I saw on another thread that you should announce yourself under member news so that is what I am doing!  My name is Angie and I consider myself a lifelong writer although I am just now professionally pursuing it.  I have finished my first novel and am getting ready to meet with an editor before submitting my query letters.  I have set a timetable and if I do not get picked up by an agent, I will then self publish.  Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?  I'm certain many of you have a similar story!

Do you have a question that I am having a hard time finding an answer to in regards to word count.  Is it true that many agents will reject your query letter is your word count is over a maximum number?  And if so, what is that maximum?  I've read many different things in regards to this.  I would appreciate any information anyone can share.

I look forward to chatting with many of you!

Hi Vana! Nice to meet you via Book Country. Welcome to the community!

You can post an introduction here, as you did, or you can use the dedicated "Introduce Yourself" forum, where more people might see it. Either way, I am glad you posted--it's a great way for folks to find you!

Since you're new to the site, I thought I would share these resources with you: our FAQ page, our introductory video tutorial, and a blog post that is a step by step guide to getting involved in the community.

Let me know if you have questions or if you need anything. We're glad you're here!

Lucy Silag

Book Country Community and Engagement Manager

• I have finished my first novel and am getting ready to meet with an editor before submitting my query letters.

There are some things you may not yet be aware of, but should know going in.

1. I can’t stress this strongly enough: writing for the printed word is nothing like verbal storytelling, because that’s a performance art that uses visual and audible technique that are-not-reproducible-on-the-page.

It’s not like the general skill called writing that we learned on high school, either, because that’s meant to prepare the average adult for the kind of writing required by employers: fact-based and author-centric. Its goal is to inform. In other words, nonfiction. Fiction is emotion based and character-centric. Its goal is to entertain.

So, if you already know things like the three questions a reader wants answered quickly on entering a scene, why most scenes end in disaster, and how a scene-goal aids the writer, you’re set. If not, something like Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling writer, or Jack Bickham’s Scene and Structure, would be a wise investment in time. And given that Bickham’s books on writing are often available in the local library, the education they provide is free.

2. An editor’s job isn’t to turn our sow’s ear into a silk purse. If they could reliably tell us what to do to make the work sales-worthy they’d be making a lot more money writing and selling their own work. Right? An editor is an educated eye, someone who will spot the things we’re too close to the work to see. So if the editor says, “This section is too passive,” for example, will you own the tools with which to fix it—or even see what was meant? Another thing I cannot stress enough: You only learn the skills of editing fiction by working for a publisher, in the genre of the work being edited. An action/adventure, editor would butcher any romance s/he tried to edit. So beware of the people online offering editing service. Unless you can find a novel they edited in your local bookstore, in your genre, or at least are certain they worked in the profession—and are a member of one of the professional associations, you would end up with someone like the man I talked about here: http://www.bookcountry.com/Community/Discussion/Default.aspx?tid=8589935784&g=posts&t=8589935784

3. The average writer creates, edits, and discards about a half million words before they sell anything. I was especially slow and it took me a million.

4. Reading fiction teaches us to recognize well-written prose. But we see only the result—the product. To write our own fiction, we need to know the process. Why? As Mark Twain put it, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

5. The realities of self-publishing are this: No one will know you exist except for the people you personally send to your webpage. There is no magical place where you can announce that someone that no one has ever heard of has released a book they were unable to interest a publisher in, and have people rush to your page to buy a copy. Use yourself as an example. How many self-published books, where you didn’t know the writer personally, did you buy in the last year—and enjoy?

I say this as someone who has a novel on Smashwords. Because my publisher went under and my rights are unclear, I elected to keep the story in print by self-publishing. I even gave it away. In nearly two years a total of 356 people have downloaded it. I even have lots of nice things said about it on the Barnes and Nobel site. Still, had I charged, the number would have been a lot less. The average self published writer, once you remove the copies sold to friends and relatives, sells less than a hundred copies in their lifetime.

Make no mistake. I’m not against self-publishing. In fact, I have a six novel series that I’ve been unable to interest a publisher in that I’ll put out, probably next month, with the first volume free, as a teaser, and a $3 or so charge for the rest. But I know before I begin what the situation is, and that I am not going to buy that new Jaguar I was hoping for with the royalties.

My point is that if you know and understand the market, and still want to do it, go for it. But you should go into it eyes wide open and as knowledgeable as you can be about the writing and business aspect of the profession.

And of course the moral of all this is obvious. To hell with screwing around in the little leagues. Sit down and write a best seller. Then you can have that new car.