These are lessons that I learned during my debut as a novelist that I wish had been in a book somewhere. Please bear in mind that many of these lessons are more than a decade old from when I was a debut author. The publishing landscape may not look the same now.
One of the unexpected side effects of publishing a book or a story is a shift in your status. Now, I know you’re thinking, “but I’ve only published one thing, I’m not a REAL author.” I’ve talked elsewhere about imposter syndrome, so I want to talk about the unintentional side effects of ignoring the fact […]
Debut Author Lessons: Status and Hierarchy shifts Read More »
I will grant that this particular thing will not happen for everyone, but it will happen for some of you and award nominations come with no instructions. Over the years, I’ve learned a few things and so here’s the stuff that I’ve told new Nebula, Hugo, and Campbell finalists. When they say confidential… What they
Debut Author Lessons: So you’ve been nominated for an award… Read More »
There are some things you need to understand about yourself and about how community works, before you approach a reader and truly, before you even start the project in which you plan to represent a marginalized community. It’s good, and important, to want to represent people who are outside your experience, but it’s hard work.
Debut Author lessons: Sensitivity readers and why I pulled a project. Read More »
A lot of writers have a goal of being a full time writer. I think there’s this image of your life continuing exactly as it is, except that now your job is writing. Sure, you know you won’t go into an office, but it will be so nice to have no demands on your time,
Debut Author Lessons: Should you be a full-time writer? Read More »
Sometimes I think it’s useful for early career writers to see the things that might happen to your brain later. I just got an email from my editor that Shades of Milk and Honey is going into its 7th printing. Seventh. Between all the US editions so far, we’ve netted 23,793 copies. That’s not counting the
Debut Author Lessons: Mini lesson on leveling up Read More »
Before the whole writing thing, I spent some time as an art director for magazines such as Shimmer and Weird Tales. Despite that, I stay largely out of cover design discussions for my novel. Why? Because the people who are designing the covers know their jobs. With my first novel, I had no input at all and
Debut Author Lesson: Covers Read More »
One of the things that I didn’t know going into this was how long a book contract was. It’s a small detail, but it’s good to know. My book contract is 30 pages. <–This is why I have an agent, so I don’t have to negotiate all of that, because yuck. We are not doing
Mini debut author lesson: So much paper in a contract Read More »
I have this series of posts about Debut Author Lessons. As a sort of holiday present, I thought I’d do some more this month but… to make them as helpful as possible, I thought I’d see if you have any requests. Just leave a question down below in comments. I’ll see how many I can
Do you have questions for Debut Author Lessons? Read More »
I will grant that this is not likely to be something a debut author hits, but at some point in your career, you will receive your first invitation to be a Guest of Honor at a convention. My first was MidSouthCon, which was fun, but I felt like I was flying a little blind. Thank
Debut Author Lesson: Your first Guest of Honor gig Read More »
Yesterday, I got some hate mail for a short story that’s running on EscapePod right now. My reaction to it was to laugh and share it with some friends. At some point in your career, someone will write hate mail for the story or novel you have written. As a general rule: Do not respond.
Debut author lessons: Hate mail Read More »
You’ve sold a book. They are going to ask you for a photo of you to put on it. And if that doesn’t happen, then a convention will ask for a headshot to go on the program book, or a short story market will want one for the website. Someone, at some point, is going
Debut Author lessons: The author photo Read More »
This is one of the hardest parts of the writing life. For a long time, writing probably was your hobby. Even if you didn’t approach the writing itself that way, it was still something that you had to fit in to the cracks in your life. You had to “make time” for it in the way
Debut author lessons: Writing is no longer a hobby. Read More »
So you’ve sold the audio rights to your novel. Yay! What should you do now? Allow me to offer some tips from my experience as both an author and as an audio book narrator. Read your book aloud. Yes. The whole thing. Even a 700 page monster should not take you more than a week to
Debut Author Lesson: Audio books Read More »
Like many authors, I use a lot of different social media sites to make it as easy as possible for folks to keep up with me. Some of them make it easy for me to stay in touch with others, some seem to just frustrate me. What I want to do today is talk about
Debut Author Lesson: On Facebook Read More »
So, your book is coming out and you are trying to decide if you should have a launch party. They cost money but everyone seems to do them. So the question you keep asking is: Are they worth it? The thing to understand about an event like this is that it serves multiple functions. Here
Debut Author Lesson: The Launch Party Read More »