Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 73

Sometimes Better Than Blogging: Guest Blogging

Today’s post is by book marketing coach Belinda K Griffin (@SmartAuthors).

I read with interest Jane’s recent post Blogging Versus Email Newsletter: Which Is Better for Writers? I’ve never really thought of these two things as an either/or choice, but as Jane accurately points out, while an email newsletter can be more effective for sales and marketing, it can be difficult to build an email list. Without doing other forms of marketing, your beautifully crafted emails won’t reach new readers.

A blog, on the other hand, can attract new readers, but you will still need to put in some leg work to promote your new blog posts and let potential readers know they’re there. For a blog to truly be effective, you will need to keep up with it consistently and often.

Internet marketing guru Neil Patel said in 2017, “If you have the time to blog 3 to 5 times a week, you should blog on your own blog. On the flip side, if you only have time to blog once a week, you shouldn’t even create a blog. You should guest blog.”

I can almost hear the thud as authors everywhere faint with horror at the thought of blogging 3-5 times a week, every week. Even creating weekly content is a big ask for many authors. And when you’re starting out and no one knows you exist, it can be hard to keep going if no one is reading your blog posts.

That’s where I am in total agreement with Neil Patel that guest blogging can be a far better option.

What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is when you write a blog post for someone else’s blog. What you’re reading right now is a guest blog post. A guest blog allows you to leverage someone else’s existing audience as a way to reach new readers and grow your own audience.

Guest blogging allows you to increase your exposure and grow your author brand. You can use guest blogging as a way to promote your reader magnet and grow your email list.

If you enjoy writing blog posts but are fed up of them going unread on your own website, and if you want to grow your email list but are finding it painfully slow going, guest blogging could be the perfect solution for you.

To be clear, the odd guest post here and there won’t do much to grow your email list. It is something you need to commit to doing regularly, at least until your audience is big enough to support your own blog. But guest blogging is something you can pick up and put down if life gets in the way, or when you need to focus fully on writing your next book. Often, when authors stop posting to their own blog for a while, it can be hard to get going again. Guest blogging can be far more flexible and forgiving.

Your goal with guest blogging

When you write a guest post, you are unlikely to get paid. Your payment for a guest post is the link back to your own website. You can include this in the bio that will appear at the top or bottom of your guest post. Very occasionally you can also include a link to your own blog or books in the guest post itself, but only if it is relevant.

As you may only get one link, you should use it wisely. I recommend linking to a landing page for your reader magnet. This is so that you can capture new email subscribers. If you send them to your website’s home page they may get distracted and not sign up to your list and they may never return to your site.

If you send them to your books, either on Amazon or a books page on your website, they may not buy your book because they don’t know you well enough yet and aren’t convinced your book is right for them. If you have them on your email list, though, you can nurture them towards a purchase. Even if they do buy a book right away, you have no way of keeping in touch with them to tell them about future books. So I always, always recommend linking to your reader magnet.

How to find sites to guest post for

It’s usually straightforward for nonfiction authors to find relevant blogs to guest post for. If you’re a nonfiction author, you’ll simply look for other blogs that talk about your topic, or a related topic. For example, if you write about mindset for professional athletes, you may look for blogs that cover other topics of interest to competitive athletes.

But what about fiction authors? Well, you can look for nonfiction blogs too. You don’t only need to look for blogs that talk about your type of fiction. Remember that fiction readers are everywhere and they don’t just read fiction. They’re also parents. They’re also people that care about their health. And they’re also people with jobs that care about productivity or climbing the career ladder. So your readers may also be reading fitness blogs, parenting blogs, or productivity blogs.

So how do you go about finding blogs to write for? The first thing to do is run a Google search. You can simply type in [your topic idea] + blog.

So you could search for productivity blog or blogs for moms.

Your search will show up some popular blogs, but you will also often find curated lists or round up posts of some of the top recommended sites. These are useful for discovering several blogs very quickly.

You want to be sure you’re finding blogs that accept guest contributors, so also try searching for [Your topic] + write for us or [Your topic] + contributors.

What to guest blog about

Once you have found some blogs to guest post for, you’ll need to come up with some story ideas to pitch.

First, consider what you might feel confident writing about. You don’t need to be an expert on the topic, but keep in mind things you have some interest in or knowledge or experience of.

For instance, you could pitch fitness blogs with a post about how to fit in exercise when you write all day, or how to avoid wrist pain when you type a lot. You could pitch time management or productivity blogs, personal development blogs or business blogs that want to know how you fit an author business around a day job or what you look for in a virtual assistant.

Or perhaps you have another passion besides writing. One of my private clients loves dogs and even writes fiction through the eyes of dogs and wolves. Her readers are also dog lovers so are likely to be reading blogs aimed at dog owners, and as she is also a dog trainer she pitches guest blogs about dog training.

If you’re a fiction author and can’t think of any nonfiction topics to write about beyond writing, be wary of guest posting for writing blogs. Although other writers do read a lot, you may find that you attract people more interested in your writing tips than your fiction.

Instead, you could try guest blogging for lifestyle blogs that feature posts aimed squarely at book lovers and readers, such as “25 romance novels to read before you die” or “Only a true YA reader can get 7/7 on this trivia quiz.” Try searching the keyword “books” at Buzzfeed for inspiration.

How to pitch a guest post

Once you have found some blogs that you think could be a good fit, you’ll want to double check whether they accept guest posts and if they have submission guidelines.

If the blog you want to pitch does have submission guidelines, be sure to follow them. Some may ask for a full post, others just an outline. If you fail to follow these instructions, you risk being overlooked regardless of how good your idea is. Bloggers and blog editors are busy, and it’s your aim to make their lives easier. That starts with following the submission guidelines to the letter. If there are no submission guidelines, you can send an email pitch instead. This can be daunting, so to make things easier, I have a free pitch template you can download.

Your guest post pitch template

As you can see, guest blogging can be an activity that supports your email list growth and gets you in front of new audiences, but isn’t something you need to do every week. If you’d like to give it a try, download my free pitch template and start pitching!

Here’s to your guest blogging success!

Finding Your Way to the End

Placeholder by Kevan is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Today’s post is by author Sharon Oard Warner.

“One of the things I love most about this life is that there’s no final goodbye. You know, I’ve met hundreds of people out here and I don’t ever say a final goodbye.”

—Bob Wells in Nomadland

Sound familiar? The quote is from the promotional campaign for the new film, Nomadland. Winner of the 2021 Golden Globe for Best Picture Drama, Nomadland documents the itinerant lifestyle of thousands of older Americans who refer to themselves as “vandwellers.” Bob Wells serves as a shaman of sorts to these wanderers. Rather than say goodbye, possibly for good, Wells prefers an upbeat, “See you down the road!“

Given that many of us sidestep endings in real life, it should not be surprising that writers have trouble concluding book projects. If you are one of those struggling to find an ending for your novel, your novella, or your memoir, take a deep breath then take heart. Concluding takes a lot out of us. Even happy endings are hard to eke out.

I love what Jane Smiley says about finishing the rough draft of a novel in her excellent tome, 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel:

…To write through to the end of the rough draft, in spite of time constraints, second thoughts, self-doubts, and judgments of all kinds, is an act of faith that is invariably rewarded—the rough draft of a novel is the absolute paradigm of something that comes from nothing.

Use a placeholder for your ending

So, as you approach the end, try not to worry about finding finality. Don’t press for profundity or go back to the beginning and start revising. Don’t leave the ending for later. Instead, settle for a placeholder this time around.

What’s a placeholder? Just what it sounds like: someone or something that takes up space until Mr. Right comes along. (Yes, it’s true. Occasionally, the placeholder morphs into Mr. Right. And if that’s the case for you, count yourself as one of the lucky ones.)

For now, aim for an okay ending. A placeholder will help you see the outlines of your story, and it will give you bragging rights: “I finished my draft!” Because you’re going to be revising, right? Of course, you are. So, trust that when you reach the end again, you will be older, more mature, and ever-so-much-more knowledgeable. Then, you can aim for a satisfying ending but not a perfect one. In truth, there is no such thing as perfect. Perfect is an absolute, like unique. Trying to be unique or perfect is the ruination of anything good. As Churchill said, “Perfection is the enemy of progress.“

Pleasing yourself is paramount

What’s okay or good enough, then? Something that serves the story and, secondarily, pleases you as a reader. Pleasing yourself is paramount because in doing so, you are likely to interest a select group of others, those whose reading preferences are like yours. And, finally, writing is something you do for one person. Most often, that person is yourself. John Steinbeck said it this way:

Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike in the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

Don’t know what pleases you? Go to your bookshelf and pull a good book, one you’ve recently read and admired. Reread the opening and then flip to the ending. Do they speak to each other? How so?

I just pulled a book from my own shelf: Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey. Part elegy, part ode, part true-crime thriller, this slim dynamo of a book begins with an italicized memory, and it also ends with one. Both memories powerfully evoke Tretheway’s mother. In the first, the author recounts a dream about her newly dead mother, something macabre, freighted, and frightening. But her concluding memory is both hopeful and healing. From Trethewey’s teen years, this concluding memory is of learning to drive. On long, empty stretches of highway, Trethewey’s mother would sometimes cede the steering wheel to her daughter:

I’d reach across the center console and take the wheel, leaning into her, my back against her chest, following the arc of the sun west toward home. For several miles we’d drive like that: so close we seemed conjoined, and I could feel her heart beating against me as if I had not one, but two.

The contrast between the first memory and the last could not be more striking. Together, they serve to encapsulate the memoir’s arc—from anguish to hard-earned acceptance.

How to please the reader

In Is Life Like This? A Guide to Writing Your First Novel in Six Months, John Dufresne counsels leaving “the reader with a compelling, sensual image of the central character, if that’s appropriate, or of the setting, one that is so resonant and arresting that it stays with us when we close the book.” His example is from the end of one of the most celebrated novellas ever written, The Dead, by James Joyce.

The ending of The Dead is justifiably revered, and to understand its import, you really must read the novella. Suffice to say here that Joyce worked his magic by invoking the beauty of snow. The last line describes Gabriel at the hotel window:

His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

Throughout the story, the weather doesn’t change. It is snowing when Gabriel arrives at the party, and it is still snowing when he climbs the stairs to the room he is sharing with his wife, Gretta. What changes after Gretta recounts a story from her youth is Gabriel’s understanding of himself and the human condition. His epiphany is evoked through the description of a snowfall.

Remember: the endings of memoirs, novels, novellas, and screenplays are never as final as other things in our lives—the death of one’s mother, say. Surely that’s one reason many of us find reading and writing books to be therapeutic. Instead of putting off your ending for another day, sit down now and write a placeholder. Or at least make a few notes. And, yes, see you down the road!

3 Common Pitfalls When Writing From Your Own Life

Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach. She offers a first 50-page review on works in progress for novelists seeking direction on their next step toward publishing.

Whether you write fiction or creative nonfiction, chances are, you draw inspiration from things that really happened to you, or happened to people you know.

It makes sense: In writing about things that occurred in our lives, we often come to understand them in a new light, and by telling stories based in the truths of our own experience, we increase the odds of our work connecting with the personal truths of others.

But there are definite blind spots associated with writing a book based on the raw stuff of your own life, and this holds true for both novels and memoirs.

I saw this myself with my first novel, which is based on a number of real events in my life and those of my friends at the time. It was great fun to extrapolate from a (real-life! I swear!) situation at my alma mater in the mid-aughts where there were undercover government agents enrolled in classes, in the wake of a sting involving one of the school’s alumni. But to create a real story out of that raw material took many grueling revisions—far more, I believe, than it would have to simply create a story whole cloth.

I’ve seen the same thing in the work of my clients: A full-length novel that’s basically just a very detailed version of a family anecdote, with no real character development. A novelized memoir that seems to include every major event of the protagonist’s life. A memoir consisting of various interesting episodes in the author’s life but which has no clear theme or through line.

Here are three pitfalls that can arise when we draw inspiration from real-life events and people, and some strategies for overcoming them as well.

1. Being too attached to what actually happened

It’s great to borrow from real life, but holding too closely to the details of your real-life inspiration can blind you to what it is your story actually requires.

I’ve seen this many times over the years: Faced with feedback that some element of their story isn’t working, the writer will work through draft after draft of a novel in an effort to make that clunky thing work, be it an overly complicated bit of backstory, a walk-on character who steals the spotlight, or a beloved side plot that just doesn’t work, simply because it’s part of the author’s real-life inspiration for the story—only to receive the same feedback again on their next draft.

In a memoir, it can be even harder to see what may need to be culled or omitted—because how can you tell the story about how Uncle Fred coaching you in softball helped you get through your tumultuous teen years without telling us all about Aunt Mabel as well?

But that’s the thing: if the focus of your memoir is your relationship with your dad (who was the reason those teen years were so tumultuous), Uncle Fred may belong in the story while Aunt Mabel may not. The act of writing a memoir is essentially an act of curation, and that means making hard choices about what stays and what goes.

If you have the feeling you’re falling into this trap with your WIP, ask yourself: Does this actually serve the story? Is it an essential part of the story I’m trying to tell? If not, it probably doesn’t belong there.

2. Failing to see other possibilities

This is the other side of the same coin, in that being unnecessarily attached to what actually happened, it can be harder to see what could have happened, and—as far as your story goes—probably should.

In real life, say, someone threatened to set someone else’s car on fire; in your novel, maybe that person should actually go ahead and do it. In real life, maybe the inspiration for your protagonist was nothing but a wise and generous soul; in your novel, that person really should probably have a few key flaws.

In a memoir, this same blind spot manifests in another way, in the inability to see what happened in a different light. Rough childhood? Acrimonious divorce? Unjust treatment at work? We want to hear about the trouble you faced and how you got through it, but no one actually wants to read a long-form diatribe—and chances are, there are things about these tough times in your life, and the people responsible for them, you weren’t able to see at the time. Exploring other ways to see the events of your past tends to strengthen the story.

If you feel like you may be falling into this trap with your novel, ask yourself: Is there a way I could extrapolate from the real into new territory, in a way that might better serve the story? And if you’re writing memoir: Is there another way to look at this that I didn’t see at the time?

3. Including extraneous detail

This pitfall tends to afflict writers of historical fiction most of all: Having done all of this research on a given time period, the novel becomes a sort of stuff-sack for all of these awesome details, from clothing styles to what’s going on in the newspaper to digressions on the changing state of the ice-delivery industry circa 1888.

Readers of historical fiction do want those sorts of details, but only to the extent that it feels natural and actually serves the story. And the same is true when novelists pull from their own lives: including those details of time and place can really make the world of the story feel real, but include too much of this and your reader will start to feel like you’re just embroidering your story with fripperies.

The same is true with memoir: When you write about a certain time and place in your life, so much tends to come flooding back, and with it, the urge to get all that good stuff on the page, so the reader can experience all of that for herself. But readers want story, not window dressing, no matter how lovingly detailed and nostalgic that window dressing may be.

If you’re in danger of including extraneous detail in your story, ask yourself: Is this a detail that’s meaningful to this protagonist—or to the story I’m trying to tell? Or is it just meaningful to me? If it’s the latter, it probably doesn’t need to be there.

Novelists and memoirists: What pitfalls have you observed in drawing inspiration from real life? And what are your strategies for getting around them?

Beware of Chapter-by-Chapter Book Critiques

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Today’s guest post is by writer, coach and editor Lisa Cooper Ellison (@lisaellisonspen). Join us on March 24 for the online class Get Better Critiques Now.

As an editor and coach, I’m frequently asked by writers when they should level up from free and low-cost feedback (critique groups, webinars, and classes) to more expensive forms of feedback (workshops, private editors, even MFA programs). Some are newbies who don’t understand the feedback landscape. Other writers have been burned by overly critical MFA programs, bad editing experiences, or critique group dramas—and they’ve learned that while some mistakes hit your pocketbook, the costliest ones can damage your manuscript.

Often these problems have one common cause: You’ve asked the right question of the wrong person.

My biggest feedback blunder happened in the fall of 2006. I’d recently finished a novel draft. Not knowing the next steps, I contacted a former mentor for assistance. He referred me to a group of talented and motivated MFA hopefuls. They largely focused on shorter portfolio-related pieces but agreed to add my novel to the workshop schedule—one chapter every six weeks.

I left the first workshop eager to tackle their suggestions for the setup and character development. But during workshop two, they contradicted their original suggestions and asked tangential questions. Not wanting to appear defensive, I bit my tongue every time I wanted to say, “I’d love to know if you still felt that way after reading the entire book.” Despite my reservations, I continued to revise based on their advice.

Four months later, workshop three finally arrived. All I wanted was a big-picture assessment of my narrative arc. Instead, I received more well-intended chapter-level advice, tangential queries, and questions about things addressed later in the book. Workshop four included more of the same. By this point, all that revising toward their tastes and curiosities had caused me to lose sight of my original vision for this book. I also realized it would take two more years before they finished reading my novel.

Right before workshop five, I abandoned the manuscript.

I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, writer whose work has been shelved by unhelpful workshop feedback. Over the years, I’ve watched authors who submitted book chapters to classes and conference-level workshops stoically nod and clench their jaws when the majority of the questions asked were irrelevant or answered in other parts of their books. Many gently cradle their three-inch piles of feedback to a spot on their desk. Some never look at it again. Others spend months fretting over what to do with it.

There are a few reasons workshops and critique groups fail to adequately serve book-length projects. Leaders might not know how to serve long-form pieces in classes or groups designed for the short form. Many writers don’t understand concepts like the three- or five-act structure, the hero’s journey, or how to critique something based on where it falls in a manuscript. If the author doesn’t have these skills, they might not be able to ask for what they need or know how to weed out well-intentioned but unhelpful feedback from items that actually need to be addressed.

So how do you solve this problem?

You can still get something out of a chapter critique if you submit a well-crafted synopsis along with your excerpt. But don’t be fooled by a person’s pedigree. Someone can be an expert in one form of writing and not have the skills required to help you achieve your goals. Know your group and ask for what you want.

Critique groups can provide invaluable support along the way by normalizing your experience, cheering you on, and keeping you accountable by requiring you to submit something for review. But beware of chapter-by-chapter critiques that happen over months or years. They’re unlikely to help you understand or revise your narrative arc—especially if you’re still writing the first draft of your manuscript.

If you need big-picture advice on a book-length manuscript or a high-profile piece, hiring a professional is likely your best option. But you don’t necessarily need to pay for a full review—especially for an early draft.

If I could do it all again, I would:

Read Allison K Williams’ soon-to-be-released book Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book , and then revise my novel to the story draft.After the book was ready, I’d hire a developmental editor or coach to read the synopsis and the first twenty-five pages of my manuscript so they could assess my setup and any skills I needed to work on.If I needed to learn new skills, I might take a few classes then submit the revised beginning to my critique group. While working on my skills, I would also ask the editor or coach for a chapter summary review of the entire manuscript so we could assess and strengthen the project’s narrative arc.Sometimes hiring a professional isn’t in your best interest.

Coaches and editors can teach you many things, but their services can be costly. Plus, there are certain skills you can only learn from working with a group.

Reading and critiquing workshop submissions can help you see what does and doesn’t work in a manuscript. As you train your brain to think like an editor, you’ll begin to implement these lessons in your own writing. This is something Jeremiah Chamberlin talks about in his Glimmer Train essay Workshop is not for you.

Plus, a group of talented peers who cheer you on and support you through this process might inspire you to up your game. If you’re working with skilled writers you enjoy working with, you might find some potential critique group partners or beta readers. While suggestions from the wrong source can stymie your progress, they don’t have to destroy your manuscript.

Parting advice

While you’re working on your draft:

Spend time learning about the feedback landscape.Learn the skills that will turn you into a great writer.

Before you seek feedback:

Assess your budget.Identify what you need.Ask the right person or group.Use the skills you’ve learned to assess your feedback.Revise with an eye toward your original vision.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, please join me and Lisa on March 24 for the online class Get Better Critiques Now.

The Green-Eyed Monster: Jealousy in the Time of Quarantine

Today’s post is by author Nancy Stohlman (@nancystohlman).

One good thing about a year’s worth of quarantine? A lot less FOMO. We’re less afraid of missing out because everyone is missing out. We aren’t worried about being left off the guest list because there is no guest list. And for many of us who were trying to be everything to everyone, this has been a huge relief.

But…now that our attention and focus has been narrowed even more tightly to the screen, we might be noticing a different kind of FOMO creeping up. We’re maybe noticing there are other writers doing a lot during quarantine: publishing or producing with a seemingly endless supply of creative juice, while the project you were working on was cancelled, or postponed, or just feels irrelevant now in this plague world. Maybe all your writer friends seem inspired and you’re stuck. And you feel that nasty green-eyed monster putting his hand on his hips again.

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that, despite our very best efforts, artistic jealousy affects us all at one time or another. If you’ve never felt the green monster, then you’re a better person than me. Mind you, I genuinely like my colleagues and I want them all to succeed. Most days I subscribe to the “we all win when we all win” mentality, and I truly believe it’s the only way to have a long, rewarding artistic life.

But… no matter who you are, there is probably somebody out there who is kicking more butt than you, and it seems to be happening effortlessly.  

Over the years I’ve been jealous of many situations. When I was overworked, I was jealous of those with open, breezy writing schedules. When I was broke and raising two small children, I was jealous of those who had the means to support their writing. When my creative well was dry and parched, I was jealous of those whose muse never seemed to grow tired. When I couldn’t get published by a dream journal, I was jealous of those who did. When I was struggling to sell a manuscript or get a publisher/agent, I was jealous of all the new books birthing.

And…on and on.

I think most of us would never deny anyone else their successes. But in these moments of green it can be tempting to take a snapshot of the process rather than seeing it as a continuum. Instead of congratulating ourselves for what we are accomplishing or where we are in the creative cycle, we compare ourselves with others who may have entirely different circumstances and rhythms.

You might have noticed that the common denominator in all the above examples is me! When I was feeling low, then I was jealous. And for me, that’s the key: if we were having our own gold-star day, then our colleague’s success, muse, money or time wouldn’t affect us at all.

To deny these feelings only stuffs them down deeper and then you end up with hemorrhoids and worse. But thankfully over the years of learning to ride the ebbs and flows of the creative process, I have also learned a few tricks and reframes to keep myself from going down the green spiral:

Don’t pretend you aren’t feeling it. Name it. Call it out. It only has power if you ignore it.

Do something nice for yourself. You wouldn’t be feeling green if you were having a gold-star day, so you probably need a little extra something. I suggest banana splits in the face of all rejections, FOMOS, jealousies, or creatively hard days. Hot fudge helps everything go down easier.

Celebrate yourself. Not the future version of you. You now. We often forget to acknowledge or celebrate what we are doing. Maybe in our discovery, our creative risks behind the scenes. In showing up to the page, even if we don’t feel inspired. At the very least, we can celebrate our ability to be alive and making art at all. Celebrate you.

Learn a new thing. Read. Study. Get curious. Curiosity is the antidote to so many things: jealousy, fear, boredom. And getting curious is not only good for your head, it may also lead you back to a creative discovery. The best way is to try something completely new. Try poetry. Try screen plays. Maybe finally try your hand at flash fiction?

Take a break. It’s okay to mute or unfollow people whose success isn’t bringing you joy. This is not an endurance race. You can change the channel. It doesn’t mean you don’t love others and wish them well. It’s about curating your online experience to support your creativity.  Or what about a regularly scheduled social media break? Social media free Sundays?

Creativity is like the seasons. Periods of discovery might be followed by periods of generation, which might be followed by rest and recovery. What we see on our screen is never the whole picture. That woman producing so much material might actually be struggling to write behind the scenes. That writer getting all the accolades today will be quietly looking for their new idea next year.

And finally, if you find yourself feeling a little green this month, like you should be doing something else or that everyone is doing it better than you, remember Georgia O’Keeffe’s best advice ever: “I have already settled it for myself, so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”

Meaning: Take all the good days and all the bad days and flush them both down the same toilet and get back to work.

In solidarity!

Are You a Mom Writer Thinking of Quitting? Read This First.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

Today’s guest post is by author Denise Massar (@denisemassar).

The first agency to ask for my manuscript sent the request as I was dropping off my oldest son, Jack, at a week-long science camp. He was sobbing, inconsolable, but as the buses pulled away, his dad and I smiled and waved like we were at a Christmas Parade. As my husband navigated the parking lot, I checked my email and saw that Massie McQuilkin wanted to read my book.

Holy shit!!! Roxane Gay’s agency? F— yeah!

But I didn’t linger in the glow of that first page request for long, because my heart was on that bus, and he was struggling.

Massie McQuilkin eventually passed.

The next agent to request my full manuscript emailed in June, while I was standing in line with my five- and nine-year-old for the Minion Mayhem ride at Universal Studios and—hot damn!—the agent was adopted, too (my memoir is about how the adoption of my son served as the catalyst for my search for my own birth mom). It felt like this agent might be The One. But I didn’t linger in the possibilities of the manuscript request, because we were in the brain-blasting loudness of Minion Mayhem, I didn’t want my kids to see me with my face in my phone, and plus, they needed to be sun-screened.

Mom writers are wired to succeed at writing (and querying) because we can multitask like no other. We can switch gears in an instant. A to-do list, you say? Done. Speaking of lists, there are plenty of “Ten Rules to Follow When Querying” articles out there, but let me tell you the rule you’ve gotta break if you want to find an agent:

DO NOT send your query letter in batches of five and then wait for those five agents to respond before sending any more.

I read this advice in multiple querying articles and it is B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Most agents will never respond to your query. My final querying stats were: 84 agents queried, 58 did not respond, 20 nos, 5 full manuscript requests, 1 yes.

Everyone said how awful querying was—so much rejection. But I didn’t see it that way. There was a lot of rejection, and it didn’t feel great but, as far as rejection goes, an “I’ll pass” received while in your pajamas, holding a mug of coffee, cushioned by the impersonal delivery mode of email? It wasn’t that bad. And the good news is, there are more than a thousand literary agents in the U.S. When you get a no, query the next agent on your list—query the next ten!

By July, I’d been querying for four months, had sent out 59 queries, and had some heady agent interest, but no offers. And then, on our family’s traditional end-of-summer camping trip, our son ended up in the emergency room, convulsing, experiencing a psychotic episode. It was the most terrifying forty-eight hours of my life. We had no idea what was wrong—it looked like schizophrenia to us and to the social worker, too. The fantastic psychiatrists at Rady hospital in San Diego informed me and my husband that extreme anxiety can manifest itself physically and diagnosed our son with anxiety and panic disorder. We were thrilled, ecstatic, that it was something we could manage—that the heart and mind of the eleven-year-old boy we fiercely loved were still his own.

But, my querying stopped there. Everything outside of mothering stopped there. And I threw myself a one-day pity party. My book would die. How had I ever had the audacity to think I’d write a book and put it out into the world? Jack would need to be homeschooled while he gained his confidence, and we figured out meds, and found the right psychiatrist. As anyone who’s been touched by mental illness can tell you, this stuff takes time. Medicine, therapists, and psychologists are often not the right fit at first touch. Experimenting with your child’s mental healthcare is both time and soul-consuming.

By October, our world was even-keeled again, routine. Jack was attending outside-the-home homeschool classes two days a week and loving them. His psychiatrist, therapist, and meds were all working well. And when he was at school, I found I had…time. I sent out 25 queries in October, bringing my total to 84.

Often during the querying process, I longed for whole days to query, and in fact, that’s what I’d asked for, and received, the previous Mother’s Day: A day alone. I sent out five queries before turning off my computer at five o’clock to join my family for dim sum.

One of those queries ended up being The One.

It had been query number 31 all along! I could’ve stopped querying in May! But I didn’t. Because mom writers write hard. We query hard. We mother hard. We don’t have time to obsess over agent responses or refresh our inboxes. There are groceries to be bought, meals to be prepared, therapy appointments to be kept, meds to be picked up, math homework to be done, and bedtime revelations of third-grade mean-girl issues to be workshopped.

One final shout of encouragement if you are on the querying journey

One of the things agents commonly said in their rejection letters was that literary tastes are subjective and that, “just because it wasn’t a good fit for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be a good fit for another agent.” I would mentally flip the bird when I read each version of that sentiment roll in. But, two days after I signed with my agent, another sent me an email with a (very lengthy) bulleted list of problems with my manuscript, closing with, “What are you going to do about it?”

I had already signed with my agent whom I adored, who loved my book, so the email from the other editor was, I mean, basically…thrilling. How often do you get to send a gracious (but secretly smug) email, saying, “Thank you for your feedback, but I’ve signed with someone else.”

But, dear mom writer, if my agent hadn’t already signed me and told me explicitly what she loved about my book, I would’ve been destroyed. I mean depressed-for-a-month, re-examining-my-entire-book-and-my-identity-as-a-writer, de-stroyed. But literary tastes are subjective—it’s true! The agent I signed with wondered if parts of my book were too edgy. The agent who wanted me to re-work my manuscript thought my book wasn’t edgy enough.

So, if you’re a mom writer still in the querying trenches, I want you to know: You’ve got this. Moms get shit done. We have to. You may have sent The Query Letter to The Agent months ago. But keep going, just in case. We want to hear your story.

6 Tips for Writing Deep Third-Person Point of View

Photo by Michael Henry on Unsplash

Today’s post is by developmental editor Monya Baker (@Monya_PostMo).

Earlier this year, Tiffany Yates Martin contrasted omniscient, limited, and deep third-person POVs, along with common pitfalls. Deep third person—where the narrator’s voice is the character’s voice—offers many benefits of a first-person narrator but with more flexibility. It is convenient when there are multiple POV characters.

But deep third can be a real bear to manage. Action tags that provide clarity, like “Jane felt” or “Jane saw,” also create distance between character and reader. When the POV character intently observes other characters, readers may think the POV has shifted to the observed character. When characters are the same gender, pronouns quickly become ambiguous.

Here are a half-dozen ways to minimize both distance and ambiguity, starting with the simplest. They also improve characterization and make for more powerful writing.

In the following examples, Paul or Pauline is the POV character, and Oliver or Olive the character being observed.

1. Change pronouns to articles.

Often his or her can be replaced by the, this, that, a or an. That eliminates the pronoun and thus any question of what the pronoun refers to.

Clunky proper nouns: Oliver was standing at the door to Paul’s bedroom. (This is unambiguous, but pulls away from Paul’s POV and pummels the reader with names.)

Ambiguous pronouns: Oliver was standing at the door to his bedroom. (Even if readers are firmly in Paul’s POV and Paul’s apartment, his will cause momentary confusion.)

If you change the pronoun to an article, problem solved—assuming the reader knows Oliver is in Paul’s apartment.

Improved: Oliver was standing at the door to the bedroom. (Think about it: when you’re in your own home you think “the bedroom,” not “my bedroom.”)

2. Add descriptions. (This tool is most powerful when combined with others.)

The use of key details enhances both characterization and clarity. If the readers know that Pauline likes flash (or that Olive sticks to neutral shades), a description adds vividness and clears up ambiguity.

Clunky proper nouns: Olive handed Pauline Pauline’s wallet.

Unclear pronouns: Olive handed her her wallet.

Improved: Olive handed her her silver-sequined wallet. (This also works if readers saw Pauline buying the wallet in a shopping fit brought on by loss of self-confidence.)

Even better: Olive handed her the silver-sequined wallet.

Here’s another example combining tips #1 and #2.

Clunky nouns: And with that blunt assessment, Oliver charmed Paul’s work friends.

Unclear pronouns: And with that blunt assessment, Oliver charmed his work friends.

Improved: And with that blunt assessment, Oliver charmed the gym team. (It’s more specific and reminds readers where Paul works.)

3. Add physical sensations.

If you add something only your POV character can feel, the POV is clear.

Ambiguous POV: Olive squeezed Pauline’s hand tightly.

Clearer POV with sensation: Olive squeezed Pauline’s fingers so hard they hurt. (Only Pauline feels the pain.)

Ambiguous POV: Olive’s cheek brushed Pauline’s ear.

Clearer POV with sensation: Olive’s warm cheek brushed Pauline’s ear.

4. Drop in backstory, character knowledge, or voice.

If you add something only your POV character knows, thinks, or articulates, the POV is clear. Let’s say Paul uses a lot of one-word slang assessments like “gross”.

Ambiguous POV: “Who’s to say what’s weird?” Oliver said. He was laying it on thick for Ivan.

Clearer POV with voice: “Who’s to say what’s weird?” Oliver said. Gross. He was laying it on thick for Ivan. (“Gross” puts this in Paul’s voice.)

Here’s another example using backstory instead of voice. The goal is to maintain Pauline’s POV. Bonus: an opportunity for characterization.

Ambiguous POV: Olive was breathing fast with her eyes squeezed shut.

Clearer POV with backstory: Olive was breathing fast with her eyes squeezed shut, like that cousin from Boise who was afraid of the dark. (Only Pauline knows about the cousin from Boise, and you were just looking for a way to foreshadow her reentry into the story anyway, weren’t you?)

Or let’s say the POV character is a chef.

Ambiguous POV: Olive scrambled eggs.

Clearer POV with character knowledge: Olive scrambled eggs without even letting the pan warm up. (Pauline the chef would notice this, presumably Olive would not. Bonus: now the reader is wondering if the friendship will last.)

Combining voice and knowledge: “Who’s to say what’s weird?” Oliver said. Gross. He always laid it on thick for Ivan. (This is an assessment unique to Paul made in Paul’s voice.)

Here’s a combination of tip #1 (replace pronouns with articles) and tip #4 (add character knowledge): Olive handed her the silver-sequined wallet, the one that Ingrid hated. (This works if readers know from earlier in the scene Pauline has been thinking about her haughty sister Ingrid.)

5. Use character assessments.

If you add assessments and observations from your POV character, the POV becomes clear. (Credit to @mariond_d for this one.) If there is a place for adverbs, this is it. Words like luckily, probably, weirdly, disastrously can show the POV character’s desires, fears, assumptions, and confidence. They also show who is making observations and assessments. (The POV character, that’s who!)

Ambiguous POV: Olive was bored. (This reads like Olive’s POV, not Pauline’s.)

Clearer POV: Olive was probably bored. (Or: Olive must be tired. Now it’s clear that a POV character is observing Olive.)

6. Use limited third-person tags, but use tricks to make them less conspicuous.

Common advice on deep third is to avoid action tags like “she thought,” or “he saw.” These tags pull your reader away from the character’s head and so out of the story. But ambiguous prose also pulls readers out of the story. Here’s a secret: if you bury the tag in the middle of a sentence, it provides clarity but gets less attention. The same thing happens if you make the tag a result of the POV character’s action. (Credit to @mariond_d for this one, plus see Poynter Institute’s Roy Peter Clark: Order words for emphasis.)

This technique works best combined with descriptions or assessments.

Ambiguous POV: Oliver hunched his shoulders amidst the hard-drinking chain-smokers. (This seems like Oliver’s point of view, not Paul’s observation.)

Prominent tag: Paul watched Oliver hunch his shoulders amidst the hard-drinking chain-smokers. (This clears up POV but puts a boring, distancing phrase in the most prominent place in the sentence.)

Clearer POV with buried tag and action: Paul looked over at Oliver and saw how he hunched his shoulders amidst the hard-drinking chain-smokers. (This transforms the “and saw” tag into a result of Paul’s action.)

Clearer POV, with action and assessment: Paul looked over at Oliver and wished he would stop hunching his shoulders amidst the hard-drinking chain-smokers.

Parting advice

Sometimes a tag (like “Paul thought” or “Pauline saw”) really is the best option. If you have to choose between distance and ambiguity, take distance. First, though, look for ways that make the sentence only something the POV character can say. If you find ways that reduce both distance and ambiguity, the trade-off might become unnecessary.

3 Traps That Subvert Our Ability to Accept Feedback

Photo credit: ostensiblyclear on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Today’s guest post is by writer, coach and editor Lisa Cooper Ellison (@lisaellisonspen). Join us on March 24 for the online class Get Better Critiques Now.

When soliciting feedback on their creative work, many writers focus on hiring the best editor or finding a trusted critique partner or group. With just the right feedback, or so you believe, you can progress to a publishable manuscript.

However, years of writing and coaching writers have taught me it’s equally important to be mentally prepared for feedback. And few writers receive counsel on what it means to be ready. Here are three traps I’ve encountered that you may recognize too.

1. The Green Light Trap

At twenty-one, I participated in open mics where friends cheered my inevitable literary fame. Buoyed by their praise, I joined a writing group that met at the public library. As a college dropout who’d yet to take a creative writing course, let alone a writing workshop, I expected everyone to fawn over my brilliant stories. I mean, how could my friends be wrong?

At the first meeting, writers twice my age silently read my short story while I internally screamed, “Just tell me how much you love it!”

Eventually, the group leader said, “Clearly you have some raw talent, but you’re assuming so much, and you know what they say about assumptions…”

Not knowing what he meant, I sheepishly replied, “And what do they say about assumptions?”

His grin widened. “They make an ass out of you and me.”

That made me pull up my humble pants and get to work. It was clearly a rookie mistake, but it’s easier to fall into this trap than you might think.

Here’s why this happens:

You’re a new writer. Maybe most of the feedback you’ve received has come from nonwriters who love and celebrate you, but who ultimately don’t know what good writing is or how to say your current draft is a little “meh.”You actually need to do more work. You hoped your critique group or even a publisher would dismiss your inner critic’s concerns because, frankly, you’re sick of revising. If that’s where you are, put the manuscript away until you’re motivated to rework it.You’re asking the right people the wrong question. Like the health department, finding a problem is a workshop’s primary goal. If your gut says a piece is complete, abandon your perfectionism and send it out. If it’s almost done, ask the following question: “Can you tell me if there are any final changes I should consider?”

Before you submit your manuscript, honestly assess your skills, your project’s stage, and your level of motivation. Then ask the right questions.

2. The Bear Trap

I once heard Meghan Daum talk about the difference between confession and confiding in memoir. When we confess our life story, we hope someone will bear witness to our experience and perhaps absolve or comfort us. Author David Chrisinger calls confessional drafts half-cooked stories because the writers don’t yet know what they mean. When we confide, we let readers in on an experience we fully understand.

As readers, we might not be able to tell the difference between a fully cooked draft that needs a few more rounds of revision and a half-cooked confessional that’s asking something we’re not prepared to give.

This trap lives inside the writer, not on the page, so many writers don’t know they’ve fallen into it. At a conscious level, they want feedback on craft-related issues. They’re serious about their art and unafraid of vulnerability. But under the surface, what they really want is someone to acknowledge their pain.

The first clue you’re in a bear trap arrives on workshop or publication day. It can include physical symptoms of panic, feeling angry or misunderstood during what you know is a healthy critique, or regretting the decision to share or publish your work. I call the last one buyer’s remorse.

The bear trap is not just a creative nonfiction problem. Writers who base their work on personal experiences and write about topics emotionally close to the bone are also susceptible.

Here are some reasons why you might be unintentionally confessing:

You lack emotional distance from your topic. Emotional distance comes from the meaning you’ve made around the event and not the passage of time.You had no idea how exposed you’d feel once you submitted your work. Consider sending sensitive writing to one critique partner and see how that feels before sharing it with a group or a publisher.You’re a workshop newbie. Requesting feedback on a manuscript is a vulnerable act. While it’s tempting to submit high-stakes emotional material when you’re surrounded by compelling stories, as a beginner, it’s better to start with less intense work so you can focus on your craft.

Wanting someone to bear witness to your story is a normal human need. Unfortunately, it’s asking too much of a writing group. Before requesting feedback, rate how intense you imagine a critique might feel on a scale from 1 to 10. If you score an 8 or higher, proceed with caution.

3. The Lottery Ticket Trap

You’ve been writing and submitting for a while. The silence and isolation are getting to you. Wondering if you’ll ever achieve your author dreams, you send out one more thing to your critique group or yet another publisher, hoping for a little praise.

You want confirmation that you’re not wasting your time, even if a piece isn’t quite finished or the publishing world has yet to acknowledge you.

Here’s the problem: You’ve sent your writing to the home of here’s what’s wrong and no. Maybe you know this and hope that successfully navigating this gauntlet will confirm your talent and potential for literary wins. Sadly, this rarely happens.

How did you end up here?

The results of your queries have been crickets or rejections.You’ve lost your writing mojo and hope external validation will return it to you.You’re going through a personally difficult time, like a loss, the anniversary of a loss, or maybe a pandemic, and believe a writing win will serve as a pick-me-up.

I’m navigating this last one myself. On January 29, 2021, I finished the agent-ready draft of my memoir How Not to Die: From Death to Life on a Heavy Metal Tour. The manuscript had gone through writing workshops, manuscript evaluations, beta readers, and seven full read alouds.

I felt so ready to send it out. And yet…

I needed to wait a little longer.

February 8, 2021, marked the 24-year anniversary of my brother’s suicide, a major plot point in my memoir. While I’ve worked through my grief, anniversaries can be unpredictable. In a vulnerable place, I’m likely to fall into the psychological traps that can affect even a seasoned writer’s ability to accept feedback. The submission process can feel like a form of purgatory. Lots of waiting, lots of silence, and no idea how it’s going to turn out. So on the anniversary of my brother’s death, I let myself cry, thankful I didn’t have rejections to worry about. Three weeks later, I queried my first batch of agents.

There’s nothing wrong with needing a little love from your writing peeps. But you need to ask for it, and more importantly, you need to ask the right people. To do this, follow Jessica Conoley’s advice and develop your support triangle.

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, please join me and Lisa on March 24 for the online class Get Better Critiques Now.

Blogging Versus Email Newsletter: Which Is Better for Writers?

Note from Jane: This week, I’m teaching a class with Writer’s Digest, Blogging Strategies That Work in 2021.

Here’s the shortest possible answer to this question:

Neither is better; everything depends on the writer and their goals.If forced to choose, a free email newsletter is the better strategic option for writers focused on long-term career development.Blogging works better for reaching new readerships, but requires research and skills that take time to develop.

Here is the long answer.

Why authors benefit from email newsletters

The free email newsletter is one of the most effective sales and marketing tools available. Every single professional author with a decent email list knows that it more reliably sells a book (or services or a class) than social media. Book publishers have been focusing for many years now on developing their reach to readers via email; it protects them from being overly reliant on retailers like Amazon. Anyone who is selling something easily purchased online—such as books—will benefit from an email list, assuming that list has been built legitimately.

For example, I’m able to market and promote my paid classes for writers through several email newsletters. These are the strongest source of registrations, and I don’t have to pay for advertising to sell out my classes.

The drawback: your email newsletter is unlikely to reach new audiences

Your own email newsletter is delivered to people who are already interested in what you do. If you’re a published author, then your list will likely be comprised mainly of people who’ve read your work, attended your events, or otherwise have an interest in what you’ll publish next. You’re speaking to the converted; readers tend to give their email addresses only to people they actually want to hear from.

While people may forward or share your email newsletter with others, that’s not really the point of sending an email newsletter. It’s a bonus if it happens, but large-scale sharing is rare unless you have a big list to begin with, or you’re avidly pushing and linking to that newsletter elsewhere. Once you send an email, its lifespan will be a couple weeks at most. It’s unlikely to be discovered through search or social. If the content in the newsletter is super meaningful or valuable, it’s up to you to decide if and how to repurpose it elsewhere.

The other email newsletter challenge: building the list

If you’re an early career writer or unpublished, your list may be very small, and it may feel pointless to send an email newsletter in the first place. It also leads to questions like: How can I build my list?

The simplest answer: write and publish more work, and you’ll get more people on your list. Or: the bigger reputation you have, the more your list will grow organically. Some writers offer a freebie or ethical bribe to get people on their newsletter list, which isn’t a bad idea, but such strategies can lead to lower quality names—people who signed up only for the free stuff.

For tips on building an email newsletter listEmail Newsletters for Authors by Jane FriedmanHow to Grow Your Email List by Kirsten OliphantHow to Grow an Email Newsletter Starting from Zero by Christina McDonaldWhy authors benefit from blogging

When I refer to “blogging,” I’m referring to online writing that you publish at your own site or at a group blog. Blogging started about 20 years ago as a very personal, voice-driven form of expression. Today I consider blogging a professional form of writing that may come across as personal and informal, but requires a developed content strategy to be effective.

Great blog content can attract new and sometimes very large readerships to your door. However, most of us don’t avidly follow blogs these days. Instead, if we find something we like, we follow that writer on social media, sign up for their email newsletter or—if we’re really excited and enthusiastic—buy something from the author of the blog.

The drawback: you can’t just blog about anything you want.

It’s hard to be successful with a blog unless you pay attention to the following:

Focus and positioning. To gain traction with a blog, you have to be fairly disciplined about the subjects you’ll cover and your distinctive angle on those subjects. Changing it up all the time is not a good idea.Search engine optimization. This may sound intimidating, but it’s really not. All it fundamentally means is being aware of the search terms that may bring new readers to your blog—or what people search for. But for some writers, this kind of market research is a non-starter and doesn’t interest them.Online writing best practices. You have to learn how to write good headlines for your blog posts, write and structure them for a good online reading experience, and house the posts on a decent author website or within an environment that leads to further action (like a newsletter sign-up or a social media follow).The other challenge: blogging typically requires social media support

Unless you already have an established audience that shares everything little thing you do, then it’ll be necessary to share and talk about your posts through social media. If you’re rarely on social or hate social, blogging makes little sense and you’ll have to rely on search engines and word of mouth to bring you traffic.

For more tips on bloggingHow to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors by Jane Friedman10 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Author Website or Blog by Jane FriedmanA way to build a blog and email newsletter at the same time

You can allow people to subscribe to your blog posts via email. This is fairly easy to set up through WordPress, Google Feedburner, or an email marketing service like Mailchimp. I’ve long offered this option and have about 10,000 subscribers to my blog posts via email (in addition to a separate email newsletter, Electric Speed.)

Do you have to do both?

No, and most authors I’ve met do not benefit from blogging. There are many reasons for that, but usually authors fail at blogging because they haven’t paid attention to their positioning or search engine optimization.

Nonfiction authors who have expertise in a specific field have the most to gain from blogging and should seriously consider it. Fiction writers who are avid readers and know their genre inside and out are also well positioned to be successful. But blogging has never been a must. While it’s a good idea to get your name out there in some way to attract new readers, there are many other channels to consider, such as podcasting; conversations on Twitter, Facebook, or Clubhouse; or being a guest contributor at well-established sites.

Parting advice

If you’re still not sure whether a blog or newsletter is right for you, consider what you would prefer to write. If you want to write short, personal takes; offer behind the scenes of your writing and publishing process; or have an intimate conversation that’s not optimized for search, an email newsletter makes the most sense. If you want to write long, instructive articles that would be helpful to a wide audience; if you tackle topics that are frequently in the public eye and get searched for or discussed avidly on social, then blogging may be a better choice for you.

Note from Jane: This week, I’m teaching a class with Writer’s Digest, Blogging Strategies That Work in 2021.

11 Signs You’re Ready to Self-Publish

Today’s post is by author and editor Kim Catanzarite (@kimcanrite).

It’s a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you’ve fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn’t happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years.

While the non-responses (don’t) come in, and the polite rejections clog your inbox (and your arteries, or so it may seem), the option of self-publishing hangs out there like a flag unfurling in the corner of your eye, waiting for you to take notice and give it some attention. It’s Plan B and has been for a long time.

Are you on the fence?

When do you decide that it’s time to pursue Plan B? When do you turn off the traditional road and drive the indie path? There is no easy answer to this question, but if you take the time to consider the following, you’ll come that much closer to knowing.

The agents, by and large, are not responding with feedback or questions. This is not uncommon, as agents sort through piles of queries every day, and the large majority of submissions receive form rejections. Maybe you’ve sent out a significant amount of queries for a significant amount of time (a year or longer), and you’re frustrated with the lack of response. A few agents may have requested chapters or a full here and there, but afterward they replied with a “no.” Or, you’ve had some luck, enough to keep you motivated, but agents/editors all say the same thing in the end: the premise or hook just didn’t grab them enough or your platform needs work.You’ve taken your manuscript through the whole nine yards of the editing process, from beta reading to professional editing and the manuscript sparkles. When you read your book, you’re not tempted to make edits. It feels finished. (Learn more on preparing your manuscript.)You’ve entered contests, and you’ve either won or become a finalist, or simply received high scores and enthusiastic feedback, such as “great hook,” or “I love the protagonist.” You’ve considered the constructive criticism the judges have posed and made changes when that feedback made sense to you. You’ve taken full advantage of the prepublication contest experience. (More on the benefits of contests.)You’ve enrolled in a course on book marketing and promotion, or educated yourself via blogs like this one that provide quality content, because you’ll need to grow your platform no matter how you publish. You’ve built an attractive author website that includes a bio with some interesting facts about you, a page dedicated to your work-in-progress, a professional author photo, and a means for interested parties to contact you. Your site also has a “subscribe to my email list” pop-up or contact form, and you’ve slowly but surely begun to build a following.You have a blog or YouTube channel or newsletter featuring the genre or subjects associated with your book, and you enjoy sharing your knowledge and communicating your thoughts and experiences to the public. You’re excited about the prospect of growing your platform by offering helpful content to others. (Here’s blogging advice from Jane.)You’re engaged with social media. Though you may not love social media, you do like to quote or recommend your favorite authors on occasion, and you’ve started posting and sharing. Or perhaps you’re an amateur photographer, and you share your amazing shots of the forest on Instagram because that’s the setting of your novel. Either way, you start commenting on the posts of others and building some relationships with people who have similar interests. (Here’s social media advice from Jane.)You like the idea of being in control of all aspects of your book: the cover, the page design, the illustrations, the pricing, and the marketing. You like making decisions and feel educated enough to do so. If you don’t know something, you’re confident you can research the subject or reach out to the pros for help.You’ve made a “final list” of agents to contact. A couple of dream agents might be on the list because you’ve been saving them until your manuscript was in the best shape possible. Now is the time to send those queries. You want it to happen sooner rather than later. You don’t like the idea that even if you do land an agent, it will likely be two years or more before your book appears in print—and that’s only if the agent can quickly find an editor to sell it to.You’re a self-starter. A go-getter. You won’t take no for an answer. Or, maybe you’re not this fervent in every aspect of your life, but when it comes to your book, you’re ready to do what needs to be done. You want your dream of publishing to happen. You’ve been saving money for a possible “self-publishing venture,” your Plan B. You believe your book is worthy and that it will find a readership. Do you have the patience to wait for an agent to make the grand gesture? Or are you fired up and ready to move ahead right now?You’ve considered your goals for your book, and what you will consider success. Does it have to be a bestseller in order for you to be happy with it? Does it need to make a million dollars? Your goal may not have anything to do with money. It might be something simple like impressing your family and friends with your literary prowess, or even simpler, holding a finished book in your hands (an undoubtedly awesome feeling!). What are your goals, and can self-publishing satisfy them? (Learn about goal setting from Joanna Penn.)

Perhaps my own story will inspire you. I have been writing for thirty years. I love the writing life, so a long time ago I decided that, published or not, I would write because it’s what I love to do. That said, two years ago I arrived at a point where I felt I’d written a novel that other people would enjoy. In other words, I believed there was a market for my book. So I worked on my query with a freelance editor and sent it out—for months—to no avail. Meanwhile, my novel did well in contests and received inspiring feedback from judges, like the one who said, “This is one of the more creative and unique plots that I’ve come across in all media” and another who said, “I really wanted to keep reading.” Such comments fueled my self-confidence.

I decided to move forward on my own—to self-publish.

Two days after I made this decision, my dream agent came through with a request of three chapters. It figures, right? I provided those chapters, and she came back with a rejection without feedback, but that was okay because I was ready to self-publish.

Weeks later, I received my first-ever professional review from BlueInk Review—my heart pounded as I opened the email. To my great thrill and surprise, my novel received a starred review, an honor BlueInk gives only 5 percent of the books reviewed! A positive Kirkus review followed, with an appearance in their print publication (Feb. 1, 2021), an honor only 10 percent of indies enjoy. This was the same book I couldn’t get more than one agent to look at!

The point is, it’s a crowded market, and failure to land an agent is not a determination of your book’s worth, or its potential success. This is why you must believe in your book.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everyone should go out and self-publish. If you want to traditionally publish, I say go for it. But if things don’t go your way, and you are willing to take on the responsibility yourself, there is a Plan B. And it’s a perfectly respectable one.