My Writing Journey: Part 2

“The long hard road to a short paperback “

The next step in my journey was a leap into the dark: I was entering territory I’d never explored before. I had some vague ideas about what it meant to publish a book — I’d seen plenty of people do it in the movies. All I had to do was put on a suit, go to New York City, meet with agents and editors until one of them signed a contract with me, and voila! Six months later, I’d have books in every WalMart and Barnes and Noble across the US.

Of course, actually getting published is almost nothing like what you see in the movies. There are now a hundred roads to the proverbial bookstore these days, and even the most well-known version (“traditional publishing”) is less suits-and-contracts, more emails-and-rejection.

Now I made a genuine attempt at having my book published traditionally — that is, having it accepted by an agent, pitched to a publisher, and hopefully printed for mass market distribution. I read books and blogs about proper manuscript format, then meticulously applied those changes to my Word Doc. I proofread and edited my story repeatedly, manually hyphenating the whole thing so each line was spaced evenly. I wrote query letters, submitted synopses, petitioned agents, and blindly sent out samples of my manuscript to dozens of publishing gatekeepers.

Then I waited. And waited. And waited…

Maybe someone with more focus, or tenacity, or connections, or just plain free time could’ve gotten my book into the right hands for it to succeed as a traditionally published book. But I wasn’t that person. I wrote a book, people…I wanted it in readers’ hands ASAP!

And this is where we run into the first of many mistakes new writers make: New writers often want to rush their books to market before they’ve laid sufficient groundwork.

Listen, I get it; writing a book is a slog. Finishing a book is exciting — all our hard work, our shirked duties, our neglected relationships, our endless hours agonizing over a single turn of phrase, finally paid off with this glorious manuscript!

Buuuuut…is it really all that good? I mean, I’m sure you’ve read the dang thing twenty times at least…but how many other people did? As in “people other than your friends and family who would give you a Nobel Prize for that note you left on fridge if they could”?

New writers often assume people should care at all about our books. They don’t. Why would they? A thousand new books come out every week…what’s so special about yours? Authors are PUMPED about their new book, but that doesn’t mean anyone else will be.

It’s not fun to say this, but the truth is not everyone is going to like your book. That’s ok. Your audience isn’t everyone… it’s the kind of people who would love to read whatever you just wrote. Finding that niche and getting their feedback is priceless.

Tip #1: It is never a waste of time to get more feedback on your book. Take the time to find people who will be honest with you, and ask them to read your book. Even if they say no, you’re honing valuable skills, namely (1) pitching your story and (2) developing a tolerance for rejection.

So, one of the things I actually did right was I sought out a test audience — some people I knew, folks who love to read, friends who wanted to support me, but also randos on the internet who beta-read for fun. I joined review groups with other authors, and we all gave each other “constructive criticism,” then licked our wounds in private when we read what everyone else thought.

Honestly, these sessions were worth the bruised ego and extra work. After plenty of further revisions, my manuscript was in much better shape. A few of the authors I met with had tried the traditional route as well, but had no luck. They were pursuing self-publishing, and urged me to consider it.

What I went through next was in many ways totally foreign to me, but also a great learning opportunity and, ultimately, a satisfying endeavor. Self-publishing isn’t for everyone, but if you’re at all interested in the process, join me in the next installment to learn what I discovered as I fumbled my way to publishing an actual book!