REAL WORLD
While I have earned nothing beyond a BA in English, I’ve never let that stop me from pretending I have a vast array of training and advanced degrees at my fingertips. Need a marriage therapist who’s willing to work for free? I’m your gal. Looking for a pro bono private investigator? You’ve come to the right place! Hoping to stumble upon a psychiatrist who specializes in diagnosing those who don’t know they need a diagnosis? Yep, I can do that too.
On December 24th, I found myself at Safeway, picking up the items I had forgotten to purchase on the grocery runs I had made on the 22nd and 23rd. Safeway is my go-to because I grew up shopping at Safeway. And I am a cheapskate. It’s also a little gritty, which I appreciate, because at the chichi grocery store that’s a little closer to my house, the apples are too beautiful, the specialty items too special, the shoppers too coiffed. At Safeway? I feel perfectly at home log-rolling myself from bed to car to Safeway. No coiffing required.
It was in the produce section that I found myself picking green beans from a heap and standing about fifteen feet from a couple near the potatoes. I noticed them because they appeared both too coiffed to be shopping at Safeway and too calm to be shopping on Christmas Eve. But there was something else about them that piqued my interest.
Summoning everything I learned while earning my pretend PhD in Psychology, I began my initial assessment of the couple. I guessed they were in their early 40s. She had a sassy blonde bob and wore denim trousers and a Santa hat. He was well-dressed and conventionally handsome; if you Google “generic handsome man,” you will see many iterations of him. They each wore a ring on their wedding finger. Mr. Handsome was pushing the cart.
They looked nice enough, but something was vaguely rotten in this aisle of Safeway.
Knowing I needed to move physically closer to the couple, I called on the acting skills I had learned during my pretend years at Julliard. Pretending to be checking my grocery list, then pretending I had ALMOST forgotten the onions, I pushed my cart over to the onion section. Sometimes you pretend you need a Walla Walla sweet, even if you already have onions at home, so you can eavesdrop on a couple in the nearby potato section.
And eavesdrop I did! I listened as the couple spoke of their butter lettuce options as if butter lettuce could make or break Christmas. They discussed the gift card they had purchased for his parents (at the fancy Italian restaurant down the street) and the gift card they would buy for her parents (at the fancy bakery up the street). They discussed stocking stuffers for their kids, the wrapping of gifts they needed to do that evening, the bourbon they wanted to get at the fancy liquor store. All this, while I committed, acting-wise, to finding the most perfect onion I didn’t even need.
It wasn’t the content of their conversation that felt off; it was their tentative, cautious tone and […]
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Have you made your New Year’s resolutions? Good for you! And good luck! May your resolutions prove easy to enact and the year ahead be a year of fulfillment.
Resolutions and goals are good, but today I have a different New Year’s challenge to bring to you. It’s a list of questions, the point of which is to help you refine your moral inventory as a storyteller. “Moral inventory”? What is that, a step in some writing addiction recovery program?
No, it’s a way to clarify your view of our human experience. And why is that important? We’ll get to that. But first, the questions. For each of the following questions, choose and write down the option which you feel best represents your own outlook and your overall view of the human experience. Make a list.
Here’s the catch: the answer “both” is not allowed. For each question, choose one option only. Don’t think too hard. Go with your gut. The option that weights strongest for you is the right option. There’s no judgment. Results are private.
Ready?
The Questions
The Mirror and the Arrow
Done. You should now have a list of words that are associated with how you fundamentally see yourself and our human experience. I’m particularly interested in your answer to the final question. Why? Because it tells me the unconscious intention underlying your stories. It says whether your stories are mirrors or arrows.
Those terms represent the two primary aims of fiction, which are either to 1) reflect our condition and tell us who we are, or 2) show us our possibilities and point us to who we can be. Those contrary intentions in turn tend to lead to two fundamentally different story types: stories of fate or stories of destiny.
In stories of fate, adverse conditions befall. Things happen to main characters. Such characters do not, at first, have pre-existing power. By contrast, in stories of destiny main characters have inherent agency, which is the pre-existing ability to bring about needed change. They are presented with a task.
Fate characters are challenged. They are trapped but, eventually, feel hope and find a way. They struggle, survive, gain strength, endure, heal, overcome guilt and achieve forgiveness, especially of themselves.
Destiny characters are charged and appointed. They know what to do but it isn’t easy. They already have the needed skills and tools but, at some point, those fail. They face their fears and find courage. They fight, prove themselves and triumph.
Now, if I know you, you may well be thinking: How come a story can’t do both? Why can’t a character be both victim and hero? People […]
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Writer Unboxed will be on its annual holiday break for the next week. We hope that you and yours enjoy the season, and that you’ll join us again in the new year. We’ll return on January 1st, 2025, with a post from Donald Maass.
Until then, write on!
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Please welcome back today’s guest: author Alison Hammer—who is half of the writing duo Ali Brady; the USA TODAY Bestselling author of romantic, heartwarming, funny novels including The Beach Trap, The Comeback Summer, Until Next Summer, and Battle of the Bookstores. Their books have been “best of summer” picks by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parade, and Katie Couric Media. Alison lives in Chicago and works as an advertising creative director. She is also the Founder and Co-President of The Artists Against Antisemitism, and the author of You and Me and Us and Little Pieces of Me.
The duo recently released a holiday novella—and Alison is here to share the story behind the story and tell us how letting go of the rules and trying something new was just the spark they needed.
Creativity can come in many forms—including the way you tell and share a story.
This October, my co-author and I found ourselves faced with something we haven’t really had before: a break. Instead of rushing to start our next project after we turned our Summer 2025 book in, we had some time to think about what we wanted to do next and even (gasp!) try writing something just for the fun of it.
Like millions of other people, Bradeigh and I both loved the Netflix series NOBODY WANTS THIS. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about a hot rabbi (Adam Brody) who falls in love with “shiksa” – a non-Jewish woman (Kristin Bell).
This past year has been a difficult one for the Jewish community, so it was REALLY refreshing to see the general public get so excited about a Jewish story. (And yes, I know there has been some controversy around the depiction of Jewish women in that series…but that’s another topic for another day.)
While our Ali Brady books have always featured Jewish representation, the success of that show inspired us to try and think of a way we could tell a story that elevated the Jewish experience even more. Once we realized the first night of Hanukkah was on Christmas day for the first time in twenty years, a story was born.
A CREATIVE APPROACH TO WRITING
When Bradeigh and I are writing a full-length novel together, we usually spend a few weeks working on the plot and the characters, getting to know their personality and their story arc. Then we take about five or six months to write the first draft.
For this story, we had about one month total to write, edit and publish it. Which meant we had to shake things up and rethink the way we “always” did things.
Instead of our usual few weeks, we spent an hour one evening brainstorming and coming up with the characters, a loose plot for the story and a title—ONE NIGHT, TWO HOLIDAYS—and then we started to write.
While we knew the general beats of the story, we didn’t have time to make our usual chapter-by-chapter outline. So Bradeigh had the idea to lean into the fun of it and treat the writing process like improv.
One of us would write a scene then post it in our shared doc. Then the other person would read the pages (we tried to […]
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I understand that everything we believe, deny, desire, fear, choose, and do is shaped, in some way, by what took place in the past—yet I’m not a fan of backstory in novels.
Think about it. When we meet someone for the first time “in real life,” we get clues about their history and the events that shaped them from the information we receive right then and there—how the person reacts, moves, speaks. We aren’t handed a long biography. We don’t need it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
This was underscored for me—just as I was getting this piece ready for posting, in fact—when I went to see an excellent new film called Conclave. Without getting into the intricacies of the plot, I’ll just say that it depicts the psychology and relationships between several Cardinals who aspire to be chosen as the next pope. As the story unfolds, we see their ambition, overt or suppressed, their strengths and weaknesses. What we don’t see, except in one instance, is anything about their past, before the conclave began, and how they came to be the sort of people they are now. Why not? Because the story doesn’t need it.
So too, when we meet a character in a novel. As a reader, our information comes from the character’s behavior in the scene. In most cases, there’s plenty of information, at least for the moment. Where does she sit or stand in the room? What does she notice or avoid? When the dessert tray is passed around, does she grab the biggest piece or wait until everyone else has one? Is she the one who tells the joke, laughs loudest, looks confused, or rolls her eyes in irritation?
As we watch the scene unfold, do we need—or want—to know about her early experience with an impossible-to-please mother, duplicitous ex-husband, or snarky junior high school rival? Of course not. We might, later, if there’s a story question that this information would shed light on. If so, then her memory of the past event will need to intrude into the forward-moving story in that very scene.
I’m using the word intrude, because a shift into the past is an interruption. If the reader’s immersion is interrupted, it had better be for a good reason. Which means: it had better be necessary, right now.
Narrative necessity
“Narrative necessity” comes from the characters, not the author. In other words: backstory information shouldn’t be presented simply because the author wants to tell the reader stuff that she thinks it would be helpful to know—e.g., to convey a character’s “origin story” as a way to justify her motivation and goals.
Rather, a memory intrudes into a story for two reasons:
If we think of remembering as a link in a causal chain, not as a way to convey information to the reader, then it’s clear that remembering is an active event, not a passive one. The act of remembering—along with the emotion and insight it brings—enables the character to do something that she needs to do, in order for the story to move along.
How, then, can we portray those […]
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I have just finished three 10-hour days of painting and pulling carpet and (worse!) carpet staples in my new house. Even worse–on a sprained ankle. Every muscle and joint in my body hurts. My fingers are swollen and blistered and can barely make a fist.
My boyfriend of 7 years and I bought a house together. Before that, we prepped each of the houses we were living in for sale. At various points during those painting and repairing weeks we’d remind each other that we could half-ass some things because we weren’t going to be living in these houses anymore–they just had to be nice and functional enough to sell well.
But this house, our first place together, we are whole-assing.
We’re buying the good paint and paying to get things fixed properly and not accepting half measures because we’re staying in this house until we die. Seriously. I’m never moving again. Tonight, during the carpet-and-staple pulling party, we each hit a low point of exhaustion and overwhelm. Luckily not at the same time, so the other could say, “Remember, we’re whole-assing this house.” And we’d nod and put our back into it again.
While I paint I’ve been listening to Saturday Night Live alumna Molly Shannon’s memoir, Hello, Molly! It’s a great listen. I was struck by her relationship with one of her most memorable SNL characters: Mary Katherine Gallagher.
MKG is a Catholic school high schooler who is awkward, accident-prone, over-confident, and boy crazy. She runs into things and knocks stuff over, like chairs. And walls. Here is her first appearance:
After that show, Molly Shannon was assigned her own stunt coordinator, Brian (I’m listening to the book, so I only know his name sounds like Smigh). One of his main jobs was to inspect the sets built for an MKG sketch to make sure Molly wouldn’t seriously hurt herself. Brian treated MKG as a separate person who was impossible to control, because once on that stage she would do anything. Molly said, “When I was performing the character, I was so in the moment that I couldn’t feel anything.” When Brian would tell the set designers that they needed to change a certain feature, they’d say, “We’ve talked with Molly and she said she wouldn’t go through the wall.” And the stunt coordinator would come back with, “Molly wouldn’t go through the wall, but we’re not dealing with Molly on the stage. MKG will definitely go through the wall.” Indeed, she went through the wall. Every time.
Molly Shannon as Mary Katherine Gallagher is the very definition of whole-assing it (and not just because the skirt is way too short). She is all in, every time, doing whatever she needs to make the scene work without regard to personal safety.
Which got me to thinking: What if we whole-assed our writing?
No being careful. No worrying about what Aunt Judy will think about the sex scenes. No convincing yourself out of really going for it (whatever that means to you at your stage in your writing journey). No cutting corners. No accepting good-enough.
What if you did that for all of 2025? How different would your work in progress be? How much more joyful might your writing sessions be? Would it help to give […]
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We’re in the thick of the holiday season from the religious to the nature-centric to the end-of-year celebrations, and I find myself ruminating on this cluster of holidays most of us celebrate in some form or another. How these holidays shape our habits, our mood, our intentions, our motivations. As I sip my cappuccino, I’m asking myself: do we really change who we are this time of year, put ourselves on pause and aim to be better human beings? And how do we each choose to adhere to our belief systems? Are we steadfast and loyal, or more of a cherry-picker whose beliefs have eroded over time and experience and distance from their origins? What is the nature of these beliefs, and how do they form a deep-seeded part of who we are? As you can see, my favorite way to spend the month of December is pairing my champagne and Christmas goodies with big thoughts and deep questions.
For writers, it’s an easy jump to take these deep thoughts about ourselves and apply them to our characters. Our characters are, after all, just people on the page that we’re aiming to imbue with life. So I’m considering my current main character’s belief systems, her customs and traditions, and her sense of morality, since they are a large part of what gives any character dimension and depth. I’m also thinking about pivotal experiences and how they not only underscore themes throughout the story, but they are the key to her growth. These aspects of beliefs, both learned and taught, add the kind of scope that makes our character worth reading.
Beliefs that are Taught
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photo adapted / Horia Varlan
Novel openings don’t always start with a bang. Or at a run, such as in the example I analyzed in last month’s post. This month, thanks to a suggestion by community member Barbara Morrison, I’ll look at how three other types of openings invite the reader into the story—and at the end, leave one for you to dissect.
Hit the Ground Walking
Character movement can create the sense that the reader is merging into a story that’s already in progress. Like last month’s example, the character here is moving—but slower. Here’s the opening of The Girl in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian, set in the spring of 1923.
Ada smelled the swamp before she reached it. The mingling of sulfur and rot worked with memory to knot her stomach and burn the back of her throat. She was returning with little more than she had taken with her a year before, everything she counted worthy of transporting only half filling the pillowcase slung over her shoulder. It might have been filled with bricks, the way she bent under it, but mostly it was loss that weighed her down. The past few days had swept her clean of hope, and a few trinkets in a pillowcase were all that was left to mark a time when she had not lived isolated in this green-shaded, stagnant setting. When she was a little girl, she had believed she loved this place, the trees offering themselves as steadfast companions, the wildflowers worthy confidants, but passing through now with eyes that had taken in other wonders and a heart that had allowed an outsider to slip in, she knew she had only been resigned to it. As she was again.
In addition to putting the protagonist in purposeful motion—Ada is is not meandering, but showing agency by pursuing a goal—this opening creates story movement by:
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Six weeks ago I finished the novel I’ve been writing for the last two years. I typed the words “THE END,” sat back in my chair, and promptly burst into tears—something I’ve never done before after writing. But completing this book felt like a significant end to me, the end of a work I’d loved writing, the end of a period of my life that had included some major upheaval (I came up with the idea during the pandemic, and started writing a year after my mother died). I felt a mix of relief, joy, pride, amazement (I really wasn’t sure I’d ever write another novel), and a huge sense of loss that it was over.
Writing a novel is to immerse yourself in a world that’s with you most of your waking hours, whether you’re actively working on it or whether you’re showering, gazing out the window, dancing, or sorting your files. The characters you create can feel more real than the people in the next room, and the details of their interior and exterior lives can be all-consuming. So when that is suddenly over, when those people and places are gone, what happens next?
I’m asking myself that question a lot. I miss writing this book. I miss the characters, I miss their struggles and triumphs, I miss their world. And I miss having them to think about at three in the morning when I can’t sleep, or when I’m out hiking and it’s cold, or even when I’m in the kitchen cooking. Once when I was writing my second novel, set in the San Juan Islands off Washington state, I was so deep into my writing that when I finally finished for the day and walked into the kitchen I actually said to my husband, “Wow. It’s really nice to be back home.”
“Where else have you been?” he said.
I’m not talking about all the revision work that still lies ahead for me. This isn’t my first novel; I know I have significant work to do. And I’ll do it, just not yet. I know that for many the answer to this missing is to dive into revising or, even more, into the next work, to start creating new worlds and people. But change has always been hard for me. It’s hard to let go. So here’s what I’ve figured out about how to handle what comes after The End:
Wait. It’s a good time of year to for fallowness (it’s a word; I looked it up!) As tempting as it’s been for me to go back and edit and revise, or to start writing a sequel or something new, it’s been important for me to spend some time in my head and my life without the constant distraction provided by writing a novel. It’s allowed me to make plans and set priorities and think differently. Writing is how I figure out my self and my life; I’m a different person than I was when I started writing this book. It takes some time to absorb that.
Celebrate. I wrote a book! An entire novel, all 125,000 words of it! (I know, it’s too long). It’s a difficult, mind-bending, incredibly challenging thing to do, and I did […]
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Today’s “ad post” is also a valuable blog post written by our own Barry Knister, detailing his experience with two editors while preparing his novel, Someone Better Than You, for publication. Enjoy!
Deciding to work with an editor is a major decision. It costs money, and calls on the writer to do something analogous to what all good parents must do: love their children enough to let them go (at least until they come home and move into the basement).
That’s what the writer does when she turns over her baby to an editor. This person will get to know the fledging novel or memoir, but usually with no knowledge of how it came to be. That means, when the baby comes home, the writer must will herself into a kind of amnesia, in order to absorb and respond to the stranger’s reactions.
That’s why I urge writers to read a report, but to then put it aside for a week or more before going back to it. Otherwise, they risk acting or reacting on impulse.
Recently, I worked with two editors on my forthcoming novel, Someone Better Than You. By coincidence, both people are past editors for Penguin. In every respect, working with these editors led to improvements in my novel. I acted on most but not all of their suggestions, and what follows is my attempt to summarize the process.
RONIT WAGMAN
I first hired Ronit in 2020 to read and report on the full manuscript of what was then titled Ashley and the Jell-O Hour. Although she liked the story (“the world of the novel and the characters that dwelled in it felt deeply authentic to me”), she had several major criticisms.
AGENCY
In the version Ronit read, my main character Brady “Buzz” Ritz is a retired newspaper editor. His life is upended when he publishes a book of his anonymously published satirical columns. He blunders mightily by publishing the book’s second edition under his own name.
In this first version, Brady’s book comes about through the actions of others. The editor of Grumble (the little magazine that first published his column) talks Brady into developing a book of his work. Ritz’s best friend from his newspaper days gets an agent friend to find a publisher. Most importantly, the best friend shames Ritz into using his own name for the second edition.
As Ronit explained, I had made my main character the passive pawn of others. Someone else pushes him to develop the book, and someone else arranges for it to be published. Most importantly, someone else is responsible for Ritz publishing the second edition under his own name.
Ronit’s guidance led me to make Ritz less a passive actor, and more the responsible agent for his story. He still gets the idea for the book from his editor, but as Ronit pointed out, no agent would take on such a manuscript from an “anonymous” writer—because no publisher would be interested in such a book.
So, I replaced a commercial publisher with a university press whose editor has the freedom to publish something by an unknown writer. I also got rid of the idea of a second edition. Once I made these changes, I was free to make Brady responsible for the […]
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I have some homework for you.
For 2025, I want you to really think about two things: connection and purpose.
Try to…
Consider how you will…
Describe yourself…
Describe your writing…
What influences your work…
What do you want readers…
Answer this question honestly…
If you have questions, you can always email me – am@getredpr.com – or drop a comment below. Wishing Writer Unboxed readers a very happy and healthy holiday season.
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Publishing news was on overdrive in November. AI was back in the headlines as Spines, a publishing startup, plans to disrupt the publishing industry with AI and flood the market with books in 2025. A Dutch publisher will be using AI to translate books to English, and Microsoft is dipping its toes in the publishing waters, saying it’s going to use technology to accelerate and democratize publishing in the areas of technology, science, and business. Scribd-Evernd is going the way of Kindle Unlimited, i.e. there is a subscription option. Book bans are accelerating and the push back is strengthening. That publishing would be even more affected by politics beyond book bans, is beginning to feel inevitable. Hachette raised the ire of employees by launching two imprints to be led by Thomas Spence, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the publishers of Project 2025. Booktok, a bastion of freewheeling book talk now has red lists circulating. Despite all this, the Association of American Publishers says that publishing in the US is up 7% for the year. Read on for more publishing juice.
AI
Dutch publisher will use AI to translate books into English
HarperCollins is selling their authors’ work to AI
Is it becoming push-button publishing?
Microsoft launches its own imprint to “speed up” traditional book publishing
Audiobooks
Scribd-Everand now offers unlimited ebook subscription
Bloomsbury’s audiobook catalogue now available with Spotify Premium
Book Bans
PEN America’s new book banning report, before the election
The many branches of censorship
Everylibrary warns that the election results mean more uncertainty for the future of libraries
PEN America reports that school bans are surging
Florida schools have removed more than 700 books from school libraries
Authors Against Book Bans has formed a coalition across the US to fight book bans
Authors Guild Banned Books Club: Read a banned book each month
Book News
Things to make you feel positive about book culture in general
Book Promotion
What publishing can learn from the election
Book Stores
Barnes & Noble is still opening new stores
Diversity
Why representation in publishing matters
Literary Agencies
Georgia Bodnar has launched her own agency Noyan Literary. She was previously with UTA
Politics
McMillian Marketing VP’s election post stirs anger
Even Booktok has become politicized, creating red lists
Trump threatens New York Times, Penguin Random House over critical coverage
Hachette Book Group US expands Basic Books Group with 2 conservative imprints
Publishers
Seoul-based company develops tactile comics for the sight-impaired
Publishers Weekly salary jobs report
Brooklyn-based small publisher, Under the BQE Press, launched on September 24
Association of American Publishers says US publishing up 7% for the […]
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INTERMEZZO (noun) As per Merriam-Webster: a movement coming between the major sections of an extended musical work.
Usually, I draft my quarterly WU posts about a month before they’re due. This time, I’ve ditched my intended topic. Best laid plans and all that. The piece I find myself working on today is not prescriptive writing advice, nor is it about the angst of the author’s journey. This week, I’m at my father’s house, working with him—at his request—to edit the obituary he wrote for himself. Also, in the quiet of my childhood bedroom, I’m drafting a eulogy. Since I arrived on November 6th, I’ve avoided national news and haven’t begun to process my feelings about the election results.
Real life intrudes. Sometimes endings aren’t clearly visible from the start.
In late October, my ninety-five-year-old father went into the hospital with atrial fibrillation. A week later, on Election Day, he received a stage-four cancer diagnosis with months to live. Hospice entered the plot. The scenery changed, with the guest room of Dad’s house quickly reconfigured into a hospital room. Time changed; with glimpses of future holidays, minus the main character. Simultaneously, present time ticks relentlessly forward as he loses strength. Days and hours drag in a kind of static monotony measured in loads of laundry and empty cubes in the big plastic organizer that holds rainbow-colored meds.
My father’s mind is still razor-sharp. He knows the grass-cutting service needs to be paid. He explains to me how to configure the tube on his nebulizer breathing apparatus. I didn’t know he’d written his own obit until he asked me, from his hospital bed, to edit it for him.
My father’s obituary is a first-person thank-you note for what he calls his “charmed” life, starting with his parents and siblings and expressing gratitude to both institutions and people who’ve helped him along through life. Frankly, if I were being paid to edit it as a personal essay, I’d call his work self-indulgent, rambling, and unevenly paced, burdened by an overabundance of backstory and flashback, with too many named characters. Under the circumstances, I’m doing my best to correct punctuation and grammar and get the great-grandkids’ names right. My brothers and I plan to run whatever version Dad approves.
In the past weeks, on the three-hour drive from my home to Dad’s, I’ve listened to multiple audiobooks. I’ve just finished Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Set in Dublin over four months in 2022, Rooney’s main characters are two brothers who are different as night and day. Their father died recently from cancer and they’re grieving his loss at the same time, but not together. On one hand, it’s a story that—at times—proceeds with the painful slowness of pulling off a Band-Aid. Despite the prolonged discomfort, I found myself engrossed, helpless to look away from what lay unhealed and oozing beneath. Brothers Ivan and Peter are so fully realized, and Rooney’s portrayals are so intimate that we cringe when they cringe. We hold our breath through many awkwardly squirmy exchanges. We observe pettiness, and the brothers butting heads, blurting out what they’ve been holding inside and stewing over. And then we see their regret.
For me, this resonates this week.
Rooney’s structure alternates chapters between Ivan and Peter and also switches […]
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When all else fails, we write. We tell stories. Then we revise them. And then we revise them again, and again. And if you’re anything like me, again. And during all that time, the world keeps spinning, burning in some places, healing in others, hungry, even ravenous for escape, understanding, empathy. And so we write. Or we at least try to. Which brings me to this year in review summary and the encouragement I hope you’ve received from the advice shared in my Up Close column. Over the past year, I’ve had the good fortune of interviewing a number of publishing professionals. From a successful self-published author to a former acquisitions editor, and everything in between, their advice shared a common thread: keep going, keep querying, keep writing. So here’s a review of the best advice from Up Close this year.
Terra Weiss, Author of the Wingmom Series: Advice for writers considering self-publishing
Ask yourself the important questions. The first one is whether you want to make writing into a career or not. If the answer to that is yes, then the second is whether or not you want to be an entrepreneur because, as you’ve learned, successful self-publishing means running a business, not just writing books.
The third is if you are—deep down in your heart—okay with writing to market. Some people lose the joy of writing if they have to fit their books into a genre or trope. Which is fine, but it may mean you need to pursue the trad route. The fourth question is whether you can produce books on a tough schedule, around 3-5 books a year. This means you’re spending about a month on drafting, a month on editing, a month giving it to critique partners, betas, and editors, and a month on allowing advanced readers to have it and review it. Also ask yourself if you’re an “I’ll figure it out” type of person because you’ll be scrambling to learn something new every day, whether it be the latest technology, understanding the updated rules for sending newsletters, or how to reposition your books or marketing strategy to fit in the current market, which shifts almost overnight.
Finally, read books that are like yours. This one sounds simple, but so many authors aren’t reading their successful comp authors, which means they’re unaware of what the standards are in their genre. It’s impossible to do anything well if you don’t know the target you’re aiming for.
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