What is the Most Overlooked Ingredient to Publishing Success?

What is the Most Overlooked Ingredient to Publishing Success?

by | Aug 16, 2019 | Writing | 0 comments

What is the Most Overlooked Ingredient to Publishing Success? 


It’s probably not what you think it is. 

The most overlooked ingredient to publishing success is clarity.

Many well-meaning authors attempt to find clarity by seeking feedback. More often than not, they end up more muddled than when they started.

I was working with one of my clients, Vivian, in some intricate plotting and pacing in her novel. Vivian is a highly intelligent writer. Her writing is very intricate, detailed, and interwoven. 

She told me: “I am so happy you see my novel. I got so many useless feedback before. They’ve told me that I’m writing two books in one novel, to take out a character or a thread that is not going to work. No ones ever really understood my vision clearly before.” What I did in working with her is I gave her the first of clarity. 

What has she done before? She went to free writing groups and received unhelpful and unclear feedback. In short, she was not given the feedback that she needed in order to make progress in her writing. What she really needed was someone who could get the clarity on many aspects of her book and how they are interwoven. 

You only call a mechanic to fix your car and a plumber to fix your sink. If you want quality feedback that gives you clarity and moves you forward, call a professional–someone who understands the intricacies of interwoven characters, plot, and more. The bottom line: If you want clarity, seek a professional.

We are professionals over at the Writing Gym VIP Membership, where we help you finish a novel to publishable. We help you to revise your novel to industry standards, find an agent, and publish your novel at the Publishing Mastermind.

If you are serious about having a long term writing career, I’d love to speak with you about where you are, where you’d like to go, and how you can get there. 

What are the Different Ways to Get Published?

What are the Different Ways to Get Published?

by | Aug 14, 2019 | How to Publish, Writing | 0 comments

What are the Different Ways to Get Published? 


The two major ways to get published are self-publishing and traditional publishing. What are the differences between the two?

I will go over some general facts about these two ways of publishing in this post. However, we go more in depth in the Publishing Mastermind, part of the Writing Gym program, where we also help you figure out what is the best way for you to publish. 

Self-publishing

This is the Do-It-Yourself route. You write the book and hopefully find someone to edit your book for you. You design the cover and the interior and figure out the logistics of this process. This is the “cheap” and “easy” way. However, it becomes a lot more expensive that people anticipate. You pay for the editor, the layout, the interior, and more but end up with a book that doesn’t sell.  

In Write to Publish we don’t make any judgments on how people want to publish. Choosing a way to publish is like choosing an outfit. You have to find a way that works for you and what will make the difference for what you want to do–this is one of the things that I help people with.  We talk about your goals, how you can get there, and what makes the most sense for you given what your goals are. 

Traditional publishing

This is where you get paid for your book. The general trajectory is that you finish your book, get an agent, and the agent helps you find a publisher. You might have seen on Write to Publish many posts from clients talking about working with me to find an agent, how I get them in touch with an agent, and that I work with a whole bunch of agents and people from the publishing industry for my clients. 

One of the tricky things about traditional publishing and what most people get hung up on is that there are different tiers. It’s like going to college. Going to community college, a state college, and an Ivy League college differs in how you reach your certain goals. Similarly, there are basic publishing houses, middle ground publishing houses, and then your high-tier publishing houses. In Write to Publish, we shoot for the high-tier publishing houses. 

Why? When you publish a book traditionally through top-tier publishers, they will give you some money, publish your book, and do your marketing for you. In these top-tier publishing houses, you will get the best of everything.

Within this are the top five publishing houses: Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon and Schuster. I have relationships with editors from each of these publishing houses to get my clients the very best information for their publishing journey. 

We work with all kinds of authors who want to go either route. The Writing Gym is a great program, whether you want to self-publish or traditionally publish. The Publishing Mastermind is focused exclusively on shooting for those top 5 publishing houses, and Novel Selling U is where you work with your publishing company and editor so that your book can sell. 

I look forward to your questions, comments, and talking to you about how you want to publish and how you can get there. 

Fast Track to Publishing?

Fast Track to Publishing?

by | Aug 13, 2019 | How to Publish, Writing | 0 comments

Is there a fast track to publishing? 


When you live somewhere for a while, you know there are shortcuts you can take to potentially avoid traffic. I was stuck in traffic at this one particular road leading to a highway, but I knew, due to experience, that I could avoid that traffic by taking a different road.

How is this situation like getting published?

I was speaking to graduate from our Writing Gym VIP Program about her frustrations in the past and her submitted manuscript getting rejected. Looking back, after graduating from the VIP program, she has a newfound sense of why the agents rejected her manuscripts before.

She realized even when she was working with editors, these editors did not have an “in” on the publishing industry standards. She was kept in the dark the whole time for working with people who were not talking to agents on a regular basis. 

Her frustrations mimicked how I would feel driving from Colorado and getting stuck in traffic. I might be in that line of bumper to bumper cars all the way up over the hill into the highway, not knowing that everyone else is waiting to get into the highway. Because I’m from out of town, I don’t know I have been sitting on the wrong lane. I want to go somewhere that does not lead to the highway, yet because of my lack of knowledge of the town, I end up on the lane that leads to this highway.

Many writers I know have been frustrated, because they have been sitting on the wrong lane.

They’ve been working with people who do not have inside knowledge of the industry, so they have been preventing themselves from getting on the fast track to publishing. 

I believe there are no shortcuts to publishing, but there is a faster way to get there. You have to work with someone who is directly connected and communicating with agents and publishers to get on this fast lane. 

Recently, I was having lunch with agents in New York, and we talked about the frustrating things that writers do and experience. Many writers have the potential to be successful, but their mistake is not getting the right people to edit their work. 

If you are a writer hoping to traditionally publish, and would like to get on the fast-er lane to publishing, get an inside look of the industry, and to know more about what editors and publishers are looking for, let’s talk. I would love to chat with you about where you are, where you’d like to go, and how you can get there. 

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