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How can I get published?

Oh, this is such a huge question.  When people ask, I don't think they realize the depth and breadth of it.  It's like asking "how do I get on a professional hockey team?"  There are entire books written on getting published.  I give a 3 hour workshop on it...and that's a quick overview.

There's no single route to publication,  Ask ten authors how it happened to them, and you'll probably get 6-7 unique answers.

To get a glimpse at the process, check out these links below. But be warned, this isn't something you can read today and pop your book off to a publisher tomorrow.  Expect to do research—lots of it.  And get rejection—lots of it.  Getting published can take months—and usually years—of effort.

http://www.publishers.ca/publishing-get-published.htm

http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/WritersArea/Get_Published.asp

http://www.claredunkle.com/Design/writepublish.htm

Can you help me get published?

I'm often asked for contact names or or "inside tips" and the sad answer is that, living up here in Canada, I'm just not that tuned into the New York publishing world.  I've never even been to NYC!  My contacts are limited to my agent and editors, and you'll find their names in the Acknowledgements of any of my books.  You are free to submit to them so long as you follow their guidelines for submissions.

As for a personal recommendation from me, I have always had a policy of not giving them.  What I like as a reader isn't necessarily what they can sell, and I won't get anyone's hopes up with a recommendation.  Likewise, I might not give one for a book they'd love.  Again, go ahead and submit to them using their guidelines.  But please don't be tempted to submit to my agent/editors and say I recommended you (yes, every now and then someone does try this).  They all know of my policy of not making recommendations, so your submission will be off to a very bad start!

My advice?  Make your own contacts.  Attend conventions and conferences and meet the agents and editors in person.

Will you take a look at my book/story/idea?

I used to read work and comment on it, both in my many years in critique groups and later, as a "new" author.  But for a number of reasons, I've been advised to cease-and-desist.  So as much as I'd love to help, I can't.

However, I'm a strong believer in the value of critique groups, particularly in the middle stages of a writer's development—that time when you've written a few things, feel comfortable with writing and are ready to seek feedback so you can improve.

Finding a group isn't always easy.  They tend to either be very long-running groups where new members may be uncomfortable or new groups that rise from a writing course/workshop...and die out when no one sells their first short story for a thousand bucks.  The best way to find a group is to attend a writing workshop or conference in your city and ask around.

An alternative is an online group, like the one on my discussion board.  The group is hidden from non-members, but you can find details on it by clicking here.

Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

The only serious advice I can offer is so boring—and unpopular—that I cringe every time I give it.

Step 1: practice, practice and practice some more.  Read everything you can get your hands on and write whenever you get the chance.  I know we like to think writing is some great art form, but it's more of a craft and the only way to improve at a craft is to work at it.  That means not only writing but actively working to improve by taking courses, reading writing books, joining writing groups, seeking feedback and, perhaps most importantly, learning how to accept and apply feedback.

Step 2: network.  Sounds horribly 'business" like, doesn't it?  What I mean, though, is to get out there in your writing community (or cyber writing community) and take advantage of every contact you find.  Join writing groups, attend readings and signings, talk to other writers (professional and aspiring) and take advantage of any knowledge they can offer.  You never know when one of those contacts will set you on the road to publication—in my case, it was an instructor who recommended my work to an agent.

How do I know my idea is original enough?

Don't worry about being original.  I can't tell you how many hours (er, days, maybe weeks), I've spent worrying that a book idea isn't "original" enough.  When I was writing Bitten, I didn't have much hope that it would ever be published, but the one thing I thought it had going for it was originality.  I'd never seen another book about a female werewolf.  Then Anne Borchardt's The Silver Wolf (about a female werewolf) came out and I thought Bitten was doomed.  But when Bitten made the rounds, no one said "oh, that's been done before."  Why?  Because it was a very different book.

What I've learned is that there's no truly original ideas.  What is original is what we, as writers, do with our idea.  Give twenty writers the premise "female werewolf struggles with her identity" and you'd get twenty very different books.  As a writer, yes, you need to look past those "done to death" plots, but only to come up with an idea that's reasonably fresh—not wholly original, but unique enough that an editor won't say "oh, that's been done a hundred times before."

I can start stories, but I never finish them. Why?

First, make sure you know where you're going every step of the way. Nothing kills a story quicker than lack of planning—you hit a point and don't know what comes next, so you give up.  Second, don't edit as you write—just get it down.  Editing gives you too much time for second guessing.  Third, speaking of second guessing, don't be discouraged if the story doesn't seem as good as you envisioned it.  This happens to most of us—the picture in our head is so much clearer and more "alive" than what comes out on paper.  It'll look better when it's done...trust me.

How can someone with a job and/or family find time to write?

It's not easy, and I'll be the first to admit it.  It took me six years to write Bitten.  It now takes me six months to write a novel.  Because I've learned to type faster?  No, because I now do this full-time, whereas with Bitten, I had a full-time job (plus a house, a husband, a daughter...)  I talk to women novelists who still work full-time while raising a family and putting out a book or more a year, so it can be done.  It's just not easy.

From my perspective, the main problem was allowing myself time to write.  Other things always seemed more important.  It's hard to give yourself the time to write for an hour when there are three baskets of laundry piled behind you.  But we all deserve (and need) personal time, right?  No one would argue that we should be denied hobbies because we have a job and a family.  So think of writing as that: your hobby.  That way, you aren't looking at the bottom line—will this ever make any money?—but simply as much needed personal time.  That "me time" women's magazines always talk about.

"Me time."  Wonderful concept, but do you ever notice how people admonish you for not taking time for yourself...without advising you on how to find that time?  What I found worked was not waiting for those elusive pockets of time to appear (they never do) but scheduling in writing like any other activity.  A half-hour a day would be great, but two hours every Sunday afternoon is fine, too.  Pretend it's an appointment and put it on the calendar.  Make sure everyone in the family knows that you'll be as unavailable as you would be if you were going to a doctor's appointment.  If that doesn't work (as it often doesn't with small kids!) then actually leave the house, go someplace and write.  And once it's scheduled, treat it like an appointment.  You wouldn't cancel an appointment to fold laundry, would you?  So let the laundry wait and take your writing time.  Even if it never pays off in six-figure book contracts, you'll get something from it: the personal satisfaction that comes with any creative endeavour.

Do you recommend all aspiring authors get an agent first?

I don't recommend that "all" writers do anything...except read stories and write as much as they can.  The decision to get an agent or not, in my opinion, rests on two factors.  Where you plan to sell the book and whether you have the personality to do an agent's work yourself. 

First, do any of the publishing houses you're looking at submitting to accept unagented work?  If you're trying to place a genre novel with a big publisher, the answer may be no.  A smaller house, a literary novel or category romance does not necessarily require an agented submission.  If you can submit without an agent, then the question becomes "should you?"  Selling a book without an agent requires a real "salesman" personality, the confidence to approach editors and sell your book, then deal with contracts, negotiations, etc.  If you can do that, you'll save yourself an agent's fee.  For me, my agent more than earns her cut—she's there for me at every stage from brainstorming through to career advice.  Not everyone wants or needs that.  

I want to write a book/story, but I have no idea how to format it?

Typewritten, 12 pt "readable, common font" (Times New Roman, Courier etc), double-spaced, single-side of the page, 1 inch margins all around, pages number at the top with your surname and the story/book title (in case the editor drops a page and doesn't know who it belongs to!). 

That's it.  Now, if you want to know how to format dialogue, when to break paragraphs and chapters, etc, then the answer is very simple—grab a few novels from your shelves and check.  I'm constantly amazed at new (and not so new) writers who mis-format dialogue and say they've "never been told how to do it" when the answer lies in the nearest novel.  If you're a fiction writer, you have novels (I hope!)  Use them as your guide.

Someone told me x is a rule of writing.  Is that true?

There are no rules in writing (except "tell a good story" but that should go without saying.)  Instead there are guidelines—ways that most writers do things and that the average editor and reader seems to like.

Examples of guidelines?  Here's one: minimize your use of adverbs.  Here's another: whenever possible use "said" and "asked" as dialogue tags, instead of something more flowery ("wailed," "bemoaned," "snarled," "blubbered" etc)  What if, as a writer, you find a lack of adverbs and the constant use of "said" unbelievably dull and the sign of an unimaginative mind?  Then ignore those guidelines.  You'll find plenty of NYT bestselling novelists who do.  So long as the rest of your writing is very strong, you'll can probably get away with it.  Guidelines exist to guide the writer.  They are not hard-and-fast rules.