30 Days of Writing and Publishing Tips -Day 1
[image error]Since I signed the contract for my first book ten years ago and PARADOX HUNT, the third book in my YA science fiction series is out today, I thought it was time to pull together everything I’ve learned and share it in the form of thirty days of writing/publishing tips. It took me many, many years to get an agent and a book deal and it would be great if other writers wanting to be published didn’t have to spend quite so much time at it!
Caveat: This is what has helped me. Any writing advice is just that-advice that may or may not work for you. It’s kind of like all the range of of advice you get about how to give a cat a pill. Some of them seem doable but you may still end up with scratches up and down your arms still holding the pill while the cat grooms its paw and ignores you.
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Tip 1. This may be the most important exercise and piece of advice I have to give to writers who have struggled for a long time to get the attention of agents or editors.
Go to bookstores or go to an online retailer and read the back cover blurbs of at least a dozen books in the genre you are writing in, but only books that you haven’t heard of before. (This is important. You don’t want your views influenced by having already heard a book is good or bad.)
Which ones sound most intriguing? Why? Is it the plot or something about the main character or is it the setting or something else?
Write it like a back cover blurb for your own story, even if you haven’t started it yet. Once you have it written, figure out what about it might make a stranger want to read it rather than another book in the genre. It can be an unusual setting, a unique character, the time period, or something about the plot that stands out. If you can’t find something in the description, think about how you can add something into the story to make it more interesting. Your story may be wonderful and exciting and exactly what a reader or agent or editor is looking for but if you can’t get them to start reading it, they’ll never know.
I did this for my own books and listed what I thought intrigued an agent or an editor:
WILDFIRE RUN: The President’s son is trapped at Camp David after a wild fire when the security systems go haywire. The unusual element: The setting-Camp David.
WOLF STORM: Young actors on location in the mountains filming a movie face a blizzard. The unusual element: The type of character: Young actors
ALL IS FAIR: Upperclass British girl gets mixed up with spies and a secret mission. The unusual element: The juxtaposition of a sheltered girl facing wartime hardships.
GONE BY NIGHTFALL: American girl in Russia at the start of the revolution has to get her family out. The unusual element: The time period
STATION FOSAAN, REYET TRAP, PARADOX HUNT: Young friends on a mysterious planet find danger comes in many different forms and from all directions. The unusual element: mysterious planet.
You can see it doesn’t have to be something completely unique; it just has to be intriguing. See what you can come up with and check back tomorrow night for another post.
And if you like science fiction, the first book in the Torch World series is on sale at the moment in ebook form for only $0.99 at most online major retailers.
Here’s the book trailer:
