I would also add, "Respect your reader and their time." I'm currently editing a book for a friend. It's almost as if they are being paid by the word...and it's a thriller. You have to keep pace and not re-explain things every time it comes up (a little refresher is good if the info is in different acts, but not a few paragraphs away). Your reader is smart and is paying attention. Show them you know that. Lastly, read your book aloud before you send it to an editor (even a friend doing the job). How we speak (or read) and how we type can be very different. You will also find your repetitions and can improve the book before you send it for the edit. Also, dialogue *has* to move the story forward in some regard (not just get you over 70k), and for every darling you leave in, you must kill at least three. Please. (BTW, this is all stuff I've learned after I've published, so I have to live with what I've put out there. LOL.) xo
Great post. I always say that 'my readers tend to be smarter than I am' in the sense that I am writing for someone who wants an easy read, but who also wants something that has re-read potential. My biggest fans have read WBTH three times over, and the book was designed for that. So density works, provided you know your audience and get it in front of them. One of my latest short stories wasn't too popular with a scriptwriting friend, but an astrophysicist thought it was hilarious, so I think I know my audience!
I had an issue with the stakes in my upcoming novel where I felt the beginning was longwinded, but removing it made the book boring even though it brought the action forward. I realised the tension between the two worlds in the book, if written in another order, was more than enough to keep people interested. And without it, they aren't invested in the protagonist by the time the big main thing happens (not the inciting incident, but what essentially changes her life forever after it). The issue with the early drafts was that these two worlds did not feel like they were interacting, in essence turning chapter one into a drawn-out prologue. Having the characters encounter each other earlier on fixed most of these problems!
I'd disagree about not really having a choice between hardback and paperback, but I know we are coming at the issue from different angles. I know trad likes to put hardbacks out first, get customers paying more, then eventually do the paperback, but the way I do things is typically the other way round. Paperbacks for accessibility, then hardbacks with extra content somewhere down the line. If an author goes self-pub or with a small press, they have more power to choose.
I agree the title of a book is incredibly important. When I settled on WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? I wanted the book to feel like a parody of scientific and religious literature at the same time, with a sci-fi edge. I managed that. It has meant that the Guardian won't be writing a review of it any time soon, but the right people find my book and that's more important than writing a super catchy title like OMG THE ALIENS ARE IN MY TROUSERS!!! and selling it to people who will give it a lukewarm review at best.
That said, my autobiography OMG THE ALIENS ARE IN MY TROUSERS!!! is coming out in December.
I agree with all of these except I would add a couple caveats to the last one. As a reader, I like when the title has a double meaning and the second one isn't clear until after you've read the book. That "aha!" moment when you get the title's "real" meaning can be ver cool.
Also, as with a lot of book marketing today, the title shouldn't be misleading. More and more I feel like publishers are trying to trick me into buying books with titles, blurbs, and cover art that suggests a book is something trendy or popular that it's not.
For me, Gary, it's when I read an evidently bad book, and then figure out all the gushy blurbs were from the author's famous friends. Somehow, I don't think this helps publishing in the long run.
Annette, it does not help, at all. Quite the opposite. Personally I feel duped. As a reader, I prefer honest reviews (I can spot the gushy language from a mile away blindfolded). As a writer, I want review blurbs from people whose professions are relevant to the content of my book if it's non fiction, and sincere, authentic reviews if it's fiction. As a publisher, see the previous sentence :) When we published "Peasants Come Last," for example, written by a former Peace Corps Country Director, we put a blurb from a US Congressman on the cover because it was relevant and appropriate, and the message it sent resonated with the message of the book.
Yes! I've been working on learning to spot those reviews on Goodreads. One time I looked at a book because a writer friend of mine marked it as Want to Read pre-publication. It had ten reviews all praising it with long reviews hailing it as basically the most lyrical, sublime work of literature since literature was invented. Yet after reading all ten long glowing reviews I realized I had no idea what this magnificent work was even about!
I LOVE Kate and her newsletter, but in a recent one she said you should never leave a bad review. Published authors and agents often say that with great indignation, but I see reviews as being for readers ("think of the reader") not authors, and one reason I check Goodreads is to make sure the publisher isn't lying to me. You don't have to be cruel or get personal, but as a reader I appreciate an honest review from a fellow reader letting me know that this "mystery" ends with "We'll never know what happened that day in the woods," the "romance" has no HEA and is really about a sister dying of cancer, this fun romp through the lives of heiresses is really a serious academic study of women and property, the fake dating storyline gets resolved in a couple chapters and the book is really about the experience of American born children and their Asian immigrant parents, all of which was the case in books I read (and two of which I loved) in the past couple years. Memo to agents and publishers: Don't intentionally mislead readers and get mad about negative reviews.
Agree Gary... avoiding negative reviews only leaves us with a sargasso sea of flowers and unicorns. It's like the parent telling the child everything s/he does is great, awesome, incredible. The child ends up not learning and not being resilient or accepting of critique. I've had negative reviews, for example from readers who didn't like the literary style of one of my stories (it had almost no punctuation but that was the point!), and that's fine. I don't aim to please everyone, and I do like a range of reviews actually. It demonstrates authenticity.
Was just thinking this! The moment in A Visit from the Goon Squad where the metaphor behind the title comes into focus is still something I dream of replicating. It felt to me like a magic trick (but I loved the book from beginning to end, so maybe it didn't hit as hard for folks who enjoyed it less).
Yes on the complicated ebooks. Turns out, most readers prefer to read. Who'da thunk it?
I wrote an antiheroine, thus guaranteeing that NY bestselling authors had nothing to fear from me. In the end, though, I was rewarded by those who persisted in reading the series (and who let me know) finally getting it. Would I do it again? Not by choice. Maybe just because it's what I feel driven to write. Fortunately, I don't mind if people don't like her! :)
Wise advice. It's sad how those enhanced books are impossible to get accepted. My friend, Nick Bantock, author of the marvellous series, Griffin and Sabine, is a visual artist as well as a writer and his creations are a magnificent blend of these two skills. His publisher nixes many of his projects even though he's, you know, famous!
Thank you for the clarification on book titles. I think I have a good one, but it may be a little hokey. It's nice to know that the professionals will help out with that. I love your posts!
I'm thinking hard about your last point about title. I hear what you're saying but some of my favourite books are books where the title didn't really make sense until the end. The biggest bestseller example I can think of currently that has a title with a secret meaning, that you literally don't get until the very last sentence of the book, is It Ends With Us. The market is so oversaturated with certain types of titles because one will sell and then a bazillion titles copying that come out after. Then the titles of the books on the shelves become so boring. I get why it is this way. I get there (might be) a necessity to having it this way. But I also wonder — because it seems like many breakout bestsellers are so because they are the first of their kind. I think it comes back to risk-taking in publishing. It's hard to take a risk, because it means you fail in an industry where failure is already part of the business, but then you have these risk takers who are anomalies and became so because they took a risk.
I wonder how genre helps. Let's say I write a book about a vile monster but for reasons in the story, I title it IN STRONG LOVING ARMS. So it sounds like a romance. But the book is in the horror section of the store. Maybe the cover has a reptile on it. I'd think that makes it work...
Honestly though if I'm about to get published and all I have to do is agree we switch to the title KILL DIE BLOOD AX, sure, do it -- just sell a million of em that way.
This is great advice. It’s so tricky isn’t it...how much to tell the readers as they go without making it boring. Just enough to make it clear but not so clear that it’s an essay instead of a novel! I think it’s definitely possible though and just keeping that balance in mind as we edit can change it just enough. Thank you.
Thank you for that Kate. And you are so right because if the author isn't able to bring the new reader fully into the book very early on few people will be enticed to go on reading.
But this is the issue... it is all so subjective. Some narratives require, by their nature and style, a longer ramp-up. I worry sometimes that we're bringing up new generations of very impatient readers. This is not to say you should be clawing your face having to read 50 pages about meadows in bloom before you get to the first character, but, you get the drift...
Agree. Makes me think of David foster Wallace. He wanted you to work as a reader; think. No one wants to think anymore; they want their prose served on a platter of pleasure and ease.
And their bodies sculpted by pills instead of nutrition and exercise; their apples pre-sliced and individually wrapped; their essays and novels written for them; their very ideas spun up by captive spiders...
Extremely true. Thinking of readers is crucial. You nailed it with the idea that readers don’t really care until you make them care (my words). This is why getting non-emotionally-invested beta readers early on is key. I tell book editing clients all the time: Readers are disinterested people who need proof that they should care. Sounds harsh but think about how much our attention is pulled and fragmented in 2023. You gotta really hook readers in and sustain that attention. No easy feat.
Totalmente de acuerdo. Estoy en un grupo de escritura donde nos revisamos textos y nos damos criterios y siempre me sorprendo de la falta de perspectiva a la hora de pensar en el lector. Es como si la frase ¨Escribe para ti mismo¨se transformara en un mantra a recitar(o una camisa de fuerza) Más de una vez me he detenido a pensar: bueno, entiendo de donde viene esto, pero el lector no tiene tiempo de atar cabos complicados y entretenerse al mismo tiempo.
Por supuesto, esto no es sencillo de conseguir. Pero creo que una distancia prudencial entre primer borrador y revisión, y entre revisión y publicación nos garantiza una mirada más crítica hacia nuestros propios textos. A veces la adrenalina de querer postear enseguida se convierte en una trampa, y es doloroso cuando encontramos el error en una publicación ya compartida (aunque podamos editarla luego) He chocado contra ese poste varias veces jaja.
Seleccionar un buen título refleja el proceso de escritura en su totalidad. A veces aparece no más y sabes que nada va a moverlo de allí. Otras, se debe esperar hasta el final del texto para conocer cuál será o se tiene una idea vaga que hay que pulir y pulir hasta alcanzar la joya. En mi caso, estoy escribiendo mi ópera prima, una novela de cyberpunk: La Comunidad de los Exiliados y este título me vino desde el principio y sé que nada hará que le cambie una sola letra (salvo un editor entusiasmado, claro jj)
Gracias por compartir tu experiencia!
PD: escribo en español porque es mi lengua nativa y mis pensamientos fluyen mejor de esta manera, pero si es un problema, házmelo saber y lo hago en inglés, como el resto.
I would also add, "Respect your reader and their time." I'm currently editing a book for a friend. It's almost as if they are being paid by the word...and it's a thriller. You have to keep pace and not re-explain things every time it comes up (a little refresher is good if the info is in different acts, but not a few paragraphs away). Your reader is smart and is paying attention. Show them you know that. Lastly, read your book aloud before you send it to an editor (even a friend doing the job). How we speak (or read) and how we type can be very different. You will also find your repetitions and can improve the book before you send it for the edit. Also, dialogue *has* to move the story forward in some regard (not just get you over 70k), and for every darling you leave in, you must kill at least three. Please. (BTW, this is all stuff I've learned after I've published, so I have to live with what I've put out there. LOL.) xo
Absolutely: Respect readers’ time 👌
Great post. I always say that 'my readers tend to be smarter than I am' in the sense that I am writing for someone who wants an easy read, but who also wants something that has re-read potential. My biggest fans have read WBTH three times over, and the book was designed for that. So density works, provided you know your audience and get it in front of them. One of my latest short stories wasn't too popular with a scriptwriting friend, but an astrophysicist thought it was hilarious, so I think I know my audience!
I had an issue with the stakes in my upcoming novel where I felt the beginning was longwinded, but removing it made the book boring even though it brought the action forward. I realised the tension between the two worlds in the book, if written in another order, was more than enough to keep people interested. And without it, they aren't invested in the protagonist by the time the big main thing happens (not the inciting incident, but what essentially changes her life forever after it). The issue with the early drafts was that these two worlds did not feel like they were interacting, in essence turning chapter one into a drawn-out prologue. Having the characters encounter each other earlier on fixed most of these problems!
I'd disagree about not really having a choice between hardback and paperback, but I know we are coming at the issue from different angles. I know trad likes to put hardbacks out first, get customers paying more, then eventually do the paperback, but the way I do things is typically the other way round. Paperbacks for accessibility, then hardbacks with extra content somewhere down the line. If an author goes self-pub or with a small press, they have more power to choose.
I agree the title of a book is incredibly important. When I settled on WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? I wanted the book to feel like a parody of scientific and religious literature at the same time, with a sci-fi edge. I managed that. It has meant that the Guardian won't be writing a review of it any time soon, but the right people find my book and that's more important than writing a super catchy title like OMG THE ALIENS ARE IN MY TROUSERS!!! and selling it to people who will give it a lukewarm review at best.
That said, my autobiography OMG THE ALIENS ARE IN MY TROUSERS!!! is coming out in December.
I agree with all of these except I would add a couple caveats to the last one. As a reader, I like when the title has a double meaning and the second one isn't clear until after you've read the book. That "aha!" moment when you get the title's "real" meaning can be ver cool.
Also, as with a lot of book marketing today, the title shouldn't be misleading. More and more I feel like publishers are trying to trick me into buying books with titles, blurbs, and cover art that suggests a book is something trendy or popular that it's not.
For me, Gary, it's when I read an evidently bad book, and then figure out all the gushy blurbs were from the author's famous friends. Somehow, I don't think this helps publishing in the long run.
Annette, it does not help, at all. Quite the opposite. Personally I feel duped. As a reader, I prefer honest reviews (I can spot the gushy language from a mile away blindfolded). As a writer, I want review blurbs from people whose professions are relevant to the content of my book if it's non fiction, and sincere, authentic reviews if it's fiction. As a publisher, see the previous sentence :) When we published "Peasants Come Last," for example, written by a former Peace Corps Country Director, we put a blurb from a US Congressman on the cover because it was relevant and appropriate, and the message it sent resonated with the message of the book.
❤️❤️🔥
Yes! I've been working on learning to spot those reviews on Goodreads. One time I looked at a book because a writer friend of mine marked it as Want to Read pre-publication. It had ten reviews all praising it with long reviews hailing it as basically the most lyrical, sublime work of literature since literature was invented. Yet after reading all ten long glowing reviews I realized I had no idea what this magnificent work was even about!
I LOVE Kate and her newsletter, but in a recent one she said you should never leave a bad review. Published authors and agents often say that with great indignation, but I see reviews as being for readers ("think of the reader") not authors, and one reason I check Goodreads is to make sure the publisher isn't lying to me. You don't have to be cruel or get personal, but as a reader I appreciate an honest review from a fellow reader letting me know that this "mystery" ends with "We'll never know what happened that day in the woods," the "romance" has no HEA and is really about a sister dying of cancer, this fun romp through the lives of heiresses is really a serious academic study of women and property, the fake dating storyline gets resolved in a couple chapters and the book is really about the experience of American born children and their Asian immigrant parents, all of which was the case in books I read (and two of which I loved) in the past couple years. Memo to agents and publishers: Don't intentionally mislead readers and get mad about negative reviews.
Agree Gary... avoiding negative reviews only leaves us with a sargasso sea of flowers and unicorns. It's like the parent telling the child everything s/he does is great, awesome, incredible. The child ends up not learning and not being resilient or accepting of critique. I've had negative reviews, for example from readers who didn't like the literary style of one of my stories (it had almost no punctuation but that was the point!), and that's fine. I don't aim to please everyone, and I do like a range of reviews actually. It demonstrates authenticity.
Was just thinking this! The moment in A Visit from the Goon Squad where the metaphor behind the title comes into focus is still something I dream of replicating. It felt to me like a magic trick (but I loved the book from beginning to end, so maybe it didn't hit as hard for folks who enjoyed it less).
Yes on the complicated ebooks. Turns out, most readers prefer to read. Who'da thunk it?
I wrote an antiheroine, thus guaranteeing that NY bestselling authors had nothing to fear from me. In the end, though, I was rewarded by those who persisted in reading the series (and who let me know) finally getting it. Would I do it again? Not by choice. Maybe just because it's what I feel driven to write. Fortunately, I don't mind if people don't like her! :)
👌👌
Wise advice. It's sad how those enhanced books are impossible to get accepted. My friend, Nick Bantock, author of the marvellous series, Griffin and Sabine, is a visual artist as well as a writer and his creations are a magnificent blend of these two skills. His publisher nixes many of his projects even though he's, you know, famous!
That’s frustrating for him!
Thank you for the clarification on book titles. I think I have a good one, but it may be a little hokey. It's nice to know that the professionals will help out with that. I love your posts!
I'm thinking hard about your last point about title. I hear what you're saying but some of my favourite books are books where the title didn't really make sense until the end. The biggest bestseller example I can think of currently that has a title with a secret meaning, that you literally don't get until the very last sentence of the book, is It Ends With Us. The market is so oversaturated with certain types of titles because one will sell and then a bazillion titles copying that come out after. Then the titles of the books on the shelves become so boring. I get why it is this way. I get there (might be) a necessity to having it this way. But I also wonder — because it seems like many breakout bestsellers are so because they are the first of their kind. I think it comes back to risk-taking in publishing. It's hard to take a risk, because it means you fail in an industry where failure is already part of the business, but then you have these risk takers who are anomalies and became so because they took a risk.
I wonder how genre helps. Let's say I write a book about a vile monster but for reasons in the story, I title it IN STRONG LOVING ARMS. So it sounds like a romance. But the book is in the horror section of the store. Maybe the cover has a reptile on it. I'd think that makes it work...
Honestly though if I'm about to get published and all I have to do is agree we switch to the title KILL DIE BLOOD AX, sure, do it -- just sell a million of em that way.
This is great advice. It’s so tricky isn’t it...how much to tell the readers as they go without making it boring. Just enough to make it clear but not so clear that it’s an essay instead of a novel! I think it’s definitely possible though and just keeping that balance in mind as we edit can change it just enough. Thank you.
👍👌
Thank you for that Kate. And you are so right because if the author isn't able to bring the new reader fully into the book very early on few people will be enticed to go on reading.
But this is the issue... it is all so subjective. Some narratives require, by their nature and style, a longer ramp-up. I worry sometimes that we're bringing up new generations of very impatient readers. This is not to say you should be clawing your face having to read 50 pages about meadows in bloom before you get to the first character, but, you get the drift...
Agree. Makes me think of David foster Wallace. He wanted you to work as a reader; think. No one wants to think anymore; they want their prose served on a platter of pleasure and ease.
And their bodies sculpted by pills instead of nutrition and exercise; their apples pre-sliced and individually wrapped; their essays and novels written for them; their very ideas spun up by captive spiders...
Thanks! I’m working on both a memoir and a cookbook proposal right now and this was helpful.
The deeper I get into my memoir, the more I am thinking about the reader. Trying to roll out the red carpet for them as best I can!
Extremely true. Thinking of readers is crucial. You nailed it with the idea that readers don’t really care until you make them care (my words). This is why getting non-emotionally-invested beta readers early on is key. I tell book editing clients all the time: Readers are disinterested people who need proof that they should care. Sounds harsh but think about how much our attention is pulled and fragmented in 2023. You gotta really hook readers in and sustain that attention. No easy feat.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Well said Michael
👍👍
Excellent and helpful. Thank you.
Totalmente de acuerdo. Estoy en un grupo de escritura donde nos revisamos textos y nos damos criterios y siempre me sorprendo de la falta de perspectiva a la hora de pensar en el lector. Es como si la frase ¨Escribe para ti mismo¨se transformara en un mantra a recitar(o una camisa de fuerza) Más de una vez me he detenido a pensar: bueno, entiendo de donde viene esto, pero el lector no tiene tiempo de atar cabos complicados y entretenerse al mismo tiempo.
Por supuesto, esto no es sencillo de conseguir. Pero creo que una distancia prudencial entre primer borrador y revisión, y entre revisión y publicación nos garantiza una mirada más crítica hacia nuestros propios textos. A veces la adrenalina de querer postear enseguida se convierte en una trampa, y es doloroso cuando encontramos el error en una publicación ya compartida (aunque podamos editarla luego) He chocado contra ese poste varias veces jaja.
Seleccionar un buen título refleja el proceso de escritura en su totalidad. A veces aparece no más y sabes que nada va a moverlo de allí. Otras, se debe esperar hasta el final del texto para conocer cuál será o se tiene una idea vaga que hay que pulir y pulir hasta alcanzar la joya. En mi caso, estoy escribiendo mi ópera prima, una novela de cyberpunk: La Comunidad de los Exiliados y este título me vino desde el principio y sé que nada hará que le cambie una sola letra (salvo un editor entusiasmado, claro jj)
Gracias por compartir tu experiencia!
PD: escribo en español porque es mi lengua nativa y mis pensamientos fluyen mejor de esta manera, pero si es un problema, házmelo saber y lo hago en inglés, como el resto.
This was really helpful, thank you!