Much of my love of writing can also be attributed toward my love of reading. When I spend time in the worlds created by other people, it makes me want to create worlds of my own. I’ve also heard it said that in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader.
That makes every book I read essentially just homework, right?
One of my favorite parts of being a reader (and living near a major city) is that I have the opportunity to attend author events and book signings. I get to meet and interact with writers that I admire. There is almost always a Q&A portion, and usually the author ends up answering questions about his or her writing process. At every author event I’ve attended, I’ve always left with newfound wisdom.
As a writer, I love learning writing tips from published authors whose stories I enjoy. It’s encouraging to hear from people in the industry who have done what I hope to do, and it helps bring camaraderie to the solitary act of writing.
A couple of weeks ago, I attended an event for a local author that was moderated by another local author. So there was a lot of discussion centered around writing and publishing.
One of the things these two authors talked a lot about was how writing changes once you shift from writing books for fun to writing books professionally.
A big difference is how you pitch books. If you’ve successfully published other books, it shows publishers that you have what it takes to write a story–and do it well. While I’m currently trying to pitch a completed manuscript to agents so that they can pitch to publishers, once you’re more established, you pitch what’s called a proposal.
The book proposal contains a synopsis of what happens in the story, as well as the first act (which is generally anywhere from 70-100 pages). That proposal gets sent from your agent to editors, and they’ll acquire the book based on just the proposal and writing sample–instead of the full manuscript.
So you may end up writing a proposal and 100 pages of a book that doesn’t get picked up, and then you have to scrap it, and write another one.
As someone who is currently writing full-length novels with the hope that one (okay, both) of them will eventually get published, that feels so insane to me. That you could put all that work into something and still have to scrap it.
It feels like a bit of a waste.
Although, I suppose that’s what some debut authors have to do if they can’t land an agent or their agent can’t sell the manuscript to a publishing house. They have to just keep writing the next one until they write The One.
Since I’m not quite at that point in my publishing journey, it was interesting to hear them discuss different aspects that I didn’t know about!
Speaking of my publishing journey, I’m going to end this post with my current 2024 querying stats.
Agents Pitched: 35
Confirmed Rejections: 14
No Response, Assumed Rejection: 3
Waiting to Hear From: 18
Partial/full requests: 3
Britnie Jenkins 