Dishing Out a Little Tough Love

One of the things I love best is helping new and aspiring authors. After all, many published authors gave me helpful advice when I was starting out. But today I’m enforcing tough love.

Recently, someone asked me about promoting and marketing her book. From our conversation, I assumed that her book was done and she was at least in the searching for an agent/publisher phase. Not so. When asked about the book’s status, she told me that she was in the final edits, which she estimated would take her another couple of years.

A couple of years?!!!!! To edit genre fiction? Boggles the mind.

More and more I’m being asked for advice about marketing from folks who have never finished a manuscript. They are putting the cart before the horse. They are getting geared up to play author without first doing the work that makes one an author. And the brutal truth of it is, unless these folks change their ways, they may never be published. Or if they are, will find it difficult, if not downright impossible, to handle the demands of a writing career.

While publishing seems to move at a snail’s pace, in reality it is a face-paced business – for the author. If you write a series, your publisher will expect a complete book a year, or at the very least one every eighteen months. Putter in your kitchen. Putter in your garden. There is no puttering in the business of professional writing.

Tips for puttering writers who are serious about becoming professional novelists:

1) You’ve heard it before, but I’m saying it again - decide on a writing schedule and stick with it. If you are serious about becoming a published author, you will make the time. If you don’t, you need to rethink your commitment to writing. It’s really that simple.

2) Pick up your writing pace. Which is not the same as slapping a book together. Learn to focus your writing so that it is more efficient when it hits the page. Editing is an important part of writing, but you can keep massive edits to a minimum if you organize your plot points and character development better. Use index cards, Post-Its, a white board, computer notes – whatever it takes to keep your manuscript on track. Learn to do this now, not when you’re staring down the double-barrel of a deadline.

3) Make steady progress by setting daily, weekly and/or monthly goals. Tell yourself that you MUST complete so many words or pages in a set amount of time. And hold yourself to those goals. Learn to sacrifice to meet these goals.

4) Put marketing and promotion on the back burner. Don’t waste valuable writing time worried about something you don’t need yet. About the time you start looking for an agent (when your manuscript is done), put together a marketing outline for your book. Your agent may want to use this when approaching publishers.

5) Do not start promoting your book until you have a publisher and a release date. Otherwise you may lose the element of excitement when the book is finally released.

Now go forth and write … and don’t forget to have fun doing it!




Ghost a la Mode, the first Ghost of Granny Apples mystery, is out NOW!
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