Is Your Book Good Enough for Publication? Part 1
You’ve been working on your manuscript and you think you’re ready to start sending out queries to editors, but are you sure?
What kind of shape is your manuscript in? Is it worthy of being printed? I know, you think it’s great and one of the best novels ever written, but you have to stop being you at this point and look at it as a complete stranger.
There are several things you can do at this point. The first and maybe the most important is to set it aside for at least a month, three months would be even better. Why? But what do I do in the meantime? Well, you’re a writer, start working on your next novel. Why? Because in three months when you come back to read it again, you’ll be a stranger to it and have another one in the works. Of course, you may not be a complete stranger, but you will be a stranger. This is when you’ll decide if it grabs your atention and doesn’t let go.
Another solution-if you don’t want to wait three months- is to let someone else read it. You will need to be picky about the person or persons you allow to read it at this point. This person should be well-read; someone who does read books. They should be able to give constructive criticism but detached enough to be brutally honest. If your book sucks, they need to be able to tell you it sucks. They also need to be able to tell you what they like, don’t like, where they feel you’ve left them hanging or given too much information. You basically want someone who can rip it apart, give an honest and thorough review. If you can’t handle this type of honesty, then writing probably isn’t for you, at least publication isn’t for you.
If you’ve been writing for awhile then you know the chopping block can be a brutal place to put yourself. But you must go there and almost enjoy it to ever get anywhere if you want to be a published writer.
Read Part 2.
Rock On! Write On!
Patti Stafford
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