnson versus Danielle Steel. Readers feel something different for each of these authors even though they both write historical fiction. Authors, like brands, can’t copy one another.

Uniqueness breeds loyalty. Be who you are. Own who you are.

Consistent. If an author’s PowerPoint presentation looks like his or her website, which also looks like the author’s Twitter page, website and business card, then readers can be certain of who they’re following. Coca-Cola has had that same logo since 1886—it’s consistent, even if the company’s ad campaigns change every year.

Authentic. We live in a transparent world and audiences are getting better at pointing out B.S. when they see it. B.S. = Brand Stupidity. B.S. happens when a brand says one thing but the reality and/or actions are quite another.

That’s especially important when it comes to your author message. For example, I love nearly everything about traveling, and I believe travel is necessary to understanding history. However, if I secretly hated traveling and never left home, eventually my inauthenticity would catch up with me. Your words and actions have to match.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out Brand the Author (Not the Book) by Karen A. Chase (@KarenAChase).

Create a Book Map for Your Nonfiction Book

Photo by DS stories

Today’s guest post is by Ariel Curry and Liz Morrow of the Hungry Authors podcast.

Imagine you’re starting out on a road trip. First, you have to know where you’re going; then, you need a map to help you get there.

It’s the same with books. So often, aspiring authors start off on a “road trip” without a clear sense of where they’re going, let alone how to get there—and so they end up lost. We’re all for enjoying the journey just as much as the destination, but if you plan on bringing readers along on your trip, you better well have a plan. No one wants to sit in the car for hours while their driver says, “Let’s take this next turn and see what happens!”

Creating a book map is the best way to ensure you know where you want to take your reader, and how you’re going to get there.

A book map is a visual representation of your book’s structure. It can be as high-level or as detailed as you want, but the goal is that it provides a clear picture of exactly what content is going to go where in your book—creating a “map” that you can follow as you’re writing. Fiction authors commonly use book maps to track their plots and subplots and make sure that open story loops get closed.

But we believe book maps are invaluable for nonfiction books, too, where the goal is to inform, instruct, and inspire a reader. A book map will help you maintain momentum and ensure that the reader’s journey to your destination is as smooth as possible.

Here are a couple examples of book maps we’ve created with authors over the years:

You can make book maps with analog tools like sticky notes or index cards laid out on a table or stuck to a window. A giant whiteboard often comes in handy. Or you can use the digital method, with tools like Mindmeister or Jamboard. The important part isn’t the appearance (although we love a good color-coded map!); it’s the thinking you do to create a logical journey through the book.

Here’s how you do it.

Get clear on the transformation.

All books are about transformation. Fiction is about the transformation of a character; memoirs are about the transformation of the author through an event/situation; and other nonfiction books are about the transformation of the reader. That’s what we’re focusing on today.

To figure out your reader’s transformation, you have to ask three questions:

What is the reader’s current state?How do I want the reader to be different by the end of the book? (the transformation)How can I help the reader get there?

We like to brainstorm this “transformation tale” in a table like this:

Don’t hold back—put everything you can think of into this table! Feel free to download your own version of this table here so you can play with it.

Creating this transformation tale helps us put boundaries around our book; it helps us decide what belongs and what doesn’t, where to start and where to end.

Map out the middle.

The “In-Between” section of your transformation tale is what will become the chapters of your book, so this is where we need to spend most of our time. If you’re feeling stuck on the “In-Between,” ask yourself how you accomplished the same transformation, or what you would say to a friend who came to you for advice in accomplishing that transformation.

As you look at your “In-Between” brainstorm, see if you can identify a possible pattern or order for the chapters to fall into.

Your in-between might follow a sequential order, like steps in a staircase leading up to the destination:

First, this needs to happenThen, this can happen nextAnd that can happen afterwardsThen eventually, you’ll arrive at your transformation

Or your in-between might look more like a list of ingredients for a salad—toss everything together, and voila! Transformation.

Whichever approach you take, these ideas will become your chapters. Put each idea on a sticky note or index card, and lay them out horizontally across your window/wall/table. Try them out in different orders. The right order may come to you quickly, or you may have to play around with it until you find the one that feels the most intuitive.

Remember: Your book’s structure should feel intuitive and logical to the reader! If you feel stuck, bring in a trusted friend for their feedback.

Once you have these ideas in the right order, under each idea you’ll want to create cards for the elements that will comprise each chapter. We recommend including for each chapter:

A good hook that captures the reader’s attention at the beginning of the chapter2–3 key points that lead up to the chapter ideaStories to help illustrate those ideasInteractive elements like reflection questions, tools, or exercises to help the reader apply those ideasA closing section that wraps up this chapter and transitions the reader to the next chapter idea

You might decide to include other elements as well, depending on your book’s content (like data, personal stories from your life, quotes from other books, etc.).

Put each of these elements on separate cards and list them vertically underneath each chapter’s card. Bonus points if you use different colors for each element, so that you can see at a glance where you might be missing something when you look at your whole map!

To do this for each chapter takes a lot of brain work and time. It can often take us 6 to 8 or more hours with clients to make sure we’ve captured everything we want to include in the book. Go slowly and break the process up over multiple days. When you’re ready to start writing, you’ll be so glad you took the time to think through everything!

We find it’s almost impossible for writers to get stuck once they’ve done all of this thinking. A little bit of a time investment up front can save you days, weeks, months, or even years of wandering without a plan for your book.

Helpful reminders

Here are the keys to making more efficient and effective book maps:

Practice mapping out your comparative titles first. You’ll learn so much about how other authors organize their thinking on similar topics, and you’ll clearly see how your book can stand out and add value to your reader.Book mapping is iterative and adaptable. Like using Google Maps when you drive, your book map can and should change to redirect you when you run into a theoretical “roadblock.” Remain clear on the ultimate transformation you want to accomplish, but realize that for most books, many roads will get you there. Choose the one that feels most intuitive to you and be willing to try something different if that doesn’t work.

Often, when we finish creating a book map, authors step back from the whole thing and realize—that’s it! That’s the book. It’s the best part of the whole process—when you realize that you really can do this. You’ve basically already done it! Writing the book becomes an exercise in simply putting flesh on those bones. Seeing your book map is a big step in building your self-efficacy to write the book.

We love seeing authors’ book maps, too! If you create a book map, please tag us @hungryauthors on Instagram so we can admire your brilliance and share your work with the world!

Promoting Your Book as an Introvert in the Age of TikTok

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author Julie Vick (@vickjulie).

One question I was asked a few times around my book launch was, “How is it to promote a book about introversion when you are an introvert?”

The short answer I usually gave: I’ve figured out ways to make it work.

When I wrote my humorous advice book for introverted parents Babies Don’t Make Small Talk (So Why Should I?), I had been following other authors and the book industry long enough to know that the realities of the industry (even with a traditional publishing deal) meant that authors need to contribute to the marketing of their book.

The path to getting my book published also involved writing a proposal with marketing and promotion sections in which I said what I planned to do for promotion, so I knew the day would come when I needed to actually do those things. My book was also a project that I had spent a lot of my time on, so it was natural for me to want to try to contribute to its success.

What I’ve learned: there are a lot of different ways to promote a book. No one way is going to be the right fit for any author or book. But given my introverted (and at times socially anxious) personality, here are some things that worked for me.

Find comfortable ways to use social media

I started using social media before my book released to help build a platform and to promote my freelance and humor writing. Putting my work out there definitely took some getting used to, but I eventually found ways to use social media that felt comfortable (and often enjoyable!).

For me, that has meant not posting too much—taking the time to post and then interact with comments on a post can be draining even when I’m enjoying it, so I don’t follow some of the advice that seems to advocate for posting every hour on the hour and only maybe taking a break when you’re asleep. I try to focus on quality over quantity and spend a good portion of time on social media commenting on and sharing other people’s posts that resonate so it doesn’t become all about me.

I also don’t feel comfortable going live on social media or showing my face a lot, but I’ve found that there are plenty of ways to still use the platforms. As a humor writer, that often means posting jokes or videos of my book or sharing the work of other writers in my genre.

I’ve also learned to spend the most time on social media platforms that are a good fit for me. I started out using Twitter because I liked the text-based and casual feel of it and have found it particularly useful for connecting with writers and others in the industry (although it may be becoming less so with recent events at Twitter).

I now also frequently use Instagram and have even dipped my toes into TikTok. On TikTok, I often focus on showing jokes (turns out you can just overlay the text of a joke over a video background) or my own or other humor books and have even had a few videos take off. Different social media platforms appeal to different authors for different reasons but finding a good fit helps.

Focus on what you already know

I feel more comfortable doing something once I’ve practiced it a lot, so I tried to take advantage of skills I already had when my book came out. I’ve been teaching at the college level for over 15 years and got a crash course in teaching on Zoom during the pandemic, so teaching some virtual courses felt like an easy element of book promotion that I enjoyed.

The other skill we as writers already have is, of course, writing. Writing companion pieces (like the one you are reading right now) is something I’ve done and continue to do for book promotion. I think writers sometimes think that promotion has to mean social media, but I’ve found writing freelance pieces to be a good option. I had experience freelancing before my book came out, but even if you don’t, there are lots of great resources out there to get you going.

If there is something that you already know how to do, then think about how you can transfer your skills to book promotion to take advantage of that rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

Consider podcasts

I enjoy listening to podcasts and also enjoy meaningful one-on-one conversations, so pitching podcasts around my book’s topic felt like a natural path. I reached out to podcasts that I enjoyed and have appeared on several podcasts since my book came out.

Most of the podcasts I’ve done have assured me that if I stumbled while saying something I could start over and it could be edited out later. I did not typically need to take advantage of starting over but knowing it was an option helped calm my nerves about talking on the fly, and I’ve found that although I might have some nerves just before recording, they often go away once I’ve settled into a conversation with the host or hosts.

Take advantage of conferences

Since introverts have a reputation for not wanting to leave the house, you might find this recommendation surprising. I find writing conferences draining, but I also love attending them. In a profession that is often solitary, I find the time I spend at conferences learning new topics and meeting other writers in real life (many of which I first developed relationships with online) invaluable.

But a day full of back-to-back events takes a lot of my energy. So, I try to pick and choose what I go to, skipping out on sessions when I’m feeling drained and making sure I have enough time to recharge in my hotel room alone at the end of the day. Virtual conferences have also presented a new way for me to learn from and connect with other writers.

The connections I’ve made with writers at conferences have also been useful in book promotion. A conference I attended last year led to podcast appearances, and many writers I’ve met at conferences have been the ones to help me at many stages in the book publishing process from guidance on how to find an agent to help getting the word out on launch day.

Find your people

Having a book come out is inevitably filled with some ups and downs and having other authors to talk to who were going through the same thing was helpful for me. I partnered with other authors on virtual events and we often helped boost each other’s social media posts.

Many of the people I partnered with I had met through online venues like Facebook writing groups and Twitter. If my book had come out in the time before social media, I think forging a lot of these relationships would have been more difficult. But connecting online often feels easier for me than connecting in person, so I appreciate that it’s an option now.

It was helpful to feel like I wasn’t going it alone (except for the times when I wanted to go it alone to recharge in my pajamas at the end of a long day).

Planning for a book launch can be daunting as an introvert (and I suspect, also for people who don’t identify as introverts). But finding the right strategies that fit with your skills and personality can make it easier.

How to Pursue a Career in Editing: Advice for College Students

Photo by Matthias Heyde on Unsplash

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It’s a place to bring your conundrums and dilemmas and mixed feelings, no matter how big or small. Want to be considered? Learn more and submit your question.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Written Word Media. The author marketing hub – Written Word Media makes effective book marketing easy for authors. Known for our five-star customer service, we have helped over 20,000 authors build their careers. Go to WrittenWordMedia.com to learn more and schedule your book promotion in 5 minutes.

Question

I’m a college student majoring in English. I have had internships but not in the world of editing, but my dream is to be an editor and writer. Do you have any advice or guidance to offer on how to make this dream a reality?

—Desperate Gen-Zer

Dear Desperate Gen-Zer:

I’m desperately glad you asked this question. You’ve hit on one of my main concerns in our industry: Anyone can hang out a shingle as an editor, which results in a very wide range of knowledge and experience levels. I love that you are interested in seeking out a path for developing your skills.

You say you want to be a writer too. That’s useful—the skills you learn in that pursuit are the core of becoming a good editor. In fact, although they are very different skill sets, much of what you can do to master one will serve you well in the other.

You’ve asked a pretty enormous question that I need to address in a manageable number of words, so I’m going to give the quick-and-dirty version of how to develop both careers through two essential approaches: Study and practice, with an emphasis on editing (not least because of the nature of this column).

Study the craft

Writing and editing both rest on the same foundation: an understanding of story craft and language. You learn how the sausage is made—and made well—and eventually internalize those skills so that they’re automatic; you don’t have to focus consciously on craft and mechanics because they become a part of you.

There are an overwhelming number of resources for expanding your skills. It’s a lifelong process; after 30 years in this business I’m still learning every day. I’m betting you’re already digging into some of them: craft books, classes, webinars, workshops, blogs and other outlets (like Jane’s!); conferences.

You’re already doing one great thing toward your career in majoring in English, which will give you a sound foundation for both writing and editing. (I can’t tell you how often I think back to my college papers in my own English major and think what wonderful training ground they were for learning to analyze and articulate a text’s effectiveness.)

Another thing you could do now is work with your university publications and gain skills in writing and hands-on editing.

For readers who are past their college days, there are reputable programs for learning editing skills, like those offered by the University of Chicago (the masterminds behind the industry-standard bible, The Chicago Manual of Style) and the Editorial Freelancers’ Association (EFA), taught by career editors.

Be discerning about where you learn—there are countless programs claiming to teach editing skills and offering self-declared certifications, but keep in mind there is no “official” set of standards, training programs, or governing body for offering editorial services. Caveat editor.

For insight into editing specifically, I can’t recommend highly enough master editor Sol Stein’s books Stein on Writing and How to Grow a Novel, and A. Scott Berg’s biography Max Perkins, Editor of Genius, which shows intimately how renowned editor Perkins worked with some of our most venerated authors. There’s even a new documentary, Turn Every Page, about the 50-year collaborative relationship between author Robert Caro and editor Robert Gottlieb.

Try not to get too overwhelmed by the amount of info that’s out there—or to subscribe to one school of thought or system too slavishly. The many approaches and techniques you can learn are all tools for your toolbox that you can draw on. The more you learn, the greater your skill set as both a writer and an editor—and the better you will become at both.

Practice

You mention internships, and I’m so glad you did—editing is definitely an apprenticeship craft, one that’s most thoroughly and deeply learned by seeing it done and by practicing doing it—over and over and over again. There’s a reason for the system at publishing houses where editors work up from assistant to lead editors—there is no more effective way to learn this skill and craft.

This is a crucial place where training programs often fall short. The misconception that you can learn to be an editor simply from a course or certificate on editing can lead to bad editing, a cardinal sin in my mind that can do great damage to an author’s writing and psyche (and charge them for the “privilege”). In my opinion editors shouldn’t hawk their services before they’ve logged solid, relevant experience in the particular field where they’re working (e.g., publishing or academia or journalism, fiction or nonfiction, and specific genres).

There are so many excellent ways to do that—a couple of which I already mentioned above. But also:

Work with a publishing house as an intern or assistant editor

They are legion now, not just the Big Five in New York—find a small press near you. Back in my day (oh, how I love hearing old-people phrases like this come out of my mouth), I started as a freelance proofreader and copyeditor for the Big Six (at the time), long before electronic editing, when all revisions were made on hard copy and I got to see the editors’ and authors’ work right there on the pages I was reading, comments and all, and I learned what got changed and why.

If you can’t find a publisher in your area, try apprenticing with a reputable working pro. (I’ve mentored a number of high school and college students, both through school programs but also one-on-one when a student or fledgling editor contacted me directly.) This is a great way to see what makes for an effective edit firsthand—and to learn directly from a professional editor how they work, what they look for, and how they offer useful feedback to authors.

Work with the people who work with manuscripts

Interning with a literary agency can be another way to hone your skills in action. Reading endless submissions off the slush pile (your likely entry point at an agency) and learning what agents do and don’t respond to as effective and marketable work is invaluable training ground.

Any practice at analyzing a story and articulating its strengths and weakness is wonderful training: I worked in my baby days reading book and screenplay submissions and writing reports on them for a Hollywood producer, an ad agency that specialized in book campaigns, and a fledgling movie-review database engine.

Learn from IRL manuscripts

One of the most useful things I ever did as a budding editor was join an especially large critique group (more than 25 members) that met weekly and focused on a single submission each meeting. Not only did I get hands-on regular practice in analyzing and conveying what made a manuscript (someone else’s, crucial for objectivity) effective or not, but even more valuable: I got to hear many other viewpoints as well. It taught me what was useful feedback and what was not, gave me perspective on how subjective a craft editing is, and—not unimportant!—the difference between a positive and constructive approach and a dictatorial or righteous one. The latter offered little value to an author.

Another good way to learn: Sit in on as many industry-pro “read and critiques” as you possibly can—at conferences, retreats, classes, workshops. The great value of these lies in seeing what jumps out at these professionals and hearing why—and, in the best-case scenario, how they offer suggestions for addressing areas of weakness.

There are more and more opportunities to do this: Bestselling author George Saunders offers a regular Story Club on Substack where he and attendees analyze short stories for what makes them work (or not). I do something similar, though less highbrow, with book chapters and other forms of storytelling in my Analyze Like an Editor Story Club. Agent Peter Cox of Litopia offers a weekly Pop-up Submissions program where authors submit a page or two of their WIPs and it’s analyzed by Peter, his industry guests, and a “genius room” of fellow authors. Look for similar opportunities to see pros in action.

Learn from everything

I frequently proselytize the value for authors as well as editors in analyzing every single story you take in, in any medium. Steven King famously advised that “Writers write, and writers read,” and the second part of that is as important as the first—but not just reading (or watching) for pleasure, but with an analytical eye.

Get into the habit of analyzing everything: books you read, movies, TV shows, song lyrics, commercials and advertisements, even company slogans. They are all designed to do what any story does: elicit a reaction in the reader/viewer. How do they do that? What makes it effective (or not)? If you are on the edge of your seat in a book or movie, for instance, stop and consider what you are actually feeling and why—then trace back what elicited that reaction. Then go back and pick apart specifically, concretely how the storyteller set it up.

Learn by doing

Ultimately the best way to master both editing and writing is to do them as much as possible. With writing that means actually putting words on the page, editing them (more chances to learn your editing craft!), revising, polishing, and finishing a story—and then doing it again. And again. And again. When you’re ready, get your work out there: to agents, to publishers, to readers. Keep writing other things meanwhile.

With editing, start editing. This one is a little trickier, because good editors command commensurate rates, and they’re not cheap. If you aren’t yet experienced or skilled enough to warrant those rates it’s a bit unethical to charge them—so start small.

I did my first developmental editing jobs at very low rates—I had a solid track record as a copyeditor but not as a dev editor, and I didn’t feel right asking an author to take a huge financial chance on me. I was lucky enough to have become friendly with a few high-profile authors through my copyediting work (another benefit of that kind of training—contacts), and they were pleased with my work and told more author friends about me, and I built my résumé and skillset, gradually raising my rates as my skills and experience—and confidence!—increased.

Think of it like any other job—you work your way up in ability and experience, and your salary grows accordingly. Editing is not a quick-profit side hustle to make money off of authors—it’s a demanding, complex skill that takes extensive time, learning, and experience to master. When you are able to offer more, you can eventually charge more.

This may sound like a lot of training and work—and it is. But so is any highly skilled pursuit: You wouldn’t want a surgeon operating on you if she doesn’t have pretty extensive knowledge, skill, and experience.

But oh, it’s rewarding. As a writer you get to bring something new and unique into the world with every story you create—one that might also offer something meaningful to another soul.

Being an editor, in my “book,” is even better yet: You are the midwife to writers bringing hundreds, even thousands of stories into the world—and helping an author fully realize their own creative vision. It’s honestly among the most gratifying experiences I have ever had—and as an editor you get to do it every day.

Good luck to you, Gen Z. You’ve chosen a sometimes tough but often magnificent road. 😊

—Tiffany Yates Martin

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Written Word Media. The author marketing hub – Written Word Media makes effective book marketing easy for authors. Known for our five-star customer service, we have helped over 20,000 authors build their careers. Go to WrittenWordMedia.com to learn more and schedule your book promotion in 5 minutes.

The Key Value That Makes Retreats Magical

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

Today’s post is by Allison K Williams (@GuerillaMemoir). Join her on Saturday, Feb. 4 for the online workshop Create Live or Virtual Retreats That Sell.

Three times a year, I get to spend time with great people in amazing destinations, teaching what I love to see learned. Two more times, I lead virtual retreats, with everyone in their own space, yet somehow deeply connected to each other and their work. Every time, I go home well-paid, my own expenses covered and a healthy profit margin. But the magic of great retreats isn’t that they help the leader’s bottom line—it’s in transcendence, where guests are able to commit to a specific part of their personal development, with guidance and support, experience transformation, and go home feeling as though their work, too, has profited.

What makes that transcendence happen? Three weeks ago, I’d have told you “careful budgeting, flexible scheduling and knowing who’s gluten-free,” but learning to pee again has taught me something more.

Yes, pee. Stick with me, OK?

In Bali, right before New Year’s Eve, I was walking home when a drunk tourist on a motor scooter on the wrong side of the road ran me over. I ended up in the hospital for a week, had surgery, and left with a brand-new plate in my skull that I’ll use to make new friends at TSA checkpoints forever.

In the hospital, my overall project was pretty big—to heal—but my daily focus was very narrow. For the first two days, my only goal was to achieve a 30% recline. Then to start eating. My stretch goal for this “retreat” week was to visit the toilet unaided, because they weren’t going to discharge me if I couldn’t. (I was even more committed because bedpans are not well-made for women.) For three days, I sat up farther and practiced putting my feet on the floor. Finally, I was able to be carefully led to the toilet, where I peed like a champion. It was almost as good a victory as finishing a manuscript—yet still a very small step.

Start with specific, limited daily accomplishments.

Achieving life-changing transformation at a retreat—for yourself or for your guests—starts with specific, limited daily accomplishments.

Narrowing focus also means removing outside distractions. In the hospital, I didn’t have to track my medication, because the staff were responsible for what I got, how much and when. When I host a retreat with a single chef, there’s a poster in the kitchen with everyone’s photo on it: Who gets still or sparkling water? Who’s the gluten-free vegan? Who shouldn’t be offered wine at dinner without making a big deal out of it? Details like not having to be (as) responsible for their recovery choices, or trusting the food on their plate, allow your guests to focus on the work. Your guests may not love every meal, but they’ll love not having to choose most of them.

Scale back your own expectations.

As a retreat leader, it’s tempting to shoot for the stars for our guests. For solo or friend-group retreats, we make long lists of what we hope to accomplish in our week or weekend away. But too ambitious a goal makes failure inevitable. If I’d been working on “jog around the block,” I’d have spent my days discouraged. Small, daily achievements kept me motivated toward the bigger project.

Figure out where everyone is BEFORE arrival.

Finding out on the first day of your retreat that person A is ready for handstands/querying/seven figures and person B needs mindfulness/finished draft/product focus, really screws up your lesson plan. One won’t be challenged; the other might get left behind. Knowing in advance—and checking your notes before daily meetings—lets you confidently usher each person along their retreat path. If you’re actively teaching, include references to specific participants’ goals. Comments like “For Priya, who’s growing her audience, this activity will do X. Sonia, you’re working on individual connections, so focus on Y,” go a long way towards reassuring each guest they’re on the right path—nobody needs to compare themselves to anyone else.

As the leader, narrow your own focus.

At my first travel retreat in Tuscany, I made a list of my own writing and work I’d try to get done in my “free time.” Later, I changed the title of the list to “Tasks during retreat HA HA HA.” Release yourself from outside obligations to allow yourself to be fully present for spontaneous discussions or unplanned activities. Often, it’s these unplanned interactions that allow guests to work through their own obstacles. Let any free time be free. (Trust me, you’re going to need a nap.)

Badly led or poorly planned retreats can be physically uncomfortable, emotionally embarrassing, even harmful to the guest’s personal development, and the worst retreat speed bumps usually come from too broad a focus. But small, daily success brings them closer to transformation that they couldn’t have achieved alone.

When planning your own retreat—a group of writing friends, a paid event, or one writer in an AirBnB—narrow the focus and lower your expectations. Last week, it wasn’t my job to make lunch or measure out medication or even wash my own body. Those boundaries let me focus on peeing like a champion. Whether you’re creating business growth plans, raising yoga levels, deepening spirituality or writing books, providing small, achievable steps lets your retreat participants feel that what they’ve done matters. Who they are has changed on a fundamental level. With your retreat, they’ve achieved transcendence.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, consider joining Allison on Saturday, Feb. 4 for the online intensive, Create Live or Virtual Retreats That Sell.

Is It OK to Ask for Before/After Examples from a Freelance Editor?

Photo by Caleb Oquendo

Ask the Editor is a column for your questions about the editing process and editors themselves. It’s a place to bring your conundrums and dilemmas and mixed feelings, no matter how big or small. Want to be considered? Learn more and submit your question.

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Written Word Media. The author marketing hub – Written Word Media makes effective book marketing easy for authors. Known for our five-star customer service, we have helped over 20,000 authors build their careers. Go to WrittenWordMedia.com to learn more and schedule your book promotion in 5 minutes.

Question

Sometimes a freelance editor’s marketing materials (e.g. website, Twitter bio, blog post) will say something like “I’ve edited nonfiction, fiction…and so on”—without naming the books or authors they’ve edited. Or, sometimes I’ve seen editors (and coaches and consultants) show testimonials, blurbs, and books they’ve worked on and/or edited, but none of these represent “work.” Showing a book cover but not clarifying the editor’s role doesn’t help: Did they do substantive or basic editing? Did they help with structure, voice … something else?

For a book, how can an editor show an author what the work involves and how they convey their thoughts/recommendations/suggestions? Does an editor’s work involve notes, lists, track changes, or page rewrites? It would help to know how an editor sees the editor’s role and conveys it—and whether the editor can show examples of their work.

What happens if an author asks a freelance editor (before contract) to show before-and-after examples of the editor’s work on a prior project? Or, would editors be willing to provide testimonials or blurbs that share specifics? It would help to see a list of books an editor has edited, along with the editor’s role (e.g., substantive, basic). Can authors ask for these kinds of detailed references?

—Early AM Writer

Dear Early AM:

I have to confess, my first reaction to this question was a big Noooooooooooooo! Editing is such an intimate experience, a private conversation between author and editor, and the idea of letting someone else see that conversation feels pretty uncomfortable.

But then I started to wonder about why it feels uncomfortable. There are, I think, some pretty valid reasons—the most significant being an implicit (or maybe even in some cases explicit) expectation of confidentiality on the part of the writer/client. Edits can feel embarrassing (maybe because they can feel like “corrections,” even though that’s not really what they are); imagine, for example, if Jonathan Franzen’s editor let slip how Franzen is always mixing up “who” and “whom.” (I am sure he is not, and anyway, that’s a very, very tiny part of what editors do, but maybe you get my point.)

But then I started thinking, well, so what? Maybe edits shouldn’t be embarrassing; they’re just part of the process. That’s why there are editors! Intimacy can be productive, but can it also foster a kind of secrecy that isn’t ultimately helpful? Would it be a better world if the work of editing were more transparent? Maybe!

Of course, this is a balancing act, in the same way that more transparency, generally, about mental health issues—destigmatizing therapy, for example—is probably a good thing for people, generally, but asking therapists to share transcripts of all their sessions wouldn’t be so great for individuals.

In fact, some editors do showcase samples of their work on their websites—often with some of the identifying information obscured. (Edited edits, as it were.) And, one hopes, only with authors’ permission.

But, just as reading a transcript of someone else’s therapy session would only tell you so much about how that therapist might help you with your particular issues, seeing an editor’s work on someone else’s manuscript won’t necessarily tell you what their edits on yours might look like. Sure, you’ll get a sense of their overall tone and approach, but that’s not quite the same as seeing notes on your own manuscript.

None of this quite answers your question, though. Yes, of course, if you’re considering hiring a freelance editor, you can ask for this kind of reference or work sample—but it’s probably not all that unusual if an editor doesn’t have it available. You could just limit your field to editors who do; that would be one way to narrow the field. But you should also feel free to ask questions before you hire someone. “If you edit my book, what can I expect from the edits? Do you work in track changes? Will you send a cover letter? What kind of feedback would you typically include? Do you normally address [whatever you’re hoping they will address]? Can we schedule a phone call after I’ve had a chance to look at your suggestions?”

Above all, you should try to be clear about your own expectations. If you think you’re hiring someone to do structural edits and they think they’re meant to focus on voice…probably that’s a recipe for frustration, all around. Far better to try to articulate your concerns and goals as specifically as possible, while keeping in mind that editing isn’t predictable, assembly-line work, and a big part of what you’re hoping for when you hire an editor is a fresh perspective on your manuscript that might help you see it anew after seeing it through your own lens for probably a very long time.

Ultimately, even more helpful than seeing a sample of the editor’s work on another writer’s manuscript would be seeing a sample of the editor’s work on your manuscript. Happily, many editors will do a sample edit before taking on a book project—sometimes for free, or sometimes for a relatively small fee. (It’s obviously a little trickier to arrange for a sample edit on a shorter piece, but it’s not necessarily impossible.) You get the chance to see how the editor works, and more specifically how they would approach your project. After all, you don’t want an editor who just doesn’t get you or who doesn’t seem to be helping make your book better (whatever “better” means, in the context of your identified scope of work and particular publishing goals); if you don’t like the extent or tone or focus of the sample edit, you can continue your search for the perfect editor. And, on the other side of the relationship, the editor can get a sense of your manuscript and what kind of work might be involved before committing to editing the whole book; after all, no one wants to spend a ton of time working on a book that feels like a total slog, especially if they budgeted poorly for it. Transparency is good for everyone!

Wishing you best of luck with your search, and your book.

—Hattie Fletcher

This month’s Ask the Editor is sponsored by Written Word Media. The author marketing hub – Written Word Media makes effective book marketing easy for authors. Known for our five-star customer service, we have helped over 20,000 authors build their careers. Go to WrittenWordMedia.com to learn more and schedule your book promotion in 5 minutes.

Backstory Is Essential to Story—Except When It’s Not

Today’s post is by editor Tiffany Yates Martin (@FoxPrintEd). Join her on Wednesday, Jan. 25, for the online class The Biggest Mistakes Novelists Make—And How to Fix Them.

Characters don’t exist in a vacuum: Who they are, what they want, and why they do what they do is rooted in who they have been and what they have done—in other words, backstory.

Backstory brings characters to life, gives them depth and dimension, and draws readers in. Without it characters may feel opaque or flat, their actions random or unmotivated.

But too much backstory can dilute and derail your actual story.

Backstory is a potent tool in your writing, and like all power tools it must be operated carefully—too much and your story may bog down and stall out; too little and readers may feel uninvested or confused. Finding that balance can be tricky.

When backstory works

I often joke that skillful writing techniques are a little bit like Supreme Justice Potter Stewart’s infamous 1964 opinion of pornography: You may not be able to define it, but you know it when you see it.

But well-used backstory is often invisible, woven so seamlessly into the tapestry of the story that you don’t notice the individual threads. It can be as simple as a character saying, “You’re late again,” subtly weaving in the thread that this is a habitual behavior. Add in an exasperated sigh or disappointed head shake and we get another thread about these characters’ relationship—more invisible backstory.

That kind of backstory—context—is the most common and arguably foundational type, the kind of info that orients readers to the characters, their relationships, what’s happening in the story, and what it means. You can—and skillful writers often do—thread it throughout your manuscript, in nearly every line, and if it’s done smoothly it will serve to invisibly deepen and enhance the story.

It can also be effective to lace in longer beats of backstory: an echoed bit of dialogue from the past, the flash of a remembered image, a few bread crumbs of exposition that lead readers little by little down the path to the past.

But bigger instances of backstory can be effective too, as long as they serve the main story rather than yanking readers out of it: chunks of a memory or flashback or element of a character’s history that flow from the current story and fill in more pieces of the puzzle of why they act, think, behave as they do.

When backstory fails

Walking the tightrope of balancing backstory is often unfortunately often weighted to one side—backstory traps are legion and easy to stumble into:

Frontloaded backstory: This is among the most common missteps I see with backstory—authors worry that readers won’t understand or invest in their characters and story without “bringing them up to speed” before plunging them into it. This often results in swaths of backward-looking exposition that stall out your story before it even gets started.Flashback backstory dump: Just what it sounds like—an overloaded flashback that exists mostly to fill in the blanks on a character’s past, and pulls readers away from the main story, stopping momentum cold.Backstory taking over the story: Common in stories with a “mysterious past” or big reveal, those that may actually need to be dual-time line stories, or a story that hasn’t clearly defined its central spine, this trap spends so much time yanking readers into backstory that they may be left with whiplash, or lost in the rabbit hole of time.Cryptic or coy backstory tease: A common symptom of stories where some secret from the past leads up to a climactic reveal, this trap happens when authors make repeated oblique references to past events, but without enough context to ground readers or make them care.Unnecessary backstory: Self-explanatory. Like everything in story, if it isn’t essential, it risks hampering your story’s effectiveness. “Establishing” or “showing” some aspect of a character or plot is rarely reason enough to drop a wad of backstory on readers. Everything—including backstory—should move the main story forward.Clunky intros and outros: Clunky lead-ins like, “She remembered as if it were yesterday” or “the memory played in his mind like a movie” are the equivalent of the whistle heard miles before the train speeds into view—and it brings the gate down just as thoroughly, pulling readers off the track. (In this metaphor, we want them in the path of the train!)Not enough/poorly developed backstory: No one except Greek gods springs into existence fully formed. Characters without some measure of backstory—in every genre—can feel like cardboard cutouts, their actions, behaviors, and motivations so opaque that readers have nothing to sink their proverbial teeth into. Backstory that’s inadequately developed feels like checking generic boxes and can create characters that feel like stereotypes or clichés.

With all these backstory traps waiting for authors to fall heedlessly into their gaping maws, how can you determine whether and where you need backstory, and how best to weave it into your story?

Balancing backstory

I always suggest a few basic guidelines to make sure that the backstory you’re introducing feels organic and seamless to the story:

The Watergate question: This is my paraphrased version of the famed standard of guilt in the Nixon hearings: What do readers need to know and when do they need to know it? Successfully incorporating backstory means using it only as needed for readers to fully understand or feel invested in character or story actions—and only as much or as little as is required in that moment. Create depth and texture little by little, like individual brushstrokes in an Impressionist painting rather than big glops of monochromatic color.Relevance: Make sure the backstory is directly related to the present story, and that it illuminates something essential in its action or the character arc. Context, memory, and flashback—the three main forms of backstory—feel most organic when readers can see what sparks the association in the present moment, how that backstory ties into what’s happening in the main story, and how it influences the character in the current story, whether by driving them to take a certain action, make a specific decision, evince a certain behavior, or gain some new understanding of a situation.

Read more: How to Transition into a Flashback

Specificity: Vague, generic backstory yields vague, generalized stories and characters. The more concrete, granular, and specific your backstory is, the more believable and dimensional it feels. “A difficult childhood” tells readers little; “an abusive parent” only marginally more. But the remembered image of your protagonist’s angry father storming into the boy’s bedroom and the rhythmic thwacks of his belt as he yanked it from the loops paints a much more vivid and visceral picture.Weave backstory in fluidly and smoothly: A pithy heading for a big concept that can be hard to master, but one good test is this: If the backstory, no matter how large or small, draws attention to itself more than it illuminates something in the present moment, you’re likely hanging a lantern on it. Focus on the main story’s forward momentum, and use backstory as the seasoning that makes the stew.

Read more: Weaving Flashbacks Seamlessly into Story

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, join us on Wednesday, Jan. 25 for the online class The Biggest Mistakes Novelists Make—And How to Fix Them.

The Author-Creator Marketing Playbook

Photo by Tim Samuel on Pexels

Today’s post is excerpted from the forthcoming book Creator Economy for Authors by Michael Evans (@mevansinked), co-founder of Ream.

During my first full year of publishing, I made almost $200. I had three books in my catalogue and dabbled in Amazon Ads. In 2019, I made $412 publishing three more books. In 2020, I had my breakout year, generating $7,500 in revenue for my business. I was ecstatic. I had several months where I made $1,000 a row and I published six new books that year.

But something darker happened.

Almost all of that $7,500 in revenue went to Facebook and Amazon Ads. In fact, I spent $2,000 out of pocket just testing ads to get things working for my series. And once I got them working, I often had to spend 20+ hours a week managing them.

It was stressful—anxiety-inducing, in fact. At the time I thought it was the only way I could make it as an author. And I was willing to do whatever it took to turn my dreams into reality.

That was until I burned out. Suddenly it felt like I was writing more just to hit my next release than because I had a story to tell. I started to miss my deadlines, until I ultimately stopped midway through the next draft of my book.

But something else happened during this time, another algorithmic force leading me to my burnout. It was YouTube. I had started uploading vlogs to my YouTube channel in September 2020. By November 2020, I had nearly half a million views on the channel alone during that month and made almost $2,000 in Google AdSense. I also made several hundred dollars selling my books with no ads and no calls-to-action during my videos.

What followed was the greatest rollercoaster I have ever experienced. I started creating content to try and garner as many views as possible. I garnered 2 million views on my first two weeks on TikTok and started traveling the country to meet celebrities, taking the third door to access opportunities that ranged from meeting Elon Musk’s executive assistant to kayaking to the back of Joe Rogan’s house and on accident meeting one of the largest concert promoters in the world. I also started live streaming for a start-up platform run by Sean Parker, creating 1,000 hours of content on the platform.

This sounds like everything was going splendidly. But in reality, I didn’t have a broader creator strategy. I was simply a content producer, chasing the algorithmic highs and feeling despondent and, at times, worthless during the algorithmic lows.

For many authors, prioritizing ads as your primary marketing lever is unhealthy and at times unprofitable. And often limiting. That’s where the three pillars of our author creator marketing strategy come in.

Pillar #1: Create where your readers hang out, but not everywhere your readers hang out.

For the longest time, I felt a pressure to be creating in “hot spaces” where everyone was getting all these sales in. But I realized that if I don’t typically consume content there, then there is a low-chance that I’ll enjoy creating there.

Some authors, particularly romance authors, may be reading this and saying to themselves, “I hate TikTok, but my readers love it!” That is a fair statement. But creating content where your readers hang out does not mean creating content everywhere. Romance readers have formed massive communities on virtually every social platform and consume content in almost every format. Specific subgenres, of course, are more predominant in specific spaces. But I would imagine that a podcast directed to a specific audience of romance readers could do really well, such as Heaving Bosoms, which has over 700 people paying them monthly for exclusive access to some episodes in their subscription program.

The key here is that although many target audiences exist in multiple locations on the internet, it is rare that an author has the bandwidth at the early stages in their career to create in multiple formats. Thus, it’s essential to pick a content format and continue leveling up and growing your audience until, if ever, you’d like to expand into other formats.

More concretely, don’t feel pressure to keep up with a blog, a podcast, Instagram posts, and daily TikTok content at the same time. Author creators know that cumulative advantage comes from leveraging your audience and skill growth in a particular content format, not by spreading yourself so thin you risk adding stress, not new readers, to your life.

That said, picking a particular content format isn’t so easy. That’s why we have our second pillar.

Pillar #2: Create what you love, but have it be integral to your world.

If you take nothing else away from these pillars, remember to always make it fun. The idea of being an author-creator when marketing your books is to make the discovery process fun, not something that feels like a chore.

Creating content should be creative, something that enhances the worlds you are building instead of being a distraction. And if done correctly, it can be a fertile testing ground to see what new story ideas, characters, and problems your readers are most interested in.

However, many authors can sometimes have fun creating content that is, well, maybe not related to things their target audience is interested in. Or even more nefarious, things that their target audience is interested in, but doesn’t help authors build their unique brand.

The Tilt is a publication all about the creator economy started by Joe Pulizzi, one of the foremost experts on content marketing. The reason it’s called the Tilt is because each creator has to have a unique tilt or edge, if you will, over the competition in order to succeed.

What does this mean?

Well, let’s say you love creating true crime podcasts and you are a thriller author. Your true crime podcasts are maybe specifically focused on serial killers in the Southern United States. You have niched down your audience pretty well here and are likely appealing to law enforcement as well as true crime junkies in the South.

Yet, even with that niche there are dozens of podcasts that regularly focus on topics for this audience, such as Southern Fried True Crime. In order to succeed, you need to be able to do something different, whether that is combining two existing styles you love, niching down even further, or having some unique value-add that no one else in your market is providing.

Ideally, this content tilt is baked into the value proposition of your larger brand. The same things your readers will love about the things you write are hopefully the same kinds of things that can separate you from the pack and get people interested in your content. Tilting authentically is the key to being able to build a sustainable business as an author-creator: building a world that is true to you, has the potential to evolve and grow with time, and has many entry points for new fans, all centered around your stories.

In short, create about what you’re passionate about. And those things should probably be interconnected, or at the very least, similar to your story.

Pillar #3: Create how you want. Seriously, you write the rules.

I’m here to give you permission to post whenever you damn want. In the world of the creator economy, it’s all about building your dream. Not listening to the cookie-cutter advice of gurus that at times don’t have your best interests at heart. With that said, with each content format in the paragraphs below, I’ll detail best practices and why it’s probably useful to post short-form content more often than, say, podcasts for the purpose of discovery.

However, even the best practices are just guidelines. They don’t stipulate how often you need to post to tickle a specific algorithm just right. Instead, I’m focused on the psychology of cold audiences who discover your content and how to convert them into warmer leads (aka fans) that begin to look forward to your content. It’s this slow building flywheel that can lead to exponential growth due to cumulative effects.

Here’s why: Every social platform rewards retention more than anything else. To define retention, it’s the percentage of time that a creator’s audience watches a specific piece of content compared to its total duration. Platforms like YouTube presume that if someone watches 80% of a three-minute video, odds are that the content was more engaging and satisfying than watching 30% of a ten-minute video.

In practice, one piece of content will only drive direct sales to your brand for a short, concentrated burst. As author-creators, we are not one-hit wonders chasing the highs that other people might be teaching us how to pursue, and platforms now tend to optimize for retention across pieces of content. This is especially true for YouTube.

If you upload five videos and a high percentage of a cold audience who clicks into video 1, also go on to watch videos 2, 3, 4, and 5, YouTube knows it has a winning creator. An audience is building a relationship with this person. This ultimately means more time on their platform.

Writers choosing to pursue newsletters or blogs or podcasts may be wondering how any of this retention stuff even applies to them. The truth is that the psychology embedded into the design of these platforms is something we can all learn from. And this is almost identical to how Amazon works. Although they are even more opaque about the inner workings of their algorithmic discovery system, authors know that a series with high read-through rate is just about the best thing that can happen for someone’s career. These other types of content are only extensions of that core psychology. When you develop a relationship with your audience that feels real and makes them want to come back for more, you win.

There’s no way to hack this system. If there was, everyone would do it. The key to creating successful content as an author-creator lies in the same ingredients that make your stories so great. It’s about creating a world people want to be a part of. A process you want to regularly engage with. And creating things that inspire you and feed into your larger vision and mission for your career.

Note from Jane: Join me and Michael for a free discussion about The Creator Economy on Jan. 8.

The Biggest Mistake Even Expert Writers Make

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

I was watching a TV series based on a popular novel the other week, curious about how the showrunners were going to adapt it to the big screen. Turning a book into a movie or series can be a daunting task in the best of circumstances, even if you leave out the messy business of Hollywood. But in the case of this particular TV series, my curiosity was more focused on whether the show would lose steam two-thirds of the way through. That’s because I’d read the book it was based on, and I remember distinctly losing interest just past the midway point.

Much to my surprise, the TV series remained faithful to the book on a level that I’m sure would make most authors ecstatic. The problem is that the TV series fizzled two-thirds of the way through. And I knew exactly why: the protagonist got too comfortable.

Robert McKee talks in his amazing book Story (which I highly recommend) about the Principle of Antagonism. He says: “A Protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them.” That’s a pretty wild statement! Especially since many of us writers have been taught for years that character development trumps everything else. Heck, there are entire websites dedicated to helping writers develop realistic characters! We make notes of what they eat, what they’re scared of, who their parents were, even when they go to sleep every night.

But McKee is right. And it’s important to think about antagonism not simply as an arch-villain (like Thanos from the Marvel movies). Rather, think about antagonism as any force that pushes back against your hero. Anything that gets in your hero’s way—whether it’s external or internal—is an antagonist. Audiences don’t want their hero to spend six chapters relaxing. Audiences want their hero tested, prodded, hurt, damaged, frightened, confused, and—above all—struggling. It’s a little sadistic, I know! But the fundamental truth of storytelling is that the forces of antagonism define your hero.

That’s why this particular TV series couldn’t hold my interest throughout, same as the book. There was literally an entire episode where the hero sat around and talked to other characters. No conflict. No antagonism in sight. An entire hour.

Let me give you an example of a masterclass in antagonism. Take Josh Malerman’s novel Bird Box. Not only do the forces of antagonism define our hero, Malorie, they become more intense as the story develops. The story begins with an event: creatures suddenly appear all over the world. Anyone who looks at them goes insane. Malorie must navigate this frightening new world with her eyes closed. She eventually encounters other people who have hidden away in a house and covered all the windows. But there’s friction in the group, and Malorie must deal with that while also considering her pregnancy. Then a new guy named Gary shows up and turns out to be bad news. Gary sows further discontent before he’s kicked out … but one of the house members secretly hides him in the basement. Gary and this other house member secretly continue antagonizing everyone, including Malorie.

The climax arrives when Gary lets the monsters into the house. Chaos ensues, and Malorie is the only survivor! But that’s not where the story ends. Because part of the story takes place later, when Malorie and her two children are trying to escape on a boat by the river. In these moments interspersed throughout the book, you might think the author will give us a breather. But no—the river is treacherous, and the monsters are everywhere. Malorie must deal with them while also constantly stressing about keeping her children safe and blindfolded on this journey.

Whew! Now those are some real forces of antagonism!

So here’s the most important point: direct your energy to the negative side of your story. Your audience won’t remember the chapter where your hero sits down and has a nice, relaxing dinner. Your audience will remember the forces of antagonism, and how your hero reacted.