Of the flood of information about marketing books, the best I’ve found is to just keep writing. So that’s what I’m doing. In the seven and a half months since I retired from full-time corporate work, I’ve written three novels and one book of short stories. I’ve let my friends and family know what I’ve done. I’ve built a website and started a blog for people who like to read and/or write romance stories. I’m making pins and using Pinterest to drive people to my blog. What’s the hardest part of the whole thing? It’s having patience. Here are twelves steps I’ve learned on my journey as a new author:
12 steps for new authors:
- Follow the advice of others who have gone before you
- Write every day
- Study your craft
- Read extensively
- Know your genre
- Let the first draft be crapola, just get the story on paper
- Learn how to self-edit
- Decide you like to rewrite
- Pay a good editor; you can’t find everything yourself
- Get a great cover
- Understand keywords and metadata and categories
- Just keep writing
Step 1. Follow the advice of others who have gone before you.
Think about other things you’ve learned to do in your lifetime. Riding a bike? Someone told you how to get on, get started, keep your balance. Maybe they ran along beside you on the day you rode without training wheels. You took their advice, and it helped you accomplish your goal. Do that with your writing. There are myriad podcasts, books and blog posts out there. Plug in and listen, then do what they say. When you’re established, give back. Until then, learn from the generous people out there.
Step 2. Write every day
This one is huge. You can only get better with practice. Without it, you will grow rusty, start listening to your inner critic telling you that you can’t do this, maybe give in to fear and develop a block. You can avoid all that nasty stuff if you just keep writing. Every single day. You aren’t required to write a masterpiece each day. Just write something. Maybe you’ll toss it out. It might spark something new. Perhaps it will be a masterpiece. You’ll never know what it’ll be unless you write it. So get out that pen and paper, your laptop, your favorite quill and parchment, your recorder – whatever tool you prefer – get it out and use it.
Step 3. Study your craft
If you wanted to become a brain surgeon, you’d sign on for some extensive education, right? Well, you want to be an author, so sign on for training. If you’re like me, you’ve already gathered books on the writing life. Maybe you’ve read half of some, a third of others. But did you take them to heart? Do they have exercises that you never tried? Get them out, work through the activities. On the days when you are stuck and can’t decide what to write, follow prompts available in the books or online. Understand story structure, character arcs, the three acts, pinch points, conflict, story, plot, climax, and resolution. Know these parts so well that you could teach them to someone just starting out.
Step 4. Read extensively
Wish you could write like Hemingway? Evanovich? Patterson? Austen? Roberts? Read their books. How do your favorite authors use timing? Study the way they turn a phrase or convey their sense of humor? How do they surprise you? The more you read (and the better authors you read), the more you will understand how the authors made the stories. If you’re anything like me, some of the “tricks” of the trade will become clear upon closer inspection. Your conscious mind will understand how and what to do. But I believe that some of the knowledge will soak into your subconscious mind. Don’t worry; it won’t stay there permanently. It will float up when you’re practicing. You’ll find your writing improving, and it will come from studying the masters.
Step 5. Know your genre
Your target readers know what they like to read. They know their favorite genre. You should know it too. You should know it better than them because you’ll have studied books by other authors. You’ll have taken the time to dissect the stories and put them back together again. Love the genre you chose. If you do, your passion will show through, and your readers will love your books. If you write historical romance, get your facts straight. Your readers will catch mistakes. If you know you aren’t that detail oriented, maybe you’d better stick with contemporary stories. But for heaven’s sake, don’t try to sell a steamy, sexy romance to someone looking for sweet, clean romance or vice versa.
Step 6. Let the first draft be horrible, just get the story on paper
You can dilly-dally for years trying to make your first draft perfect. Or, you can go ahead and tell the story. Use lousy grammar, forget about how you flunked out on that spelling bee in third grade, stop fretting over the perfect name for the book. Just write the story that’s in your heart. You’ve sought out mentors and followed their advice, be they in person, through books, on podcasts, youtube videos, classes, workshops, etc. You’ve studied your craft, you’ve practiced writing every day, you’ve kept up with your love of reading by devouring your favorite books, and you know the genre you love and want to write. So, go for it. Now. No more waiting.
Step 7. Learn how to self-edit
OK, you’ve taken me seriously. You’re following steps one through six. You’ve finished your first draft. Now, what do you do? Something that’s worked for me before is to set the manuscript aside and let it rest. Get a massage, ride a horse, do the housecleaning you’ve neglected. Give yourself a week to get some distance – more if you need it. Now, and not a minute before you finish your first draft, you can self-edit. Until this moment, you’ve tuned your inner critic’s voice out. Now it’s time to go through the draft and “fix” it. You can leave that inner critic’s voice off. Instead, find your internal editor. You know who I mean; the one who encourages you, the one who loves your story and only wants to make it better. Turn that voice on now and look at your manuscript. Check that your story structure is intact. Did you follow the three-act structure? If so, did you hit all the right points in all the right places? Does your protagonist have the same color eyes all the way through the book? (Don’t laugh, I’ve had a brown eyed woman’s eyes grow a deeper green when she got angry before.) After you’ve sewn up all plot holes and are satisfied that the structure will hold, you can move on to grammar and line editing. Not sure if you need a comma there? Check out Grammar Girl. Get the free version of Grammarly. Pull out the style book you stuck on your bookshelf when you graduated college. Use spell check. Get your story polished as best you can on your own. Don’t expect an editor to do all your work for you, unless you have unlimited funds, of course.
Step 8. Decide you like to rewrite
If you followed Step 7, you’ve probably already done quite a bit of rewriting. I say now is the time to choose to enjoy the rewrite. It’s part of the process all authors go through. It’s essential. It makes your book better. So, why not enjoy it? Decide to make it fun. You’re going to do it anyway.
Step 9. Pay a good editor; you can’t find everything yourself
No matter how good you are, you can not see your own story the way a new set of eyes will. The first set of eyes should be those of your editor. You don’t want your readers to find your plot holes, your dangling articles, passive voices, or grammar goofs. Find an editor that loves your genre. Find someone who will tell you what they like about your story and be honest about what can make it better. There are several kinds of editors; some will help you with structure and plotting, others are line-editors who will comb through line by line to find any typos, punctuation errors, and/or misspelled words. You might want one of each. As in any twelve-step program, if you don’t like your editor, you can let her/him go and get a new one. If you find one that works well with you and gives you the results you’re looking for, you’ve hit gold. Hang on tight!
Step 10. Get a great cover
In this busy market, people take mere seconds to peruse books on shelves or online. You want a book cover that tells the reader of your genre that they’ve found one they’ll like. You have to convey that message in seconds, so make sure you’ve studied best-selling books in your field and pay them the ultimate compliment – copy them. Don’t plagiarize, but see what they are doing and follow their lead. Use similar fonts. If you’re writing romance, use script or something with curlicues. These days, the first look a potential reader has is a thumbnail picture, so don’t get too cluttered. You can create your own, but the consensus is that it’s worth the money to pay for a book cover.
Step 11. Understand marketing terms like keywords, metadata, and categories
After you’ve written, self-edited, rewritten, given your work to an editor, rewritten, had some beta-readers provide you with feedback, revised some more. And all the while, you’ve been reading other authors, continuing to study your craft, found a great cover, and you think you’re all set. Now it’s time to self-publish. Before you hit that button, do a little research on books in your genre so that you can use keywords, metadata, and categories that will attract readers to your book.
Step 12. Just keep writing
I followed these steps to write my first novel. Then I spent hours staring at the report sections of CreateSpace and KDPSelect, willing the public to buy my books. I wasted days on wishing when I should have been writing the next book. Because, when I was writing the second novel, I wasn’t worried about the first one selling or not. I just kept writing. Then I published the second book and started writing the third one. Now, when people read one book, I have prompts in the back to lead them to my other books. It’s not easy getting attention for a new book by an unknown author. If you do finally reach an audience other than your immediate family and friends, and if they enjoy your book, they’ll search for another you’ve written. If you’ve not written another, they’ll find someone else who has. You want repeat customers, so you have to give them something new to read. It’s simple as that. Just keep writing.
What have you learned on your writing journey? I’d love it if you’d leave a comment below. Or contact me by email.
I write romance stories. If you’d like a free downloadable pdf of my book “What’s Love Got to do with Free Beer? and other short stories,” subscribe to my email list. I’ll send you a message when I publish a new post and keep you updated on the publication of my new books.