The Nine Habits of

As I go about my vocation of publishing books and my avocation of reading everything I can get my hands on, I am often struck with the thought that writers who consistently get published share common traits. These traits can be distilled down to nine simple principles.

This is the part, as creative artists, we don’t want to hear. "I’m a writer, not a businessman," we protest.

Alas, if you want to be published regularly, you’re going to have to grasp the fact that publishing is a business. At the most basic level, publishers simply supply products to consumers. In turn, you, as the writer, supply the product to the publisher. That’s the business.

Okay, now pay attention; here’s the key part: You must supply product that a publisher can use to satisfy the demands of its consumers and you must do it in a businesslike way.

"Too simple," you say. Yes, it is simple, but the business basics are all too often ignored by us creative folk. Here are a few simple strategies you can use to help make the business of publishing your business:

• Learn as much as you can about the demographics of the potential reader for whatever it is you are writing. What gender is he or she? What age? Income and education level? Conservative or liberal? Likes and dislikes? What else is this person likely to read? Keep this reader in mind as you pitch your idea to the editor and when you write the article, short story, or book.

• If you plan on submitting to a magazine, obtain a copy of the magazine’s writer’s guidelines—the tip sheet prepared for potential contributors by the magazine’s editors. (These guidelines are often available on the Internet or by sending an SASE to the publisher.) After perusing the guidelines, pore over six to eight issues of the magazine, analyzing the nuances of content and tone before submitting a story or suggesting an idea.

• If it is a book you’re proposing, be sure the book publisher you are contacting publishes books of the type and genre you’re proposing. (Like magazines, many book publishers prepare writer’s guidelines. You can find Quill Driver Books’ guidelines at QuillDriverBooks.com.) In your query or cover letter, explain why you selected this publisher.

• Synchronize your book, short story or article’s length to your prospective market. If novels in your genre rarely exceed 150,000 words, it is unlikely that a publisher will be interested in one that runs 300,000 words. This holds true with nonfiction books. If a magazine’s upper limit for short stories or articles is 2,500 words, 5,000 words will get a rejection slip.

• Put on your professional persona when contacting editors. Spell the editor’s name correctly (double check this!). Use crisp, clean paper for your letterhead. Never handwrite letters or manuscripts. Always be polite, concise, and nondemanding when talking on the phone to an editor. Always include an SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) with each query or unsolicited submission.

• Always know who it is that you’re contacting. Use guides such as Writer’s Market to find the editor’s name and precise title, then phone to verify that this editor is still employed there and is still the correct editor to contact.

• Use standard format (8½" by 11" white paper, double-spaced, numbered pages, etc.) for manuscripts and book proposals.

• Let queries and other short correspondences sit overnight, then reread them before sending them out. For manuscripts or book proposals, make it at least a week.

• Pitch one idea to a publisher at a time, but tweak the idea and pitch it other publishers at the same time.

• Watch for birthing trends and try to be on the front edge of the wave. In publishing, new and fresh is good.

If you want to be published often, learn the business as well as the craft.

I know writers who always seem to be saving their best for later. Sometimes, it’s because they don’t allow themselves enough time to do the job right. They tell themselves the next piece will get the attention it deserves.

Other times, it’s because they don’t feel they are being paid enough for what they are writing. "This is good enough for what they’re paying me," is a common refrain.

Yet, while a writer who turns in shoddy work may get it published, the editor certainly won’t put that author at the top of his call list. And, although low pay is ubiquitous in this industry, poor quality writing does not build a reputation that attracts higher paying offers.

Some writers suffer from a sort of a depression mentality. They feel that if they put their best effort into what they are writing now, when the big break comes along, they won’t have anything left in their creative reserves. The truth is, however, good writing begets good writing. The better you write today, the better you will write tomorrow.

Invariably, write your best.

Don’t try this at home: In Chasing Eights, a Dan Fortune mystery, adroit novelist Michael Collins switches between points of view and from first person to third person. That’s the literary equivalent of trying to juggle six china plates while threading a needle. The mostly likely outcome is disaster.

Michael Collins, a pseudonym for Dennis Lynds, not only pulled off this bit of legerdemain, but Chasing Eights is all the better for it. Collins had been writing for years. He knew the rules. And, he knew how to break them.

Neophyte writers often weaken their writing—and pick up rejection slips—by breaking rules in ways they feel are clever but in reality are just inappropriate. Step one: Learn the rules. Step two: Break them.

You can get published regularly with good, sound prose that follows the beaten path and that’s what I suggest you do until you are accomplished at staying on the path. But then! Reach out, stretch for the virgin, the rare, the wonderful. Titillate the mind, the senses, the intellect with your unique form of brilliance, and then revel in your successes as your publishing credits roll in.

Two things dominated my life in the 1980s, raising my son and developing my printing business. When I look back at the articles I wrote during those years, I’m not surprised to discover that they ran in publications with names such as Indy’s Child and Quick Printing Magazine.

I remember bragging to less fortunate writers that I was batting 1000—everything I wrote got published. In retrospect, I now realize that wasn’t very kind or modest of me, but I was young and brash. (Over the years I’ve changed; now I’m middle-aged and brash.) The point is, the reason I was getting published was because I was writing on subjects about which I was deeply passionate.

Answer this question: What are the two or three things you are most passionate about? Whatever your answer, these are the things about which you will write best.

Follow your passions and editors will be passionate about publishing you.

Try this sometime. Go into a bookstore and pull down five novels. Read the first three paragraphs of each, then ask yourself which book most entices you to read onward. Chances are that book’s author knows the value of writing strong leads.

The lead—sometimes called the "hook," because it hooks the reader—is the first few sentences or paragraphs of whatever you’re writing. The job of the lead is to get the reader interested in reading more. Use strong leads with everything you write, from query letters to book proposals, from romance novels to nonfiction articles.

Use a strong lead at the beginning of every chapter in both fiction and nonfiction. If you are writing an article, write a compelling lead each time you transition to a new concept. A strong lead for a short story may make the difference between selling it to an editor and finding it back in your mailbox.

What kind of leads work? Creative ones. Anecdotes that set a scene or mood and intriguing or startling facts are common components of strong leads. Posing a question in your lead entices the reader to read on to learn the answer and often works well. I tried to write a strong lead for each section of this piece. How did I do?

If you were in the auto parts business, would you expect to supply a garage with parts that needed fixing before they could be used? Of course not. But many authors send out work that obviously needs rewriting or is filled with grammar or spelling errors.

Today’s editors are busy multi-taskers. I know a senior editor at one of the big New York book publishers who says he doesn’t mind he has a two-hour-each-way commute to work. He says the time on the train is the only time he has to read and edit manuscripts. If you make an editor rewrite portions of your work or correct your spelling or double-check your facts or chase something you promised to have to him a week ago, he’s not likely to smile with pleasant anticipation the next time you suggest a project to him.

Make life easier for editors and watch your acceptance rate soar.

Seven: All great writers are great readers.

Last year, when a local TV anchorman approached me about publishing his book, I asked him a trick question. I asked what he liked to read. His answer, as is so often the case when I ask this question, was, "Oh, I don’t have much time to read."

Because I’m such a swell fellow, I took a look at his book proposal anyway, even though I already knew it wasn’t going to be very good. I wasn’t disappointed.

Am I prescient? No, I just subscribe to the theory that you’ll never be a great writer until you’re a great reader.

It may be magic, or perhaps it’s some kind of osmosis, but, somehow, reading other peoples’ work makes you a better writer.

Certainly, if you write mysteries, read mysteries, or if you write technical pieces, read technical pieces, but don’t just stick to your genre; read a broad range of literature. Read fiction, read poetry, read news magazines, read cereal boxes.

Read, read, read.

When I present at writer’s conferences, where I’m supposed to be promoting the books I publish via which I make my living, I suggest attendees buy one book that I don’t publish. The book? The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White. I tell them to read Strunk and White’s delightful treatise before they write anything else, and to reread it at least once a year.

What I am actually telling them is to continually hone their craft. Elements of Style is a thin volume that provides concise instruction in the essence of good writing. Reading it and rereading it is an excellent way to keep the basics of superior writing at the front of your mind as your fingers dance on the keyboard.

What else can you do? Peruse the information in books like this one, read magazines such as Writer’s Digest, go to writer’s conferences, join a critique group, take classes, listen to feedback from those whose opinions you have reason to respect (but beware of well-intentioned family and friends), and analyze what other writers are doing.

If you never stop learning your craft, you’ll never stop hearing editors saying, "Yes!"

Wouldn’t it be great if you could write the Great American Novel, leave it on a park bench where an (apparently bored) editor would happen by, recognize it for the brilliant work it is, then hunt you down to get a contract signed? Fame and fortune would follow. Best of all, your mother’s doubts would dissipate forever.

Okay, so, since real life isn’t the movies, submit to submitting. Submit, submit, submit. If you don’t submit your work to publishers, it isn’t going to get published. That’s a given.

And, when your work comes back with that little note that starts "Thank you for letting us see this, but..." send it out again. And again.

While the first article, short story, or book proposal is out, write something else and send it off, then write another and another until you have ten, fifteen, twenty making the rounds. Soon one will get picked up, then another, and then another. Eventually, editors will be contacting you.

Originally published in Writer's Market 2004 (Writer's Digest Books)