I Was a Guest Speaker at Writers’ Block

I was invited to speak at Writers’ Block, a group of young people studying the craft of writing. When I asked what the group wanted to learn about, the answer came back overwhelmingly that they wanted to learn more about the publishing side of writing.

As I put my presentation together, I realized that it was hard to condense what I’ve learned about publishing into a one-hour workshop. Fortunately, I managed to come up with a few ideas.

Here are some of the thoughts I shared about writing for publication. There’s nothing earth-shattering here, but I think the young writers found it useful because it opened their eyes, perhaps for the first time, to the fact that writing for publication is hard work.

How to Get Published

To Begin:

• Write something wonderful that someone will want to publish. This sounds obvious, but oddly it’s the step some writers skip over in their rush to be published. Yes, wonderful is subjective, but if you have a strong grasp of the art and craft of writing, then you’re more likely to win over editors with your work.
• It helps to become the best judge of your own writing. What is strong about your work? What needs revision? Is your writing clear and can the reader follow your story? It’s important to be honest with yourself about what works and what doesn’t.
• Find your own voice and your own perspective. What do you have to offer that no one else does? How are you different or unique? That’s your strength. Use it. Don’t send in a story that could have been written by anyone.
• Read a lot. If you don’t like to read, then writing is not for you. Read stories similar to the ones you want to write. Read about writing. Read about writers. Read the classics. Read your favorite genre. Read the cereal box. Read everything.
• Be sure to proofread your work, and be sure to check for spelling errors and grammatical mistakes. Don’t rely on spell check. I can’t stress this enough—sloppy writing will get your work rejected as fast as editors can hit the delete button. Yes, I speak from experience (as both the editor, and, I’m sure, as the writer whose work evaporated into cyberspace).
• Have someone else (or many someone elses) read your writing and listen to what they have to say. Often, as writers, we get stuck in our own heads and we forget that the point of writing is to communicate with others.
• But also remember that just because someone offers criticism, that doesn’t mean you have to revise your story. However, if more than one person has the same suggestion, it might be worth seeing if there’s something that they have noticed that you have not.
• Read your writing out loud and listen for the music of your language. You might have the most perfect-looking story or poem—sharp margins, professional-looking layout, lovely font—but if the words don’t sound right then they probably are not right.
• It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, to create something publishable. Give yourself time to grow into the writer you want to be.
• First drafts are rarely publishable (or usually even second drafts or third drafts…).
• If you’re not willing to take the time to make sure your writing is the very best it can be before you send it off for consideration for publication, then writing is probably not for you.

Then:

When you’re convinced that your writing is the absolute best it can be, you’re ready to start submitting to journals, magazines, and blogs.

• Figure out what genre your piece belongs in (Is it action adventure? Science fiction? Historical?) and search for journals, magazines, and blogs that publish the type of story you’ve written. Bless the internet. When I first started writing, we had to do things the old-timey way—we had to look through books! Now a list of literary journals is an internet search away.
• When you have your list of journals, read their submission guidelines carefully and follow those guidelines exactly as written. I can’t stress this enough. You want to give your writing the best chance of being published. Editors receive many more submissions than they can publish, and often those editors are looking for easy reasons to reject a piece. In order to make your work stand out from the crowd, show the editors that you take your submission seriously.
• Be prepared for rejections. Sorry, but it’s part of the process. If it makes you feel better, you can find many examples of famous authors who received hundreds, sometimes thousands of rejection letters before they were finally published. Jack London was rejected many times, as was J.K. Rowling, as were countless others.
• No matter what, keep submitting. It took me four years to get my first piece published, a short story in a small literary magazine. If I had given up three and a half years into it, I never would have become a published writer.

However:

If you’ve written a novel, then the process is a little different. If you want to pursue traditional publishing options, you’ll need to find an agent who will represent your novel to publishing houses.

• You can find agents the same way you find literary journals and magazines—by searching for them online. Be sure to find agents that represent the genre of the novel you’ve written.
• You need to finish your novel before you start contacting agents because if agents are interested then they may ask to see the whole manuscript. You need to be sure that your manuscript is complete and ready to send if they ask for it.
• As with submitting to journals or blogs, you need to be prepared for rejections.
• To catch the attention of an agent, you’ll need to write a great query letter. Here’s an article from Writer’s Digest about how to write the perfect query letter.

If you have more of a go-getter’s heart, you may want to look into indie publishing.

• Indie publishing is a great option for writers these days. Many best-selling novels are independently published.
• You can create your own ebooks on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. You can also publish your books on BN, iTunes, Kobo, and other online retailers. You can also create your own paperbacks using Amazon’s KDP or IngramSpark. You can find directions for independent publishing online.
• If you choose to publish independently, then everything that would normally fall on the publisher (cover design, interior layout, editing, marketing, etc.) becomes the author’s responsibility. You want to make sure you’re putting out a quality product so that readers will take you seriously as a publisher.
• The Creative Penn (www.thecreativepenn.com) is a great resource for writers who want to publish their work independently.

Being a Published Writer Is Not Easy

Once you’ve been published, then you will have to learn how to handle the naysayers, and there will be many. You need a strong constitution to be a writer. It takes courage to put your work out there.

The young people were surprised at how hard it is to become a published writer. They thought, as I did when I first started, that being a writer meant sitting at your desk typing out your stories and somehow everything else (finding a publisher, getting publicity, and hitting the bestseller lists) magically happened. I wanted the young people to understand that becoming a published writer takes time and patience.

One of the students asked me if it was worth all the trouble.

All those rejection letters, all those worries that no one would ever read my stories, all those times I nearly gave up writing for good? Yes, it was worth it. If someone had said to me that it was going to take 20 years for me to find success as a writer, I probably would have said, “No thanks. It’s going to take too long.”

But the 20 years passed anyway, as time will, and because I didn’t give in I ended up in a strong place with several bestselling novels and fans around the world who love my stories. That’s really the lesson I wanted the young writers to take away.

Don’t quit. Not ever. If you have a vision, a calling, whatever it is that prompts you to write, keep going. It will be worth it in the end, no matter how long it takes to get there.