One Answer for All Questions

One of the reasons I get tired of answering questions like “how many words in a YA novel?” or “how much sexiness can you get away with in YA romance?” or “what publishers are publishing x?” is that these are questions that I can answer, but I feel like I shouldn’t answer them. Really. It feels like meat before milk.

I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but knowing this information sometimes leads people to think that they are closer to being ready to send a manuscript in than they really are. The way I want to answer all of those questions (and many others) is with this:

Read 100 books a year in the genre in which you want to publish, books which have been published in the last year in the US.

Doing this will, I believe, be more helpful to your writing career than any individual answers accumulated will be.

If you tell me that you don’t have time to read 100 books if you’re trying to write your own book, I’m afraid I won’t feel much sympathy. I will think that you are trying to skip steps that can’t be skipped.

You can’t rely on the knowledge of children’s books (or mysteries or thrillers or romances) that you have from your own childhood, or from twenty years ago. The market has changed drastically from then, to the point that what you think works may be laughable to editors today.

I know you think that Dr. Seuss (or Agatha Christie or Danielle Steele) is a classic. He is still selling today. He is still being read today. But he isn’t being bought today by editor’s today. If you want to understand publishing today, it’s really not difficult. You don’t even have to buy those books. You can check them out from your local library.

I think you are going to have a lot better chance of being published next year if you spend all of next year not writing your book, but reading 100 books and thinking about how to make your book better from what you learn by reading those books. I really, sincerely do. This is my best advice to you. I am not trying to sell my own books.

I just meet so many people at conferences who dismiss this advice simply because they say they don’t have time. But they are at conferences, and they think that the conferences will fill in the gap. Conferences are great. I think they can be really useful. But I also think that if you took all that time and money you spend on conferences and spent it instead on reading books, you may end up with more useful information for a beginner.