Category: Publishing

The 7 habits you need to become a successful writer

by Maria

A literary agent reveals the 7 habits you need to become a successful writer: these are the everyday things anyone can do to become a successful writer and author.

Here’s one of the toughest questions in the world: how do I become a successful ___________? As a literary agent, I’m constantly asked by aspiring writers how they can not only get published, but also become a successful writer.

And we all know who the successful authors are: they get all the sales, all the reviews, all the fame and fortune. But how did they become a successful writer, and how do they stay successful? Is their success the perfect confluence of writing skill, platform savvy, and maybe some pure, dumb luck?

Yes and no.

Yes, there are an extraordinary amount of whacky, weird breakout hits in the publishing world. (Um, adult coloring books?) But there are also some underlying principles — an operating system, really — that runs on autopilot to help some people become successful writers. They know how to do the right things, because they’ve done them over and over and over again.

How I learned what it takes to become a successful writer

become a successful writer

When I started out as an editorial assistant at a big NYC publisher, I didn’t know a foreword from a preface. I had a full tank of enthusiasm and an empty skull, waiting to be filled with publishing knowledge. At the time, I was pretty sure I knew nothing about publishing.

And I was pretty right. But what I didn’t realize was that I did have a few things going for me. (Other than a knack for pestering the hell out of people until they would give me interesting work.)

I had four things:

  1. An obsession with following up and deadlines. (This from a brief stint as a paralegal at a law firm.)
  2. A stubborn desire to be over-the-top nice so every single person would like me. (This is not always a good thing, let me tell ya.)
  3. An annoying amount of curiosity about how publishing worked. (I think I abused the “any questions?” prompt more than anyone can reasonably forgive me for.)
  4. No other options.

Publishing was IT for me, and I was going to have to make it work or go back to that law firm. And I was not going back to that law firm. People shouting makes me want to puke.

Quickly I realized that there were about a thousand other skills and habits I needed to develop if I was going to do a little better by my authors each year.

I also began noticing the habits that were holding certain authors back, as well as the habits that were most helping others become a successful writer. It turns out, these were many of the same habits I was trying to develop (and still am, because these are BIG and IMPORTANT).

These habits won’t guarantee you’ll become a successful writer. But they will push your chances of success as high as humanly possible. And that? That gives you the sweet blissful knowledge that you did everything in your power to make your dream happen.

The 7 habits you need to become a successful writer

become a successful writer

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How to write a book that sells

by Maria

How to write a book that sells: a literary agent on how to find and research a book idea that can sell.

In my house, I have one big white bookshelf where I keep all the books I’ve ever worked on, either as a literary agent or an editor. Some have sold well; some haven’t sold well.

My greatest wish? That they were all bestsellers.

Each of those books took 2+ years of my life to work on, and I know that the time and energy and love I put into them is only a tiny fraction of what the author put into them. So with all that hard work, shouldn’t they all have found their perfect readership? Should every author be able to write a book that sells?

It’s heartbreaking, but the truth is: most books don’t find their perfect readership. And most don’t sell as much as they could.

write a book that sells

There’s no magic bullet to fix this–in the nearly 10 years I’ve been working on books, I haven’t figured out the perfect algorithm to spit bestsellers out every time. (If you have it, send it to ME @ sell all the books .com.)

But one thing I’ve noticed…

The one thing I have noticed is that there are all kinds of ways–big and small–to inch your book closer to that zone of bestsellerdom. And so very many of them happen before one word is ever written. They happen before I sign an author, or a publisher offers a book deal, or a marketing team brainstorms a campaign.

They happen at the idea phase and at the platform phase. When you’re deciding “what is my book?” and “who am I as an author?” Those are questions no agent, editor, or publisher can answer for you, but those are the answers that will fuel each action you’ll need to write a book that sells.

So where do I tell my authors to start?

At the bookstore.

Nine times out of ten when I’m chatting with a potential author, I ask them to take a field trip to a bookstore and see what’s happening in their category or genre. I do this, too, when I’m researching a book idea or trying to help an author with positioning their book.

So today I’m sharing exactly how I research a book idea and how I tell my authors to research their own book ideas so they can write a book that sells.

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How I edit, and the 4 editing mistakes to avoid

by Maria

Why self-editing doesn’t work and the 4 common editing mistakes writers should avoid if they want to get published.

This week I’m going to stop my yammering for a whole five minutes and let Jarrett have center stage. If you’re new around here (hi!), Jarrett is my husband, and he’s a reformed attorney turned writer and thinker at a Washington D.C. based think tank.

Here’s us getting married; here’s us fighting over the best seat in the house; here’s a few cocktails he’s made over the years that have kept me very happy.

Jarrett helps with a few things behind the scenes here at c&b but mostly spends his time fending off the overbearing editor he lives with who routinely harangues him about headlines and fluffy words.

So today, we’re sharing the real-life story of how he sold a piece to NPR’s James Beard Award-winning blog The Salt, how we edited it together, and how revising anything can kick your butt up and down the page so hard you’ll turn to the bottle mason jar of moonshine.

But I’ll let Jarrett tell the story.

common editing mistakes

Here’s Jarrett, who only hates me a smidge after we went through this editing process:

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4 unexpected ways to make your book a perennial bestseller

by Maria

The 4 best takeaways and a book review of Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work That Lasts by Ryan Holiday–plus a free downloadable PDF art print to inspire you to become a perennial seller!

“That book has taken on a life of its own.”

I blinked at this—what did that mean? It was 2009, and I was working at a Big 5 publisher in New York.  I had asked one of the senior editors about a backlist book that was still selling and selling, even after 10 years.

The book was a perennial seller for the publishing house. It had built momentous word-of-mouth and now needed almost no help from the author or publisher to keep it selling steadily.  You can recognize these books because they wave you down with numbers: “2 million copies sold,” “now published in 15 countries!”

how to write a perennial seller book 1

What I wanted to know was exactly how that book had become a perennial bestseller. Was it the author’s platform? Was it the idea? Had they marketed the heck out of it?

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