By: Polly Holyoke
I’ve been writing and selling books for over twenty-five years, which means I’ve been lucky enough to work in my sweatpants and pjs long before COVID made working remotely so popular. I do have a new middle grade fantasy series out from Viking Children’s Books this month, and Skyriders’ publication has given me an excellent opportunity to pause and take stock. I’ve learned a great deal about the publishing business over the past decades, and these are just some of the things I wish I could have told a younger, greener me decades ago.
Be kind, share and give. People I helped along the way turned around and helped me, sometimes in the most unexpected ways. One debut author I’d met online was attending the same conference I was, but he had no dinner plans. I invited him to join me and my friends, and he has gone on to become spectacularly successful. Now he is wonderful about blurbing my books. A mentee I helped with her romance writing turned around and helped create striking, professional sell sheets for me. I always send handwritten thank you notes to the librarians who host me at their schools, and in turn, they often send me wonderful testimonials I can use on my website or line up more visits for me.
Join professional writing organizations. There is SO much you can learn from folks farther along in their careers than you are. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel! For years I was writing sensitive, well-written and well-researched historical romances, but they were WAY TOO LONG to sell. Once I joined Romance Writers of America and won a critique from a published author, she set me straight. I trimmed 30,000 words from my manuscript and made my first sale three months later. Also, writing can be a lonely, solitary business, and attending conferences and chapter meetings gives you a chance to meet fellow writers who share your goals and friends who share your passion and ambition.
Be patient and persistent. Very few writers become successes overnight. Very few writers sell the first project they submit. You’ve probably heard some of these stories. Kathryn Stockett was rejected by 60 agents before the 61st agreed to represent The Help. Madeline L’Engle’s classic story A Wrinkle in Time was rejected by 26 publishers, and Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery-winning Because of Winn Dixie was rejected 473 times.
You have to be submitting your work to agents and publishers, and submitting frequently, to increase your odds of making a sale. Luck does play a factor. You never know when your work may hit an editor’s computer right after the marketing team asked for more school stories or more fantasies. Whenever I have a project out on submission, I already have the next project polished up and ready to send to my agent.
Fortune favors the brave. This old Latin proverb is particularly true for professional writers. You can’t sell your work if you don’t take a chance and send it out into the world. I know a dozen fine writers who never actually sold books (and they probably could have) because their projects were never finished or never good enough, in their eyes. Deep down inside, some of these talented people were so afraid of failure, they never took the risk of trying to sell their work.
Treat writing like a profession. If you take your writing seriously, then your family will as well. You have to protect your writing time and set boundaries. Spouses and kids can be trained (after some effort) to respect the time you set aside to write. If you know you write best in the morning, then find ways to protect those morning hours. Rachel Caine, the author of the wonderful Great Library series and sixty-two other books, used to get up before her day job and her family to write for two hours before going to work. If it’s important, you can find the time.
Never stop working on your craft. You can always get better and learn from other writers and teachers. Some of the most talented authors I know still go to writing conferences and classes. They read books and blog posts on craft, and they are continually finding new ways to improve their writing.
Know your goals and why you write. I’ve always written to be published and to make money, and that works for me. I recently joined a small-town writing group where most of the folks don’t wish to be published. But they are having a great time writing their memoirs and their thrillers to share with their friends and family, and that’s a valid reason to be writing as well.
You need to LOVE writing! Publishing is a brutal business, and I often think it’s sad and ironic that the very sensitivity one needs to be a fine writer also leaves authors open to despair and depression. You may write a wonderful book, and yet it is quite possible that it will sell poorly or be ignored by your industry. Right now, many terrific books in my field of children’s literature are failing because some school districts are requiring (thanks to all those book challenges out there) that a book have at least two positive reviews from the biggies in our industry: Library School Journal, Kirkus, The Horn Book or VOYA. And yet those magazines don’t have as many reviewers as they used to, and some authors are lucky to receive a single review, much less two.
Finally, be kind to yourself. Don’t compare yourself to peers who first debuted when you did. Some are going to be far more successful than you are. Others are going to be less successful, but writing is not a race, and it is not a zero-sum game. Envying others can only make you unhappy and less productive in the long run. Take pride in every book you finish. Be proud of every excellent sentence you write, and do your best to enjoy the journey.
Polly Holyoke is the award-winning author of the middle grade sci/fi Neptune Trilogy (Disney/Hyperion) and the new children’s fantasy series, Skyriders, releasing from Viking Children’s Books this month. When she’s not tapping away on her computer, Polly enjoys skiing, hiking, and camping in the mountains.