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University creative writing courses absolutely have their place. Plenty of people get a huge amount out of them. If that’s you, I’m genuinely pleased. Writing should be joyful, and if a university course lit that fire for you, brilliant. 

But they’re not for everyone — and they’re not for me. 

Here’s why I’ve always struggled with the university model (with all due respect to the exceptions out there): 

• They often overlook genre fiction, which is where the vast majority of readers (and many writers) live 

• They’re often run by people with slender commercial track records 

• They don’t tend to focus on the business side of writing — things like agents, submission, and marketing 

• Self-publishing is often ignored entirely 

• It’s rare to get feedback on an entire manuscript, start to finish 

• They don’t properly grapple with plot (because that’s not something you can do by workshopping a couple of chapters) 

• The focus leans more toward earning a degree than getting a damn book published 

Now, none of that makes university courses bad — it just means they have different goals. I care far more about getting a book published than I do about getting a degree. Your preferences may vary and it’s perfectly OK if they do. 

But the reason I raise this is the workshopping phenomenon. Here’s how it works: 

A university gathers together a bunch of people who care a lot about words and writing. They set a challenge: you’re going to write the kind of book that might get published by a cool literary imprint somewhere. Then, they ask Anna to read out 1– 2,000 words of her draft novel, so that Brian and Ciara and Dan and Ezzie and the rest of them can offer their thoughts. This whole process is overseen by an Author of a couple of works, often not even full novels, (whom two of the students secretly fancy) and it’s important to all of the students that they have the approbation of the Author of the two SLNs and so Brian and Ciara and all the rest of them get stuck in and try to show off how cool and literary they are as they give Anna her feedback. 

And look: there are worse things in the world. In fact, what I’ve just described is among life’s better things and loads of people who go through one of these courses will enjoy one of the most rewarding years of their life. So good. If that’s your thing, then go for it. (Though, uh, read the PSes below before you sign up for anything.) 

My reason for telling you all this? Because of the phenomenon that is the Universal Workshop Voice. It’s a thing. I’ve given classes in the past where someone reads me a snatch of their work and I can identify – immediately and accurately – that this has been through the university-style workshopping process. 

A paragraph might start out like this: 

A fly, a fat one, landed on his forearm. Ulf stared at it for a moment, then swatted it with his free hand, killing it. Leaving a fat purple stain, and nothing else. 

I don’t know if that paragraph has any merit. I just made it up now for the purpose of this email. Whether it would ever find a place in one of my books, I don’t know. Probably not. But if you ran that paragraph past Anna and Brian and the gang, it would turn into something like this: 

A fly, fat and freighted with the alien armaments of its kind, landed on his forearm. The blow, when it arrived, shocked even Ulf with its ferocity, a blow born of some dark ancestral killing field, a rapid-fire conversation between neurons that left Ulf himself a mere bystander. Where once there had been insect there was now only pulp, grapey and softly dripping. 

And I don’t even hate that. I mean: I can’t quite imagine wanting to read that book, but maybe someone would. 

Really, my concern here is that Anna’s piece, Brian’s, Ciara’s, Dan’s and Ezzie’s are all sounding pretty damn similar – and they’re sounding similar because the workshopping process exerts the same basic gravity on them all. 

And from my personal editing process, that’s not what I want at all. 

I want to sound like me. I uncover what my tastes are by just going at my manuscript, again and again, sentence by sentence, page by page. I don’t know if that produces the best book. It probably doesn't. I mean: if Hilary Mantel or Sally Rooney or Gillian Flynn were to edit one of my first draft manuscripts, presumably it would start to take on their particular genius-level shine. 

But sod em. I don’t care. This is my book not theirs, and I don’t want their tastes interfering – and I definitely don’t want the Author of two barely-novels to exert any weight at all. And Ezzie? Nice girl and all that, but she can shove off. I don’t want her tastes (or Anna-Brian-Ciara-Dan’s) anywhere near my word-choices. 

I suppose I could justify my attitude in commercial terms – agents and editors prioritise authors with a distinctive voice. Readers probably do too, if only in the sense that those books wind up more memorable. 

But that’s kind of fake. My motive isn’t really commercial; it’s just my personal version of bolshiness. I don’t want to write like Ezzie. I want to write like me. 

And the way I do it? Editing and editing and editing and editing. And yes, using my knowledge of craft to shape my decisions. But mostly working with my own taste. What sounds like me? What do I think is funny? What atmosphere feels right for this scene? Is this sentence better as 10 words or 8? Or lose it completely? 

And flies freighted with alien armaments? Yes gods. Spare me. I’m pleased the damn thing got splattered. 

Til soon, 

Harry 

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

This week, it’s Assignment Four from Debi Alper's Introduction to Self-Editing course. (It's FREE to Premium Members! And if you’re not a Premium Member, you know what to do: join us here, or buy the course as a one-off for £99 here.)

So, Debi wants you to:

• Find a short paragraph from your novel and experiment with different POV’s. If you’re working with multiple characters, ensure each voice is clearly different. Post in the forum (remember to log in first) and share which POV you’ve decided on and why. See if others agree with you.

Once you’ve submitted your manuscript – for a critique, or even to an editor – you will receive a number of responses. Amongst the most common is: “But I just didn’t like the main character.” This can be very dispiriting to hear, particularly if you’ve put enormous amounts of effort into your hero. But if somebody feels it, there’s a good chance that they’re right. 

The tricky thing, of course, is understanding what it is that makes a character likeable.  A corollary to this is “relatable”. There is a maxim that a reader must be able to “relate” to a main character; that is, put him or herself into that character’s shoes. I don’t particularly subscribe to this theory – I no more relate to Achilles in the Iliad  than I do to Dorothea in Middlemarch – but I still want to read about them. However, this is something that concerns editors and readers alike, and in order to work within the modern book market, it's absolutely something that must be considered. 

It is also the case that you want your protagonist to be human: that is, to err, to be impulsive, jealous sometimes, angry when things don’t go well. Think of Bridget Jones and her pratfalls. A character who is entirely good is simply flat, like a pious child in a Victorian children’s book. 

There are many examples of protagonists whose very weaknesses are what make us empathise with them: this is often the case in tragedy.  Othello’s jealousy is something we can understand, and in him we see it extending far beyond the usual bounds. Yet we also see someone whose jealousy we don’t understand: that is, the villain, Iago.  

What’s the difference? It’s the age-old distinction between protagonist and antagonist. They will have similar qualities: bravery, quick-wittedness perhaps, intelligence certainly. But it’s how they use those qualities which compels us either to like or to despise them. If the intelligence is used for selfish or cowardly ends, as with Iago, then we hate him; if the intelligence is blinded by love, as with Othello, then we empathise and, indeed, sympathise. 

Here are some pointers, then, to consider, when you’re crafting your likeable protagonist. 

1. Situation 

Your character can be in a position of power, or in a more relative position of weakness. It is often suggested that protagonists in positions of power are not “relatable”. Again, I don’t like this line of thought, as fiction is about exploring other worlds, including those of people who hold power. We need to be able to explore what the rich think, as well as the poor; all minds and all milieus are the realm of fiction.  

However, it’s still important to render your protagonist likeable within that role. A king can be kindly, for example, and still be a king – and through him, we can still explore what it means to be a king.  

Resist the temptation to put your character in a bad situation simply in order to engender sympathy. Writers can go too far in this direction, by loading misfortunes onto the protagonist. Keep it straightforward and remember that it’s about emotional connection: we want the protagonist to be in a better place by the end, which means psychologically, not necessarily in physical terms.  

Continue here for How I actually edit (IV) here.

Over the last couple of weeks, in celebration of our new Introduction to Self-Editing video course, I’ve spoken about how I (repeatedly and compulsively) correct my manuscript before I ever get to the holy words, THE END. 

Once I do hit those words, I’ll do multiple edits thereafter – some of them with a single, targeted purpose. Other times driven by a much more general hunt for dissatisfaction. On those hunts, I’m always looking for something I don’t love. That’s it. Anything that offends me, or niggles at me. Sand in the shoe: that kind of annoyance, both minor and impossible to ignore. 

Every writer knows that, yes, yes, you have to delete surplus words. Stephen King (a former journalist) once tossed out the idea that the final draft needs to be first draft minus 10%. 

And, OK, that’s not a horrible rule, so SK’s first drafts were probably leaner than most, because he was a professional writer before he ever became a novelist. But SK clearly doesn’t follow his own rule these days, because his work has become quite baggy. And in any case, it makes no sense to set a target for deletions. You have to let your manuscript tell you how long it wants to be. I’d guess that a majority of you need to cut more than just 10%. Cuts of 20-30% are often, often essential. We once made a bestseller by doing a hands-on edit of a manuscript that took it from 180,000+ words to about 90,000. 

There are two reasons why this whole economy drive matters. 

The first is simply that the force of a novel comes down to this equation: 

Force = Emotional power divided by the number of words. 

If the first term remains constant, then just cutting the second one will always, always improve things. 

That sounds dully mechanical, but I’m repeatedly struck by how relentless cutting delivers a kind of magic. Sticky mid-book patches in a novel can throw a somewhat glum, depressed feel over the whole damn thing. Brutal, hard cutting can just relieve that at (almost) a stroke. Two to three days spent on deletions make more of a reliable impact than any other editing intervention I can think of. The novel lifts in the water. Feels harder. Sails faster. The whole craft has more purpose. 

Cutting does that every time. Wow. 

But the other big reason I love cutting is that it exposes the gaps. If your writing is flabby and unconcentrated, you can easily fail to notice that there may be huge things you aren’t saying. You have this background sense of “this writing is possibly a little baggy,” so maybe you make some cuts to address that issue, but you don’t go far enough, so the issue nags anyway. 

But –  

Because you’ve used one paragraph instead of one sentence to get your characters out of the gym and into the taxi, and because you’ve used two sentences to describe clothing, and one to describe a coffee spillage, you think (correctly) that it’s high time you got your character to meet her partner for the Big Argument. So you rush her off to her Big Argument, but never realise all the stuff you haven’t done. Have you properly described the setting where the Big Argument takes place? Did you depict her emotions in the taxi? Did you add a hint of that past infideility which is colouring her perspective?

The best way to find gaps in your manuscript is to cut so hard that there’s no excess verbiage to cover them. Once you strip back the word count, you start to feel where the novel feels empty – lacking. So you add those things back (but rich text, not duplicative, pointless text) and your novel stays lean – but takes on whole layers of new meaning. 

This is a beautiful discipline, because the stuff you cut is always tedious – unnecessarily long ways of saying things that are often quite boring in themselves. Needless dialogue. Statements about settings that really add nothing in terms of atmosphere or feel. 

And then – you see the gaps. Kayleigh is meant to be worried about her upcoming meeting with Jon, but she’s hardly given him a thought – all that clothes description and coffee spillage got in the way. And how could she be going through all this and not be thinking about what happened to her mother under the exact same circumstances 25 years earlier? And what was it like to enter a completely empty house, its front door swinging open and water everywhere? 

The gaps you find are always more interesting than the text you removed, so the whole passage (and the whole book) just gets more layered and dense and powerful. 

If you want more on this, I talk about it in my How To Write a Novel course and, in even more depth, in our Take Your Novel From Good To Great course. Both those courses are free to Premium Members, and if you haven’t yet caught up with the relevant bits, then I’d strongly recommend that you do. If you’re not yet a PM, you can get a taster lesson for free here. Or, why not become a PM today? It’s like wearing a rainbow in your hair, but not as damp. 

That’s it from me. Last Sunday, my girls had a football tournament. And look, I love my kids, and it’s great that girls are into football now, and there’s everything to be said for community endeavour, and there was a pizza van there and almost-adequate coffee. 

But – oh sweet Lord – we started before 8.00 am. And didn’t finish until after 5.00. And I had to watch every damn game. Every damn one, both girls. And now whenever I close my eyes, I see yards and yards of blue nylon, and sunshine, and kids air-kicking balls as they rolled gently along an empty goalmouth.

I earned beer that night, and plenty of it. 

Til soon. 

Harry

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

This week, it’s Assignment Three from Debi Alper's Introduction to Self-Editing course. (It's FREE to Premium Members! And if you’re not a Premium Member, you know what to do: join us here,or buy the course as a one-off for £99 here.)

So, Debi wants you to:

• Find a paragraph from your novel that has a strong voice, check for the points mentioned in the lesson, and post it in the forum.

Last week, I talked about my micro-editing habit. This week, we expand a bit. The kind of editing I’m going to talk about here is something I also do in the course of writing the first draft, but it operates at a less micro-level.

I told you that I find it hard to make forward progress if I know that parts of the manuscript behind me are messy – and I write detective novels, whose construction is intricate. I don’t plot out my books in huge advance detail. (I might do, if I thought I could do it, but I can’t, so I don’t.)

(Oh yes, and this email is all about editing, because Assignment Two of Debi Alper's Introduction to Self-Editing course is live and online right now.)

The kind of things that might send me scurrying backwards are things like:

Character change

In one of my books, something wasn’t working – and I realised that by making a key character male, and in very male surroundings, I had lost something that I wanted. So I jumped back, and made that person a woman: a commanding, powerful, unsettling presence. That shift unlocked something for me; it opened narratives that wouldn’t have existed with a man in that same role.

That’s an example of why I think that in-draft edits can be almost essential at times. Why charge on with writing your draft if you know that you made a misstep early on? Correct that misstep and then see what you have? Yes, you lose time in making the correction, but you’re going to have to make it anyway – and by making it early, you avoid compounding your error.

Plot complications

The architecture of a complex mystery novel is at the outer end of fictional complexity. For me, a good detective novel should make perfect sense as you read it – and does, in fact, make a kind of mathematically complete sense if properly analysed – but readers should also be a bit challenged by it. Ask someone to summarise who-did-what-to-whom-and-why in, say, a Raymond Chandler novel and most readers would turn a little white.

That’s a sweet, enjoyable challenge for the reader, but for me as author, it’s kind of head-wrenching. “Oh hold on, I need a way for X to have escaped from secure confinement, but he also needs to have chosen to go back in, but he needs to have done so in a way that Y couldn’t have known about, so ….”

Those thoughts are crucial to good fiction-making and, for me, they’re ones I always deal with as they arise. Again, getting these things right are (for me) key to forward motion. If I just try to plough on knowing that there are tweaks to make behind me, it just complicates my whole onward plotting process. Solving the niggles when I see them basically removes them from my mental to-do list and makes it easier to focus on what lies ahead.

Settings

Settings are like a character in my books. If a key setting is awry, that also feels like a block to forward progress, so I’ll go and scratch away at the issue until it feels sorted.

Boring bits

And look, no first draft is ever perfect. My first drafts are pretty decent … but that’s only because they’ve been heavily revised before I even hit the final full stop. But, as I work, I’m also generally on the lookout for any material that just seems heavy, long-winded, dull, repetitive, undramatic – anything along those lines.

The reason is partly my messy-room aversion. But it’s also because a boring bit definitely tells you that there’s a problem which needs addressing – but it also often indicates a fundamental plot problem that needs sorting out.

So, let’s take the sort of example that I often run up against. We might have a situation like this:

• There’s a murder and an investigation
• Things go well for a bit, then the regular police investigation starts running into problems and looks like it’s going nowhere. (This kind of issue is basically compulsory in my kind of fiction. The only alternative is that the police are busily chasing up the wrong set of leads.)
• So there often needs to be an “oh, no, this isn’t working” bit … which can often look a bit dull, because it is frustrating to those involved.

Now that’s all fine, except that what if the boring bit is too long? Quite often, the writer – me, for example – will create something dramatic in order to break the tedium. A man with a gun. An assault. A terrible revelation. And it’s easy to think, “Oh great, off we trot again. There was a dull bit, but it was only a few pages long, and now we’re on the road again.”

And OK, that approach may be just what your book needs … but maybe 50% of the time what it really needed was you to go back and delete the boring bit. The added drama now just locks in that boring bit and sets you off on the wrong path.

In the end, any bad bit in your book is telling you that there’s an issue and you may need to delete the last 5,000 words, say, to get back to the last bit where you felt truly settled. Plot is a sequence of stones laid one upon the other. If you sense a wobble, go back to the wobble. Sort it out. Then start building again.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

This week, it’s Assignment Two from Debi’s Introduction to Self-Editing course. (Free to Premium Members. And if you’re not a Premium Member, then don’t be a Hufflepuff – slither in to membership here or buy the course as a one-off for £99 here.)

So, Debi wants you to:

• Find a paragraph from your novel that focuses on one of your characters and post it in the forum.
• Check for the points mentioned in this lesson, and don’t forget to offer feedback to others.

Til soon.

Harry

You’ve completed a draft of a novel? Congratulations! That’s a huge achievement and one you should celebrate. But now the hard work starts because the first draft of anything is crap.

We all work in different ways but fiddling with every word you write in a first draft can kill your creativity. If you invest too much time in perfecting your prose early on, you may find it harder to murder those carefully crafted darlings when you come to edit and realise that whole scene serves no purpose.

But a first draft is also perfect simply because it exists, and now you have something to work on. Exciting, right?

Here are my six tips for the self-editing process - all of which I cover in more detail on my Introduction to Self-Editing Your Novel video course, which is free to Premium Members.

1. Start with the big picture and ask yourself some searching questions

• What is this book?
• Where will it sit in bookshops? Is it crime, fantasy, romance? Literary or commercial?
• Who are your target readers? What are you offering them that is different from every other novel in that genre?

Now zoom into the specifics of your book... 

• Title
• Elevator pitch and blurb
• Synopsis.

These things help you to define the identity of your novel – and everything in the draft should expand from that central identity. A synopsis is particularly useful for establishing the spine of your story, the pivots and the turning points – as well as highlighting any sub-plots and diversions you may decide to get rid of. 

2. Look at the structure

Where does your story start?

If the first line of your synopsis refers to something that happens three or four chapters into your draft, that’s probably a sign you have started your story too early and have written your way in. Don’t panic! Nothing is ever wasted in creative writing. Those chapters were there because you, the author, needed them – but the reader doesn’t, so they have to go.

It’s also possible to start your story too late, e.g., when you’re desperate to grab the reader’s attention on the first page - so the story starts with a bang but then the next chapter moves to backstory. The first chapter promises something which then isn’t fulfilled. In this case, it might be better to start the story earlier in time.

Where does it end?

Somewhere close to the end, there should be a peak to your narrative arc: the point where everything is at its most endangered, when everything could be won or lost, and the stakes are at their highest.

After that, the resolution has to be credible as a believable result of everything we’ve seen so far. It also needs to satisfy your target readers. If you’re writing crime, fans of the genre will expect the bad guys to be held to account at the end. In romance, fans want the happy couple to be together on the last page, having overcome all the obstacles you gave them to handle. But resist the temptation to tie up every thread too neatly. Allow readers to imagine that your characters carry on living after the story ends.

How do you get from the beginning to the end?

Are you writing in a linear, chronological timeline? This works well because things happen to the characters at the same time as the reader experiences them, giving us the best chance to relate to your main characters.

If you’re not showing the action chronologically (e.g., using parallel timelines, or a circular structure) make sure the reader always knows where they are in the timeline and how one scene fits in with the ones we’ve seen before.

Between the beginning and end of your novel, your plot should be a series of peaks and troughs. After any intense action, the characters – and the readers – need a chance to draw breath before they have to deal with a new obstacle. Think in terms of cause and effect, action and consequence, fortunately/unfortunately.

3. Identify the narrative drive

Every scene has to push your story forward in some way or another. Look at each scene, or unit of action, and identify the narrative triangle by writing the following in three sentences:

• Where you start
• What happens
• Where you end up.

If both the plot and the characters are in the same place at the end of the scene as they were at the beginning, that’s a sign the pace has stalled and that scene is not earning its keep.

Hello again! Welcome back to my series of insights into what it is like to work through the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month two equals Point of View. An important moment in all writers’ lives: with our fingers pausing above the keyboard, our characters’ voices in our mind’s ear, we have to choose how to represent them on the page. Will the character be an ‘I’, a ‘he’ or a ‘she’? Maybe they’ll even be a ‘you’.  

More decisions: who is the narrator? You - the author, or a character? And how far from the story do they stand as they relate your tale? Are they in the present moment, or in the future describing the past, or even in the past or present describing the future? 

It’s true, Point of View is a technical decision, and a defining one. As my tutor, Andrew Miller, says, it can feel a bit ‘under the bonnet’. I liken it to the moment a builder digs foundations, setting the exact footprint and structure of the house. It can be altered if later you decide to change things… but it’ll cost you. Best to be secure in your choice of how many rooms and floor-levels before the concrete footings get poured. 

I’ve been paying close attention to the tutorials and reading material, figuring out how my two main characters are turning up on the page and trying out different options. Instead of first person, how do they sound in third person close? The effort is paying dividends. I’ve decided to stick with my first instinct – a character narrator in first person peripheral, telling the story of the other character in third person close. Now that I have learned the techniques, listened to the lectures on pros vs cons, I’m able to append my “Err, because I want to” gut feeling with considered justification. And that, my friends, has definitely helped my confidence.  

Confidence is important in this strange and sublime world of conjuring beauty through words on a page. In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard suggests painting, unlike writing, pleases the senses while you do it. Indeed! When I am adrift, suffering doubt and imposter syndrome, I have often thought how lucky painters are. What relief it would be to back up one step and see all of it – the whole novel, its brilliance and its weaknesses – and know immediately how to improve it. Reading Annie’s words made me think of the often quoted, “writing is easy, you just sit at the typewriter and bleed”. Whoever it was that actually said this (Quote Investigator steers us away from it being the great Hemingway) I reckon I know the feeling.  

What’s this got to do with Point of View month? Well, I find I am able to push my imposter syndrome demon a little further away every time I improve my technical skills. Gaining a sense of accomplishment - of capability - when it comes to the methodical building blocks of writing gives me solid foundations on which I may play and push my limits. Practicing writing in each point of view means I can demonstrate the benefits of one versus another to myself – and it’s a reminder that this is a key aspect of being a writer I will always have control over: working on my skills. 

Annie Dillard also quotes an unnamed, well-known writer who is asked by a university student, “Do you think I could be a writer?” 

“Well,” the well-known writer said, “I don’t know… Do you like sentences?” 

I do. Sentences and words. This is the level I like to play in, where I feel happiest. This is why month two of the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, in all its technical, structural glory, has been fun. There’s been lots and lots of fascinating insights from the tutors, many excellent exchanges between fellow students and access to a huge well of writing masterclasses. 

Imposter syndrome nerves still lie ahead of me on my road to publication – the thought of trying to sell my writerly wares to the publishing gatekeepers gives me regular heebie-jeebies. But that’s a story for another month – in fact it’ll be the last third or so of the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme’s year when I’ll get expert schooling in the art of confidently querying literary agents.  

For now, from my point of view (written in first person central, present tense, with a sprinkling of second person) it is becoming very clear that structure, support and plenty of hand holding is the Ultimate way. 

I hope you’ll pop by next month when the topic will be ‘Setting’.  

Happy writing, all! 

Rachel

Rachel Davidson is a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers prior to joining our Writer Support Team, Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada and is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

If I can win a writing competition, then you can too.

I received notification that I was in the Friday Night Live (but on Saturday) Final at London Festival of Writing on 21 June 2024. I was visiting Italica, an ancient Roman city just north of Seville in Spain, when the email landed. Later that evening, as the sun dipped towards the horizon, I was perched on a golden beach in Algorrobo Costa watching successions of waves fold over before spilling onto the shore. In my journal – it goes everywhere with me – I wrote:

“Friday Night Live (FNL) – I’m one of the lucky eight. How did that happen?”

            Back in 2022, I entered First 500, Jericho’s online competition, with a much less polished opening of my novel. That piece was Highly Commended, though not in the final. But it was encouraging. Much writing time passed.

I completed Jericho’s Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (UNWP) in Spring 2024. And signed up for my first ever Festival of Writing (LFOW). I drafted my historical novel, MANUMISSION*, during the course. I remember preparing my First 500 words carefully before entering FNL. After all, every writer knows their opening page is vital to hook readers with a clear setting and atmosphere, questions raised, and most importantly, a character that readers can invest in. I entered FNL without expectations. For me, it’s easier to set expectations low, rather than be disappointed I didn’t win.

London Festival of Writing 2024 was a fantastic experience. On the day of the Grand Final, I immersed myself in fantastic workshops, learning so much my brain was fit to explode with new ideas. I revealed my horrid imposter syndrome to fellow writers only to discover this is totally normal and affects many creative people. At one point, I took myself off to practice my piece. I read it aloud, slowed the pace, and really thought about what the words meant to me.

The competition took place before the gala dinner. The room was enormous, set for a banquet, and full of people. Finalists were called to the stage in turn to read their work. There’s a special magic forged when a writer’s words fall into the space between them and their audience. After reading, literary agents on the panel gave each finalist generous feedback. Many of us received full manuscript requests. Amazing!

When MANUMISSION won, Debi Alper congratulated me and told me to remember to breathe, the best advice. I’m still grateful and astonished that fellow writers voted for my work. That was the first time I read to a live audience in the room, although I have previously read at online events. Nerves on the day were alleviated by my amazing writing group. Thank you, gang! We were all mentored by Dr Anna Vaught on the UNWC. Friends for life now. We cheer each other on.

Being a FNL winner is an incredible honour, but it also has practical benefits. Two literary agents wish to see my novel when it is ready. I’ve used the prize to help me grapple with tricky structural and line edits. I’m currently on the fourth editing round. My novel is creeping closer to becoming the book I first envisioned.

If you are going to the next LFOW (and you should go – it’s a transformative experience), you are eligible to enter FNL. Believe in your story, hone your opening page, and share it with trusted readers for valuable constructive feedback. Then work on it, and work on it some more. And enter the competition.

I wish you GOOD LUCK!

Kate Sheehan-Finn

*A bit about my book:

At the heart of MANUMISSION, a historical epic set in the second century AD ancient Roman Empire, is an overarching question: who is Barates of Palmyra? This question arose when I first read the bilingual inscription that Syrian Barates commissioned to commemorate his Romano-British wife and freed slave, Regina of the Catuvellauni. The memorial was set up in Arbeia, South Shields, near Newcastle Upon Tyne, in Northeast England. So, what was a Syrian man doing in Britain more than 1800 years ago? MANUMISSION jumps into the gaping holes in the historical and archaeological record to recreate Barates’ adventures.

We’ve all read sentences that made us pause; not because the words moved us profoundly, but because they didn’t sit right. Recently, I read a mystery novel that stereotyped all Hindus as being vegetarian, stating that their homes smelled of garlic and spices. Being a Hindu myself, this didn’t resonate well. I eat most things and I’d like to the think the Coastal Breeze and Wild Rhubarb diffusers I’ve scattered around my home make it smell heavenly! Stereotypes like these are based on assumptions, give readers false impressions and beliefs, and don’t reflect people’s individuality or full humanity.

Whether you’re writing a heart-racing historical romance book, a moving memoir, a corporate blog post or a non-fiction book about the Empire, readers want authenticity. People want to see themselves, their culture, their identity and their experience reflected accurately. Editing with empathy is a responsible way to ensure writing is accurate and respectful across all genres.

What is Authenticity Editing?

It reviews the way marginalised groups, identities, cultures and experiences are portrayed in creative work (e.g. book, script, game, movie, marketing, adverts), and is usually done when creators are exploring unfamiliar topics. For example, if a character has autism and the writer has no experience of this, they can work with an authenticity expert who has autism to accurately represent it.

Authenticity editing uncovers unconscious bias, stereotypes, offensive content, clichés and inaccurate facts that writers unintentionally include.

Why does it matter?

Everyone has the creative freedom to write what they want. You don’t have to follow Mark Twain’s famous piece of writing advice and ‘write what you know’ to avoid being criticised; instead, ‘write what you don’t know’ but do it responsibly and respectfully.

Writers might thoroughly research resources to understand the unfamiliar, but even the well-intentioned writer can get things wrong – a shame when so much time and emotional investment is poured into writing.

Authenticity editing fills writers’ knowledge-gaps and strengthens their work with lived perspectives, ensuring that the language is used contextually, carefully and responsibly to minimise misrepresentation and harmful depictions.

Is Authenticity Editing a form of ‘book policing’?!

Authenticity editing doesn’t have the power to censor books  – the publishing house makes final publication decisions. If representation is poor or harmful, readers might leave negative reviews, critics call out writers on social media or publishers might cancel contracts, leading to reputational risk. Authenticity editing can help writers avoid mistakes that lead to outcry before publishing.

Authenticity Editing matters in every genre

Many people think that authenticity editing is only used to assess race and cultures, but many topics are reviewed which most genres will explore:

• Social identities such as race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, spirituality and religion, disability, body size, socioeconomic status and neurodiversity.
• First-hand experiences that are difficult to portray without experiencing them, e.g. being a carer, fostering or adoption, homelessness, medical conditions, e.g. brain trauma.
• Specialist professional knowledge, e.g. armed forces, healthcare or medical sectors, the police and lawyers, need to be portrayed convincingly.

4 tips for editing with empathy

1. Be curious

When you come across anything that’s outside your knowledge and experience, don’t assume or judge - ask questions. Is the portrayal based on stereotypes or clichés? Is your source of research credible and trusted? Instead of basing things on assumptions from Google searches, reach out to specific communities to explore what they say about being represented. What does their lived experience reveal?

Ever been to a bookstore and wondered what all the little images on the book spines mean? All those H's, penguins and sowers lining the shelves? Well, they are the logos of the publishing companies who have published that book.

Take a look at the rows of books in any bookstore and you will most probably be looking at the emblems for the Big 5 publishers and their many imprints, as well as a smattering of independent (indie) publishers.

With so many amazing publishing houses out there, the perfect home for you book may well be out there, but how do you know where to look, and who are the most reputable?

In this article we will be looking at the very best book publishers, how publishing companies work, and how to get published by a traditional publishing house.

The publishing industry can be a little tricky to understand, but by the end of this article you will be armed with all the knowledge you need when it comes to choosing the best book publishing companies for your work.

How Do You Search For A Publisher?

Finding a book publisher can be hard, especially if you're hoping to be traditionally published by some of the top publishers in the business. Where do you begin, and what information is important for you to know before you start submitting your manuscript to some of the largest book publishers? Is there anything to be said for self publishing, and what types of publishing should you avoid?

Do I Need A Literary Agent?

Yes, you will most likely need to be represented by a literary agent before you (via your agent) can start submitting to bigger traditional publishers. Nevertheless, there’s no harm in window shopping; it might even provide you with a focal point if you are still working on getting an agent.

For more information on how to find a literary agent, read more here.

Where To Start

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the number of book publishers out there, I’ll be listing the top five biggest publishing houses, some of the best educational publishers and those who publish children’s books, as well as some of my personal favourite independent book publishers.

Read on to discover the very best publishers, covering all book genres across the globe.

The Big Five Book Publishers

While aiming high can be daunting to some authors, literary agents will often wish to submit your manuscript to the top publishing companies first. After all, not only do they have the most power and influence, but they also know what they're doing - most of them have been publishing books for over a hundred years!

Who Are The Big Five?

The biggest and most successful traditional publishers in the world are often referred to as 'The Big Five'. So I will be starting with them.

These are the five powerhouse trade publishing houses which are most well known and widely recognised. Within them you will find many other recognised imprints (publishing houses owned by them) whose logos appear on the spine on the book.

Let’s take a look at them in more detail.

Simon & Schuster

Simon & Schuster is where we begin our big five journey, as this publishing company holds an annual revenue of $830 million. They have over 35 imprints, including notable ones such as Howard Books, Scribner, and Touchstone, and they release over 2,000 books a year! Some of their biggest titles as of late are Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat and The Institute by Stephen King.

Founded in 1924, Simon & Schuster remains a prominent publisher today, publishing a variety of genres along with big names such as renown authors F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jodi Picoult and Philippa Gregory.

They also offer many opportunities for those wanting to pursue a career in publishing and are one of the biggest names in the industry to work.

HarperCollins

With an annual revenue of $1.5 billion, HarperCollins has no shortage of good books and authors.

Their notable imprints include Avon Romance, Harlequin Enterprises, Harper, and William Morrow, and their titles range broadly. Some of the top books as of late are Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis and The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin.

Authors published originally by Harper include Mark Twain, the Brontë sisters, H. G. Wells and Agatha Christie. A book deal from this giant will most certainly help with book sales!

With over 100 imprints, this publishing powerhouse also offers a great opportunity to learn about the industry from the best. 

Macmillan Publishers

Established in 1843, Macmillan Publishers is still going strong.

With $1.4 billion in annual revenue, there are many publishing routes and imprints available through them, namely Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Picador, St Martin's Press, and Thomas Dunne Books.

Some of their biggest titles from the recent past that you may have heard of include The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah and Me by Elton John.

With an eclectic list of authors under its belt (from W B Yeats to Leigh Bardugo), and a global market with countless possible genres to publish under, you’d be wise to consider them an ideal place for your book to end up. 

Penguin Random House

Everyone recognises that little penguin on book spines in bookstores, and everyone is familiar with the orange Penguin Classics books, but what else do you know about this iconic publisher?

With over 15,000 books published a year, not only is Penguin Random House one of the top five, it may well be the top of the top five.

Their annual revenue exceeds $3.3 billion, and they have countless notable imprints such as Knopf Doubleday, Crown Publishing, and Viking Press. They also have many famous authors under their wing, including books like The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, and The Guardians by John Grisham.

As of 2021, Penguin Random House employs approximately 10,000 people globally and has published 15,000 titles annually under its 250 divisions and imprints.

Hachette Livre

Looking for a European based publisher with more published books a year than Penguin? Then take a look at the Hachette book group.

Hachette Livre has an annual revenue of $2.7 billion and nearly 200 imprints. Some of these include Grand Central Publishing, Little, Brown and Company, Headline, and Mulholland Books.

Their biggest titles in the recent past include Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell and Little Weirds by Jenny Slate. they have also published names such as James Patterson, Martina Cole, Donna Tartt, and Celeste Ng.

Growing steadily since their merger in 1992, Hachette Livre has a lot to offer both you and your book.

Best Educational Book Publishers

Looking for a reliable and quality educational book publisher, or someone who specialises in nonfiction titles?

This can be more difficult than you think, but thankfully I’m here to shorten the list for you. These publishers are looking specifically for educational books, quality hardback textbooks and the like.

This won't be helpful if you're looking to get your fictional manuscript published, but if it's educational materials you write, then read on!

Bertelsmann Education Group

Bertelsmann is a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world. The online education and service offerings are primarily in the healthcare and technology sectors, as well as in higher education. With an annual revenue of around $300 million, this group has no shortage of educational texts, resources, and reliable online connections.

Scholastic

I can’t recall how many Scholastic book fairs I went to as a child. Perhaps you went to some as well, given that Scholastic is both an educational publisher and a popular children’s publisher.

Their book sales are always consistent and their annual revenue is roughly $1.7 billion. Their notable imprints include Arthur A. Levine, Klutz Press, and Orchard Books. While their educational books are extremely popular for grades K-12, their YA fiction remains the most popular (no doubt you’ve heard of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, right?).

Pearson Education

Have you ever used DuoLingo for your language learning needs? Did you know that Pearson Education has recently partnered with them?

There’s a lot of other notable mentions surrounding Pearson, such as their annual revenue of $1 billion, and their well-known imprints (Adobe Press, Heinemann, Prentice Hall, Wharton Publishing). Their most popular publications are always subject textbooks for higher education, and for good reason.

McGraw-Hill Education

One of the largest publishers in American education is Mcgraw-Hill. Their annual revenue often exceeds $1.7 billion, and they are well known for their many editions of test prep books (SAT and ACT) and elementary school math textbooks.

Their most notable imprints include Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, Macmillan/McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill Higher Education, no doubt familiar to you if you’ve been involved in any American education system.

Wiley

While Wiley has a lot to offer in terms of non-educational publishing, their For Dummies series of educational books is one of their top sellers.

With an annual revenue of $1.7 billion, their various instructional titles are big hits in the publishing world. Their most notable imprints include Bloomberg Press, Capstone, Hungry Minds, and Wiley-Blackwell, and they continue to publish a large variety of titles, both educational and otherwise.

Cengage Learning

Publishing both hard cover print books and maintaining a dedicated digital library can be difficult, but Cengage learning can do it all.

From imprints that publish specifically for grades K-12 as well as books for higher education learning, Cengage is a wonderful publisher to consider. Cengage is also the owner of the National Geographic Education division, made to bring excitement to classrooms worldwide.

With an annual revenue of $1.7 billion, it’s safe to say that this publisher is one of the educational publishing powerhouses.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

You may have already heard of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, or HMH for short.

This publisher specializes in different disciplines including business and economics, biography and memoirs, children’s books, cookbooks, health and wellness, and more. They make more than $1.4 billion annually, with many notable imprints: Clarion, Graphia, John Joseph Adams Books, and Sandpiper among them.

Their largest and most recent titles include elementary school textbooks in all subjects, as well as cookbooks.

Best Children’s Book Publishers

Some of the top selling books published today are for children or young adults. However, writing and publishing for children and young adults can be a lot harder than you would think!

Although young adult novels have really flown off the shelves in the last twenty years, and often offer the most variety in terms of diversity, content and audience, young adult fiction, middle grade fiction and picture books still remain one of the most competitive markets in the publishing world.

Here are some of the best choices for children’s book publishing today, and how you can reach out to them (via your literary agent, of course).

Bloomsbury

With offices around the world and prominent publishing houses in both the US and the UK, Bloomsbury Books is a top contender for children’s book publishing (they also publish a vast array of nonfiction books including political nonfiction).

Established in 1986, Bloomsbury has many popular children’s book authors across every age group. With an annual revenue of $150 million, Bloomsbury USA Books for Young Readers was established in 2002. Their YA fiction has grown increasingly popular, their authors often topping the New York Times Bestseller list.

If they're good enough for the likes of J K Rowling, Sarah J Maas, and Samantha Shannon, then I'm sure your book will be more than happy in this home.

Ladybird Books

It's impossible for anyone over the age of thirty to not have fond memories of their first Ladybird hardback book as a child. Who doesn't remember their favourite fairytales presented in that iconic little book with a plump ladybird on the cover?

UK-based and another division of the Penguin Group, Ladybird books is perfect if you’ve got a bedtime story to tell. Their lineup of children’s books is primarily geared toward younger audiences, from toddlers to roughly age ten. They have many award winning series published under their name, including many Peppa Pig books, as well as an educational division with their famous Peter and Jane reading guides and other titles where they have teamed up with names such as BBC Earth.

Their annual revenue is roughly $17 million.

Chronicle Books

San Francisco-based favourite Chronicle Books, with a $10 million revenue, has a wonderful eye for the unique and aesthetic storyteller.

Their children’s books are beloved and unique, and this small independent publisher receives more than 1,000 submissions a month for their young adult department alone! They publish most type of children’s books including activity books, art books, board books, picture books, chapter books, middle grade, games, and gift and stationery items.

Hogs Back Books

Hogs Back Books publishes fiction books aimed at children up to 10, as well as early readers for children up to 14, and teenage fiction.

Amongst its most notable titles, Boris the Boastful Frog was recommended by The Telegraph in 2013 as one of the best books of the year for young children. They are a small family-owned and independent publisher, and the small selection that they choose to publish is beautiful and heartfelt.

Arbordale Publishing

With just about $1 million in annual income, Arbordale Publishing isn’t the largest in US children’s publishing. However, their books are aligned to Common Core, Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as well as state education standards.

Arbordale books are vetted by experts and professionals from a variety of organizations including NASA, JPL, Project Learning Tree, USFWS, SeaWorld, the Cherokee Nation and others. They publish an average of 20 books per year.

Immedium

Based in San Francisco, CA, Immedium is influenced by an increasingly diverse world. While they are a small company and make an average of $150k in annual revenue, they have wonderful illustrations and ideas for children’s books. 

Immedium publishes subjects range from eye-catching children’s books to contemporary non-fiction, including commentaries on art, popular culture, and multicultural issues.

Kids Can Press

Kids Can Press is a Canadian-owned publisher of children’s books, with a list of over 500 picture books, non-fiction and fiction titles for toddlers to young adults and an estimated annual revenue of over $10 million. 

The Kids Can Press list includes characters such as Franklin the Turtle—the single most successful publishing franchise in the history of Canadian publishing, which has sold over 65 million books in over 30 languages around the world.

Quirk Books

Looking for a smaller publishing agency for your unique and captivating children’s book?

Publishing only around 25 books a year, Quirk Books is based in Philadelphia and is searching for the most original, cool, and fun ideas out there. Is your book creative enough for Quirk? It’s one of my favourite publishing companies, having taken the helm on series such as the Miss Peregrine anthology by Ransom Riggs, which has won many literary awards.

August House Publishers

A more traditional publishing company, August House Publishers are seeking children’s book authors committed to folktales, diverse and memorable. They enjoy stories from many diverse backgrounds, as well as stories that work well as oral tales, stories meant to be passed on from generation to generation. They also have a soft spot for scary stories and stories that can be used in a classroom environment.

With an annual revenue of roughly $10 million, they produce beautiful children’s books.

ABDO Publishing

With almost $50 million a year in revenue ABDO is a formidable children’s book publisher.

Based in Edina, Minnesota, this family-owned book publishing company specializes in non-fiction books for the school library market. From engaging nonfiction to illustrated titles, ABDO has both educational and fantastical book titles for children of all ages.

Best Independent Book Publishers

Are you looking for a smaller company to publish your book? This is a better option if you are still seeking a traditional publishing company, but want to work with them directly

There are many benefits of working with an independent book publishing company. Smaller companies often accept unsolicited submissions (ie you don't need to have a literary agent and can approach them yourself), especially if the submission is more unique and experimental in nature.

Plus, independent publishers often offer a more hands-on approach for new and inexperienced authors. the downside is that their budgets and reach may not be as large as that of the big five, so you are less likely to get an astronomical advance or become an international bestseller. But it's not impossible!

Let’s check out some of the best in the business...

Autumn House Press

Autumn House Press is an independent, non-profit literary publishing company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that was founded in 1998. They began as a publishing company strictly for poetry, but they have since expanded to include fiction and nonfiction.

Autumn House Press’s especially notable titles include Anxious Attachments by Beth Alvarado and Not Dead Yet and Other Stories by Hadley Moore.

Tupelo Press

Tupelo Press is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1999. It produced its first titles in 2001, publishing poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Tupelo Press publishes the winners of its national poetry competitions, as well as manuscripts accepted through general submission. Awards given by Tupelo Press include the Dorset Prize, the Berkshire Prize for a First or Second Book of Poetry, and the Snowbound Series Chapbook Award. They have a lot to offer as an independent book publisher.

Influx Press

Hackney-based London independent publisher, Influx Press, was founded in 2011. They focus on site-specific literature closely linked to precise places across the UK and beyond.

They have printed unique books such as How Pale the Winter Has Made Us by Adam Scovell and A Door Behind a Door by Yelena Moskovich.

Fledgling Press

Fledgling is an exciting and innovative publisher founded in Edingburgh, Scotland. Their focus is primarily on Scottish talent, but they still consider writers from other parts of the world.

Founded in 2000, Fledgling Press have have launched the writing careers of award winning authors including Helen Grant, Philip Caveney and Alex Nye.

Graywolf Press

Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They publish fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Graywolf Press currently publishes about 27 books a year, including the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize winner, the recipient of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, and several translations supported by the Lannan Foundation. Their published work is bold and award winning.

New Directions

New Directions was founded in 1936 and they publish about 30 new titles a year. They publish anything regarding literary fiction, poetry, memoir, nonfiction, and their annual revenue is roughly $1 million per year.

It was the first American publisher of authors including Henry Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, and Jorge Luis Borges, among others.

Tin House Books

Publisher of award-winning books of literary fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; home to a renowned workshop and seminar series; and partner of a critically acclaimed podcast, Tin House champions writing that is artful, dynamic, and original.

While they only publish about two dozen books per year, they are all astounding, and you can learn more about their small operation here.

Europa Editions

Europa Editions is an independent trade publisher based in New York. The company was founded in 2005 by the owners of the Italian press Edizioni E/O and specializes in literary fiction, mysteries, and narrative non-fiction. They have a few imprints, namely Tonga Books, and a series for mysteries known as Europa World Noir.

City Lights Publishers

Known for publishing Howl and other poems by Allen Ginsberg, City Lights Publishers is a great independent publishing option. Founded in 1955, with nearly 300 books in print, City Lights publishes cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues.

For over fifty years, City Lights has been a champion of progressive thinking, fighting against the forces of conservatism and censorship.

Forest Avenue Press

Forest Avenue Press, founded in 2012 in Portland, Oregon, publishes literary fiction on a joyride and the occasional memoir. While they are currently a small-scale operation, they are growing in popularity in the Pacific Northwest.

And That's Not All Of Them...

And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the best publishers to consider! The best thing to do, when looking at what publisher to approach or consider, is to look at the books you love or that are most similar to your own and look at who publishes them.

You may well be surprised, and they may well not even be on this list (which doesn't make them any less fabulous).

A Publisher For Every Writer

Writing a book and finishing it is a huge achievement in itself. Choosing whether to self-publish, look for an agent, or approach indie publishing houses yourself is the next step..and a large one.

So take your time and choose your route to publication wisely. While I hope you found a few excellent book publishers to consider from this list, do keep in mind that there are many more that are worth your consideration. And however you choose to get your book out into the world (and all options come with a list of pros and cons) they all ultimately all lead to the same thing - holding your book in your hand one day and having others enjoy your words.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Are The Big 5 In Publishing?

• The big five publishers in the world are:
• Harper Collins
• Simon & Schuster
• Macmillan
• Hachette
• Penguin Random House

These five publishers make up over 90% of hardback book sales in the US and over 80% of paperbacks sold.

What Is The Most Prestigious Book Publisher?

In terms of the most established book publisher, Cambridge University Press, dating back to 1534. But in terms of revenue, iPenguin Random House generated revenues of 3.8 billion euros in 2020, up from 3.63 in the previous year.

Which Publisher Is Best For First Time Authors?

The best thing a first time author can do is find a great literary agent that specialises in whatever genre they write. Through that agent they will then have access to the very best publishers. Without an agent, you can't get near the Big 5!

How Do You Pick A Publisher?

To have access to the top publishers you need a literary agent, and they will know who to approach. But if you want to approach smaller publishers without an agent, or just curious as to who you'd like publishing your book, then simply take a look at books that are similar to the one you have written and see who publishes them.

Indie and traditional
Basic | Intermediate | Advanced

Launching a book is the most exciting moment in an author’s journey, but it’s also the scariest. You only really appreciate the sheer scale of the competition facing you when you’re getting ready to launch your book into the world.

And launch is confusing too. There are so many strategies out there, but which one is right for you? You can easily feel that you have to do everything – which is impossible – so you end up feeling like a failure before you even start.

So let’s make things clear and simple. We’re going to show you four strategies for how to plan a book launch. They are:

• New author (first book launch)
• Intermediate author (third book launch)
• Advanced author (tenth book launch, let’s say)
• Traditionally published author

Obviously, these strategies are guidelines only. If you have specific assets (a well-listened to podcast, for example), then you’re going to make use of them in cross-promoting, no matter where you are in your publishing journey.

Likewise, you have skills and preferences and those need to play a part too. If you just hate tech, you probably aren’t going to get heavily involved in advertising. If you’re great on social media, you’re going to want to be active there. And so on.

In short, what follows is a set of guidelines for you to adapt around who you are. If you don’t follow one exact recipe in what follows, that’s not you being dumb. That’s you intelligently adapting an approach around your specific needs.

Oh, and yes, I know you want to plunge straight in here, but don’t.

The single thing which will most determine the success or failure of your book is the quality of your preparation.

If you’re so impatient to get to launch that you’ve rushed your cover, or your text, or any of the other essentials, you’ll simply be leaving a big fat heap of money on the table for someone else to pick up.

Think of launch as a bucket where you are trying to scoop up as many readers, fans, sales and reviews as possible. If you don’t make damn sure that bucket is sealed and watertight before you start, you are going to leak readers like crazy. You can work like seven devils and still not be rewarded for all your effort.

So before we get to your launch plans, we’re going to run you through a checklist. If you’re solid on all those bullet points, then please proceed to launch. If you’re wobbly on some of the checklist items, then fix those things before doing anything else.

Preparation: it’s boring, but it matters.

Your Book Launch Checklist

So you have an upcoming book, and you feel ready to launch it into the world. Here’s your checklist, organised in rough order of priority.

The Essentials

This first set of bullets are things that you just can’t compromise on. Yes, you can theoretically publish a book if you haven’t done these things, but you can’t do it well. So for a successful book launch, don’t skimp.

• Completed text.
• Professional editorial review. I’ve put this in italics, just because Jericho Writers offers a very high quality editorial service and we have an obvious interest in boosting editorial services. But I’ve been a pro author for twenty years, and I’ve never once launched a book without a third party editorial review. And you know what? My books have always got better. So: yes, I’m biased. And yes, editorial help makes a difference.
• Copy editing / proofreading. Same thing here. You will need help with copyediting, unless you want your book to go out into the world strewn with errors. We also offer copyediting help but honestly? This is an area where you can save money. If you’re friends with an English teacher, or librarian, or anyone else you trust to read a text very closely and pick up errors, then go with that. You DO need a second set of eyes to review your text. You SHOULD save money here if you can. A few errors won’t hurt anyone.
• Quality cover. Don’t skimp. Get this right. If you only 95% like the design you have, then go on until you’re at 100%. The first cover you ever make will be the most expensive, because that’s where you’re evolving the strategy for the entire series. Once you have the basic template, your future covers will be easy. But get this right.
• Amazon book description. Get this right.
• Categories and keywords. Get this right: an hour or two’s work upfront will pay dividends for literally years to come.
• Front matter. This is the “Look Inside” portion of your e-book. This is where you convert the curious browser into the brand-new reader. So make sure that the front part of your e-book helps that conversion process. You need to be clear about what your book is, and why someone should read it.
• End matter. This is so crucial. The platform for all your future launches is the readers you collect from this one. And the place to collect those readers? Is right after they’ve finished your book and are still in a state of focused excitement about it. In particular, the back of your book is the place where you need to (A) offer a free download and (B) solicit reviews.
• Free download offer. You need to offer your core readers a freebie. The basic offer is, “Hey, do you want a free story / video explainer / set of cheat sheets / anything else?” Not all readers will engage with that offer, but your best readers WILL engage … and you’ll get their email address … and that email list will form the basis of everything else you do.
• Email collection system. You can’t just offer people a free story (or other incentive). You also have to deliver it. That is going to mean you have an author website with the right technology on it, or you are going to use a third party service (like the ever-excellent Bookfunnel) to collect the email address and deliver the book.
• Email service provider. You need to be signed up with a Mailchimp or ConvertKit, or some similar company. Those guys are going to collect emails for you, automate emails, send emails, and everything else.

If you need more than that (and you probably do), we have an exceptionally good self-publishing course. Led by indie publishing expert Debbie Young, Simply Self-Publish will teach you everything you need to know. Students end up with a personalised strategy for self-publishing that takes in everything from editing, typesetting and getting a cover designed to creating a website and marketing plan.

Not quite ready for a tutored course? You can access our full range of resources, regular live events, masterclasses and self-paced video courses by joining Jericho Writers as a Premium Member. Premium Members also get 10% off many of our courses and services. We'd love to welcome you to the club!

The Nice-To-Haves

What follows are things that you may well already have in place, or think you absolutely need. Advanced authors are likely to tick every one of these boxes. For newer authors – well, you can’t do absolutely everything all in a single go. So don’t panic.

• Facebook author page. You need to make sure that your profile picture is 100% consistent with your book cover visuals. You need to add content at least weekly and – this is the important bit – that your content is very narrowly focused on your ideal reader. So if you are writing non-fiction about training dogs, then your Facebook page should be very narrowly focused on that topic, and nothing else. If you have to choose between 100 passionate fans and 1000 people half of whom are there for the freebies or the cute puppy pictures, then choose the 100 every time. The “not all that interested” brigade will ruin your engagement metrics and blur your audience definition. Focus matters. Scale doesn’t – or not nearly so much.
• Amazon Author Central page. It’s an easy win this one, so you probably want to take care of it. Basically: Amazon lets you build your own author profile on their system. Will it sell books for you? Not really. Maybe a few.
• Author website with blog. You'll notice that I DO think you need an email collection system that works, and for most authors the actual story-for-email exchange will be done on their website. But that’s by far the most important element of any author site. If you also want to blog, then do, but it’s no big deal. If you blog, then see what I’ve said above about the Facebook author page. Narrow focus is much, much more important than just grabbing random sets of eyeballs.
• Facebook tracking pixel. If you want to use some more advanced ad techniques on Facebook, then you’ll want a tracking pixel on your site, so Facebook (in its incredibly creepy way) can watch when its users visit your site. Even if you don’t use that data now, you probably want to start collecting it, so Facebook can start populating its creepy databases.
• Twitter. Oh heck. Some people love Twitter. If you do, then you’re already on it. If you’re not, well, maybe you don’t want to be. I don’t think it sells books, so don’t worry.

The “Why Bother?” List

Somethings that people say you ought to do, you don’t need to do. Including:

• Your Goodreads profile
• Printing flyers / postcards
• Press releases
• A launch party. I mean that’s fun, and you should probably have one. But you should have one because it’s fun celebrating with your friends. It’s not a serious book launch technique.
• Book trailer. Not much point here, unless you have a significant TikTok audience, or similar.
• Giveaways, unless these are very carefully targeted.

OK. Checklist all done and dusted? Then let’s move onto three book launch plans, graded according to author experience. We start easy, and build from there.

A Book Launch Plan For The First Time Author

This is your first book launch. And your first job is to set your expectations appropriately.

You will not make much money from this book. You will not reach many readers. You will not get many reviews. You will probably lose money, if you take into account all your upfront costs.

All the same, this book launch really matters. This first-of-series book is going to be your little ambassador to the Big Wide World. It’s where the majority of all your series readers ever are going to start. So the quality of the book matters. Ditto the number and quality of reviews. The quality of your cover and book description. And so on.

Here’s your book marketing plan.

1. Price

This is your first book and nobody knows you. So this is like one of those little bits of cheese they give you as tasters, when they want you to buy the whole damn cheese. It’s free to nibble, but you pay to gorge. In short: price your book free or at £0.99/$0.99. Or yo-yo between those two price points. Or kick the price up to £4.99/$4.99, so when you slash the price to free, it looks like a great offer to readers.

At this stage, you’re not looking to make revenue. You’re looking to:

1. Build reviews
2. Populate your Also Boughts with the right type of readers (more on that in a second)
3. Collect emails for your mailing list

If you tick those three boxes in a satisfactory way, don’t worry too much if your revenue is small to negligible. You are building a platform for the future.

2. Ask For Reviews

At the end of your book, include a note to the reader that you would love them to review your book. Tell them how to do it and say how much it means to you personally. Those direct appeals really help secure reviews.

Oh, and it probably goes without saying that you should never buy reviews or anything of that sort. Amazon will sniff those things out and send an army of tiny robots to invade your bloodstream and turn your skin yellow.

3. Offer A Free Download

We sort of covered this in the checklist material, but it’s so important I’m going to say it again.

You need to offer your readers a free download. They get a story (or video, or cheat sheet, or whatever). You get their email address and permission to contact them.

This is the rock that stands at the heart of everything else you ever do. Don’t neglect it. Get the details right. You have to make this part work.

4. Friends And Family

It’s fine to ask your friends and family to buy your book and leave an honest review, BUT only ask those people who actually like and regularly read your specific genre. If your mother only ever readers slasher-zombie-horror books and you only write Sweet Romance, then her purchase of your romance book will be an active negative.

How come? Because Amazon needs to understand who the readers of your book are, and if you start, in effect, saying to Amazon “this Sweet Romance book will be enjoyed by readers of Slasher-Zombie-Horror” then Amazon won’t know how to market your book.

Key lesson: A bad sale is worse than no sale at all. Don’t be tempted.

5. Hit Your Email List (If You Have One)

Let’s say you’ve already released a free novella via, for example, Instafreebie. That release will give you a list of email addresses. You can and should go to those people and say, “hey, I’d love you to buy my book [or get the free download]. But in particular, I’d really love it if you left a review for me on Amazon. I’m just starting out in my career and those reviews are invaluable for me – and they’re so helpful to other readers too. Thanks so much.”

6. Go Narrow

Don’t be tempted by Apple and all those other book stores. You are better off going all in on Amazon. Yes, you lose the (pretty meagre) sales available from Apple and co, but in return you gain access to Kindle Unlimited readers, who may easily make up 50% of your income, or even more.

This isn’t even a marginal decision, to be honest with you. When you have 3+ books out and are making $10,000+ in sales revenue, then maybe you have a decision to make. But starting out? Go narrow. You’ll do far better.

7. Don’t Go For Pre-orders

Pre-orders stink.

Why would you want to drive traffic to an Amazon page that has zero reviews and which doesn’t actually let readers get a book on their devices right now this second?

Answer: you wouldn’t. So launch naked. No pre-orders at all, please.

(And yes, there are exceptions to this rule, but if you are a newbie, then you’re not one of them.)

8. AMS Adverts

AMS – Amazon Marketing Services, Amazon’s own in-house ad-platform – is a great but frustrating ad platform.

It’s great, because it’s easy to build ads that convert well and make money. It’s frustrating because the interface is dire and because the ads are really hard to scale. (Unlike on Facebook, where you just have to throw more money at the service.)

But still: AMS ads are great for new authors, because they’re cheap and because the sales and reviews will mount up over time.

(Also, and this post is in part an overview for what works at the moment, Amazon will surely give AMS a much-needed overhaul as currently, the interface is just embarrassingly bad.)

9. Free / Discounted Book Sites

There are sites like Robin Reads, ENT, Freebooksy and others that build large databases of readers interested in free or discounted titles. Those lists are segmented by genre, so if you write Space Opera you won’t be bothering people who only love Cosy Mystery.

You definitely want to drop some money on those sites. Get your book right in front of people specifically looking for titles like yours. And yes, those email lists go to discount hounds, but a lot of those discount hounds are looking for a new series to commit to and enjoy, so they want their “taster” experience to be free (or low cost). Thereafter they’ll be happy to pay full e-book prices.

Oh yes, and while Bookbub is the biggest discounted book site by a mile, you are extremely unlikely to get access to it at this stage in your career. So start smaller and build up.

Expert tip: you probably want to stack promotions if you can. It’s better to drop $300 over several promo sites at the exact same time, than to pay the same money in split promotions. Especially on Amazon, big, bold promos work better than multiple small ones.

Expert tip II: Use the great Nicholas Erik for an always up-to-date guide of which book sites are great and which ones are just meh. Get his insights here.

10. Blog Tours, Etc

I’ve listed this last on the checklist, because I think it’s optional. I don’t think you get a lot of readers from blog tours, soliciting reviews from bloggers, etc.

But – this is your first book. Maybe you just want to get out there and you will get some readers, and those readers are gold dust for you at this stage. So if you want to go for it, go chase around some bloggers in your niche. If you can’t be bothered, then don’t bother – and don’t feel guilty either.

Is all this doing your head in? I’m not surprised. There’s a lot to take in and it can seem overwhelming. The solution for most people will be to take a really good step-by-step course that just walks you through the entire process.

We have just such a course, Simply Self-Publish, and it’s superb. Inspirational, practical, and personalised. If you're not quite ready for a tutored course, you can access our full range of resources, regular live events, masterclasses and self-paced video courses by joining Jericho Writers as a Premium Member. Premium Members also get 10% off many of our courses and services. We'd love to have you with us!

A Book Launch Plan For The Intermediate Author

This is maybe your third or fourth book launch. Some of the strategies above are either second nature to you now, or they’ve dropped away completely. (Approaching friends and family is mostly a first-book-only thing. Ditto blog tours and the like.)

So for your third or fourth book launch, you’re going to use all of the above strategies – where they make sense – and then add / elaborate as follows:

1. Sophisticated Use Of Email Lists

With our first book launch, we just thumped out a “buy my book now” email to the few names we had on our list, and we got what we got.

OK, but that was then. Now we have a stronger list, and we can play things a little more cleverly. Because here’s the thing:

• Amazon likes email-driven sales surges (and drives your book high up the bestseller charts as a result).
• Amazon LOVES strong and steady sales surges, especially those that continue over four or (play safe) five days.

So, assuming that we have a decently performing list of, let’s say, 2,000 names or more, we’re not just going to bang out a “buy my book” email on the day of launch. Instead, we’re going to divide that list into three or four roughly equal slices, and launch emails on day #1, day #2, day #3, with reminder emails to non-openers on days #3, #4, and #5. (Or something like that. The principle is more important than the exact way you choose to implement it.)

The resulting steady pattern of sales will signal to Amazon that this book isn’t a one-day wonder. There’s real selling strength behind it. That signal will prompt Amazon to work harder, and for longer, than it otherwise would.

This simple, free email strategy remains the most powerful single strategy at your disposal. If you do this well, and little else, you can still achieve great things.

2. Get Reviews From Your Best Readers

Once you are developing your email list nicely, you can go to your best readers and offer them an Advance Review Copy of your forthcoming book, in exchange for a review once they’ve read it. You’re not asking them for fake reviews. You want honest verdicts. But crucially, you want anyone with an ARC to post their review within 48 hours of your book being launched. That’s the part that really, really matters.

How come? Because with all your activity around launch, the visibility of your new title will never be as high as this again (give or take a huge Bookbub promo, perhaps.) That visibility means that a ton of totally new readers will be finding your work for the first time. And that means, you want to populate your page with reviews as soon as humanly possible. Waiting 30-60 days for the reviews to populate organically will slaughter your conversions at the time when your Amazon book page has its maximum levels of traffic.

So get your readers engaged early. And feel free to nudge them. Get the reviews, and get them fast!

3. Series Listings In Your End-matter

The best place to sell your e-books? Your other e-books.

As you start to build out your list, make sure you go back to the e-books you already have out on sale and list all your titles. Make sure that you include the series number and a very short blurb (50-100 words is plenty) for each book. You also, of course, need to include purchase links for each book with link text that’s more tentative (“Find out more”) than pushy (“Buy now!”).

4. Remarketing Ads On Facebook And Google

Both Facebook and Google let you “remarket” to your “almost-but-not-quite” customers.

So Google allows you to push ads at people have who have recently visited your website. Facebook does the same, but also lets you market to specific audience groups – for example, people on your mailing list, or people who didn’t open and click your launch email.

Because these ads are going to a very warm audience, they tend to have an excellent conversion rate, with good CTRs and low CPCs.

Even so, before you start to advertise with any kind of meaningful budget, you do need to test carefully to get the right creative. It remains a lot easier to waste money with ads than it is to make it. Take care!

5. Series-level Promos

Now that you have a series of books to play with, you can get a bit more creative with the way you structure your promos. You should no longer think about promoting a book, but about the series. So if you’re launching #3 in your series, you might want to arrange things like this:

• Book #1. Free promo. Use Freebooksy, ENT, and other sites to promote the freebie. Make sure you stack promos to deliver downloads in the necessary volumes.
• Book #2. Use a Kindle Countdown deal to earn 70% royalties at £0.99/$0.99. Maybe use some of the other promo sites to support this offer. Maybe try some remarketing ads, using a carousel to display all three of the products you have for sale.
• Book #3. Launch, launch, launch! This is where you’re going to spend most of your firepower.

You’ll use your email list to support the launch, of course, but you’ll probably want to draw attention to the other offers too. The more your whole series increases its visibility in Amazon, the more new readers will pour into your series as a whole, with all the lovely readthrough sales you’ll collect over the long term.

6. Think Kindle Unlimited

If you’re still intermediate in terms of sales and list, then you should stick with Kindle Unlimited. It’ll simplify your life, and make you more money.

But you also need to have a KU mindset, because the way you make money on Apple/Kobo/etc is different from the way you’ll earn money on KU. The essence of effective Kindle Unlimited marketing is simple. You want to achieve big bursts of visibility. As much visibility as possible, extended over a minimum of four days, but ideally for a week or even more.

That extended big-burst visibility will earn you money for weeks and weeks. You’ll see a surge in page reads that dies off slowly rather than fast. Granular, drip-drip-drip marketing techniques cannot achieve this effect. On this model, you’d do much better to have a big budget, 0% ROI promotion that really lifts visibility, than to have a couple of nicely performing little campaigns that achieve decent ROI but don’t really impact visibility.

With the first lesson of our brand new Premium Member course Introduction to Self-Editing launching this week, I thought I'd share my own editing process with you. I honestly don’t know how much it helps to understand another writer’s process. What matters to you isn’t how I write best, but how you do. There’s not one way to play this game, there are a million. But if you’re interested, and in the hope that it helps, here’s how I edit. 

The first thing to say is that, in my case, there’s no real distinction between my writing and my editing. I self-correct all the time as I write. My paragraphs are very often short, but if I write a reasonably meaty three or four sentence paragraph, I’ll almost always tweak it and nudge it into shape before moving onto the next. Indeed, I quite often edit a sentence before I’ve even hit the final full stop. 

Why so twitchy? Well, a few things. I’m a natural fidget. I’m not at the threshold for ADHD, but I’m certainly that way inclined. But also, I’m like my wife. She can’t quite be content in a messy or ugly room. She’ll always seek to remedy what can be remedied before she can really make herself comfortable and turn to whatever it is that brought her there. 

Same with me and bad sentences. Asking me to write new text when there’s messy text just behind me? It doesn’t work. The nagging distraction of that baggy sentence, that poorly chosen word, will stop me fully attending to whatever’s next. 

Here’s the start of an upcoming Fiona novel: 

Imagine this. 

A cold night. A scatter of snow. Not much, but there’s a fierce frost, so the hard surfaces around here – paving stones, gravel, brick walls, iron gates – are glazed with diamonds. No leaves left on the trees, or not many, but the tree trunks have an iced glitter, as though constructing some new armour. 

The light? Not much. A little moon naked under scraps of cloud. Streetlamps shining their joyless yellow. The colour of the last rags of autumn, but dimmer. More suppressed. Draining colour, not revealing it. 

In the street: no cars moving. Almost none parked, if it comes to that. On this street, the cars – the BMWs and the Mercs, the Range Rovers and the Teslas – are sheltered behind walls, in garages, protected by the red blinks of security alarms. 

And a white van, its lights off. 

And two people moving. Not quiet, but not loud. Not furtive, but efficient. Dressed dark, dressed warm. Which, in this weather, is also a way to say that their shapes and faces are lost, muffled, disguised. 

That’s how the text looks now. It’ll change again before publication, but nothing there really annoys me. 

Here’s my editing journey to get there: 

Imagine this. 

A cold night. A scatter of snow. 

These words went down first thing and I haven’t changed them. The first two words are critical: it’s not normal Fiona-speak – she doesn’t normally address the reader in any way – but they matter here for a reason which will become clear much, much later. 

The cold / scatter of snow details are – for me – nice and easy: that way of giving physical detail is an established part of the Fiona voice. I like it because the voice is clear and well-differentiated, but I also love it because it’s so compact. For those writers who are still slave to the “Gotta have a main verb” dictum, the same seven words would have come out a bit like this: 

It was a cold night, with a scatter of snow on the ground. 

To my mind, all the additional words there are essentially dull and add nothing. So if I were a slave-to-the-verb kind of writer, I’d have added juice. Something like this: 

The night was cold, with a light scatter of snow hardening beneath the frost. 

And, OK, I like that more, except I’m always bothered by the word ‘with’ in this context – it’s just a lazy way to add bolt detail onto an existing unit. So I’d probably have replaced the ‘with’, by writing: 

The night was cold and an earlier scatter of snow now hardened beneath the frost. 

I’d be pretty much happy with that now – ‘hardened’ feels more active and, literally, harder than ‘hardening’ – but as I say, my Fiona-voice just skips over all that hoopla, and delivers all the information in two sentence fragments boasting a combined 7 words. 

Then we got to this bit: 

Not much [snow], but there’s a fierce frost, so the hard surfaces around here – paving stones, gravel, brick walls, iron gates – are glazed with diamonds. No leaves left on the trees, or not many, but the tree trunks have an iced glitter, as though constructing some new armour. 

I had to pick away at that bit to get it into shape. An earlier version used the word ‘frost’ twice and I kept wanting to glaze things. 

The leaves on trees bit is sort of dull, except that the reader has no idea yet of time of year, so this was my way of telling the reader that we were in November, not January. 

The list of hard surfaces – paving stones and the rest – is also dull, but it’s dull in a quiet suburban way, which is just right for the location. I do not love the ‘around here’ phrase. Where else would the hard surfaces be? So those two words need to go: an edit that still needs to happen. 

I like the ‘some new armour’ image: that’s true to Fiona’s voice, but it also delivers a sense of battle-readiness. 

The next paragraph also needed some tweaking and plucking: 

The light? Not much. A little moon naked under scraps of cloud. Streetlamps shining their joyless yellow. The colour of the last rags of autumn, but dimmer. More suppressed. Draining colour, not revealing it. 

Again, the first two sentence fragments (four words in total) just went down on the page and stayed there. The moon and cloud stuff is quite like me – I’ve probably used something like that phrase before – but I’m happy with it. Should it be a little moon or not? I don’t quite know, but it’s going to stay little for now. 

Also (I’m only just noticing now; I don’t observe these things as I write) I especially like it that we have these themes of battle and vulnerability emerging from the text. Although we’re really just describing a theme, we already have a hint of battle (armour), a hint of vulnerability (a naked moon) and references to draining colour – a disguise, not a revelation. All this means that the description has a kind of sprung quality. Nothing dark has happened yet, but you already know this is a crime novel, not a romance. 

Then I had to tinker quite a lot to get the next bit right. I want to paint the colour of a suburban street, with a little snow on the ground, not much of a moon, and sodium-type street lighting. I could just say ‘The street is it by yellowy-orange sodium lights’ or something like that. But the point isn’t really the colour, is it? It’s the feeling. And what is the feeling? Well, that’s the bit I had to struggle to get to. 

What I’ve ended up with combines joyless, rags, dim, suppressed and draining colour. Listed out like that, it feels alarmingly single-note, but I think it works OK on the page. In effect, we start out with a colour description (‘joyless yellow’) then work through a chain of thought to figure out that what’s really happening here is an emptying out of colour, not any kind of addition. 

Oh yes, and some editors would worry about the repetition of the word ‘colour’, but I’m not fussed. The repetition doesn’t feel accidental or obtrusive, so it’s fine with me. 

And so on. 

The two people in the white van dump a corpse in one of these wealthy suburban gardens and then vanish. The book is about the investigation and shenanigans that follow. The chapter doesn’t quite say ‘they dump a corpse’, but it gets reasonably close… and this is a crime novel, so readers assume (correctly) that murder is going to be on the agenda. 

All this is how my editing process runs, always. It often starts before I hit a full-stop. It usually starts before I reach the end of a paragraph. It is very pedantic. It cares about two unnecessary words or a not-quite-perfect word choice. 

It’s utterly hard-wired and instinctive. The act of writing and the act of editing are so conjoined, I don’t really think of them as separate. 

I don’t consult a style manual for these edits. In the end, what drives me is a sense of dissatisfaction with bad text and happiness with good text. My whole writing-editing journey is just about making 1,000,000 tiny choices that move me from a mostly-grumpy place to a largely-happy one.

Next week, I’ll talk a bit about my more macro-edits. Till then, I have the moon to worry about. Little, or not little? Hmm… 

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

For the next few weeks, instead of posting into the Feedback Friday forum, I want you to post into the Introduction To Self-Editing forum. Remember, to log in first. The task I set each week will correlate with what Debi Alper teaches in that week's lesson, so if you're not a Premium Member yet and want to get the video teaching that goes along with the task, you can join here, or purchase the course as a one-off here.

This week's assignment from the course:

Share a plot summary (can be written out as a synopsis or just with bullet points) in the forum. Point out where you think tweaks to structure, plot, and pace might be required, and see if others agree.

Til soon. 

Harry

This month, we’re talking editing. Indeed, if you’re a Premium Member, I very much hope you’ll trot along to my live-editing workshop this coming Tuesday. (Log in and find details here. Not a member? Join us today.)

And I want to start the month with a short but important message. It’s one you already know, yes, but it’s a point we can all easily lose.

It’s this:

Writers are hopelessly vulnerable to Impostor Syndrome.

That might be part of our psychological make-up (dreamy, introverted, bookish) – but I don’t think it’s mostly that. Perhaps it isn’t that at all.

If I were a stone-walling guy, I’d drop my tools in the late afternoon and look at my day’s work and think, 'Yes, I just built that.'

If I were a drainage-contractor or a chimney-sweep, I could count my accomplishment in yards of drain unblocked, or so many vertical feet of chimney cleared. (I once cleaned my own chimneys, then set the house on fire, but it was only a little fire, and the fire brigade came, not once but three times, and the kids were all at home with friends, and got to watch everything, and the firemen let the kids try on their helmets and climb around the fire engine, and everyone had a very nice time.)

And, OK, lots of white-collar jobs can’t be measured by the yard, but there’s still a rhythm of feedback: client meetings, reports, ad campaigns, emails. What’s unusual about the job of novelist is that you have essentially two ways to measure accomplishment, the first of which is phoney and stupid and you know it to be those things. So, novelists can measure accomplishment, via:

1. Word Counts. Which gives you a sort of feedback, the way a dry stone wall gives you feedback as you build it, but if the words are sh*te, then the feedback is meaningless. And because you know that, you don’t trust the feedback. And because first drafts are first drafty, the words probably are sh*te, so you are right to be suspicious.
2. Book deals. And yes, a book deal comes with an actual contract, signed by a serious and moneyed counterpart. And there’s money. And there’s the whole hoop-la of publication. So this is serious, meaningful feedback. Same thing with self-pub: you don’t achieve meaningful sales unless your work has been good, so sales is also a metric that matters. But book deals come along once in a blue moon. I mean, if you produce a book a year and work with a standard two-book deal, then you only get confirmation that you’re not an idiot once every two years. That’s a very long time.

So authors get regular meaningless feedback (word counts) and very, very infrequent feedback that matters (book deal, or successful book launch.)

And a lot of what we do involves creating a bad first draft so we can then turn it slowly into a good final draft.

The result? Impostor Syndrome is endemic among writers. It’s endemic among proper published authors too. I know plenty of top 10 bestselling novelists who are pretty much guaranteed to feel like their work is hopeless before they (once again) do what they do and produce an excellent book.

The solution? There ain’t no solution, except to recognise the problem. You will feel that your work is inadequate, because – right now – it is inadequate. And that’s fine. That’s a stage we clamber through to get to adequate and then excellent.

The ladder from rubbish to excellent is Editing. It’s self-editing to start with and – even if you’re wise enough to get a Manuscript Assessment from us – it’s still self-editing after that, because it’s still you that has to choose how to react to your editor’s comments.

So. Write, edit, publish, repeat. You may only get meaningful feedback on your output about once a year. That’s just the way it is. Other indicators may not be accurate. You are not an impostor. You’re a writer.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

We’ll get back to text-analysis next week, but this week, let’s just throw it open. Do you struggle with something like Impostor Syndrome? How do you solve it? Just open up about the issue; you’ll get a LOT of understanding, and you might find suggestions that help. Come and fake it till you make it here.

***

And look: in my defence, I did clean the chimney, and perfectly well. But some idiots had removed most of the flue, so the more I cleaned the chimney, the more the debris fell into a big pile of dry material that I couldn’t access, or see, or have any reason to believe existed. Two or three sparks and – fire. The kids arranged chairs as though for a pop-up cinema and watched the entire show with glee.

Til soon.

Harry

Rachel Davidson, long-time Jericho Writers Premium Member and now a part of our Writer Support team, is currently studying on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. She’s agreed to share her experience of the course with us month by month.

First up: a look at how she made the decision to invest in her writing – and believe in herself...  

Hey there – thanks for popping by. Let me introduce myself. I have been a Premium Member with Jericho Writers for many years. I’d give you the precise number, if only I could remember! Suffice to say, Jericho Writers has consistently walked beside me as I traverse the writerly landscape. 

More recent times have seen me joining the Jericho Writers team, in Writer Support – which means that for three days a week, I get paid to think about writing, talk about writing and help other writers with their writing. I love it! 

And now there’s another big tick on my to-do list. I’ve been accepted onto the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. The first month’s topic is Planning and Plotting. Well, I’ve been planning and plotting this since the earliest of days. Let me go back to the beginning and tell you my story... 

I’ve wanted to be an author since primary school, where I discovered the wonder of writing stories. More than this, I discovered the joy of my stories being read. My teacher was a fan of the tales I wrote: a series of Nancy Drew-esque mysteries which my identical-twin characters solved with surprising ease. He was a kind teacher. I was awarded the English Literature Cup at our final ‘graduating’ assembly. Destiny set. I was going to be an author. 

Turn the page to the next chapter – the scene is my first secondary school English lesson. I am having my tall poppy head sliced off. I have no memory of what was actually said: can’t even remember the teacher’s name, or what she looked like. I do remember the crushing reset. How foolish, to think I could be a writer! My efforts were lacking. I did not measure up. Just who did I think I was? She had pointed at the part of me that thought I couldn’t and said: “You’re right.” 

It took me thirty years to get back to my dream.  

It took me falling in love.  

One day, my new husband asked: “Who do you think you are? Who do you really want to be?”  

“An author, please?” I replied. 

“Please?”  

He frowned, then pointed at the part of me that thought I could, and said, “You’re right.”  

That was ten years ago. Since then, I have written five full novel-scale manuscripts and have started my sixth. I self-published the first three and proved a boatload and more to myself. I could write books which did sell, and that people enjoyed reading. I decided to change genre and aim to be traditionally published – and this is the track I’m on today.  

My fourth manuscript garnered one competition long-listing and sixty-three agent rejections. My fifth manuscript earned a long-listing in another competition and is currently collecting its own set of rejection-gongs. It hurts. It’s okay. It’s the process. I’m older. I know better now to keep going, and why it is important to do so: because my heart and its contents matter. 

That moment of permission from my husband was my inciting incident – and the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme is perhaps my mid-point. Could this be the moment at which everything will change and there’ll be no going back? It’s a big investment in my dream of becoming the best novelist I am capable of being. I want to hone my craft and grab the opportunities the course provides. I want to be proud of my writing: confident that I’m on my way to being an accomplished – perhaps even a great – storyteller.  

There are going to be a few more ups and downs in this plot line of mine. A crisis (or two) is to be expected. Moving between the first, second and third acts always involves some level of hanging off cliffs, yes?  

Ultimately, I’m hoping this is a redemption story – that a happy ending looms in the future for me. If I end up attracting the attention of an agent or publisher – or if I don’t – I am giving myself permission to find out what I can achieve. I’m plotting and I’m planning. I’m defining character and honing my voice. 

So, who do I think I am? I’m an author – learning to fully inhabit the role. Perhaps you’ll let me share my progress and experiences with you, as I work through the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme?  

I hope so.  

See you next time, 

Rachel 

Rachel Davidson is a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers prior to joining our Writer Support Team, Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada and is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

OK, battle of the clichés. Which is truer: “You can’t judge a book by its cover” or “A picture is worth a 1000 words”?

Well, please pick your preferred platitude – but when it comes to book marketing, then the thousand-words cliché beats the can’t-judge cliché into a cocked hat. A cocked hat with gold frogging and a generously sized rosette.

The fact is that, whether a reader is looking on Amazon or on a bookstore table, they start with only two really key bits of data. (I’m assuming, of course, that you don’t happen to have a name like Margaret Atwood or Dan Brown. If you do, I’d say that potential readers have three key bits of data, and the name wins out.)

The two bits of data are:

1. The book cover image

2. The title.

There may be shoutlines or puffs or subtitles on the cover too, but a reader doesn’t really grapple with those until they’ve assessed the first two items. And the hand doesn’t reach for the book, the cursor doesn’t move in for the click, unless those two things intrigue the target reader enough.

So how do you get the click? That is, probably, the most single important moment in the entire marketing chain.

This is a complicated question and every book and every situation is different, but my guidelines would be as follows:

Communicate genre

Take a look at these two images: 

Which is better? The first is the current book cover, the second one is from the movie DVD. Assume that the book is newly launched and can’t yet sell itself on name and reputation alone.

And the answer, surely, is that the actual book cover does a very poor job. The book is a dystopian fantasy involving an all-action teenage heroine. The readers you want to attract are young adults who want a dystopian fantasy featuring an all-action teenage heroine. The first image is … what? A historical novel? A lament for vanishing wildlife? A literary meditation of some sort? It’s entirely unclear. (That’s not a criticism of the 2025 cover, though. The book has become iconic, so it can afford a purely iconic cover.)

The DVD cover on the other hand does everything it needs to do. Dystopian? Yep. Fantasy? Well, probably, because most contemporary teenage girls don’t mess around with flaming arrows. Tough teenage heroine? Uh, yes. And the font says “speculative / future-set” not “Roman / classical / literary / boring.”

So, that’s your cover’s first job. Communicate genre. Establish an immediate link with the reader you’re targeting.

Communicate niche

Within any genre, there are any number of sub-genres. Cosy crime has a different vibe and a different readership from mainstream police procedurals… and both of those feel very different from gangland, mobster-type crime.

Your cover needs to find the niche within the niche. Your target reader needs to become curious with her very first glance.

Ignore your book

OK, you don’t have to ignore what actually happens in your book, and if the image in the cover relates to the text itself, then so much the better. But the worst self-made covers I’ve seen all fall into the trap of trying to interpret, over-literally, the story and settings of the actual text.

Perhaps those covers would be satisfying to people who had already read the novel and understood the allusions. But this is a marketing tool! People don’t know what those allusions mean. The cover has to attract people in – not provide an after-dinner mint to people who have just enjoyed your offering.

Here’s a cover that has effectively nothing to do with the text of the book:

The book is – duh! – not about moths and windowpanes. But who cares? It’s beautiful. 

Layer your messages 

Clare’s book cover also nudges a further point. The title has an opportunity to convey a message (or messages) of some sort. The cover art gives you a second opportunity to do the same. 

So don’t repeat yourself! Set up an interesting reverberation between the two. 

Suppose that book cover had shown an open hand and a moth flying away – that would have repeated the message of the cover… and produced something utterly bland. 

As it is, the cover here says, “Trapped.” The title says, “Released”. What’s going on? It’s that sort of question which invites further investigation. That’s the question which makes you read the shoutline. (“A tragic accident. A past you can’t escape.”) 

In effect, the reader is being led along like this:

1. Beautiful image (of the right sort of mood) attracts the eye

2. The title and the image kind of fight each other, prompting curiosity

3. The shoutline (and the title, and the domestic image) confirms your hunch that this is a psych thriller and that there are interesting mysteries to explore

4. You pick up the book and turn it over. 

Step 2 – the layering of the messages – is absolutely crucial to the whole sequence. 

In effect, the title and the cover are dancing a tango – but in loose (“open”) embrace instead of close embrace. You feel the linkage, but you also feel a distance.           

The open question 

For the same kind of reason, the title / cover needs to invite a question. That’s why the classic romance cover (woman in big dress, man with very open shirt) invites derision. It’s so single note: a tune played with one finger. 

The best covers – even in the romance aisle, where readers are seeking a relatively simple happy ever after story – all play with two hands, a full range of notes. Books like these: 

Those covers are beautiful... they talk about romance and they intrigue. 

That book about summer yells about happy summer days – but then strongly suggests them ending. Huh? What happens to this happy, splashy couple? 

And a book offering a love story shouldn’t talk about endings, surely? So what’s going on with the pair in the Yulin Kuang novel? 

“Isabel and the Rogue” has a rather more typical romance title – naming both parties and suggesting the guy has some growing up to do – but the image subverts that. The yellow-dress woman looks very much in control. The nice chap sitting next to her looks very mannerly and not at all rogue-y. So what’s going on? The same title with an image that just repeats the ‘girl + rogue’ meme of the title would be killingly bad. 

In every case, it’s an open question which intrigues the reader and prompts exploration. I think it’s probably true that EVERY good cover creates that intrigue. 

Work at thumbnail size 

Whether you’re working with a trad publisher or whether you’re commissioning your own self-pub cover, you will find that your designer presents you with your cover image at the hugest scale the internet can deal with. Ideally, a designer would like you to view the cover at monster size in the comfort of your own home cinema. 

Which means that the first thing you should do is shrink that damn cover down to Amazon-thumbnail size and see if it still works. Every test I’ve suggested in this email needs to work at diddy-size as well as at full size. As a matter of fact, I always think it’s helpful to superimpose your draft cover on a screen grab of an Amazon search page to see if your cover holds up against the competition you will face.  

Make a fuss 

My last command is for you, not your book cover. 

And it’s this: I know you are a very nice person. You’re like the gentleman seated next to Isabel, very nicely mannered, always ready to pass a bun and apologise for any crumbs on the carpet. 

But if your cover is weak, say so, say so, say so. You have a pram, I hope? Throw toys out of it. Throw your sticky bun on the carpet. You wish to hurl, not throw? Then hurl away. Hurl hard.  

Do not accept a mediocre cover. I’ve done that too often in my career (publishers coax you into acceptance), but do not do it. 

Make a mess. Yell. Scream. Get yourself a decent cover. That’s easy to do if you’re self-publishing. Harder to do – but just as essential – if you’re trad-publishing. 

You can go back to being nice again afterwards. 

Feedback Friday is all on titles this week. Anyone can have a go. I’ll be around, offering feedback, but my feedback is only for Premium Members, so if you’re not a PM, you have a sad life ahead, unless you Do What Needs To Be Done. 

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

We’ll do titles this week. Tell us what your book is about in 2-3 sentences, and tell us the title you’ve chosen. If you have a subtitle or shoutline in mind, then tell us that too. 

We want to feel a ripple of intrigue – a question we need answered. 

Once you're ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work here.

*** 

Til soon,

Harry. 

Do you struggle to silence the voice in your head that asks: 'Who are you to call yourself a writer?' or 'Who d'you think you are, spending precious time on a project that's bound to go nowhere?' You're far from alone. All authors - published and unpublished - struggle to shut this voice up from time to time. Rosie Fiore is an editor, mentor, the author of eight novels and a tutor on both our Novel Writing Course and Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. Here, she shares her top tips for banishing impostor syndrome for good... 

How do you answer that dreaded question, “What do you do?”

“I’m an author.”

“I’m a writer.”

“I'm an aspiring writer.”

“I’m trying to write.”

“I write a bit in my spare time.”

It can be difficult to name ourselves as writers: to take pride in our work and our achievements and to keep our courage up. Writing is lonely and tough, and sometimes it’s hard to persuade yourself to keep going.

As a writer, I bear the scars of failure and indifference, and I’ve done my share of staring into the long dark night of the soul. I’ve also mentored hundreds of writers who face the fear every day. So, here are five things I tell them (and try to tell myself).

1. There is no magic threshold

What’s that insistent little voice in your head saying? Mine says things like: “Call yourself a writer? You haven’t published anything / finished anything / written anything good.”

When I started running, the same voice told me I couldn’t call myself a runner because I hadn’t run a marathon / half marathon / 10k, and I wasn’t very fast. I am here to tell you that this is nonsense, in both cases.

Of course I'm a runner, even though I am only running a slow few miles. And if you’re writing, you’re a writer.

You’re doing the work. It isn’t an exclusive club. You’re not aspiring, unpublished or trying. You’re a writer. Own it.

2. Get yourself some cheerleaders

Sometimes, your courage will fail you. You will look at the words on the page (or the lack thereof) and think that you can’t do this.

You will need someone else to tell you that you can. Maybe that will be your significant other / mum / child/ best friend. But if not, you need writing buddies - so find your people.

Join a writing group, in person or online. Do a course. Look on the Jericho Writers Townhouse. Other writers will cheer you on, and by supporting them in return you will learn and gain so much.

3. Back yourself

Oh, this one is difficult. I did a playwriting course once and the teacher, John Donnelly (a fantastic playwright), said these two words. “Back yourself.”

My mind instantly rebelled and that insistent little voice spoke up. “You’re rubbish,” it said. “Lazy, undisciplined, not very good. Why would anyone back you, least of all yourself?”

“How do you talk to yourself?” John asked, as if he could hear my inner voice. “Would you talk to anyone else like that? Don’t speak like that to the person you need most in the world.”

I have a tiny post-it by my desk now that says, “Back yourself.” And when the ugly voice surfaces, I try to remember to look at it.

4. Celebrate the small wins

Celebrate the big wins. Hell, celebrate ALL the wins.

You finished a draft? Take a walk in the park. You revised that tricky scene? Cup of tea and a biscuit. Someone asked for a full manuscript? Well, that’s worth a dinner with friends!

I have a special dance I perform every 10,000 words (my family loves it and doesn’t roll their eyes, honest!).

Don’t wait for some mythical future date when you achieve all your goals. Try to make every step of the process joyful.

5. Bum in chair, fingers on keyboard

If doubt creeps in, keep going. If you think it’s rubbish, keep going. If you want to scrap it all and give up, keep going.

Nothing silences that insistent, ugly inner voice like the clatter of typing.

And remember:

“People saying: “It can’t be done,” are always being interrupted by somebody doing it.” – Puck magazine, 1903.

You’ve probably heard the line “never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” You’ve probably also heard it attributed to the humourist Mark Twain – although, ironically enough, that attribution is doubtful at best.  

But have you ever considered it as a piece of writing advice? It’s actually a tremendously helpful way of thinking about creative non-fiction and the way you have to wrestle reality onto the page. 

Here are five useful lessons (perhaps we could even call them truisms!) that the famous phrase suggests: 

1. Tell the truth 

The truth isn’t the only thing that matters – and shortly, we’ll look more closely at why that’s the case. However, it’s still vitally important in non-fiction.  

The best way to get readers to believe in you as a narrator is to make sure everything you say is credible. Check your facts. Verify your sources. Test your theories. Where you are doubtful, say so. Do not lie. Your book is pointless if it doesn’t feel trustworthy. 

2. Remember: you are telling a story 

Telling the truth doesn’t necessarily mean telling the whole truth. Your duty is to your reader – not to every single thing that happened.  

Just because something has lodged in your memory, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s important. Always be thinking about what moves your writing forwards. What does your reader need to know to understand your narrative? What is less important?  

Also, what’s interesting? Remember, stories are meant to be fun to read. 

3. Remember that good dialogue on the page is not the same as real speech 

Think about how journalists write up quotations. They don’t give us all the ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’, the hesitations and repetitions of natural speech – but we don’t (usually!) think that this is a deception.  

It’s okay to make speech run more fluently and fluidly – as long as you stick to the essential meaning and import. 

4. Real people have real feelings 

These feelings can be hard to predict and easy to hurt. If you’re writing about real people, you have to be careful – both from the point of view of not getting sued, and in line with the demands of basic humanity.  

Think carefully before you put anyone into your book. Are you sure you need to include them? Are you sure they will remember things in the same way you do? Are you certain your portrayal is accurate? Is there a justification for disguising someone’s identity? 

5. The truth matters 

I know I’ve already (kind of) said this, but it’s worth repeating. It’s worth stressing that the stories you tell as a non-fiction writer are worth telling, in spite of all the potential difficulties of doing so.  

The truth counts. Today, yesterday, forever.  

Setting it down on the page might just be the most important thing you do. 

At Jericho Writers, Sam is a tutor on both the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and the Novel Writing Course, and also offers one-to-one mentoring and editorial support. You may also like to check out the Introduction to Memoir and Creative Non-Fiction course.

I yap on a lot about novels in these emails: I’ve written plenty of novels; I like writing them; the vast majority of you guys are writing them too.

But I’ve also written non-fiction: Five books under my own name, but I’ve been quite involved in ghost-writing or similar with several others.

So: I like non-fiction too. And, within that, I like creative non-fiction: writing narratives that are essentially true, but using broadly the same set of literary techniques that a novelist brings into play.

I’m bringing this up now, because we have a new course available: a 6-part a 6-part video course on an Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction. The course is led by Sam Jordison, a writer himself, but also the founder of the quite brilliant Galley Beggar Press. The course is free to our lovely Premium Members, naturally, but you can buy it for £99 if you really want to. (But why would you want to? You can get everything in Premium Membership for £150.) More info here if you want it.

Of the memoirs I’ve worked with most closely, two come to mind.

The first is West End Girls – a memoir by Barbara Tate. She grew up before and during the War. She had a terrible, flibbertigibbet mother and was mostly brought up by a stonily cold, icily respectable grandmother. So she emerged into the world of post-war London, a young and now-independent adult who had never really experienced love.

And then – in 1948 – she met a glamorous, exotic, beautiful and warm woman, Faye, with whom she instantly bonded. Faye just happened to be one of the most hard-working and successful prostitutes working in Soho and she needed a maid. Barbara became that maid.

Barbara’s book tells the story of that friendship. The author was in her 80s when the book came to us. It was vastly long and discursive. It didn’t really know what story it was meant to be telling. With a younger author, we’d have simply given guidance and let her do the work. Given Barbara’s age, I essentially took on the work myself, cutting out the excess material and stitching the remaining parts back together.

Barbara had gone on from maid-ing in Soho to achieve plenty in her life, but when I told her that we’d sold her book for good money to a major publisher, she was thrilled. We sat in her sunny Ealing garden and she waved a cup at me and said, “Harry, this will be the crown of my life.”

That book went on to be a beautifully well-published bestseller.

Another book I especially remember was Please Don’t Make Me Go, a story with a lousy cover and a weedy title (both chosen by the publisher to line up with the Misery Memoir kitsch, then very much in vogue.)

The author, John Fenton, was a tough, smart man. His book was a brutal, brilliant account of his time in a young offenders’ institution – he’d been sent there, on the basis of no actual offence, by a dad who just wanted rid of him. The book ended with an astonishing climax: just as things were going to go very badly indeed for the young Fenton, he managed to break into the office of the man who ran the place and found material so compromising that the outcome flipped in an instant, from very bad to very good.

And? My conclusions from working with those books?

Simply that pretty much every technique that applies to a novel applies also to non-fiction, of the kind we’re talking about.

Dialogue? Yes, John and Barbara both wrote dialogue that could easily have lived in fiction.

Scene construction? Definitely the same.

Characterisation? Yes, of course.

And the structure of the story itself? Yes, yes, yes. That’s key. Both the books I’m thinking of had this astonishingly novelistic structure – and in both cases with endings that just linger in the mind.

Now, personally, I think it’s OK if non-fiction writers nudge their facts into shape a little. I don’t mean outright lie, but I do mean shape. Omit something if it occludes the structure you’re building? Skip over some things, bring others into much greater prominence? Yes to all that.

Build your story.

I do warmly recommend Sam’s course. (The guy is something of a publishing genius and it’s just brilliant that we can bring a bit of him to you.) But also:

The reason why I talk so much about novels in these emails is that pretty much everything I talk about applies to you non-fictioneers too.

Build your story. Write well. Have fun.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

If you’re writing creative non-fiction, then let’s have the opening page of your book, or any chunk that represents a kind of manifesto for the book people are about to read.

As soon as you're ready, log into Townhouse and post your work here.

And those who are completing the Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction course too, don't forget to complete the lesson assignments and share your work in the course forum.

If you’re not writing non-fiction, then you’ve got the week off. And a Happy Easter to you.

***

Til soon.

Harry

All agents have passions. At our Festival once – late at night and after plenty of wine – one agent started listing hers. I know there were sharks on her list and haunted houses, and child killers, and twins, and (I think) anything Victorian, and definitely mistaken identity, and… the list went on. Somewhere out there, a perfect novel exists for her with all those things in one beautifully weird melange.

But? Mostly agents want surprise. They want that sense of, ‘Gosh, I had no idea I’d want something like this, but now that it’s in front of me, I really, really do.’

Pitch

I wrote a week or two ago about how the ghost of an elevator pitch needs to glimmer in your query letter. And it does. The ingredients for a compelling story need to be present. The agent needs to feel that intrigue from the very start.

Because I plappered (my daughter’s chosen verb) about that recently, I’ll say no more now.

Good writing / instant authority

Agents say they want a distinctive voice; of course they do. But if you try to analyse what that really means, I think it comes down to this. Agents want to read the first page of a manuscript and just know that the writer is in perfect control – of their sentences, their characters, their story.

That control will, most of the time, come with a voice that sounds like that specific author, and nobody else – simply because you don’t normally get that level of control in over text, without putting your own personality into it.

But does John Grisham, say, really sound so distinctive? Or Stephen King? I’m not sure they do. They are masters of their craft, of course, but it’s not really their voice that you’d want to pick out.

So, I’d focus less on voice, and more on authority. Can a professional reader tell from the first page or two that you are in control, and that good things lie in wait? The answer needs to be yes.

A plausible story

Most agents will regard your synopsis as the least important part of your submission package – which is just as well, because synopses are tedious to write and tedious to read.

That said, synopses can be massive time savers. Let’s say I were a busy agent. I’ve read a query letter and I’m intrigued. I’ve read the opening page or two, and I feel the authority of the writing.

So now what? I read 200 pages, only to find that the story massively disappoints 2/3 of the way into the book? Or discover that the basic theme is simply not marketable?

Well, I should say that the clues given from the query letter and opening pages are generally more solid than that. Those authority-clues are powerful and they don’t often lie. But still. It takes four hours to read a book. It takes five minutes to read a synopsis.

So an agent will mostly want to sense-check that synopsis for the basic story shape. The question is essentially: does this feel like a novel? Could this story fill out an 80,000 word book?

An avenue to market

But also, through all of the above, any agent will be asking themselves the one key question that will determine their decision: can I imagine how a publisher would market this?

What kind of cover? What kind of pitch? What sales messaging to the putative retailer? What comparable books?

Now, for clarity, you don’t have to be a marketing expert and you don’t need to come up with solutions. Or rather: it may be an asset if you can supply those solutions, but it’s not really your job to do so. (And if you do want to do so, then do so with tact, ‘In the vein of recent bestsellers, such as Robin Banks’s The Greatest Heist and Lottie Lightfingers’ The Wallet That Wandered...’)

But the agent is a professional salesperson, and therefore also a marketing expert. They’re a saleswoman (or man) whose job is selling to editors. Those editors will then have the task of selling your manuscript to their team and then, if they’re successful, selling your book to retailers and, through them, to the public. In fact, the number of successful sales needed is significant:

• Sale #1: You to your agent
• Sale #2: Your agent to an editor
• Sale #3: Your editor to their acquisitions committee
• Sale #4: your publisher’s sales team to retailers
• Sale #5: Your publisher’s marketing team to the public.

Your agent knows your book only succeeds if all those lamps are shining green. It’s that sense of commercial potential which will, almost certainly, define the response you get back.

A line of green lamps

And for you to achieve that line of green lamps? Well, by the time you’ve written your book, you’re kind of stuck with it.

But the advice never really changes. It all comes down to:

1. Knowing your market. You need to be deeply involved, as a reader, in the market you want to end up writing for. That knowledge will insert itself into your text. It’ll ensure that you write for the market as it is today, not as you want it to be.
2. A great pitch. I hammer away at elevator pitch a lot, because that pitch is just crucial. A so-so written book with a great pitch? That’ll sell. Most really big bestsellers are moderately written but with great pitches. If your pitch is weak, even great writing may not save you.
3. Good or excellent writing. Great pitch + good, competent writing: that’ll work. Adequate pitch + genius levels of writing: that’ll work. Any sort of pitch + clumsy writing? That’s a fail, every time, as it jolly well ought to be.

But that’s what we’re here for, right? To help you get to the point of pitching to agents, or self-publishing, with confidence.

This thing that you want? It ain’t easy, but it is doable. And we’re here to help.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Another slightly left-field task this week. (Though I realise this is a sporting terminology, I don’t really understand. I mean, in cricket, we’d normally say leg-side, except that you’d need to say off-side if the batter was left-handed. And since bowlers bowl quite happily to left-handed and right-handed batters, there’s no big difference between a legside ball and an offside one. So left-field or right-field? I don’t get it.)

Anyway. Here’s a different sort of task.

1. Give me the pitch from your book, in any form you like (super-short / short / 2-3 sentences.)

2. Find two or three books which are recent, successful and comparable. Give me the pitches from at least one of them.

That’s an ouchy task: demanding to do. But if you can do it, and your book sits happily amidst your chosen company, then you have a marketable work on your hands.

As soon as you're ready, log into Townhouse and post your work here.

***

I’m writing this email on Tuesday. It’s my birthday today, one that I share with my wife.

The kids are being… not horrible. There is sunshine and there are tulips and much tea. Tulips are maybe my absolute favourite flower, except that I do have a soft spot for dog roses, and I’ve got enough of Wales in my blood that I am easily seduced by a daffodil.

And cherry blossom? Hmm. But I think tree-flowers need a different category, no?

Til soon,

Harry.

As you’d expect, there’s quite a lot of research into what makes people buy stuff. And, as you’d expect, writers are mostly very, very, very not interested in exploring it.

But that’s tough on you, because this email is going to tell you anyway. And yes, I know you want to write books and leave selling to someone else. But that’s not how it works. Even if you’re traditionally published, you’ll be asked to review blurbs, think about cover art, review social media yadda and email lists… and, if you self-publish, then you’ll be thinking about Facebook ads and the like as well.

You don’t have to turn into the sort of person who wears a black shirt, and a gold medallion, and fake tan so thick it looks like a kind of golden yogurt. But you do have to engage with how your book strikes people on first view, not just on full view.

And here are some tips. They’re all based on actual scientific research (hence the slightly weird precision in the data), so what follows isn’t just an opinion piece. That said, books are different from a lot of consumer products, so you have to adjust accordingly. (For those interested: here's where I got my data.)

Say you

Address the reader as though they’re in the room with you. Say, ‘you’. The result of that direct address is that people feel around 20% more involved in your brand. Since you’re really trying to build that direct relationship, that involvement matters.

Say I

And be you. Don’t depersonalise yourself. Not 'This story was written to thrill,’ but, 'I wanted to thrill you.' Keep the relationship front and centre.

The difference between 'I' and 'we' in a study was a sales improvement of around 7%. My guess? With a brand that ought to be focused on you as author, the positive results are probably greater than that. The author-reader relationship has the potential to be way stronger than (say) the toothpaste-manufacturer / tooth-owner relationship.

Here and now

For the same sort of reasons, don’t jump into the past. Keep any marketing-type copy in the present tense. The stats say that this helps it sound up to 26% more helpful / compelling. And you want to compel.

Be assertive

There are different ways of being assertive. You can make firm claims rather than wishy-washy ones. (So ‘all’ or ‘always’, not ‘mostly’ or ‘often’.)

Strong negatives also show assertiveness: 'you won’t read a better thriller this year' just sounds punchier than 'this will be one of the best thrillers you’ve read for a long time.'

The effect of this kind of language can boost engagement by up to 18%.

Avoid technical language

Yes, your book may be a near-future SF story about a moon-mission gone wrong. But keep your blurb clear, not cluttered. If you write 'When the landing craft hit the rim of a crater…', the reader knows instantly what you mean. If you write 'When the orbital descent vehicle foundered on the lip of an impact basin…', you’ve lost your zing.

I’m not talking here about the language inside the book – your book and your characters and your story will need to determine that. But don’t fail to get people through your entrance door. And that means, keeping it clear and keeping it simple.

If you do clutter up your language, sales drop by up to 16%. (And, honestly, in the context of books where the nearest competitive product is only a click away, I think sales will drop a lot more than that.)

The rule of three

An interesting one this, because at first sight it doesn’t apply to books. The rule is: list three benefits, not two, not four, not five.

Why? Well, three just beats any other number by 10.4%. It appears that three works because it establishes a pattern without seeming too fake.

Additionally, there’s evidence that says if you list three excellent benefits of X, and then also two good benefits, consumers take a kind of average score and think, ‘Yeah, not so excellent really.’ Sticking only with the excellent options means that consumers were willing to spend up to 37% more.

Now, you’re not offering a baking tin or a waterproof jacket. You’re offering a book, and the benefit of a book (assuming it’s fiction) is just that it’s good and will grip the reader. So maybe listing benefits doesn’t really apply.

Except that… Netflix uses the rule of three all the time. Take a quite excellent programme – Harry & Meghan, for example: it’ll be described with a trio of adjectives – Captivating / Investigative / Social-cultural.

I think the same applies to any time you try to intrigue a reader with your book. Take my Fiona books. If I used a trio of words, it might be something like ‘Intelligent, Intense, Suspenseful’. If I tried to layer things on top of that (‘Literate, dark, celtic noir, thought-provoking’), the pitch to the reader becomes so muddled as to be indecipherable.

And that rule of three applies even where you might not expect. Let’s say you’ve picked the adjectives and themes you want to push. Everything needs to point at those specific things.

So if you have a reader-review that chimes beautifully with the adjectives you’ve picked – then great, use it. But quite likely, you also have a reader-review that says something positive, but not aligned with your core themes. In that case, including the review is muddling the message. It’s leaving the reader uncertain about what you’re offering.

So pick your themes – three of them – and work those hard.

Syntactic surprise

And here’s an interesting (and more writer-y) piece of of advice:

According to research shared by Thomas McKinlay, simply using a surprising sentence pattern in your copy can help you get a 127.5% increase in click-through rates (CTR).

So here’s your expected sentence structure:

Red Bull will give you energy for hours.

Take a trip anywhere you feel like going.

Uber Eats can deliver a delicious meal to your door.

Boring, right? And here’s the same thing, made a little less expected:

Red Bull gives you wings

Belong anywhere. [AirBnB]

A delicious meal at your door, by Uber Eats.

There used to be a way to calculate ‘syntactic surprise’, but the online calculator tool seems dead. That’s a shame, but you’re a writer – you don’t need it. Making nice sentences is your thing, right?

And a 127% increase in click-through rate? Wow. That’s the difference between an Amazon bestseller and one that’s nigh on impossible to market profitably.

Use these tools. Use them well. Be happy.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Ooh, a challenging task this week. It comes in two pieces:

1. Give me an Amazon book description of 150 words or less.
2. Give me a ‘shout line’: a phrase or sentence (max 12 words, and ideally under 10) suitable for the front of your book. So for example: 'Every family has secrets – some more deadly than others.'

We’re going to be looking for clear and compelling, mixed with a dash of syntactic surprise. A hard task this one, but a goodie.

As soon as you're ready, log into Townhouse and post yours here.

***

That’s it from me. 

Til soon,

Harry.

Julie Hartley, a Canada-based writer of historical fiction, shares her experience of writing for Bookouture.

When I submitted my first novel to Bookouture, a division of Hachette UK, I wasn't fully aware of the difference between digital-first and traditional publishers. I had published three books with independent presses, and I was seeking an agent in the hope that my next novel might find a more global readership. Then, I stumbled on the Bookouture website. I was delighted to see that you could submit to them unagented, and I sent off my manuscript at once.

From submission to publication

The novel I submitted to Bookouture was historical fiction set in occupied France in 1942, and I heard back from them within only a couple of weeks. The acquisitions editor felt the novel was not a fit for their lists, but on the strength of the manuscript she asked if I might be interested in writing something set in England during World War Two. Thrilled, I sent them several synopses, and they selected the two with the strongest hooks.

Publishing companies survive because they know how to sell books, and a strong hook is critical. My first novel for Bookouture, Her Secret Soldier, is about a lonely young woman who discovers an injured German spy in the ancient forest behind her home. She feels compelled to help him, but in doing so risks becoming a traitor to her country. My second novel, The Promise She Made, is about a feisty young girl in 1940 who, desperate to keep her younger sister safe from the Luftwaffe bombs, books passage for them both to Canada against the wishes of her family. Their ship is torpedoed by the Germans in the middle of the Atlantic, with heavy loss of life. A novel must have a strong hook for a publisher to sell it, and my experience with Bookouture taught me digital publishers are no exception.

After several emails and meetings, I received a contract to write both novels. I hadn’t thought such things still happened! However, a shock awaited me when I read the contract. The first novel was to be delivered in just three months.

Digital-first publishers are not a fit for every writer

Writers working with digital publishers often publish two or three books a year, building a brand and a following of loyal readers. Initially I found this pace daunting, but quickly discovered that I absolutely loved it. Writing to a tight deadline means beginning with a detailed plan, at least for me. I brushed up on five act structure and expanded the first synopsis into acts, then chapters, and finally scenes before beginning the first draft.

Every morning for eight weeks I wrote from 5am to 9am and, despite working full time, finished the novel with a week to spare. Meeting a tight deadline meant changing how I worked in other ways, too. My first draft is always handwritten, but there wasn’t time to type in the second draft as I might usually have done, so I tried talk to text. To my surprise, this had a positive impact on my manuscript, since the musicality of a sentence is much more apparent when it is read out loud.

Tight deadlines wouldn’t work for all writers, but I discovered that immersion in the lives of my characters day after day was something I really enjoyed – along with the knowledge that, for the first time, I was writing something that would definitely be published.

A good editor can make or break an experience with a publisher, digital or otherwise

I'm fortunate enough to have a fabulous editor at Bookouture. She is quick to spot structural issues in a manuscript, which is what you need when the deadline is tight – but she is also kind, and she sees the editorial process as a dialogue.  I had initially wondered if the tight publication schedule of a digital-first publisher might mean hasty editing, but this was not the case. My experience with Bookouture has been nothing but positive.

The pros and cons of working with a digital-first publisher

With a traditional publisher it can take years to grow your novel from hook to book, but with a digital publisher the journey is much quicker. In addition, many digital publishers accept submissions from unagented writers. These were both huge positives for me. On the flip side, working with a digital publisher means you don’t see your books in shops, at least initially – something that might be an important consideration for some writers.

It's difficult to say what the future of digital-first publishing will be in an industry that is ever-changing, but for now at least, digital publishers offer writers an additional route to publication – and at a time when it can seem harder than ever before to succeed creatively, this is surely a good thing.

Julie Hartley is the author of two historical novels, both released by Bookouture. She lives in Toronto, Canada where she runs creative writing classes for teens and retreats for adults. You can find Julie's latest novel here. You can also find out more about Julie and her books on her website, and stay up to date with her latest releases via Facebook and Instagram.

Last week, we talked about query letters and I asked you to pop your draft letters up on Townhouse for feedback.

That’s always an illuminating exercise, and on the whole, what I saw was pretty convincing.

But one topic I did want to address was this: your query letter absolutely wants to deliver your core elevator pitch... but you probably don’t want to state your elevator pitch in the letter.

Now yes, that’s sounds puzzling – and I’ll explain – but I should also say that it’s easy to overthink these things. For one thing, personal tastes differ. Some agents will relish what I or other agents would not advise.

More important, though, a query letter itself isn’t terribly important. You need to talk about your book in a way that interests the agent – but the default for an agent is to read the first page or two of your work. It’s way better to have a drab query letter and some excellent opening chapters, than to have a dazzling query letter and drab text. The latter manuscript will never be picked up. The first one almost certainly will be.

So, please don’t get stressed. If you want more help with the query letter, last week's Lesson Three of How to Get a Literary Agent course will tell you EVERYTHING that you need to know. (If you're a Premium Member, log in to access this course for free. Otherwise you can purchase the course for just £99).

OK. So. Elevator pitch and query letter.

As you know, I love a very tight elevator pitch:

“A Cardiff-set crime novel, featuring a detective who used to think she was dead.”

That’s 14 words and I wasn’t even really trying to go as short as possible.

I don’t even mind elevator pitches that just collapse into a list of ingredients. For example, here are some that just list ingredients but still have a relish to them. (The first pitch describes my Fiona series, of course; the other two are just invented.)

“Murder mystery + detective who used to believe she was dead.”

“Antarctic research station + troubled oceanographer + ghosts”

“YA story: Victorian circus + orphan boy + murder story”

But an elevator pitch is, first and foremost, for you. It’s so you can define and understand the purpose of your novel. It’s so you can keep the text on the iron tracks that will deliver commercial (and actually artistic) quality.

From that point of view, the scantier your pitch, the more clearly you yourself understand what you’re dealing with. But a query letter has to dress like a query letter. You can’t just toss out a dozen words, like ham knuckles on a plate, and expect to whet an agent’s appetite.

So you need to introduce your book in a paragraph or two, and those paragraphs need to have nice tidy prose, and they need to ensure that they’re delivering information on genre, and setting, and anything else that an agent might want to know before she tucks into the manuscript.

And the elevator pitch needs to shimmer behind all that – the gold behind the veil.

So to take that (invented) book about the Victorian circus, my query letter might say.

“Oscar is an orphan. He never knew his father and his mother (a lady’s maid) died when he was eight. For two years, he lived a harsh and semi-feral life on the streets of London, until a kindly trapeze artist at one of London’s largest circuses took him in. His life at the circus is comparatively idyllic until one day, when tasked with clearing out the animal cages, he finds evidence that the lions have recently dined on a human – and, quite possibly, Lady Pamela Dulverton, whose recent disappearance is the talk of the town.

Drawn into the resultant investigation, Oscar is forced to grow up fast – and finally learns family secrets that will change his life forever.”

Now, you can absolutely feel the elevator pitch there: Orphan. Victorian circus. Murder. Boom! That’s a book we want to read. The rest of it (the trapeze artist, the lion’s cages, the status of the murder victim) are all just dressing on top of that basic skeleton. If the murder victim had been trampled by an elephant or tossed from a trapeze or skewered by a strongman, it wouldn’t really affect the story. It would be equally unimportant who took Oscar in. The elevator pitch, however, you can’t alter at all without fundamentally changing the story itself.

Oh yes: and the ‘family secrets that change his life forever’ – that’s also not really part of the pitch. Of course, a YA story has to deliver some major form of life-changing outcome, but it doesn’t have to be a family secret. If an orphan came into money or some form of real job security or decided to set up shop as a freelance investigator, any of those things would also complete the story in the necessary way. The pitch is iron and can’t change (unless you decided to write a different story altogether.)

So, the elevator pitch is all present and correct. The agent will feel its presence.

At the same time, you can feel that the extra dressing just helps the pitch appear at its best. It’s as though your query letter is saying, “Look, our pitch is basically orphan + Victorian circus + murder mystery. You gotta love that, right? But if you want help understanding how those ingredients cohere into an actual story, then let me tell you about Oscar, who …”

So, yes, your elevator pitch needs to light up your query letter – it needs to be felt.

But no, the pitch alone is insufficient.

So do what most of the Feedback Friday people did last wee. Write a fluent paragraph or two. Make sure the elevator pitch is there behind the curtain. And write a paragraph that engages the reader.

It’s that simple.

And don’t stress. If you can write a book that’s good enough to be published, you can definitely write a query letter. (And download the query letter and synopsis builder. It’s good.)

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Since we’re doing agent-y things at the moment, we may as well do synopses too.

If you haven’t already posted your query letter for feedback, then I suggest you do that this week here. If you posted your query letter last week, then let’s take a look at your synopsis instead.

I will say that reading back-to-back synopses is a task about as interesting as eating a plateful of brick dust, so I won’t get stuck in too deeply. What I will do, though, is take at least one synopsis from this week's assignment of Lesson Four of How to Get a Literary Agent and give in-depth comments in the forum for that course (and I’ll make my post sticky, so it’s easy to find.)  

***

That’s it from me. Brick dust is yuk, because it lodges between the teeth. A bowlful of gravel though, with fresh milk, and a little grated dandelion? Yum.

Til soon.

Harry

PS: Premium Members have been enjoying our How To Get a Literary Agent course – lessons are released weekly and we’re now on week four, all about how to writing a winning synopsis. The course is free to Premium Members – or you can buy this course as a one-off for £99. But don’t be a silly billy. It makes no sense to buy a one-off course, when you can get an entire suite of courses (and everything else in membership) for just £150 a year (or, for cancel-any-time flex membership, just £30/month.) Membership info here.

Last week, we dealt with hyper-intelligent beings in the form of robots. This week, we turn to… literary agents.

The gist of this email is short and easy.

Agents are there to sell services to you. Over the years, if your career does well, you’ll certainly hope to spend thousands (of pounds or dollars) on those agents. With a little luck, you’ll be spending tens of thousands. If your career really flourishes, you could easily be spending six digits on all that agenting.

Don’t get me wrong, that money is bloody well spent. I’m hardly ill-connected in the world of agents and publishers, and I have in fact sold books for Jericho Writers clients in the past. (Under exceptional circumstances only, and no, I won’t do it for you.) But an agent lives in that market, day in and day out, and there’s no question that they do a better job than I would.

As you know, I’m a big fan of self-publishing and if you want to go that route, you stand an excellent chance of making more money than you would by going trad. But if you do want a traditional publisher, then the 10-15% commission you spend on your agent will be rewarded many times over by the uplift in revenues you’ll collect. I’ve never thought that agents are overpaid.

But – 

You pay these people. They work for you.

And OK, this is a two-way deal. They don’t offer representation unless they think the deal will work out for them. So yes, you have to pass a kind of audition. But in a way that’s even true of plumbers. If they don’t fancy your bathroom renovation job, they either won’t do it, or they’ll quote a sum that induces you to say no.

Forget about the audition stage. It’s irrelevant. These people work for you and, if things work out, they will make a lot of money from you.

So treat them like plumbers, not gods.

If an agent stops responding to perfectly legitimate emails, then they’re behaving childishly and unprofessionally. Move on.

If an agent asks for editorial changes that you’re sure are wrong, say no.

If an agent’s submission process is unnecessarily fiddly or non-standard, then either ignore their requests or choose a different agent.

If an agent’s contract has some pissy little clause that you don’t like or seems unfair, then say so. Negotiate.

Most standard advice tells you to approach an agent with a kind of genuflection in your query letter. (“There are 1400+ literary agents in the world, but I’m writing to YOU because you bedazzle me in the following way …”) And, for me, that’s horse-poo. The things that people say in those letters almost always come over as inauthentic. In most cases, you know pretty much damn all about an agent, and you’re writing to them because you don’t totally hate their face, the agency seems OK, and you’ve got to bang out a dozen query letters anyway. If I were back in agent-querying world, I wouldn’t do that little genuflection. I’d just say, “here’s my book. If you want to represent me, let’s talk.” I mean, I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that, but I wouldn’t curtsy.

Also – send out multiple query letters. Agents used to promote a kind of sequential process: first one agent, then another, then another. That process served their interests very well and yours not at all. You wouldn’t do that with plumbers. Don’t do it with agents.

Ask for information. You should expect to know which editor at which publishing house has received your work. You should expect a submission strategy to be worked out with you in advance. Don’t ask for those things timidly. Expect them. Require them. A plumber needs to check with you before selecting bathware. An agent needs to check with you before selecting editors.

And that’s the message. They’re not gods. They’re plumbers. Expect good behaviour, and you’ll (probably) get it. All being well, you’ll have an excellent professional relationship that lasts for years. You’re paying the money, so you’re within your rights to have expectations.

Ask for what you want.

Be polite and professional.

And don’t curtsy.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Biff boff. Your task this week is to show me your query letter.

Despite what I say above, I’m perfectly happy if you do insert the “I’ve chosen you because….” language. I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s obligatory.

If you’re not at the querying stage, then do the exercise anyway. It’s always helpful to think about your book from an agent’s perspective. When you're ready, share yours here.

That’s it from me.

Til soon,

Harry

Rory Marsden is the self-published author of six books – the first in his series of historical fantasies, Tales of Castle Rory. We caught up with him to ask how he got started with self-publishing, and what he’s learned about the process.

Jericho Writers: Hi Rory, thanks so much for taking part in this Q&A with us! We know lots of people in our community are intrigued by the idea of self-publishing – but many don’t feel confident about trying it. How did you get started?

Rory Marsden: I learnt what to do by taking the amazing Simply Self-Publish course. My tutor was Debbie Young, and the course was invaluable – and not only because of the information it provided and the feedback I received on my assignments. Just as important were Debbie’s gentle encouragement, and her willingness to answer all questions. It was Debbie and her course that gave me the confidence to tackle the whole business, after which I found it isn’t as hard as you think. The course got me started, and now I’m on my own unique journey.

JW: We know lots of people worry that self-publishing means doing absolutely everything yourself. Was that the case for you?

RM: No! First, my books have all been professionally proofread, and they all have professional cover designs. These are important investments; expensive but worth it. For Books one and two, I also paid for professionally formatted interiors, but after that I bought Vellum, a brilliant piece of software, and I’ve formatted all the other books myself. I feel very confident with this now – but of course, it might not be for everyone.

This logic applied to the whole process of self-publishing: at all stages you can choose how much to do yourself and how much to farm out to professionals. The more you do yourself, the less you have to pay, and you really do learn as you go along. If you’re nervous, you can pay other people, and you’ll still retain all your rights.

JW: Are there any things you’d never consider doing yourself?

RM: For me, it’s cover design. A DIY approach for this is a false economy and will come back to bite you. Amateur covers are too obviously just that, though of course if you have graphic design experience you might get away with it! Professional editing or proof-reading is equally essential.

JW: So - once you had your book ready, what was your next step?

RM: I opted to publish through KDP Select, meaning the ebook couldn’t be sold anywhere but on Amazon. However, the paperback can be sold anywhere at all, so I used Draft2Digital, an aggregator that handles making your paperback available from different online retailers.

Being in KDP Select means your books are available to anyone who has signed up for Kindle Unlimited. They can “borrow” your book and read it on their device, and you get royalties for every page they read. I’ve found this works well for my books.

You can get a KDP account set up way in advance of publishing, and then it will be there, ready for you, when you’re poised to publish. I’d advise doing this as soon as you’ve made the decision to self-publish – it’s one less thing to think about further down the line.

JW: What can you tell us about the nitty-gritty of self-publishing – the finer details you’ve had to get to grips with?

RM: I’ve learned an awful lot about how Amazon works! The platform needs to know what it’s selling and who’s likely to buy it. It asks you to select the categories your book fits into, and the keywords customers might put into a search tool when they are looking for books to read. You need to choose these with care, and there’s a limit to how many you can put in. There’s a short cut to researching dozens of similar books, though, and that’s to buy an app called Publisher Rocket. You have to pay for it, so more money going out before anything comes in, but it really does solve the Category and Keyword issue very quickly.

JW: You seem to have picked up a lot of knowledge since starting your self-publishing journey. Have some lessons been harder to learn than others?

RM: Yes! Getting your book up online and available to purchase is only the start, as I have discovered. You see, nobody knows about your book. So, nobody buys it! Amazon gives you thirty days to do something about this. In those thirty days, the Amazon algorithms are working in your favour, pushing your book at anyone who might (in the algorithms’ opinion) be interested. The algorithms work from the categories you’ve selected, and this is why it’s so important to get them right.

After thirty days, if your book isn’t selling, Amazon doesn’t care anymore, and the book is no longer pushed. It’s still available, just not very visible. That’s what happened to me. I had to look into marketing, something I’d never done before.

JW: What happened next?

RM: I was told, by various experts, that most self-published authors are not interested in marketing. They shy away from it, wanting to spend their time writing their books instead. However, self-publishing means understanding that your book is a product. It needs to be marketed efficiently and effectively. You, the author, need to be marketed too. You need a brand, an identity people can connect with, and a story that will resonate. Not the story in your shiny new novel, but the story of you.

I needed help with this and paid for time with a marketing advisor – but if you’ve worked in this sort of field before, you can probably save a lot of money!

JW: In your view, what are the main advantages of self-publishing?

RM: As an independent author, you retain all rights and all control over your manuscript and everything that happens to it. Traditional publishers often offer contracts in which you relinquish rights such as translation into other languages, new editions, new formats, which books might come next in a series, cover design and much else. With self-publishing/independent publishing, it’s all in your control. So, you do all the hard work – but you also get to say what happens, and your royalties per book sale are much greater.

JW: What do you think is the most important self-publishing advice you could share with our community?

RM: Probably that the publishing part of self-publishing – uploading your files to Amazon, for example – is the easy bit! Everything that comes with it is fun, but you need to enjoy the challenges of marketing, branding, selling and so on. I made some bad decisions early on. For example, before I hired my marketing advisor, I spent money on Amazon ads without knowing what I was doing. Most of my other decisions were good ones, thankfully.

You will need to invest in self-publishing – and that’s how to think about it. I considered joining the Simply Self-Publish course the first step on that road, and I’m really glad I took it. I wish anyone else thinking of taking the plunge the very best of luck!

About Rory Marsden

Rory Marsden is the author of a series of Medieval fantasy adventures, the Tales of Castle Rory. You can visit his website at: talesofcastlerory.co.uk and buy his books here.

As a writer of romantic novels, one of my top priorities is making sure sparks fly between my protagonists. My readers expect sizzling chemistry that slow-burns into a satisfying happy ever after – but readers of all genres want to meet people whose relationships they can invest in.  

Whatever genre you’re writing in, creating chemistry between your characters is crucial. Whether you’re working on a dystopian horror novel, a sweeping fantasy trilogy or a gritty crime thriller, it should be as high up your authorial to-do list as mine.  

So, what is chemistry?  

This is a good question. Often, chemistry is one of those ‘you know it when you see it’ things.  

Consider Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, or Harry, Ron and Hermione. Think of the push and pull between the very different Dashwood sisters in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or the relentless bickering of the many Bridgerton siblings.  

To me, chemistry is the force that animates fictional relationships, taking them from flat to 3D. It’s what makes them feel real and believable, but also what makes them entertaining.  

Establishing effective chemistry really means creating connection between your characters. Often, this link involves recognition and / or resistance. Perhaps the characters see things in one another that they love or hate – or maybe they perceive pieces of themselves in the other person. This might be joyous or deeply disturbing.  

In any case, the most important thing to remember is that chemistry is founded on feelings. It requires characters to provoke strong reactions in one another, whether positive or negative. 

Tried and tested methods for creating chemistry 

1. Equal or opposite responses to events. Whatever type of relationship you’re building between characters, putting them in a tricky situation can pay dividends. Will their problem pull them together? Will it expose the differences between them? If so, good – because conflict is excellent fuel for chemistry.  

On the other hand, perhaps getting out of their pickle will force your characters into a rapprochement that brings them closer. It could help them recognise qualities in one another that they hadn’t known were there.  

Throw your characters into the deep end to test a long-standing relationship or show the formation of a new one. Whether they sink, swim or struggle awkwardly to the side of the pool will help your reader understand who these people are – but also who they are to one another.   

2. Physical touch. In romance novels, physical touch is key to creating chemistry. However, the same logic applies to any genre of novel where there’s a romantic sub-plot. Robert Galbraith’s Strike series is an obvious example.  

Touch doesn’t have to be overtly sexual or gratuitous – it can be a fleeting brush of fingertips or a comforting hug that lasts just a moment too long. The point is for it to evoke emotions that go beyond platonic boundaries.  

Between friends, touch can be grounding: a signal that your character isn’t alone in facing whatever challenge is before them. Touch can also denote a shift in a relationship, from friendship to more or from casual to committed. Never underestimate the significance of one character taking another by the hand.  

3. Little (and large) intimacies. Think in-jokes, nicknames or one character knowing another’s coffee order by heart. All signal connections that can be romantic but don’t have to be.  

In my current work-in-progress, the first thing my protagonist’s best friend – a chef – says to her in chapter one is: ‘Hungry? I’ve saved you a plate with all the good stuff.’ It’s easy, effective shorthand for: ‘I know you and I care about you.’ 

Elsewhere, the delivery of tough love – or the prodding of old wounds – can signal and strengthen characters’ chemistry. When one person knows about another’s painful past or calls them out on their BS, the bond between them becomes clear and feels real. 

Well, golly gosh, I thought last week’s Feedback Friday was interesting - and brave for the good souls who took part.

We asked people to post an excerpt from their manuscript – plus the same scene, as delivered by an AI tool. (You can see the full results here, and I do urge you to take a look. If the link gives you a “whoops” message, that’s because you’re not a member, or not logged in. So either log in, or join us completely free. You get load of good stuff if you do.)

Just for fun, here’s part of the scene that I posted. Fiona (a police officer, but working undercover) is meeting a senior member of a criminal gang she is seeking to penetrate. They meet in a wine bar:

My version of the scene

Vic emerges from behind a raw oak pillar. My face must change somehow, because the waiter swings round, sees Vic. Some look is exchanged, and the waiter waves me over to where Vic has a table waiting.

‘You made it,’ he says.

He clucks around me, a fussy uncle. He wants me to remove my coat, but I keep it on. Take off my hat, but keep it close.

He wants me to choose a drink. Pushes a long wine list at me, tells me to order anything. I ask for water. He tells me again to order anything, meaning that water doesn’t count, so I say orange juice, a small one.

He orders another glass of red wine for him, a bowl of olives, toasted ciabatta slices and olive oil, a selection of antipasti, and my orange juice.

I sit there with my bag on my lap. The bag is wired for sound. So is my coat.

‘Filthy day, isn’t it? I don’t mind it cold, but this is vile.’

I don’t say anything. Maybe shrug. Look sideways.

‘Listen, love, you’re frightened, aren’t you? And that’s my fault. I think I frightened you yesterday. Let’s just get to know each other a bit maybe.’

AI version of scene

The soft clink of wine glasses blended with murmured conversations around me. I’d chosen my outfit carefully – a worn blazer and faded jeans that screamed low-wage worker, a direct contrast to the polished mahogany and crystal elegance of the wine bar. Vic sat across from me, his pinstripe suit a silent declaration of power.

“You’ve got a reputation for being… resourceful,” he said, swirling a glass of Cabernet. His steel-gray eyes never left my face, measuring and calculating. I could feel the weight of his assessment.

I kept my posture slightly hunched, the defeated stance of someone desperate for work. “I go where I’m needed,” I replied, my voice low and neutral. “Cleaning’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills.”

A thin smile crossed his lips – predatory, knowing.

Comments on this

For me, the AI scene is desperately crude. Conversations (inevitably) are murmured. Wine glasses (inevitably) clink softly. The bar is (for sure) polished mahogany, even though that wood feels like a somewhat Victorian choice; it certainly isn’t high style today. And of course the eyes are steel-grey and calculating.

The trouble here is that there’s no sub-text. The reader isn’t being asked to do any work at all. “Hmm, I wonder how we should think about Vic Henderson? Well, he’s predatory and calculating so he’s probably Bad News, right?”

That’s so crude.

My version of the same man is almost the opposite. He clucks around Fiona like a fussy uncle. He nudges her into ordering something. And he accepts blame for her feelings: ‘Listen, love, you’re frightened, aren’t you? And that’s my fault. I think I frightened you yesterday. Let’s just get to know each other a bit maybe.’

But the reader knows this isn’t the whole Henderson. Not only do we know for a fact that he’s the face of a criminal enterprise, but we see him rejecting her request for water. There’s compulsion here and it’s the compulsion that we feel.

Some of the comments on this pair of scenes was:

• “the AI writing here isn’t good. I don’t think it has the capacity to be indirect. It overexplains with tired language. And it has that generic voice.”
• “There is always a lot of telling description that gives AI away. ‘Low and neutral’ ‘ thin smile’ ‘predatory’ ‘hands trembled’. The revised version has a lot of flowery descriptions. However, with your excerpt, we are picking up things as readers and not being told what to think.”

I think those comments are just right.

And just to finish, here’s a chunk (edited for length) from Sally Roone’s Intermezzo. The monologue comes from Ivan, a gifted chess player. He’s watching an arts centre get set up for a 10 vs 1 chess tournament, where Ivan is the 1. He then meets Margaret, the attractive arts centre organiser.

Sally Rooney / Intermezzo

Standing on his own in the corner, Ivan thinks with no especially intense focus about the most efficient way of organising, say, a random distribution of tables and chairs into the aforementioned arrangement of a central U-shape, etc. It’s something he has thought about before, while standing in other corners, watching other people move similar furniture around similar indoor spaces: the different approaches you could use, say if you were writing a computer programme to maximise process efficiency. The accuracy of these particular men in relation to the moves recommended by such a program would be, Ivan thinks, pretty low, like actually very low…

A woman enters. She happens to be noticeably attractive, which makes her presence in the room at this juncture all the more curious. She has a nice figure and her face in profile looks very pretty … She works here, the woman named Margaret, here at the art centre: that explains her sort of artistic appearance. She's wearing a white blouse, and a voluminous patterned skirt in different colours, and neat flat shoes of the kind ballerinas wear. He begins to experience, while she stands there in front of him, an involuntary mental image of kissing her on the mouth: not even really an image, but an idea of an image, sort of a realisation that it would be possible to visualise this at some later point, what it would be like to kiss her, a promise of enjoyment simply to picture himself doing that, which is harmless enough, just a private thought.

Do you play chess? he asks.

Nowhere does this say, “Ivan is a chess geek.” Nowhere does this say, “Ivan is certain to be awkward around women.” Nowhere does this say, “Ivan will not come across as sexually impressive.” But we know immediately that all these things are true. We also know that Ivan would slaughter us at chess and also be far more likely to remember the formula for a Gaussian probability distribution.

The point here is that the reader is being made to work. They have to bring their own knowledge of the world (geeky men / arts centre-y women) and build out their understanding of the scene from facts they’ve acquired about the world. The AI text almost assumes that we have no knowledge of the world, so if an observation isn’t in the text, it doesn’t exist.

But it does exist! It’s the most interesting part of the text. The joy of reading Sally Rooney isn’t Sally Rooney text alone. It’s ‘Sally Rooney text plus our own human wisdom.’ A robot couldn’t read Sally Rooney and form any real sense of what makes it worthwhile.

You don’t believe me? Well, I asked a robot to ‘rewrite and improve’ Rooney’s passage. The result is in the PS below. But suffice to say – I do not love it.

And nor should you.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

OK, here’s a rather different task from what I normally hand out – but still on the theme of this email and the last.

• Post a 200-250 word excerpt from your manuscript
• In [square brackets and italics] add your comments wherever you detect the kind of subtext that you would not expect a robot to pick up.

Once you're ready, log in to Townhouse and post yours here.

I’m going to like the excerpts that have lots of italics!

***

That’s it from me.

My massive Viking longship was handed in to school and duly admired. It’s now sitting in my garage. When summer comes, I’m going to find a petite red-headed Viking and launch her off into the biggest lake or river I can find. The ship is papier-mache and is likely to dissolve, but wotthehell. The Vikings sailed to America, right? I reckon they’ll manage the Thames.

Til soon.

Harry

***

PS: Here’s the AI version of that Sally Rooney passage: which scrubs all subtext with a total lack of self-reflection. Ms Rooney has nothing to worry about just yet:

Standing in the corner, Ivan observed the chaotic rearrangement of furniture with detached analytical interest. His mind, perpetually seeking patterns, calculated the optimal sequence for transforming this random scatter of tables and chairs into the intended U-shape. It was a familiar mental exercise—one he often entertained while occupying the margins of rooms like this, watching people execute with human imprecision what could be solved with algorithmic elegance. He estimated the efficiency of these particular men at perhaps thirty percent of optimal—their movements dictated by intuition rather than calculation, by conversation rather than silent computation.

A woman entered the space, and Ivan's algorithmic thinking stuttered. Her presence was an unexpected variable in what had been, until now, a predictable equation. She moved with confidence through the disarray, her figure drawing his attention with a force that felt almost mathematical in its inevitability. Her profile cut a precise silhouette against the institutional wall—high cheekbones, a determined chin, eyes focused on something beyond the immediate disorder.

Margaret, he recalled from the program. She worked at the art center—an explanation for both her presence and the deliberate aesthetic of her appearance. Her white blouse provided sharp contrast to the chromatic explosion of her skirt, which moved like liquid as she navigated between half-arranged furniture. Her ballet flats made no sound on the floor, adding to the impression that she floated slightly above the mundane proceedings.

Without warning, his mind produced not an explicit image but a theoretical construct—a placeholder for a potential visualization involving the pressing of his lips against hers. Not even a fantasy so much as a mathematical proof of a fantasy's possibility: If x equals proximity and y equals mutual attention, then z could equal... He felt a curious satisfaction at the mere architecture of this thought, this harmless private equation that would never require solving.

"Do you play chess?" he asked, the question emerging from some calculation deep beneath his consciousness, a gambit whose purpose even he couldn't fully articulate.

For a long time, I’ve held off writing about the impact of AI on what we do. Partly, none of us knows the answer and I have no special expertise in the area. But also, the impact still seemed quite remote. AI has seemed like something that might impact relatively tedious tasks (writing Google-optimised articles about vehicle maintenance, say) but not more obviously artistic / complex ones – like writing a memoir or a novel.

But – well, here’s a story.

Or rather, here WILL be a story, except that I want to put a shout out for Harry Harrison’s book THE WELFARE. I never met Harry, but he was a loyal Son of Jericho – always kind, always helpful, and a wonderful writer. He died recently, unexpectedly soon and with perfect bravery and grace. His book was unfinished, but his lovely writing group helped complete his book. It’s available now, in paperback. Harry Harrison was a beautiful man; this book is a lovely memorial.

OK. The story:

My kids were given an extended homework task that involved writing a ‘day in the life of’ story about a Viking.

My older boy, who is no huge fan of the written word, settled down, rather glumly, to perform the task.

Sometime later, he showed me his story. It was typed, which is fine: he’s happier with the keyboard than the pen. He had written about 200 words. And the story was really quite good. It had a simple dawn / voyage / battle / rest structure. The prose was simple, but clear and effective (“The air was cool, the sea was calm.”) There were no typos or punctuation errors, but Tom explained he’d used the spellcheck tools to get rid of them.

He seemed genuinely proud.

I was, I have to say, sceptical. I put the text through a plagiarism checker to make sure he hadn’t just lifted it wholesale from somewhere. But he hadn’t. I even checked his internet search history. Honestly, I ended up thinking that he’d done the work and I was proud of him.

He hadn’t, of course.

He’d used the copilot tool in Word (which I’ve never used myself or shown him how to use) and just had AI create the story lock, stock and barrel. That story, alas, was better than anything Tom was capable of writing himself.

Now, we’re talking about a 200-word story ‘written by’ an 11-year-old. We’re not talking about novels, let alone novels for adults, let alone anything with aspirations to art.

But take a look at the following chunks of text. One was written by AI, one by my (text-averse) son, one by my (text-ophile) daughter. Oh, and just to make it more fun, I’ve included a fourth chunk of text which represents a second excerpt by one of those three writers. The order is random.

Text A

It was lunchtime, when the cook Eirik was calling me. I climbed down from my platform and went to eat. There was freshly caught fish and sour milk. After a while I went back to my platform.

Suddenly, I thought I saw a ship.

“I’ve seen a ship,” I shouted.

Text B

"Hold the net tight," his dad told Leif as they rowed out. They spent a long time catching fish in the sun.

At lunch time, they came back with lots of fish. Leif helped his dad put salt on some fish to keep for winter. Later, in the middle of the village, an old man got everyone to sit around the fire. He told stories about Thor's hammer and brave fighters who sailed to far-away places.

Text C

I smiled. I had no doubt our boat was queen of the seas. No one doubted it, except for Arne our old, wrinkled cook. He cooked amazingly, though sometimes pieces of hair from his long grey beard swam in the stews he concocted. His beard was so long, and he was so ancient, that people believed many generations of ravens, with feathers as black as charcoal, had roosted within its tangled mass.

Text D

The new ship was getting nearer by the minute. It was here. I swung across to the other ship.

I started by killing the weak and feeble, then moved on to the hulks and the better fighters. I so nearly got killed, but Halfdan saved me. Phew, that was close.

Just take a moment to sort through who you think has authored what.

OK.

I think it’s not hard to determine that Text D is my son’s work. That just feels eleven years old, right? A boy wants a battle scene but has only the very vaguest notion of how to choreograph it, and Text D is the alarmingly hotch-potch result.

Text C clearly belongs to my daughter. It’s just too bananas, too off-piste, to have been generated by a machine. That’s true of the whole raven / beard image. But it’s also true of the details – ‘pieces of hair’ rather than ‘tiny hairs’, for example.

Then Text A versus Text B? Well, I’m not sure there are many tells here – except that Text A more obviously joins to Text D, so we can figure out that Text B belongs to a machine, A and D to a rather small human.

And what does all this tell us?

Well, I think it tells us that the current, still immature, generation of models is weirdly powerful. No news there.

I also think it reminds us that AM – Artificial Morality – is not even in its infancy. It’s unborn and barely thought of. From what I understand, my son basically asked a machine to help him cheat and the machine did so without a moment’s pause. The machine did not say, as any vaguely sensible adult would have done, ‘Look, are you sure? Wouldn’t it be more helpful for your education if you actually did this work yourself? Maybe you could do it and I could nudge you when you get stuck?’

AI without AM seems like a dangerous path to me. That’s also not exactly a novel observation.

But I also think this whole episode tells us that, for now, what those models are good at is generating the kind of text you expect to see because it’s the kind of text you’ve seen before. Because the internet isn’t full of people like Tom writing breezily about killing the weak and the feeble before moving on to the hulks (!), the models don’t pop that kind of sentence out.

When Tom is writing (Text A) in the way that he’s expected to write for this assignment, the machines (Text B) keep almost perfect pace. In fact, from a pure prose perspective, the machine is writing just that little bit better, albeit still in the range of 11-year-old vocab and sentence structure.

But text C? With its generations of ravens and pieces of hair? In the end, what AI models are doing is stunning, but the heavy lifting is still, in the end, a kind of creative statistical analysis of huge volumes of text. Almost inevitably, it tends towards the median, the average – the expected.

Clearly, as models get better, they’ll get more capable and the range of uses will become more expansive. Suppose, for example, you wanted to create a primer on German-English grammar along with some vocabulary lists suitable for early learners. I think you could probably create a very good first draft of that book in about a day, relying on AI to do the heavy lifting for you.

That says to me that already, at the most mechanical end of the education market, AI is capable of (very largely) replacing the work now done by (underpaid) authors.

But what about next year? Or in 5 years’ time?

I don’t know. But:

1. The more distinctive your voice – the further away from that median line you tread – the longer it’ll take for a machine to catch you up, and perhaps it never will.
2. The stronger your relationship with your actual readers, the more impossible it is that any machine could ever replace you. That relationship needs to be founded on delivery of value of course (great writing), but it’s also supported by just being a nice human in regular communication – we’re talking about mailing lists, here, or at least an active Facebook page.

And all that syncs with everything I say anyway. Write well. Write distinctively. Ditch generic ways of expressing yourself in favour of ways that are loaded with character and enriched by layers of subtext.

Build that mailing list.

Be you. Be human.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

A different sort of task for Feedback Friday this week: 

• Take any 150-200 word scene from your book.
• Ask any AI chatbot to write the same scene. (Tell it who the characters are and what's happening, and give it the same 150-200 word limit.)
• Upload both scenes - and comment yourself on how hard or easy it is to distinguish between the two!

Scary, but fun. I'll pop an AI-Fiona and a real-Fiona scene up there, too.

Once you're ready, post yours here.

That’s it from me. Crocuses are going over, daffodils are coming. Springe is icumen in. Lhude sing cuccu.

Til soon,

Harry.

An article in The Bookseller recently argued that we’re now in a “golden age” of self-publishing – and if you’re currently debating the best way to get your novel into readers’ hands, taking the ‘DIY’ approach has almost certainly crossed your mind.

Self-publishing is rewarding in a wide variety of ways if you can do it successfully – not least because you’re likely to make much more money per book sale than if you published traditionally.

It’s also worth noting that self-publishing no longer places you and your work beyond the purview of traditional houses. Far from it. Many successful self-publishers are now taking a ‘hybrid’ approach to putting their work out there – in some cases selling audio or foreign rights to their books while retaining self-pub rights elsewhere. There’s also what The Bookseller describes as ‘a pipeline’ developing, with self-pubbed authors using their previous success as incredible leverage when negotiating trad deals.

With self-publishing in the spotlight, and as we approach the deadline for applications to our Simply Self-Publishing course, we asked tutor and indie publishing expert Debbie Young to answer some of the burning questions you might have about how it really works…

Jericho Writers: One fear we know people have – despite the changing landscape – is that self-publishing is for authors who simply aren’t good enough to get traditional deals. What do you say to that?

Debbie Young: Self-publishing is not the home of second-rate writers! There are a lot of authors now self-publishing by choice, for the autonomy, for the control, and because they don't want to compromise their vision to fit whatever narrow mould traditional publishers are pursuing.

JW: What about the idea that self-publishing a novel is essentially a vanity project?

DY: Forget the word vanity – when you self-publish seriously, you are not pursuing a vanity project. This isn’t just about printing a book or getting an ebook up onto Amazon so you can say it exists. You are – or should be – publishing a high-quality book because it will appeal to a real market. Your intention should be to reach that market and achieve sales. Basically, if you’re doing it just to see your name ‘in print’, you’re doing it wrong – and you’re almost certainly not making the most of it.

JW: It sounds as though your best chance of success as a self-publisher is to be quite businesslike – to see it as something entrepreneurial.

DY: Exactly. But that doesn’t mean you have to do absolutely everything yourself. You’re not going to have to learn to design covers, format ebooks or print books, or edit or proofread. Instead, self-publishing means taking the same responsibility as a publisher would in a commercial firm – and assembling a team of experts to get your book off the blocks. They can provide any special skills that you don’t have, under your management and direction.

JW: One thing we know people worry about is approaching the ebook market – especially if they are not Kindle or ebook readers themselves.

DY: This comes back to being businesslike. Sell ebooks, even if you don’t read them yourself! Self-pubbed authors typically make around 95% of their money from ebooks, so it’s not a market you can afford to ignore. This is a good example of how a course like Simply Self-Publish can make all the difference to people embarking on this journey: it’s going to expose your blind spots, help you avoid mistakes and arm you with the knowledge you need to move forward successfully.

JW: And what about Kindle Unlimited? People are confused by that, too – particularly how (and even if!) authors get paid when their books are included.

DY: You do get paid as a self-published author when your books are in Kindle Unlimited, or KU. You must agree to exclusivity with Amazon, but you’ll earn ‘page reads’ income for every page of your prose that’s consumed by a KU reader. KU is a really important platform to understand properly as a self-publisher, so we cover it in some detail on the Simply Self-Publish course.

JW: And how does print-on-demand (POD) work? This is another key question we know would-be self-publishers are keen to have answered…

DY: It’s a good, and important, question! POD is the lowest-cost method for printing books, and POD printing though a service like Kindle Direct Publishing or IngramSpark allows just-in-time ordering. This means there’s no upfront cost and no need to hold hundreds of copies of your book in your spare room or a pricey warehouse. Thanks to POD, you can now publish a book with a print-run as low as one. Again, we go into detail about POD on the Simply Self-Publish course.

JW: This final question is probably the biggest one: how do you know if self-publishing is right for you?

DY: I think it’s about being honest with yourself, in terms of your goals and ambitions, the level of control you want to have over your own work, and how much you’re prepared to put into the process. I’d never tell anyone self-publishing is easy, but for many authors it is now their preferred option. And to some degree, it’s about what you’re writing, too: self-publishing works especially well for writers of genre fiction, for books that form part of a series, and so on – but less well for children’s and academic books, which are still mostly consumed in print.

JW: Do you have any final advice?

DY: Learn as much as you can before getting started. Think about doing a course like Simply Self-Publish and consider it an upfront investment in the business of becoming an author. Through Simply Self-Publish, my students create actionable strategies and marketing plans for their books – and that’s exactly what you need to organise upfront, before you even consider putting your book up for sale. Approach it in the right way, and self-publishing can be the starting point for a super fulfilling writing career. I wish you all the best!

Interested in learning more from Debbie?

You can find out more about Simply Self-Publish and apply for your place right here on our website.

About Debbie Young

Self-publishing expert Debbie Young is the author of thirteen novels, two of which have been shortlisted for the prestigious BookBrunch Selfies Award for best independently-published adult fiction in the UK. She now combines licensing selective rights for her books to various publishers including Boldwood Books, DP Verlag, and Saga Egmont, while continuing to self-publish. Debbie has seven years’ experience as Commissioning Editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors’ daily self-publishing advice blog. She is also an Ambassador for ALLi and has written several advice books and pamphlets for indie authors.

A renowned champion of indie authors everywhere, Debbie now shares her passion for self-publishing and her enjoyment in supporting and nurturing other authors as a mentor and course tutor for Jericho Writers.

We're delighted to share that the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme alumna S.J. King's debut novel, Where You Belong, has been published this week by Storm Publishing. We caught up with S.J. to chat about her writing journey, the support she found most valuable along the way and her plans for the future.

JW: Hi S.J, thank you so much for chatting to us about your writing journey. You have not one, but two books coming out in 2025 with Storm Publishing - congratulations! How are you feeling in the run up to becoming a published author?  

S.J: Thanks so much to Jericho Writers for being a big part of my story these last few years. 

So how am I feeling...? Firstly, excited and still surprised. After years of writing, editing, pitching, re-editing, agenting, un-agenting, being on submission, being rejected and then writing, reading, submitting and editing more... I am thrilled that this has ‘suddenly’ happened. I still can’t quite believe it. 

Secondly, it’s a lot of firsts! It's my first time to get a book deal (for starters), but also first time to get a structural edits letter from my editor, select a voice actor for the audiobook, to get an amazing cover and have a cover reveal, to receive ARC reviews and have people tag me on Instagram. Another day, another first! I feel young again.

JW: Let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming a published author? 

S.J: I think it is clear I am not an overnight success! But I almost was… my first agent was an incredible top-level agent who called me within fifteen mins of my first submission. Yep, that happened.

She sent my book to London Book Fair the following week, said she hoped it would go to auction. Nope. All the big publishers liked it, but not enough. Seeing all her other books sell for six and seven figures over the years, and her authors going on to become bestsellers, has been exciting to watch - but a little sad, as I thought my ship had sailed. 

But as a writer, resilience and persistence are absolutely key. I put myself back on the horse (a horse on a ship?) and wrote more books, got another agent, went out on submission again and experienced more rejection. Just as I was on the point of giving up, I came upon the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (UNWP). In the year after the programme, I landed a two-book deal. 

My second book, Lauren is Missing, is the book I was originally agented for, and the one my publisher (Storm) first read - but is not my debut. I have two more books in the bag, one of which I wrote on the UNWP with the fabulous Emma Cooper as my mentor. Working on this helped me go back to the others with a better skillset.

JW: After having spent a long time writing and re-writing the same story, spending infinite amounts of time with your characters – how did you know it was time to send it out into the world?  

S.J: You don’t.

Lauren is Missing has probably been rewritten a hundred times. I have so many files and versions. I have butchered it to the point where I was word blind. Where I loved it and also didn’t think I could read it again. Then, after UNWP and all that I learnt, I picked it up and edited it with fresh eyes, adding a whole new POV. Bingo, book deal. (Of course, I have had to edit it again, but I am now finally on the home straight.) 

Make sure you love your work, but not so much that you’re stubborn.  Use all the support available (such as reviews and the video courses that Jericho Writers offer as part of their Premium Membership), then send to a few agents or consider a one-to-one. Test and try. Rejected? Keep going. Write a new book. You learn something from each one, and you widen your chances.

Also, read. Read books in your genre that have what it takes. Then reread your book. Does it hold up? Do you get tangled in parts? If so, take them out.

JW: Have you got any tips for writers who are preparing their novels for submission?  

S.J: RESILIENCE. Believe in yourself (without arrogance.) Be willing to take the hits, the rejections, but not personally (easier said than done). Don’t refresh your mailbox every three seconds. (Easier said than done.)  Accept that most authors don’t get a deal with their first book, and many authors don’t make it big with their first even if they are published. Stay in love with writing, not just one book. Have a strong pitch, and remember it doesn’t have to be entirely unique. In fact, comparisons are your friend. A lot of reviewers have said they didn’t quite know what to make of Where You Belong because it is not what they expected. It's a psychological thriller with a thread of dystopia.

JW: Can you tell us a little bit about the process your book has gone through, post-book deal, in preparation for publication? How have you found the experience of working with an editor?  

S.J: Joyful.

I guess because I had done rewrites for agents and myself, dismembering my books, knowing that these are the final rounds of edits has felt fabulous.

Vicky, my editor, is just so calm, encouraging, supportive and committed. It feels that with Storm I have a team of caring professionals all around me. I focus on being a writer and they have everything else in the bag. They know their stuff and are very author-friendly.

JW: Before you signed with Storm Publishing, you completed the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. Can you tell us a little about that experience? 

SJ: Oh, so good.

I learned so much that I can keep mining for improvement. Just after I joined I was asked to step into my manager’s role. So I had two jobs and was on this course. (Plus kids, husband, cat on prozac... all the rest.) I thought I would have to stop the course. But my mentor, Emma, was brilliant, the course was flexible, my group were supportive and understanding. Somehow it all fitted and the course was so interesting that I made time for it and the assignments, and the assignments added up to a finished novel. Plus you can work on the content wherever you are in the world, or to suit your work/life schedule. Even the team sessions are recorded so you can watch what you miss.

Each month felt like an unboxing of writing gifts. I just wanted it to go on forever. When it finished, I really missed it for months afterwards.

JW: In all the time you spent developing your craft, both on and off the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, is there anything you found particularly useful?  

S.J: The friendship of fellow writers. I can honestly say I have made lifelong friends through writing. That it feels like the escapist, introvert, and sometimes sanity-sucking world of writing needs other writers to understand the obsession, the process, the highs and lows.

You need people to empathise and share with you, and critique your work - but also to put you back into the game when you are ready to give up. I love other writers, and hope I can give back more than I ever take. I think writers are truly the most generous givers of encouragement and knowledge.  If you have questions you'd like to ask, I will share…

JW: Have there been any surprises along the way? Or perhaps anything you wished you had known earlier? 

1. You can be a plotter AND a pantser. I create an outline and then suddenly… wow… who is Josh? Where did he come from? Oh, OK Josh wants to be a main character does he… wait, why did he do that…?
2. Don’t keep editing the first chapter. You can write a book for five years and still only be doing that.  You’ll have some VERY overwritten first chapters that are probably worse than when you started. Write forward…
3. It is a lot about luck, BUT you can make your own luck if you are resilient and don’t only nurse one project. Diversify and try to be a bit more prolific.
4. Straddling genres or ‘challenging genre norms’ is not as appreciated as you think. Most readers like things to match their expectations. A domestic psychological thriller with dystopian hints… never! Believe me, my reviewers all comment on it.
5. Celebrate all milestones. A new book idea, a finished draft, an edit, a positive review, non-form feedback from an agent. Whatever it is, feel FABULOUS. I don’t do enough of that, I’m a bit ‘well, let’s wait and see, it’s just a step.’ Fortunately my husband is my biggest fan and wants to celebrate everything.
6. Help your family/children/friends to understand what this means to you. My kids have grown up with my writing and my daughter is now the absolute best advisor on my work. She is blunt and nearly always right.

JW: Can you let us know what are you working on now?  

S.J: A bit of social media for my book launch (not needed, but quite fun). Editing book two – Lauren is Missing - out in July 2025. The last 25,000 words of a next book. And a new idea just burst into my brain, so I'm trying not to get too tempted or to lose it before I can get to it. (Oh, and my job…) 

JW: We love asking our writers for one piece of advice they wish they knew at the beginning of their journey. If you could go back, is there anything you would tell your past self?  

S.J: It probably won’t happen when you think it will. But don’t give up, it will happen.

(Oh, sorry… a second thing: Jericho Writers is amazing. I truly mean that. I could write a book about all the support I have received over the years.)

(Oh… last one, I promise: writing is an amazing escape and meditation from the world when it's a little crazy, so be grateful that you were given the key to this little special room inside your head. Not everybody gets that…)

Want to follow in S.J. King's footsteps? You can learn more about the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and how it can help you write a publishable novel in a year!

About S.J. King

S.J. King is the writer of dark, literary psychological thrillers, and fun lover. She will publish two books with Storm in 2025.

For more on S.J. King see her TikTok, Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook.  Feel free to ask her questions if you have them. She’s been in the trenches for a while…

A new air, a fresh day, the first narcissi and a sense of spring.

The Write with Jericho course no longer occupies these emails – hooray – but it’s still there for Premium Members to enjoy at any time.

And (’pon my word – how we do spoil those fellows) we have a whole new course for Premium Members to feast on: the Crime Writing for Beginners course.

If you’re not a Premium Member, that course is available for a mere £99. But why on earth would you pay that? Become a Premium Member and you can get it for free, tra-la.

But enough of Mere Commerce! The Muse summons us.

Thought One: televising a novel

Now, when my first Fiona novel was adapted for TV, the production company hired a fancy screenwriter to produce a script. In an early draft of that script, there was a direction which ran something like this:

“Fiona remembers her harrowing years in hospital as a teenager.”

To be clear, that wasn’t introducing a kind of flashback moment, where we saw images of the hospital, Fiona as teenager, things that were harrowing, etc. It was just an acting direction. Hey, Sophie Rundle, here’s what we want you to show in your face.

The excellent Ms Rundle was not quite sure how to deliver that moment, and the direction was altered.

Thought Two: novelising a screenplay

OK. Hold that thought, and let’s turn our attention to this (lightly abbreviated) chunk from the script of Casablanca:

Ilsa: But what about us?

Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have – we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you.

Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow [...]

[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]

Rick: Now, now...

[Rick gently places his hand under her chin and raises it so their eyes meet]

Rick: Here's looking at you, kid.

Now, if I’m honest, I’m never sure that Casablanca deserves its haloed status as Greatest Screenplay Ever Written. But it’s clearly a more than decent script and this is THE key moment from that script.

And obviously a novel can in principle handle such moments. But not (I hope) like this:

Ilsa said, ‘But what about us?’

‘We'll always have Paris,’ he answered. ‘We didn't have – we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.’

‘When I said I would never leave you.’

‘And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow [...]’

Ilsa lowered her head and began to cry.

‘Now, now,’ he said, and raised her chin with his hand until their eyes met. ‘Here's looking at you, kid.’

That’s the exact same scene, no? Same dialogue, same actions, same content, same everything.

And – the scene is terrible. It’s not moving. It feels perfunctory and limited and mechanical and pointless.

OK, hold that thought too.

(You now have two thoughts in hand, right? One about Sophie Rundle and a difficult-to-execute stage direction. Two about novelising Casablanca. And, OK, you want to go and check out that crime writing course, so you have three thoughts to hold onto. Plus, you’re a writer, so you quite likely also have a cup of tea. Hold steady.)

Thought three: the magic of the reaction shot

Now someone somewhere once said something like this:

The greatest special effect in cinema is the ability to have the star’s face in close-up on a giant screen.

Few of us get to hang out in real life with (say) an Ingrid Bergman at her peak of beauty and acting prowess. But even if we did, normal etiquette would mean we couldn’t just stare. And even if we did, she’d presumably be life-size, not large enough to fill the screen of whatever cinema we might happen to be in.

But screenwriters do get to use Ms Bergman’s face. And that face means that the little screenplay moment works perfectly. Our poor novelist – who had no beautiful giant face to play with – wrote a drab and forgettable version of the same thing.

So what to do?

Well, it all lies in the reaction shot.

On screen, we just need to see a charismatic face doing some Acting. “I’m not just sad, I’m noble and sad. In fact, I’m noble and sad and regretful and loving (and also beautiful and perfectly lit) and you will never forget this moment.”

In the novel, we can’t do that, but we have something more powerful. The interior reaction shot. Cinema can’t handle that Sophie Rundle stage direction – not without some very clunky backstory footage. But a novelist can do so with ease. You want to convey a complex reaction to something? Convey it, buddy. Want to reflect on the past? Go right ahead. Want to tease out the difference between this kind of noble-but-sad feeling and some other sort? You tease away.

And, OK, all this is a long way to say that in a lot of the work I see, writers are too busy rushing forward to deliver a proper reaction shot.

But cinema doesn’t make that mistake: the whole emotional punch of cinema is delivered in two steps:

1. Concoct a plot and characters that result in a character feeling something powerful
2. Show the character having that feeling – up close, on screen.

Your job as a novelist is the same:

1. Concoct a plot and characters that result in a character feeling something powerful
2. Show the character having that feeling – by jumping into their mind and heart and telling us what’s there.

Don’t go to all the hassle of (1) without collecting the revenues that you get from (2). That’s where the gold lies.

A word from our writing guru

I’ll end this cinema-themed email with a quote from that fountain of wise writing advice, Clint Eastwood. He once said:

My old drama coach used to say, 'Don't just do something, stand there.' Gary Cooper wasn't afraid to do nothing.

That’s my advice to you. Let your novel stand there a moment. Let your camera rest on the character. What are they thinking / feeling?

Tell us and tell us properly.

Only then should you move on.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Nice obvious task for Feedback Friday this week:

• Find a scene from your novel when you deliver a proper reaction shot. Max of 200-250 words. Include just enough that we know what your character is reacting to – then show us the character’s reaction.

Once you're ready, post yours here.

That’s it. And I bet that some of you realise you often don’t have reaction shots that last more than a sentence or so. If so, try beefing that moment up and seeing if it works better.

***

That’s it from me. Half-term is over: a relief.

The school has given the kids a project to build a model Viking longship in 3-D. My older daughter has built a ship in papier-maché that will be a full three meters long, by the time its dragon figurehead is finished. And when I say that she has built it, I mean of course that I built it with the most minimal assistance from her.

Til soon.

Harry

Over the past month, the Jericho Writers team has been tightly focused on helping you to write better scenes.

Through the Write With Jericho video course – free for Premium Members – we’ve explored:

• Making each scene purposeful
• Creating atmosphere in your scene
• Dynamic dialogue and internal monologue
• Show, don’t tell - and when to break the rule.

Many of you have shared examples of your work with us during the course, and our four tutors fed back on the writing they saw via the forums over on Townhouse.

Here, I’ll share some of the most common challenges authors experienced as they worked on perfecting their scenes – as well as our top tips for overcoming them.

Making each scene purposeful

Following lesson one, best-selling author Becca Day had the following advice to share with her fellow writers:

Remember the purpose of your B plot: This seemed to be a sticking point for some authors, but – in a nutshell – the B plot sums up the reason why the A plot is your character’s story to tell. What is it that makes this tale, and this scene within it, so personal to your protagonist?

Make sure the stakes are personal: Even if you think you’ve come up with something suitably emotive, Becca suggests digging a little deeper to see if you can make it more so. Instead of ‘My character will lose her job if XYZ,’ consider: ‘If XYZ, my character will lose her job – and it’s the job her father always wanted for her. She’ll be letting down his memory if she’s sacked.’ This calls into question whether the character actually cares about her job as much as her father did, or if she’s merely doing it because she feels like she owes it to him. See how much more powerful that just became?

Creating atmosphere in your scene

Meanwhile, Jericho Writers founder Harry Bingham shared these thoughts after teaching Write With Jericho lesson two:

Consider what to leave out, as well as what to put in: Repeated words and phrases, or detail where it isn’t necessary, can detract from the atmosphere you’re working so hard to create. It might sound contrary, but keeping your writing spare – choosing your words carefully – is a terrific technique for building atmosphere.

Be mindful of pace: On the flip side, make sure you’re not hurrying past moments where the reader might like to linger. As you’re describing a setting, ask yourself – does this need a reaction shot? Do I need to dwell, just for a moment, on the feeling this elicits in the character(s)?

If you create a moment, let it live: To some extent, this is about pace, too – but also the natural ways people react to things. When you introduce some action into your setting – a loud noise, say – make sure your character(s) respond to this in a way, and in an order, that feels believable. They won’t know what the sound is, so let’s see their experience of it, their shock and confusion, and then perhaps their relief at figuring out the reason for the din. Don’t name the noise or its source until your character(s) could reasonably know what it is and where it’s coming from or the moment will lose its authenticity.

Dynamic dialogue and internal monologue

In the lesson three forum, I shared the following feedback with our authors:

Avoid excessive formality: In my Write With Jericho lesson, I talked about the importance of keeping speech natural and appropriate for your characters and setting. This advice applies to internal monologue, too. If you want readers to feel close to your protagonist or narrator, you must make them feel like a friend. That means using contractions (‘won’t’ instead of ‘will not’ / ‘don’t’ instead of ‘do not’), and avoiding the sort of stiffness that might feel more ‘job interview’ than ‘intimate, honest conversation’.

Keep an eye on your POV: All writers are guilty of letting their point of view wander from time to time – but it’s important not to let it amble too far! If you’re working in first person or third person close, you need to be vigilant and stay mindful of what your main character can reasonably know about others’ thoughts, feelings and motivations. Be careful not to stray too far into omniscience, if this isn’t the mode you’re actually working in.

Watch out for clunky self-referencing: This is a pet peeve of mine, but in first person narratives (where protagonists are forced to think and talk about themselves constantly), I think it’s important to keep self-references natural. Does anyone really think about the colour of their own hair as they shove it out of their face? Or the precise shade of their eyes as they close them in despair? Obviously, your readers want this information – they need to know what your protagonist looks like – but real internal monologues simply don’t work like this. You need a reason for your character to be thinking about whatever they’re contemplating, so find one! Or, save the eye colour info for a moment where it will slot in seamlessly.

Remember, punctuation affects pace: The way you punctuate speech can have a huge impact on how it sounds – and whether it lands with a big bang or a whimper. If in doubt, read it aloud (even if your nearest and dearest will fear you’ve lost the plot). Consider the difference between: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that,’ and ‘Sorry. Really. I didn’t mean that.’

Show, don't tell - and when to break the rule

Finally, over on the lesson four feedback forum, Sophie Flynn suggested the following fixes for writers trying to strike the right balance between showing and telling.

Beware of filtering: Words like ‘seemed’, ‘appeared’, ‘noticed’ and ‘felt’ can signal you’re a step too far away from your main character’s point of view – that you’re filtering their experience through a second pair of eyes. Minimise this if you can, and you’ll find your writing feels sharper and more immediate.

Watch out for showing that feels like telling: Running a fingertip over a barely healed wound, for example, is an act that needs to be connected to a thought or conversation that’s happening in the moment. Otherwise, it won’t feel natural.

Don’t show where telling would be clearer: Again, this is a question of getting the balance right – but if trying to show something takes longer, is more effortful and is potentially confusing for the reader, don’t be afraid just to state a few simple facts.  

Ready to dive in...?

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This week is a good and beautiful week, but also a sad week; a week that enters with the last note of a bugle fading on the evening air. 

Why? Because it is week four of our Write with Jericho course, and therefore the final week of the course. Premium Members will be sad because WWJ is drawing to a close, but they will also be happy because there are a host of other courses they can relish - and because new courses will be popping up all through this year like mushrooms in a damp October. 

And yes, non-members will have an extra sadness because they've missed so much excitement of late... Except that they know doing this one small thing will give them abiding and highly cost-effective joy. 

(Also: if you're a non-member and want to enjoy week one of Write With Jericho for FREE, then go on. Enjoy it. It's open to all.)

In this week's final lesson, my colleague Sophie Flynn is teaching about showing & telling, which is a topic that kinda drives us mad at JW Towers, because so many people get it wrong.

The rule is “show, don’t tell,” and it’s a good rule. I like it. It’s always helpful to have at the back of your mind.

But it’s also a terrible rule, because it’s so often false.

Sophie gives an example of this.  

Telling: “It was now midday.”

Showing: “The short hand was already more or less pointing at the twelve and Josie saw with panic rising in her throat that the long hand was now all but upright too.”

That second version is terrible in so many ways it’s hard to count. For one thing, it’s mystifying. It’s so obvious what “it was now midday means”, whereas the second sentence needs a kind of anxious decoding… And even once decoded, it leaves the reader with a slight well, that was weird feeling. 

Of course, the second version is also far baggier and less efficient than the first. What's more, it still uses telling, because it tells the reader that poor old Josie – trapped as she is in a terrible novel – has panic rising up her throat. On a strict show-don’t-tell model, you’d have to somehow show that panic rising. How you’d go about doing that, I just don’t know.

So, the Idiot Version of the rule is just plain false.         

In a way, I’d prefer it if we replaced that formulation with a simple command to dramatise. Suppose Jane Austen had written the following:

Telling: “Mr Darcy proposed to Elizabeth Bennet, but she refused him with some asperity.”

That’s a perfectly accurate account of one of the most famous scenes in English literature – but also quite clearly a terrible replacement for the scene that Jane Austen actually wrote.

Dramatic action needs to unfold in what feels like real time to the reader. Everything else can just be neatly stitched in with brief but accurate snippets of telling.

I won’t talk about this more – Sophie does all that in her course video – but I’ll do again what I’ve done throughout these Write With Jericho emails and just take a look at what one of my own scenes does. I’ll use the same scene as I used last week which, if you remember, I just picked at random.

So here we go again. The scene itself is in bold. My comments are in italics. Where possible, I’ve shortened the text for brevity.

Dad is talking about the security issues that his clubs have faced recently. Nothing out of the ordinary. The occasional idiot with a knife. The odd binge-drinker who gets violent.

This is telling: Fiona’s swift summary of something that isn’t that interesting and doesn’t need to detain the reader for long.

I don’t premeditate the thought, just blurt out, ‘I know. I sometimes think I should get myself a gun. You never know what might happen.’

That’s all I say. A stupid thought that wouldn’t have lasted out the minute. But Dad’s on to it straight away.

‘What do you mean, love? You want to become an armed officer, is that it? Are detectives even allowed to carry guns?’

This is showing – dialogue always is. Even here, though, Fiona doesn’t try to show that her statement was a a stupid thought that wouldn’t have lasted out the minute. That’s not something that can be easily shown. It’s not dramatic. So she just tells it in a perfectly straightforward manner.

I backtrack straight away. No, I don’t want to join some armed response unit. No, I can’t see the South Wales force thinking that DC Griffiths would be the right person to wave the heavy weaponry. No, it’s probably a stupid idea.

This is still probably showing. We’ve dropped the direct speech, but Fiona is summarising reasonably accurately what she actually said.

‘You mean have a gun at home? A licensed thing? But you know, these days, you can get a shotgun or whatever for going out hunting. Air rifles, that sort of thing. But they won’t let people carry handguns. Not off a shooting range. And quite right too. The number of crazy people there are. If I could ban the whole damn lot of them, I would.’

‘Yes, me too. I’m not really saying anything. Just, like you say, there are some idiots out there.’

‘You worried about something, Fi girl? If you are, you need to say. Maybe the police isn’t the right job for you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re fabulous. CID bloody lucky to have you, never mind what I might have said. But you mustn’t take risks you shouldn’t, you know.’

Dialogue = showing. This is the dramatic heart of this (tiny) scene. But just feel how flat the scene would be without this dialogue at its heart. The heart of ANY scene should be showing, That’s where the drama is.

He pauses, the shadows of our old arguments crossing our lamplit present.

His suspicion of anything to do with the police. His fear. My determination to pursue the career of my choice. Two obstinate people, digging in.

And to be fair to Dad – and I didn’t perhaps understand this as well as I should have done – he was worried about me too. He’s always been protective of me, doubly or trebly so during my illness and afterwards… even when my life was all put back together again, he felt that a career in the police force was absolutely the wrong one for me. Too much danger. Too much stress. Risks physical and mental…

Anyway. The present pause compresses that whole debate into a few seconds of silence. It’s Dad’s way of saying that I can always quit the police, come home, take a job with him. My silence is my way of saying, ‘Thanks, Pa, but no way.’ Our argument unfolds in a few beats of nothing at all.

All telling.

But there’s absolutely no way to show this past history without diving into entire chapters of pointless backstory. Those chapters would have murdered any forward momentum in the plot, whereas three or four paragraphs of reflection work perfectly fine – especially because the reader will by this point be very curious about that past of Fiona’s. (They’ll still be curious, because Fiona still hasn’t talked about The Big Thing that makes her the way she is.)

Then it finishes. Finishes with a truce.

‘You look after yourself, love. If you need anything, you just say.’

‘I will, Dad. Thanks.’

Back to showing.

It’s bedtime. I feel oceanically tired. Tonight, I know it already, I’m going to sleep well. I’m home.

Back to telling.

REFLECTIONS

In a way, there's not much to reflect on this week. For me, two things stand out:

1. The movement between showing and telling is constant and seamless. A reader wouldn’t remotely notice the movement from one to the other.
2. The dramatic heart of the scene is shown – in this case through dialogue, but you could imagine something purely physical instead, a fist-fight, for example.

Really, the choice between showing and telling is a choice between Efficiency (telling) and Drama (showing.) 

Altering the reader to the fact that it’s midday? Probably better told. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth Bennet? I’d show that if I were you.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Once again, Feedback Friday comes straight from the Write With Jericho course this week. Sophie has asked you to:

• Rewrite a scene from your novel or non-fiction project, focusing on when to show and when to tell.
• Choose 250 words of this scene and share the before and after over on Townhouse. 

Once you're ready, post yours here.

***

That’s it from me for this week. 

Til soon,

Harry

If you’re anything like me, writing the opening pages of a novel is one of the best, most magical parts of the entire drafting process. Everything is new and interesting! The idea is still shiny, still full of potential! The words practically pour onto the page.  

Then — quite rudely, and without any warning — the words only drip. A few sentences here, a single paragraph there, until your brain feels clogged, the ideas stopped up.  

While it’s common to hit a creative block or two (…hundred) as you’re drafting your novel, there are three techniques I always recommend to writers for pushing through those barriers and consistently getting words on the page. 

1. Set a goal for yourself every time you sit down to write — and keep it reasonable.     

Your goal will be dictated by what makes the most sense to your process. Perhaps that’s a word-count goal, or a page-count goal, or a certain number of scenes you want to write that day. Whatever it is, be sure to keep it reasonable, i.e. keep it small.  

You might think setting a small goal for yourself is a counterproductive way of making good progress on your draft, but I’ve found that small goals actually take the pressure off. There’s a huge difference for me, mentally, at the beginning of a writing session when I have a goal of five hundred words versus one or two thousand. When it’s only five hundred, I feel like I have a chance! After all, five hundred is only one hundred words five times, and I can definitely write a hundred words.  

The best part is: once you hit your reasonable goal (which you will; I believe in you), you get to feel like an absolute rockstar for accomplishing exactly what you set out to do, and I find that when I have that feeling, the words keep coming! And if they don’t, that’s okay, because you still accomplished your goal and still made progress.  

2. Give yourself “short assignments” 

This technique comes from Anne Lamott in her excellent craft text, Bird by Bird. She  notes how easy it is to become overwhelmed by the huge scope of writing a novel, so she recommends breaking it down into much smaller chunks, i.e. short assignments.  

Examples of short assignments might be writing the first paragraph of a chapter, writing just the dialogue in a scene, or finding the right transition between one section and the next.  

Once you finish one assignment, you can take a break (or, my favourite, reward yourself with chocolate) and then dive into another.  

This week is a good and beautiful week, one of the best weeks ever.

And why? Because it is Week #3 of our Write with Jericho course. (Which is free and exclusive to Premium members.)

And just because we love ALL of you not just our lovely Premium Members, you can catch the replay of lesson one of the course for free. Enjoy the mighty Becca Day on adding BOOM to your scenes.

This week is all about dialogue and subtext and internal reflection, which are all things that are vast fun to play with and also vastly effective on the page.

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve beaten one of my scenes to death, so no more of that. Instead, I’ve picked up another scene from the same book. As before, I’ve chosen this at random – literally just moving my cursor at random through the text until it plopped onto some meaningful dialogue.

So: let’s review this little scene thinking about subtext. And internal monologue. And what the spoken words tells us about the two characters involved.

The scene is set in Fiona’s father’s study-cum-lair. Her dad is a former criminal, but charismatic and warm towards his family. Fiona’s in a bad head-place. She’s just been physically assaulted in her own home and has returned to her parents’ place for a sense of security. This is now late in the evening.

Bold text is from the scene. My comments in italics. I’ve shortened the text here and there, just for brevity.

Dad is talking about the security issues that his clubs have faced recently. Nothing out of the ordinary. The occasional idiot with a knife. The odd binge-drinker who gets violent.

That is: the scene opens neutrally. Whatever her dad is talking about has no relevance to the story.

I don’t premeditate the thought, just blurt out, ‘I know. I sometimes think I should get myself a gun. You never know what might happen.’

That’s all I say. A stupid thought that wouldn’t have lasted out the minute. But Dad’s on to it straight away.

‘What do you mean, love? You want to become an armed officer, is that it? Are detectives even allowed to carry guns?’

Now, there’s quite a lot of code going on here. The surface text is clear. Fiona says, “Should I get a gun?” Her dad takes that thought and remodels it as, “Oh, you want to become an armed officer?” (In Britain, police officers don’t routinely carry firearms.)

But there’s also subtext.

Fiona knows damn well that her father was (or is?) a criminal who may well have used illegal firearms in the past. So is her ‘blurted’ thought really just the expression of a woman in shock? Or is it a trial balloon sent up to see what her father might offer her?

And then the dad: he’s no shrinking violet when he comes to violence, but he (deliberately?) turns aside from Fiona’s obvious meaning to explore a legal / official way in which she might get access to a weapon.

I backtrack straight away. No, I don’t want to join some armed response unit. No, I can’t see the South Wales force thinking that DC Griffiths would be the right person to wave the heavy weaponry. No, it’s probably a stupid idea.

Notice here that there’s some implied dialogue which is just summarised, rather than written out in full. Rotating between direct speech and indirect speech is a way to keep the rhythm of your scene nicely varied. It’s also just quicker: Fiona’s backtracking would probably have taken up more page space than this quick summary.

Note that the dialogue has reversed already. First, she says, “I want a gun” and then she says, “No I don’t.” Fiona may be in shock, but she is very smart, very strategic. What is going on here?

‘You mean have a gun at home? A licensed thing? But you know, these days, you can get a shotgun or whatever for going out hunting. Air rifles, that sort of thing. But they won’t let people carry handguns. Not off a shooting range. And quite right too. The number of crazy people there are. If I could ban the whole damn lot of them, I would.’

But her dad isn’t dropping the idea, even though she just told him to. But he’s shifted it from, ‘Oh, you want a gun at work?’ to ‘Oh, you want one at home?’

The gun idea has become a little more personal, a little less official.

And this former gangster is saying he’d ban all handguns – really? Or is this cautious man, who has a police officer daughter, just playing things extremely safe in the event that someone was recording his words?

‘Yes, me too. I’m not really saying anything. Just, like you say, there are some idiots out there.’

Fiona is now steady with the ‘Oh, no, I don’t really want a gun’ message. But she did put the idea out there. And she did blurt the thought to perhaps the only person she knows who might be able to lay his hands on an illegal handgun. So how real is her denial?

‘You worried about something, Fi girl? If you are, you need to say. Maybe the police isn’t the right job for you. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re fabulous. CID bloody lucky to have you, never mind what I might have said. But you mustn’t take risks you shouldn’t, you know.’

Her dad has now crept from ‘armed officer’ to ‘licensed shooting range’ to ‘are you in trouble?’ He often uses a kind of burble of white noise – happy, positive chat – to disguise his strategies, and he does so here. But he’s saying: (A) don’t take risks, and (B) are you worried about something? That’s like any dad to any daughter … except that she’s a police officer and he’s a (former?) gangster.

He pauses, the shadows of our old arguments crossing our lamplit present.

His suspicion of anything to do with the police. His fear. My determination to pursue the career of my choice. Two obstinate people, digging in.

And to be fair to Dad – and I didn’t perhaps understand this as well as I should have done – he was worried about me too. He’s always been protective of me, doubly or trebly so during my illness and afterwards.  … even when my life was all put back together again, he felt that a career in the police force was absolutely the wrong one for me. Too much danger. Too much stress. Risks physical and mental. …

Anyway. The present pause compresses that whole debate into a few seconds of silence. It’s Dad’s way of saying that I can always quit the police, come home, take a job with him. My silence is my way of saying, ‘Thanks, Pa, but no way.’ Our argument unfolds in a few beats of nothing at all.

This is quite a lot of internal reflection that makes sense of the current pause. And this is a lot of revelation: more information than we’ve ever had on the father / daughter relationship during her troubled teenage years. Because the reader STILL doesn’t know what Fiona’s illness is, this scrap of text will be carefully scrutinised for any clues. And it emphasises her dad’s protective nature. And she just asked and then un-asked for a gun. What does a protective and criminally inclined dad do with that request/not-a-request?

Then it finishes. Finishes with a truce.

‘You look after yourself, love. If you need anything, you just say.’

‘I will, Dad. Thanks.’

This is a bland ending. Except that the subtext is still here. After all, the gun question hasn’t really been resolved. And Fiona could have chosen to respond to the ‘Are you worried?’ question, but she didn’t. If she had said – credibly – ‘no, I’m not worried’, then maybe the whole gun question could have been genuinely laid to rest. If she had said, ‘yes, I am worried’, then it would have looked like she was asking her criminal father for the use of a weapon.

But – both parties just evade the question. Lay it to rest with platitudes.

It’s bedtime. I feel oceanically tired. Tonight, I know it already, I’m going to sleep well. I’m home.

And – we’re done. ‘I’m going to sleep well. I’m home.’: that suggests some emotional issue has been settled … but we’ve just had a bit of dialogue that raised an issue – then denied it – then evaded it. What’s been settled?

Well, at this stage, the reader doesn’t know. But before too long, Fiona’s dad sends a workman round to her house to fix some cupboards that barely needed fixing. The workman chatted as he worked. In the course of that chatter, he mentions an unlicensed shooting range and gives Fiona directions on how to find it.

Fiona does indeed drive to the firing range at night and finds a gun laid out on a bale of straw. With bullets. She fires off a hundred or so rounds, trying to get the feel of the weapon. Then an unnamed man arrives, gives her some basic instruction in how to shoot. She leaves the range with the gun and ammo.

And by the end of this firing range scene, we finally know how to interpret that father-daughter gun conversation.

Fiona came to her gangster-dad and said ‘I want a gun.’

But gangster-dad can’t say to his police-officer daughter that, sure, he can find handguns no problem, so he evades the question.

Fiona, being a police officer, has to deny her own request, so she does – repeatedly.

The gangster-dad tests out various neutral options, none of which get an, ‘Oh yes, that’s what I meant’ from his daughter, so he asks her if she has fears for her safety.

She can’t say yes, because that would be like affirming that she wants a gun, so she evades. But she hasn’t said, ‘no, I’m not worried’, so gangster-dad comes away with three messages: (A) his daughter is afraid, (B) she wants a gun, (C) she wants an illegal, deniable weapon, because if she didn’t, they wouldn’t have had to go through that whole rigmarole.

And because gangster-dad loves his daughter and is very good at what he does, before too long a handgun is put into Fiona’s possession … but via a route that can’t possibly connect back to her the man who put it there.

REFLECTIONS

If you scan the italics and the bold above, you’ll see there’s way more of the former. And the beautiful lesson there is that subtext is much richer and more encoded than the text itself. To unravel the subtext, we need to spend more time and words than was present in the text itself.

And how enriching this all is!

A beautiful and unexpected plot strand is surfaced by this little bit of dialogue. (And of course, this illegal weapon ends up being used in the book’s climactic shootout.)

And our understanding of both characters are transformed by this little scene. Not necessarily during the scene itself – but once the handgun is produced, and we reconsider the dialogue that prompted its production, we realise that both these two characters are very strategic, very risk-averse – and vastly effective. Fiona asked for a handgun and her dad supplied one. And the two of them secured this outcome without ever saying anything that the Chief Constable him- or herself could take issue with. This is the first time in the series we see quite how subtle and potent Fiona’s dad is. It’s also the first time that we see quite how risk-averse he still is, even with his criminal past (probably) behind him. The whole incident adds a darkness, intrigue and depth to both characters … still without either of them having said anything so remarkable.

That’s the beauty of subtext and the beauty of dialogue. I love everything about writing, but if I could only go on a date with one aspect of it, I’d take Dialogue out to dinner, in her shimmering green gown and unreliable smile.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Once again, Feedback Friday comes straight from the Write With Jericho Course this week. Laura has asked you to:

Share 300 words from your scene, making sure to incorporate subtext and internal dialogue. You’ll get extra points the richer and yummier your subtext is. Once you're ready, post yours here.

***

That’s it from me. I shall wear a smoking jacket in royal blue and bring with me a deck of marked cards and a two-headed coin.

Til soon.

Harry

Dialogue is one of the cornerstones of great fiction writing. Whatever genre you’re working in, and whether your novel is literary or commercial, your characters need to speak to one another.

Why? First, because talking is just what people do. A book where the characters didn’t have conversations would feel totally unrealistic, not to mention decidedly odd.

Just as importantly, dialogue provides blessed relief from long stretches of narrative description. While these are crucial for establishing context, worldbuilding and setting readers’ expectations, they simply aren’t sustainable over 300 pages. Dialogue is immediate and immersive: it lifts the tone of a scene and quickens its pace, providing vital balance. I think of it as a load-bearing wall: something that keeps the shape of your story sound, and its structure strong. Without it, your novel could sink beneath the weight of too much ‘telling’.

This leads me on to another reason why dialogue is so very useful for us authors. It allows us to show, clearly and effectively, all sort of things that might be tiresome to describe. Want to make clear that one character has history with another? Give them an opportunity to bicker about something that happened years ago. Need to signal that someone in your novel is more educated than they claim? Give them a short speech where jargon they’ve no business knowing creeps in.

In my Write With Jericho lesson, I go deep into the theory and practice of writing great dialogue – and I also explain how internal monologue can intersect with what your characters say out loud. Here, I’m going to share a few dos and don’ts that should help you while you craft or edit your characters’ dialogue. I hope you find them useful.

Do give your characters distinct voices.

Think about accents, dialect and vocabulary. A wealthy, Oxbridge-educated lawyer will likely sound different from someone who’s grown up in poverty, left school at sixteen and has spent time in prison – and please note, that remains true even if the characters are of equal intelligence!

What can the way your character speaks tell us about their background, upbringing, education and social status? Does their voice truly reflect who they are inside? If not, why not? (I’m looking at you, Charlotte from The Traitors…)

Do make characters' speech appropriate for the situation.

We all modify the way we speak, depending on who we’re speaking to; we chat with friends and family in a very different way than we’d talk to a job interview panel! While your character’s dialogue needs to stay consistent with who they are, you also need to allow for subtle shifts in how they speak.

Do remember that most speech is informal.

Unless you’re writing dialogue for a novel set in another world or time period, I’d always recommend using contractions and keeping your characters’ speech casual. In real life, we usually say ‘I can’t’, or ‘I don’t’, not ‘I cannot’ or ‘I do not’. Informality is key for making your characters’ speech believable. It ensures their conversations feel overheard, rather than artificial.

Don't allow your characters to speak in soliloquy or conduct Q&As.

Unless you’ve created a Winston Churchill-style character, it will feel unnatural for them to make long, uninterrupted speeches. Likewise, most conversations involve meandering and obfuscation – especially if one person is trying to extract information that another isn’t keen to share. Very rarely do any of us give a straight answer when we’re asked a point-blank question, so bear this in mind as you write.

Do make your dialogue work hard.

We’ve all heard the advice to strip adverbs out of our work and use simple dialogue tags – and I’m not the woman to gainsay it. Broadly speaking, if you’re choosing the words your characters speak carefully enough, they can do an awful lot of heavy lifting for you. Want to imply your character is shouting? Show their growing exasperation through the words inside the speech marks. Want to make it clear they’re grief-stricken? Use words that show this, so you don’t need to tell readers how they feel.

Don't overuse exclamation marks and italics.

This is an especially useful tip for when you’re editing dialogue: if it’s riddled with exclamations and italics, you probably need to tighten it up. Too much shouty, slanty content is a sign your dialogue isn’t strong enough, or that you didn’t have full confidence in it as you were drafting. Review it and see what could change.

Finally, don't worry that everything your characters say needs to match up perfectly with what's going on inside.

In fact, it’s thrilling for a reader when a character’s internal monologue contradicts what they’re doing and saying. This dichotomy is often key for developing a strong connection between your reader and your story’s protagonist – so exploit it if you can. Show them that your character’s outward loathing of their workplace rival hides a powerful, secret crush; signal that the perfect wife’s devotion to her husband is the smokescreen for her dastardly murder plot.

For more on dialogue and internal monologue, don’t miss lesson three of Write With Jericho – now available for Premium Members.

As always, happy writing!

This week saw the launch of Week #2 of our Write with Jericho course. (It’s free to Premium members, naturally. If you’re not a member and are curious, just take a look at what membership offers here.)

This week is officially The Best Week of the Course, because it’s the one where I get to tell you about adding atmosphere to your scenes. I don’t want to go over everything I talk about in the course video, but I do want to pick out one small – but tremendously powerful – technique that you can use pretty much anywhere and for pretty much anything.

The idea is to find descriptions – of people, of places, of moods, of anything – that are both literal, physical descriptions AND suggestive of something emotional or personal or even some kind of foreshadowing. Descriptions like this are acceptable to the reader because they’re just literal, right? They’re conveying useful information. But because they also smuggle a whole lot more into the scene, they enrich it vastly.

Last week, I just took one of my scenes and checked it against Becca’s “a scene must develop questions” template. This week I’ll do much the same. I’ll take the exact same scene as we looked at last week and pick out any descriptive language that straddles something physical / literal, and something more suggestive too.

Bold text comes from the actual scene. Italics are my comments. If you remember, the scene last week involved Fiona meeting a dodgy ex-cop, getting a key to a suspect’s home, and entering that property (illegally). Fiona finds a stack of presumably illicit cash, then gets quickly out of the house.

OK. Here goes:

Speed bumps in the road and cars neat in their driveways.

Does this count? I think it probably does. On the one hand, this is a very literal description of a street. But also – the speed bumps are emphasising a modern safety-consciousness, and the cars stand ‘neat’ in their driveways. Both observations suggest that in this environment, people are cautious and law-abiding. They don’t drive too fast and they park their cars with a rectilinear exactness.

Now that clearly doesn’t describe Fiona at all – the reader already knows her. So really, this description is, yes, picking out some simple physical details, but it’s also telling us, “Fiona does not fit here.” Again, we already know that Fiona isn’t the backing-down type, so if she enters a cautious and law-abiding environment, whatever happens next is likely to be the exact opposite.

In effect that tiny bit of description is foreshadowing the darker material to come – like writing, ‘it was quiet, almost too quiet’, only not a terrible cliché.

There’s an unloved dark blue Toyota Yaris parked up

‘Unloved’, as applied to a car, presumably just implies rust-spots and the like. But the car’s owner – dodgy ex-cop Brian Penry – hates himself enough that he stole enough cash to get himself caught and (soon) jailed. We learn shortly that Penry even used the stolen money to buy himself a piano that he never played. So it’s not just Penry’s car that’s unloved, right? It’s him.

He gets a key out of his pocket. A brass Yale key, which he holds up twinkling in the half-sunlight.

Why ‘half-sunlight’? I mean, yes, that’s a description of a part-sunny, part-cloudy day. But this whole part of the scene is on the edge of something. Just as the key is in half-sunlight, so too Penry is preparing to unlock part, but not all, of what Fiona needs to know.

And Fiona is only half-sunlit herself. The sunny part is that of a clever detective doing her job. The very-much-in-shadows part is that she’s about to enter a house illegally and without her boss knowing.

A little later, Penry ‘half-smiles’ at Fiona, then ‘half-salutes’ her. This whole scene is teasing, not committed. The whole scene is teetering on the verge of something – until Fiona enters the house, and then the tone darkens decisively.

The street is empty and silent. The sunlight occupies the empty space like an invading army.

This is a bit more fanciful than anything we’ve had so far – the first time anything feels writerly in the scene. And again, it offers a description that does dual work. The sunlight fully occupies the space (so we’ve moved away from half-light to full-light. Even my pedant-brain doesn’t mind that though: light conditions can change.) In literal terms. I guess we’re being asked to imagine a scene sun-drenched and simple. But the ‘invading army’ is a totally extreme image suggesting foreboding and the threat of violence. So we have quite a peaceful scene (a neat suburban road in sunshine) and something almost recklessly violent alongside.

There’s been an ‘is it or isn’t it?’ type equivocation in the scene so far, and this description merrily sits tosses fuel onto both sides of the fire. ‘Oh, yes, it’s peaceful, all right. Look at the speed bumps and the sunlight. But, yeah, this whole thing is going to blow up in a second, THERE’S AN ENTIRE ****ING ARMY RIGHT HERE.’

If you said that thing directly, it would just seem nuts. But metaphors play by different rules; that’s why they’re fun.

I approach the door, insert the key, turn the lock.

I feel a kind of amazement when the lock turns. It’s like turning the page in a fairy story and finding that the story continues exactly as before.

At one level, this is saying something simple about opening a door and feeling surprised. But – this is Fiona – the imagery sometimes goes way over the top. Why is this like a fairy story? I don’t completely know, in all honesty, but I think it’s that there’s been a sense of unreality in this scene so far. The neat suburban close should not contain darkness and terror, but there is a sense of something very dark lurking close. So there’s a contest between apparent reality and lurking (but imagined?) darkness. The fairy story image makes that explicit.

In the living room, three fat black flies are buzzing against the windowpane. A dozen of their comrades lie dead beneath them.

On the one hand, this is just a description of flies. On the other hand, this refers back to the invading army and the possibility of violence. Because we’re only dealing with flies, we can suggest a lot of violence without breaking the rules of the actual place we’re in.

[After Fiona finds the illicit cash and exits the house] I’m sweating and cold at the same time. I try to go back to that feeling I had on the print-room stairs [when she was talking happily with her new boyfriend]. That feeling of being somewhere close to love and happiness. Living next door to the sunshine twins. I can’t find them anywhere now. When I stamp my legs, I can hardly feel my feet when they hit the floor.

The sunshine twins: it was sunny in the close before Fiona entered the house, but there’s no reference to sunshine now that she’s come out. So the ‘sunshine twins’ is a reference to love and happiness – a phrase she used when we had the scene on the stairs with her boyfriend – but it’s also a reference back to how the world was before she found the dodgy cash. In effect, when Fiona says ‘I can’t find [the sunshine twins] anywhere now’, she’s saying that she can’t go back to the past boyfriend-happiness state OR the sunny street of ten minutes ago, before she had irrevocably entered a house illegally and found the cash.

This passage strongly hints that the consequences of leaving that sunny state may well involve something quite dark and dangerous. And of course, the novel does start to tip into an ever darker mode from here on.

REFLECTIONS

Last week, I said:

‘A lot of writing advice is generated because people have to generate something. They have a blogpost to write, or an email to send, or a course module to fill,

But the only advice worth anything is advice that helps you solve problems in your writing. So when I read or listen to advice, I always ask: does this actually describe what I personally do when I’m writing well? Does this advice actually generate insights that will help me when I get stuck?’

And honestly, I think if you took the literal-but-not-really-literal element out of my writing, you’d lose a really big chunk of what makes it worthwhile.

The technique is so rewardingly simple: ‘Cars neat in their driveways’? Any idiot can come up with that, right?

You just need two things to make this approach work for you.

One, you need a ‘handbrake off’ approach to your writing. A willingness to put near-nonsense images into your work. (Sunlight like an invading army? That’s ridiculous. Welsh sunlight is never like that, but try it. Write it down. See if it fits.)

Two, you need the judgement to figure out what works and what doesn’t. That’s a matter of gut feel rather than the kind of analysis we’ve just done here. I honestly never thought about this scene in this hyper-analytical way until just now. I did bring a kind of gut feel test to every sentence, though. That’s usually enough.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Feedback Friday comes straight from the Write With Jericho course this week. I asked WWJ students to do this:

Share 250 words from your scene. I’m looking for:

• Atmosphere / physical description
• Some observation (or action) which bridges the physical & the emotional
• Everything 100% consistent with the character.

Because this email has been all about the middle one of those bullet points, I want you to make sure that anything you share has at least one example of that technique. If you want more background, then my course video will explain all. Once you're ready, post yours here.

***

That’s it from me. I am as hungry as a boar and as lean as a pencil. I don’t know why.

Til soon.

Harry

Embarking on the journey to write a novel is both thrilling and intimidating. For me, the decision to pursue writing courses through Jericho Writers was about more than just learning to write — it was about growth, connection, and finding my voice in the literary world.

Here’s how these courses shaped my writing journey and why they might be the stepping stone you need, too.

Why I chose writing courses with Jericho Writers

Writing a novel has always been my dream, but like many aspiring authors, I felt unsure of where to start. I sought professional guidance to refine my writing and push my creative boundaries. I wanted to gain technical skills, build confidence, and surround myself with a community of like-minded storytellers.

I approached these courses as tools to help me develop as a writer, step by step. Each course I chose met specific needs, from drafting a manuscript to navigating the publishing world.

The courses that transformed my writing

1. The Ultimate Novel Writing Course

This was my first foray into structured learning. The Ultimate Novel Writing Course took me from a spark of an idea to a complete manuscript, offering the structure and accountability I needed. With expert guidance and peer feedback, I found myself pushing through moments of doubt and creative block. The course taught me narrative structure, character development, and, most importantly, how to finish what I started.

2. The Self-Edit Your Novel course

Once I had a manuscript, I knew the next step was refinement. The Self-Edit Your Novel course taught me how to view my work through an editor’s lens. I learned to identify areas for improvement, enhance clarity, and polish my story until it shone. This phase was truly eye-opening — it amazed me how much a focused revision process could elevate my writing.

One memorable piece of advice came from Debi Alper, who suggested I start my novel at chapter four and switch tenses. That single change transformed the pacing and impact of my thriller. She also encouraged me to imagine my protagonist as a famous actor, which resolved my struggle with their voice.

3. The Path to Publication course

With a polished manuscript in hand, Path To Publication helped me navigate the world of publishing — a realm I found both exciting and overwhelming. It provided invaluable insights into compiling a compelling query letter, synopsis, and submission package. The highlight of this course was the agent showcase, where we read our first 500 words to two agents. Their feedback was not only constructive but incredibly motivating. Receiving a full manuscript request from one of the agents less than a week later was a dream come true, and I wasn’t the only one on the course to experience this success.

Lessons learned along the way...

Each of the courses I undertook with Jericho Writers surprised me in unexpected ways. I discovered strengths in my writing I hadn’t noticed, as well as habits I needed to break. Feedback from tutors and peers was invaluable, teaching me the importance of listening and staying open to suggestions.

Some of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away include:

Resilience and Vulnerability: Sharing your work can be daunting, but it’s a necessary step in the creative process.

The Value of Revision: Editing is where the magic happens. It’s the bridge between a good draft and a great story.

Embracing Experimentation: Trying alternative approaches often leads to breakthroughs.

Connections Matter: The relationships I’ve built continue to inspire and support me.

Course highlights

The Ultimate Novel Writing Course helped me write my first novel and gave me a deep understanding of narrative structure.

The Self Edit Your Novel course boosted my confidence and taught me how to experiment with my writing.

Thanks to the Path To Publication course, the submission process is no longer a mystery, and I feel confident approaching agents and publishers.

Looking back and moving forward

These courses were more than just learning experiences for me — they were transformative. They equipped me with the tools to navigate the ups and downs of writing and publishing while fostering a sense of community that I deeply value.

If you’re considering taking the plunge, I can’t recommend Jericho Writers’ courses enough. Whether you’re starting with an idea, refining a draft, or preparing to submit, there’s a course to guide you every step of the way.

Here’s to your writing journey and all the stories waiting to be told.

Novels are necklaces. We talk a lot about the structure of a plot, and stress about it, and we’re right to talk and stress because plot matters so intensely and is so hard to get right.

But a book is just a chain of scenes, right? And yes, it’s a carefully sequenced chain, but each scene has its own story and its own structure.

Write with Jericho

Now, as you probably know, as part of our MAGA policy (Make Authors Great Again), we’re launching a new-and-improved version of our Write with Jericho course. Lesson One – Making Each Scene Purposeful – drops this week, led by my colleague (and psych thriller author), Becca Day. Next week, I’ll be teaching about building atmosphere in the scene. My colleagues (and authors) Sophie Flynn and Laura Starkey will also lead lessons.

The course is free to all Premium Members and the above link tells you more about how to participate. It also tells you what to do if you’re not.

So: take the course, listen to Becca, and think about scenes.

How one scene works

Now, I’m not going to repeat all the things that Becca speaks about, but what I do want to do is to take one short scene and see what it’s doing in terms of:

1. Opening with some questions
2. Answering those questions and replacing them with others
3. Deepening and complicating things

The scene – which I’ve chosen literally at random from Talking to the Dead – is one where Fiona arrives at the home of a man called Huw Fletcher. She suspects him of real wrong-doing, but knows he’s missing. She doesn’t have a way to get into the house … but she does have a strange kind of friend/enemy relationship with a bent copper, named Brian Penry.

The bold text is the scene itself. The italics are my comments. I’ve made some minor edits for the purposes of brevity.

Modern brick houses, double-glazed and comfortable. Speed bumps in the road and cars neat in their driveways.

The scene opens with several questions. One, what’s happened to Fletcher? Two, how does Fiona expect to get into a house when she has no means of entry and no search warrant? And three, what’s in the house?

Nothing remarkable about any of it, the house or the street, except that there’s an unloved dark blue Toyota Yaris parked up in front of Fletcher’s address, window wound down, and Brian Penry’s darkly haired arm beating time to some inaudible music.

I’m not surprised to see him. I don’t altogether know what the dark lines are that connect Rattigan, Fletcher and Penry – though I’ve got my ideas – but [I had ways to send signals to him and did what I could.]

I wasn’t sure that any of that would bring Penry, or what I’d do if it didn’t. But I don’t have to worry about that. Here he is.

Penry gets out of the Yaris and leans up against it, waiting for me.

OK, so a new question now jumps out at us: what is Brian Penry’s connection with any of this? As far as the reader’s been concerned, he’s under investigation for an entirely different crime. But notice also that one of the questions we started with – how does Fiona get into this house? – already feels different with Penry’s presence here.

‘Well, well, Detective Constable.’

‘Good morning, Mr Penry.’

‘The home of the mysterious Mr Fletcher.’

‘The mysterious and missing Mr Fletcher.’

Penry checks the road. No other cars. No other coppers. ‘No search warrant.’

‘Correct. We’re making preliminary enquiries about a reported missing person. If you have any information that might be related to the matter, I’d ask that you disclose it in full.’

This is fencing, and it feels like it. Neither party is saying what they actually think or feel. But notice that Penry is now making that question about access to the house explicit. He’s basically saying, “You can’t legally enter that house because you don’t have a search warrant.” And he’s right. That question is now centre stage.

‘No. No information, Detective Constable.’ But he gets a key out of his pocket. A brass Yale key, which he holds up twinkling in the half-sunlight. ‘I want you to know that I have nothing to do with any of this. I made some money that I should not have made. I did not report some of the things that I should have reported. I fucked up. But I didn’t fuck up the way that idiot fucked up.’ He equals a jab of the index finger equals Huw Fletcher.

I reach for the key.

He holds it away from me, polishes it in a handkerchief to remove prints and sweat, then holds it out. I take it.

Now both our starting questions get attention. Penry for the first time acknowledges that he is in some (still mysterious) way linked to Fletcher. That’s the first time two major story strands have been formally connected in the book. And the question about access – well, he has a key. Him wiping prints off the key emphasise the not-very-official nature of what’s happening.

‘Time to find out what kind of idiot you aren’t,’ I say.

Penry nods. I’m expecting him to move, but he doesn’t, just keeps leaning up against the Yaris and half smiling down at me.

‘You’re going in there alone?’

‘To begin with, yes. Since I am alone.’

‘You know, when I was a young officer, a wet-behind-the-ears DC, that’s what I’d have done too.’

‘Junior officers are required to use their initiative in confronting unforeseen situations,’ I agree. I don’t know why I start speaking like a textbook to Penry, of all people…

The access question is solved by the key, but that question is instantly replaced by this one: are you going in there alone? That’s partly a safety question (is it safe in there?), but it’s also a legality one. Fiona doesn’t have a warrant. Does she intend to break the law?

Penry says, ‘You’re like me. You know that? You’re like me and you’ll end up like me.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Not maybe. Definitely.’

‘Can you even play the piano?’

‘No. Not a single bloody note. Always thought I’d like to, but I get a brand-new piano in the house and I never touch it.’

‘That is like me,’ I nod. ‘That would be just like me.’

Penry is now saying, “Yes, you will go in there illegally and you’ll end up like me – a bent copper who’s about to be sent to prison.”

When Penry stole money, one of the things he bought with it was an upright piano, which Fiona saw earlier at his home. The non-playing of the piano shows how pointless the thefts were. Penry destroyed himself for no gain, and is telling Fiona that she’ll do the same. It’s not quite clear if Fiona even disagrees.

So now we have a new question – and one much bigger than those we started with – which is: can Fiona manage her future in a way that doesn’t destroy her? And, in fact, because we know she’s about to enter the house illegally, the question has edge. It looks like she is on the path to self-destruction.

His half-smile extends into a three-quarters one, … then vanishes. He gives me a half-salute, slides back into the Yaris and drives off, slowly because of the speed bumps.

So the Penry-related questions are closed off (for now). The questions about this house-entry loom large.

The street is empty and silent. The sunlight occupies the empty space like an invading army. There’s just me, a house and a key. My gun is in the car, but it can stay right where it is. Whatever’s in the house isn’t about to start a fight, or at least I hope it isn’t.

I approach the door, insert the key, turn the lock.

I feel a kind of amazement when the lock turns. It’s like turning the page in a fairy story and finding that the story continues exactly as before. At some point, this particular tale has to come to an end.

This is a pause, but it’s weaponised. The invading army, the gun, the fight – all those words add menace to this moment. In a somewhat metaphorical way, the story is telling us that things are starting to turn serious. The stakes are rising.

The house is . . . just a house. There are probably twenty other houses on the same street that are exactly like it, near as dammit. No corpses. No emaciated figures of runaway shipping managers chained to radiators. No weapons. No stashes of drugs. No heroin-injecting prostitutes or little girls with only half a head.

OK. So far, so nothing. But there’s no release of tension. Slightly the opposite. The reader knows that something’s about to happen – there’s been too much made of this house entry for there to be nothing inside.

I tiptoe round the house, shrinking from its accumulated silence. I’ve taken my jacket off, and wrap it round my hand whenever I touch handles or shift objects.

I don’t like being here. I think Brian Penry is right. I’ve got more of him in me than of, say, David Brydon [a very upright police officer, and Fiona’s first proper boyfriend]. I wish that weren’t true, but it is.

Another reminder that Fiona is acting illegally, and that her future is in doubt. That question feels even sharper now. Fiona’s two possible futures are personified: the upright Mr Brydon, and the self-destructive Mr Penry.

In the bedroom, there is a big double bed, neatly made with white sheets and a mauve duvet cover.

In the bathroom, just one toothbrush. All the toiletries are male.

In the living room, three fat black flies are buzzing against the windowpane. A dozen of their comrades lie dead beneath them.

More stillness. More waiting for whatever The Thing is that’s about to show its face. But also – those dead flies. A little drip of reminder about the darkness that lies here.

In the kitchen, I open cupboards and drawers, and in the place where tea towels and placemats are kept, there is also cash. Fifty-pound notes. Thick wodges of them. Held together with rubber bands. The drawer below holds bin liners and kitchen foil, and even more bundles of notes. These ones are stacked up against the back of the drawer, making multiple rows. A little paper wall of cash. With one finger, and still through my jacket, I riffle one of the bundles. Fifties all the way down.

Ah! Here’s the thing. That third question – what’s in the house? – is now fully answered. But that also means it’s instantly replaced by a “and what are the consequences?” type question.

I don’t like being here at all now. I don’t like being Brian Penry. I want to go back to plan A, which was to practise getting ready to be Dave Brydon’s new girlfriend. To experiment with my putative new citizenship of Planet Normal.

I close the drawer and leave the house. The lock clicks shut behind me. I find an old terracotta flowerpot in the garden and stow Penry’s key underneath it.

OK, so we’re done with questions about the house. The questions about Fletcher remain, but now he’s not just missing. He’s a missing person with tons of surely illicit cash in his home. But what about Fiona? She shouldn’t have gone in there. She did. She found something which her less rule-breaking colleagues surely need to know about.

Back in my car, I find that I’m sweating and cold at the same time. I try to go back to that feeling I had on the print-room stairs. That feeling of being somewhere close to love and happiness. Living next door to the sunshine twins. I can’t find them anywhere now. When I stamp my legs, I can hardly feel my feet when they hit the floor.

I call the Newport police station. It’s all I can do, and I feel relieved when the silence is ended.

OK, the scene – which has been low-key emotionally – ends with some big emotions. Fiona is a long way now from ‘the sunshine twins’. The darkness of these crimes is enclosing her.

But she does at least call her police colleagues. She’s doing something to restore legal / official order to affairs.

But notice what’s happened to our opening questions. They were:

1. What’s happened to Fletcher?
2. How does Fiona expect to get into the house?
3. What’s in the house?

The first of those questions is still a big Don’t Know – but the question has become deeper and darker as a result of what’s just happened.

Question 2 has been answered, but it’s been replaced a much bigger and more interesting one: “Will Fiona destroy herself the same way as Penry did?”

Question 3 has been answered, but it’s been replaced by a “What the hell is going on with Fletcher?”

And notice two more things before we finish:

1. The Fiona / Penry relationship has just become deeper and more complicated. In this little scene, they found a kind of kinship, but based around Fiona’s capacity for self-destruction. That’s interesting – but we also want to know how that strand plays out in the future.
2. The stakes have risen. Although this scene was very quiet, there was an invading army, twelve corpses (only flies yes, but still symbols of death), and Fiona seems close to collapse.

The story after this scene ends is more complicated, darker and deeper than it was before And this was a short scene. And nothing much actually happened: a man gave a woman a key. And she found some cash in a drawer. That’s not much by way of actual action.

Reflections

A lot of writing advice is generated because people have to generate something. They have a blogpost to write, or an email to send, or a course module to fill,

But the only advice worth anything is advice that helps you solve problems in your writing. So when I read or listen to advice, I always ask: does this actually describe what I personally do when I’m writing well? Does this advice actually generate insights that will help me when I get stuck?

And, without talking about everything that Becca discusses, I have to say that, yes, her insights described exactly what was happening in this scene. Not just that, but it was surprising to me to see how mobile the scene-questions were. How they changed, not even from page to page, but every few paragraphs. That’s presumably why good writing feels alive, mobile and unpredictable, and bad writing feels stagey, dull and dead.

Anyhow: I hope you enjoy the Write with Jericho course. More info below if you need it.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

No feedback from me this week. Becca takes over. Her Lesson One video (available to Premium Members only) contains an assignment to do and upload to Townhouse. In addition to feedback from your peers, there might even be a chance of getting feedback from Becca. If you aren't a Premium Member, then you can sign up, and join the course, immediately and for free.

***

That’s it from me.

Til soon.

Harry

Last week’s email was all about staying close to character and I ended, in a way I seldom do, by being a bit mean about another author’s work. Specifically, I wasn’t keen on the amount of clenching, contorting and panicking that went on. We wanted to rustle up other ways to convey inner state. I gave some examples in that email, but today I want to give a more comprehensive, more fully ordered list of options. 

Honestly, I doubt if many of you will want to pin those options to the wall and pick from them, menu-style, as you write. But having these things in your awareness is at least likely to loosen your attachment to the clench-n-quake school of writing. 

So. 

Let’s say that we have our character – Talia, 33, single. She’s the keeper of Egyptian antiquities at a major London museum, and the antiquities keep going missing. She’s also rather fond of Daniel, 35, a shaggy-haired archaeologist. Our scene? Hmm. Talia and a colleague (Asha, 44) are working late. They hear strange noises from the vault. They go to investigate and find some recent finds, Egyptian statuary, have been unaccountably moved. In the course of the scene, Asha tells Talia that she fancies Daniel … and thinks he fancies her back. 

In the course of the scene, Talia feels curious about the noises in the vault, feels surprise and fear when she finds the statues have been moved. And feels jealousy and uncertainty when Asha speaks of her feelings for Daniel. 

We need to find ways to express Talia’s feelings in the story. 

Here’s one way: 

Direct statements of emotion 

Talia felt a surge of jealousy, that almost amounted to anger. 

Bingo. Why not? That’s what she feels, so why not say it? No reason at all. Some writers will panic that they’re telling not showing, and they’ve read somewhere that they shouldn’t do that (at all, ever), so they’ll avoid these direct statements. But why? They work. They’re useful. They help the reader. 

More complicated but still direct statements 

Somewhere, she felt a shadow-self detach from her real one, a shadow self that wanted to claw Asha’s face, pull her hair, draw blood, cause pain. 

That’s still saying “Talia felt X”, we’ve just inserted a more complicated statement into the hole marked X, but it still works. And that dab of exotic imagery gives the whole thing a novelly feel, so we’re good, right? Even though technically, we’re still telling not showing. 

Physical statements: inner report 

Talia felt her belly drop away, the seaside roller-coaster experience, except that here she was no child. There was no sand, no squinting sunshine, no erupting laughter. 

Now as you know, I don’t love text that overuses physical statements as a way to describe emotion, but that’s because overuse of anything is bad, and because the statements tend to be very thin (mouth contorting, chest shuddering, etc). If you don’t overuse the statements and enrich the ones you do make, there’s not an issue. 

Notice that here, we have Talia noticing something about her physical state – it’s not an external observation. But both things are fine.

Physical statements: external observation 

Colour rushed into Talia’s face. She turned her head abruptly to prevent the other woman seeing but Asha was, in any case, more interested in the case of funerary amulets. 

Here, we’re only talking about physical changes that are apparent on the outside, and that snippet is fine too. It doesn’t go very deep and, for my money, it feels like a snippet that would best go after a more direct statement. “Talia felt a surge of jealousy, anger almost. Colour rushed into her face, and she turned her head …” 

Dialogue 

“Daniel?” said Talia. “But he’s so much younger. I really doubt that he’d …” 

Dialogue conveys emotion. It can also provide text and subtext in one. So here, the overt meaning is Talia’s doubt that a mid-thirties Daniel could fancy a mid-forties Asha… but the clear sub-text is a catty jealousy on Talia’s part. And readers love decoding those subtexts, so the more you offer them, the better. 

Direct statement of inner thought 

“Daniel?” said Talia. “But he’s so much younger. I really doubt that he’d …” 

Doubt what? That he’d fancy the glamorous, shaggy-haired Asha, with her white shirts and big breasts and pealing laughter? 

The second bit here is a direct statement of Talia’s actual thought. We could also have written: 

Doubt what, she wondered. That he’d fancy … 

That inserts a “she wondered” into things, but as you see, we can have a direct statement of her thoughts with or without that “she wondered”. Either way, it works. 

Memory 

Talia remembered seeing the two of them, at conference in Egypt. Holding little white coffee cups on a sunny balcony and bawling with laughter at something, she didn’t know what. Asha’s unfettered, unapologetic booming laughter and all the sunlit roofs of Cairo. 

That doesn’t quite go directly to emotions, but it half-does and we could take it nearer with a little nudging. And, for sure, if you want a rounded set of tools to build out your emotional language, then memory will play a part. 

Action 

When Asha spoke, Talia had been holding a small pot in elaborately worked clay. It would once have held a sacred oil with which to anoint a new bride. Talia felt Asha looking sharply at her, at her hands, and when she looked, she saw the pot was split in two, that she’d broken it, now, after two thousand three hundred years. 

OK, is that a bit on the nose? Breaking a marriage pot. Well, maybe, but it’s better than quaking, clenching and contorting all the time. 

Use of the setting 

They were in the vault now, marital relics stored in the shelves behind them, funerary relics and coinage on the shelves in front. Leaking through the walls from the offices next door, there was the wail of Sawhali music, the mourning of a simsimiyya. 

At one level, that snippet is only talking about hard physical facts: what’s stored on the shelves, what music they can hear. But look at the language: we have marital and funerary in the same sentence. The next sentence brings us wail and mourning. This is a pretty clear way of saying that Talia’s not exactly joyful about things. Every reader will certainly interpret it that way. 

And there are probably more alternatives too, and certainly you can smush these ones up together and get a thousand interesting hybrids as a result. I said you probably won’t want to pin this list up on a wall anywhere, but honestly? If you do read back a clench-quake-contort passage in your own fiction, then you might want to (A) delete nearly all of that that clenching and quaking, then (B) check back here for alternative approaches. 

Your writing will get better, instantly, if you do that. And – you’ll have more fun. 

*** 

FEEDBACK FRIDAY 

Take any passage in which you’ve got excessive dependence on physical statements about your character and rework it, using any mixture of the tools here. You’re welcome to keep some physical statements in your scene, but make sure you keep a nice balance overall. We want to get a rich and rounded sense of the character’s emotion – written in a way that doesn’t make me want to scream. 

What I need: 

• 250 words from your scene 

• 2-3 lines of introduction as needed 

I’ll give feedback to a good handful of you. All are welcome to participate, but I’ll only offer feedback to Premium Members. When you're ready, upload your material here. If you’re not yet a Premium Member but would like to be, then you can join us here.

*** 
That’s it from me. We have a new puppy in our lives. He’s called Dibble, and he’s a black-and-white poodle / papillon cross. He has four white socks, a white bib, a touch of white on his nose, and the end of his tail looks like it’s been dipped in white paint. The little lad is an absolute darling. My girls are smitten, but I’m not exactly unsmitten. 

Til soon. 

Harry 

Are you struggling to get started with your next writing project? Wondering which idea is the one to run with, or how to decide? Preparing for the launch of our new Premium Member course, Write With Jericho, has got me thinking about this very topic. What do you do when you have way too many ideas bouncing around in your brain? And what if you can't even decide which genre to dive into? If this sounds familiar, don't panic - I've got you covered. Let's figure it out together. (And don't forget - Write With Jericho is for Premium Members only, so be sure to join us to access this course! We'll be learning how to craft the perfect scene, so you'll be able to approach any story idea with confidence.) 

1. Start with what excites you most 

When you have too many ideas, start by asking yourself: which one makes you feel the most excited? Which idea has you daydreaming about characters or imagining epic plot twists? Sit with the ideas for a few days or weeks. If one idea gives you that little spark of joy and you find yourself constantly thinking about it, run with it. Writing a book is not easy. If the idea doesn’t make you bounce in your seat a little bit, it’s probably not going to be an idea you’ll want to sit with for 80k plus words and read and edit again... and again... and again. Excitement is the fuel that will keep you going. 

Pro Tip: If you’re excited about it, chances are your readers will be too. 

2. Create a “Battle Royale” of ideas 

Take all your ideas and pit them against each other. Write a quick elevator pitch for each one and see which stands out. When I say elevator pitch, I don’t mean the kind you’d include on a query letter. I mean the quick, dirty kind that you stick on a post-it note or scribble in the middle of the night. Take a look at this masterclass from Harry Bingham if you’re unsure how to do this. If you’re torn between a thriller about a missing heirloom and a romantic comedy set in a flower shop, ask yourself: which feels fresher? Which would you rather spend months (or years) writing? 

3. Test drive your ideas 

You don’t have to commit right away. Write a short story, an opening chapter, or even just a scene for a few of your favourite ideas. Why not use Write With Jericho, where we’re going to be writing a scene together, to try out your idea? As a Premium Member, you’ll have access to the replays for as long as you’re a member, so if it doesn’t work out you can always take the course again with a different idea. This process can help you see which one feels the most natural to write and has the most potential for growth. 

4. Combine ideas 

Who says you have to choose just one? Sometimes the best stories come from blending two seemingly unrelated ideas. For example, your dystopian sci-fi concept could pair perfectly with your love for cozy mysteries. Suddenly, you’re writing about a sleuth solving crimes on a spaceship. Genre mashups can be magical – and extremely sought after by agents and publishers if they’re done well. 

5. Explore your genre dilemma 

If you can’t decide which genre to write, think about: 

What you love to read? The genre you enjoy most as a reader might be the one you’ll enjoy writing. 

Your natural strengths: Are you great at building suspense? Maybe thrillers are your calling. Do you write snappy dialogue? Consider comedy. 

What scares you a little: The genre that intimidates you might be the one that helps you grow the most as a writer. 

6. Look at the long game 

Ask yourself: which genre do you see yourself sticking with for multiple books? If you’re hoping to build a career, it helps to establish yourself in a particular niche. That doesn’t mean you can never branch out, but if a publisher is considering offering you a book deal, they’ll want to know that you can produce multiple books in the same genre that will appeal to the same readers again and again. When I wrote my first novel, which was a sci-fi, this is exactly why I never queried it. I couldn’t see myself as a sci-fi writer. I didn’t think I could write another book in the genre, or at least, not multiple books. However, I could see myself writing lots of thrillers, so I decided to do that instead. 

7. Consult your characters 

Sometimes it’s the characters, not the plot, that can help you decide. Think about the people in your ideas. Which characters feel the most real or compelling? Which ones are clamoring the loudest for their story to be told? Follow their lead. 

8. Set aside market pressure 

It’s easy to get caught up in what’s trending. While it’s good to be aware of the market, trying to chase trends can stifle your creativity. It’s also a bit pointless. What’s trending today probably won’t be next year, so by the time you’ve written the book, edited the book, and started to query, it’s likely to no longer be in demand. Even worse – the market will probably be over-saturated by that point and you’ll be competing with writers who got there quicker than you. Instead, focus on writing what you’re passionate about. Trends come and go, but a story you love will always have value. 

9. Flip a coin (seriously) 

If you’re truly stuck, grab a coin. Assign an idea or genre to each side and flip. You’ll either: 

Get your answer, or 

Realize as the coin is mid-air which one you’re secretly rooting for. 

10. Remember to have fun 

Writing should be fun! Yes, it’s hard work, but it’s also your chance to create a world, fall in love with your characters, and tell a story only you can tell. Don’t stress about choosing the “right” idea. Whatever you write, it will be uniquely yours. 

So, take a deep breath, pick an idea (or two!), and start typing. You’ve got this! 

Don’t forget to join us as a Premium Member to take part in Write With Jericho. The first lesson is now live! You can find out more about the course right here. 

One of the bits of feedback I give most – and really, I’d want to give it almost all the time, on auto-repeat – is: stay close to character.

Sometimes that means simply reporting what a character thinks of something.

The coffee shop was white, vaguely seaside-y in its timber and flaking paint, over-priced and, Niamh thought, pretentious.

 That ‘Niamh thought’ simply plops the character’s view right into the description without feeling a tad out of place.

But character can and should sneak in anywhere.

The bickering couple moved away from their seat in the window, and the rain had left, and there was sunlight on the wet street, shining off car windscreens and fallen magnolia petals.

And, yes, in a way that’s just description: a matter of stating simple facts. Except why is Niamh observing these facts? There are other observations she could have made. In the same place at the same time, she might have chosen to observe:

The door to the toilets wasn’t properly closed and the sound and smells of plumbing eased through. Coffee here was four pounds a cup, and the most prominent aroma was pine-scented disinfectant.

One of these snippets suggests one mood. The second delivers quite another. And we all know that if we’re depressed, we see the world differently from if we’re not. Our views of people and situations are coloured by our own mental state.

It’s the same in books. If I’m describing sunlight on a wet street, I’m offering you something (however hard to put into words) about the character’s mental state. If I’m passing on facts about the price of coffee and toilet smells, then I’m suggesting something quite different.

But character can invade even more directly than this. Take this:

The coffee arrived. Each cup came on its own copper-trimmed wooden tray, with a small glass bottle of milk and an oat-biscuit about the size of a large button. The waitress, inevitably, paused to tell them about the Colombian estate from which the coffee had come.

That whole chunk is factual narrative, but always filtered through the observation of a particular character. The ‘size of a large button’, for example, tells us about the character’s range of reference. ‘Button’ is quite homely, quite domestic in nature. A ‘good-sized poker chip’ would tell us something different. A ‘heavy-duty washer, the sort you’d use in roofing’ would give us something else.

But look a little deeper. The little snippets I’ve created for this email are all voiced in the third person. We have an unnamed, impersonal narrator whose job is mostly just to describe facts: what happened, what Niamh said and did, what she thought and felt, and so on. The narrator knows as much as we choose for them to know. For all I know, in the next chapter, the narrator will be talking, not about Niamh, but a burly Polish roofer called Lech. But no matter who the narrator is talking about, he or she is basically impersonal. A being of no interest.

Look back at that oat-biscuit snippet. It says, “The waitress, inevitably, paused…” That word, ‘’inevitably’, belongs to Niamh, not the narrator. It’s her sarcastic comment about the café’s pretentiousness: the narrator doesn’t really have a view.

In effect, you can write third person, but your character should still infuse the entire text, with every observation, with every choice of word.

Now all that sounds as wholesome and good as an artisanal oat-biscuit. So why make a big deal of it?

Well, the reason is that plenty of text just feels like … words.

Here for example:

Before Sarah has time to find an excuse, they're standing inside the dark entrance hall. She shudders. It's as cold as the grave.

The man [an estate agent] fumbles on the wall beside the door and clicks the light on. A single bulb spreads a sickly glow around the room. Sarah takes in the parquet floor and wooden panelling and the smell: mould and cat pee. She can see the man properly now. Close up, he looks older than she'd first thought. Fine lines score his face and she wonders if his luxuriant dark hair is quite natural.

'Do you have a place to sell yourself?' he asks, his voice casual. ‘I take it you're on the move?'

She focuses on his face, concentrating on keeping her eyes steady and her mouth from contorting. She tells herself she must try to appear normal, even if she feels far from it.

'Yes, probably, quite soon,' she says, her voice unnaturally bright.

He smiles, a professional smile, still probing. 'Is it in the area?' He shakes his umbrella and slips it into an oak stand beside the door.

Her fists clench involuntarily. She's not going to tell this man that her life has imploded. That only a few hours ago she walked out on her husband with just three suitcases and a couple of tea chests to show for fifteen years of marriage. How can she talk about it to this stranger before Alex himself knows - even though she owes him nothing? Panic washes over her …

Now, look, that chunk is lifted from a book called The Orphan House by Ann Bennett, and it’s got lots of lovely reader reviews, and I haven’t read it, so maybe the book has depths that I can’t assess from this passage. Sorry, Ms Bennett.

But:

I do not love this writing. I do not love prose that works like this.

In this short passage, Sarah shudders. She concentrates on keeping her eyes steady and has to work to prevent her mouth from contorting. Her voice is unnaturally bright. Her fists clench, though she doesn’t ask them to. Panic washes over her. That’s a truly vast amount of shuddering, panicking and clenching, while at the same time keeping the voice bright and the eyes steady. It’s such a barrage of information, it’s not quite clear we can meaningfully assemble it, except in a very basic “oh, she’s feeling emotional and upset” way. I don’t even think the author has any more precise conception of her own. If she had, she’d have given it to us.

The factual observations give us nothing either.

The house is as cold as the grave, which might mean that the character has her mind filled with death and the end of everything … but is much more likely to reflect the unconsidered use of a tired old cliché.

An old, unheated house smells of mould (normal) and cat pee (not so much, unless the place is so derelict that there are ways for cats to enter the property.)

The light is sickly. But what does that mean? Normally, that would suggest a greenish light, but why would a house have bulbs any different from anyone else’s bulbs? The observation isn’t followed by anything, which makes me think that the word ‘sickly’ is used simply in order to convey a very general “this property doesn’t look all that great” message.

In short, we have a passage that is NOT invaded by character. The author doesn’t use the tools she has to deliver character via back-door routes, and she compensates with a whole barrage of shuddering and panicking.

The result feels both flat (because of the deadness in the observation) and over-coloured (because of the babbling, quaking character on the page.) That’s a bad combination.

My advice? Don’t write like that.

My further advice: Stay close to character. Always and everywhere.

You’ll like it if you do.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Well, it’s clear what we need this week: 250 words from your text that is infused by character. We’re going to be looking especially for factual observation that conveys something about the character present. Extra bonuses if there are places where the character sneaks control from the narrator.

If you’re writing first person, then all of this is easier and more natural, but that also means the demands rise. Every word of your passage needs to belong to your character. We need to be smelling him or her in every line.

Please also give us the title of your book, and a line or two of introduction, so we can make sense of the scene.

When you're ready, post your work here.

***

That’s it from me. I am going to clench, shudder and panic my way over to a coffee pot and see if caffeine will help. It surely will.

Til soon.

Harry

Most nights, I watch a bit of TV with the missus before bed. She does not get ready as fast as I do, so I usually have 15 or 20 minutes watching something on my own before we settle on something that works for the two of us.

And, out of curiosity really, I just started watching (in 15 or 20 minute chunks) David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. I’m not sure how widely known that name is outside of Britain – but the guy was an Oxford scholar of the Middle East who ended up uniting the – normally squalling – Arab tribes in a revolt against their Ottoman overlords. This happened as part of World War I, and since the Turks were allied with the Germans, them bashing the Turks in the Levant was (a bit) helpful to the overall cause.

OK, that’s the historical background. The film history is that David Lean – already a well-known filmmaker – brought the film out in 1962 and was nominated for 10 Oscars in the 1963 awards, winning 7 of them.

The film runs for 3½ hours. It’s perfectly willing to have long, long takes that show little more than figures (and camels) moving through a landscape.

It involves a sexually ambiguous hero, who is (it is implied) raped mid-film.

The story doesn’t have a happy ending, as Lawrence’s dreams of Arab independence collapse as a result of individual greeds and colonial realities.

Could the film be made today? I doubt it. A niche historical drama of that length? With no superhero character, no bestselling source material, and not even a well-known lead, I think the film would stand no chance of securing the necessary funds.

Is it a masterpiece? Well, don’t ask me; ask the American Film Institute, who have the film ranked #7 in their list of the 100 best ever movies.

A masterpiece, that no one would make.

And don’t lay the blame on the passage of time. 1962 is not so long ago. We’re not dealing with the cultural distance of Shakespeare. We’re talking about the cultural distance of Bob Dylan and the Beatles.

And books?

The same, the same, the same, the same.

There are any number of great and successful books from the past which wouldn’t be bought today.

Sometimes, it’s just that something has been done to death. (Imagine trying to sell Twilight now. Publishers would groan at something so stuffed with genre cliché, and with so few twists on a theme.)

Other times, politics would come into play. Part of the problem with making Lawrence of Arabia today would be having a white man in a rescuer role. Publishers have become nervous and – some would say – oversensitive in their approach to navigating similar issues in the twenty-first century.

Then, perhaps, there’s just a sense that something has dated. So, for example, I don’t think my Fiona Griffiths books will date quickly – they’re not especially wedded to their period. But my first book, The Money Makers, felt dated within years of arrival, because of its setting in the 1999/2000 financial industry.

But looking at all the great books that could not be published today misses the point.

The publishing industry is not in some sort of collapsed state. Old tropes die and new ones are born. If Shakespeare had been reborn in Victorian times, he wouldn’t have written the works of Shakespeare – he’d have been a Dickens. If Dickens were writing his first book now, it wouldn’t be Bleak House or Oliver Twist. It would be – well, we don’t know, because the man was a genius and geniuses aren’t predictable.

And you?

What about you? Because this email isn’t about Dickens, or Shakespeare or David Lean. It’s about you.

And you, my friend, are going to use this glorious great stretch of 2025 – a whole big, loping, empty year – to write something wonderful. Or to complete the wonderful thing you’ve already started.

And you’re not going to complain about the broken state of publishing because (A) it isn’t broken and (B) there are more ways to find readers than there ever used to be. But also, and mostly, because (C) you are writing your book in the glorious year of 2025, and every sentence you write is embedded in the culture of today – with all your knowledge of what people are writing about, responding to, watching, getting annoyed by and so on.

Believe in that culture. Be part of it. And, for sure, you can yelp about the stuff that annoys you, or subvert current tropes for something you think is better. Take yesterday’s idea and twist it in a way that makes it shipshape for tomorrow.

But whatever you do, apply your bum to that seat.

And write.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

First up – apologies. At the end of last year, I asked you for your agent questions and then got too overwhelmed by the onset of Christmas to answer properly. I’ve remedied that now. If you had a question about agents and all that, then check out the forum again, and you’ll find an answer there from me.

As for this week, it’s a New Year, so let’s make that the theme. Please give me:

• The opening page (max 300 words) from your current project. As always, give us enough background that we know what kind of book we’re dealing with.
• If you’ve submitted an opening page recently, then just give us something new – a chapter beginning, for example. Again, just give enough of an intro, that we know what we’re dealing with.

When you're ready, post your work here.

Do please be as generous as always with your comments for others. Don’t forget to give useful, specific feedback as well as positivity and encouragement. The latter is nice; the former improves books.

Til soon,

Harry.

A retreat from reality. A whole day, or maybe even several days, wholly devoted to writing. An opportunity to focus solely on your work-in-progress: to smash a word count goal, get under the skin of your story idea or wrestle your plot into perfect shape. 

Sounds great, right? It’s no wonder that attending a writing retreat is on most authors’ wish lists for 2025 – mine included!  

However, writing retreats can be prohibitively expensive, especially in the aftermath of Christmas. They can also be tough to fit into everyday life if you have other commitments to consider.  

Luckily, there are ways you can bring the principles of a retreat into your own writing practice, whatever your budget and time constraints may be. Here are five helpful ideas for running your own DIY writing retreat. I hope they help you get 2025 off to a strong, creative start.  

1. Pick (or prepare) a place 

If spending a few hours away from home – perhaps in a particularly nice coffee shop – is an option for you, then this might be a good place to start. Alternatively, it could be that a day or two in a local hotel or B&B is within reach. If so, this could offer sufficient distance from the daily grind to boost your productivity.  

If you can head further afield, that’s great, too – though (unless your retreat is also a very specific research trip) beware the temptation to book accommodation in a location where you’ll be tempted to explore. Trekking to Scotland for some peace and quiet is all very well, but you’re unlikely to get much writing done if you can’t resist checking out local hiking trails or touring whisky distilleries… 

Which leads me nicely to my point. While the word ‘retreat’ probably makes you think of going away somewhere, in reality this is far less important than the decision to retreat – as in, step back – from what you normally do and think about. You could travel to a perfect, picturesque cottage in the middle of nowhere and still struggle to concentrate on writing if you can’t put down your mobile phone or silence the voice in your head that keeps whispering, ‘Don’t forget tomorrow is bin day!’ 

As you prepare for your DIY writing retreat – which can certainly happen in your own home – think about the distractions that typically pull you away from writing. How can you tackle them? You might consider asking a friend or partner to take charge of children or pets for a day, for example.  

If you’ve booked a day or two of leave from work to write, turn your ‘office’ phone off and put it in a drawer. Refuse to think about your day job until your retreat is done! Also, make sure those around you know that just because you have booked a day off work, it doesn't mean you are ‘off’. This is not the opportunity for accepting invitations to brunch, or tackling those extra projects around the home you've been meaning to do. You're still working. It's just a different sort of work. 

Give yourself permission to de-prioritise any chores and errands you’d usually get done during the time you’ve set aside for your DIY writing retreat. That said, make sure the space you’ll use for writing is clean and tidy… otherwise ‘neatening it up’ could easily become a smokescreen for procrastination.  

If you’re keen to dedicate some more time to your work-in-progress but don’t have the opportunity or funds to go on a traditional writing retreat, signing up for The Ultimate Start could also be a great option for you. This one day, online writing workshop offers five tutorials with expert authors, and is designed to kickstart your creativity for the New Year. Best of all, it costs just £49 for Jericho Writers Premium Members and £99 for non-members.

2. Set strategic goals 

So, you’ve decided when and where your DIY writing retreat will take place. Now it’s time to define what you want to achieve during the time you’ve set aside.  

Perhaps you want to plan your next project. Maybe you have a completed draft that you’re keen to self-edit. It could be that you’re desperately trying to get to ‘the end’ with a work-in-progress, and just need some focused time to help you bring home the final act of your story.  

Wherever you are on your writing journey, think about the best way to invest the time you’re devoting to your retreat. What can you get done in that period, and what impact will it have on your project overall? What aspects of writing do you normally find most difficult – and does this distraction-free time offer an opportunity to get to grips with them?  

Before you begin your DIY writing retreat, you need to know upfront what ‘success’ means for you. Without a clear goal in mind, you may struggle to stay motivated – and you also risk ending without that clear, satisfying sense of crossing the finish line.  

You must also make sure that, whatever goal you set, it’s realistic. If you have a single day to work on your writing, for example, don’t tell yourself you’re going to produce 10,000 perfect words. Aim for a number you know is feasible, then pat yourself on the back if you overshoot!

3. Create a schedule 

The phrase ‘writing retreat’ probably conjures up cosy images of people thinking very deep, writerly thoughts, snuggled up in front of roaring fires and sipping from bottomless mugs of hot chocolate. Lovely as such images are, the truth is that you can only spend so much time contemplating and quaffing sugary beverages if you want to get stuff done.  

By all means, make regular hot chocolate breaks a core component of your DIY writing retreat plan – but schedule them in advance. Make them a reward for an hour of good work. Think about how they can push you closer to achieving your goal, rather than hamper you from focusing on it. 

When you’re planning your DIY writing retreat, it’s a good idea to consider in advance how you can incorporate regular meals, small treats, physical movement and rest – particularly if you’re spending more than a day on focused work. It may sound puritanical, but creating a schedule will not only help you stick to writing, planning or editing; it will also encourage you to take good care of yourself.  

Through The Ultimate Start, we’re offering five workshops in a single day to help you plan a new project, review your work-in-progress or provide a fantastic framework for self-editing. You can view the schedule for the day (which includes plenty of all-important breaks!) right here on our website.  

4. Prepare your resources  

Think about ways you can prepare for your DIY writing retreat in advance. Could you batch cook a few meals, for instance, or stock up on healthy snacks that will keep your creativity flowing? If you’re a lover of fabulous notebooks and snazzy pens, would having a couple of new ones help motivate you during your retreat?  

You’ll also want to consider more mundane things like ensuring any research notes, files or books you might need are readily available. Collect everything together in one place so that, even if you’re staying at home, you won’t waste precious time hunting for them.  

Think about making sure you’re comfortable, too. If you have a favourite cushion, blanket or scented candle, incorporate this into your workspace.  

Such items should be a welcome reminder that your writing retreat is supposed to be pleasurable, as well as productive. Focusing on your writing in this way is something you get to do, not something you have to do. 

5. Celebrate your success (and analyse how you could improve) 

When your writing retreat is over, make sure you give yourself credit for the time and effort you’ve put into it – whether or not you achieved everything you set out to.  

If you didn’t quite hit your target, see if there’s anything you can learn from that. Was your word count goal too ambitious? Did you underestimate how long editing or planning certain sections of your story might take you? Or, did you find an idea you’d thought was good didn’t have legs and come up with something else instead? 

So often in writing, what seems like a setback is a learning experience, or an opportunity to pivot and improve something. When you look back on what you’ve managed to do during your DIY writing retreat, consider it with positivity and without judgement. That way, you won’t be discouraged from carving out time for another writing retreat in future – and you’ll be even better equipped to make the most of it.  

So, there you have it! Five tips for creating a DIY writing retreat that will help you start your writing year right.  

And if you’d like to find out more about the affordable mini ‘writing retreat’ we’re running for online this January, check out The Ultimate Start page on our website.