Every aspiring author spends years imagining that moment — the book deal, the launch day, the finished copy in their hands. But few realize that the emotional dip after the debut can be one of the hardest parts of the whole journey.

Because when the goal you’ve been chasing finally happens, there’s a strange quiet on the other side of it.

The best cure? Fall in love with the next book.

The authors who last don’t wait for their debut to define them. They keep writing. They stay focused on what they can control — their craft — instead of the parts of publishing that are out of their hands.

That mindset shift is the difference between a one-book career and a lifelong one.

In today’s interview, senior literary agent Mary C. Moore shares the emotional letdown most debut authors don’t see coming, the mindset that helps writers weather publishing’s ups and downs, and the eye-opening reality of how many queries actually lead to representation.

OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Mary C. Moore

Senior Literary Agent at Aevitas

Really keen for layered book club fiction, light speculative/genre elements welcome!

Submission guidelines on her website, marycmoore.com.

What’s one challenge most debut authors don’t see coming, and how do you help them navigate it?

The debut “come-down.” Typically up to the point of debuting, all of an author’s focus and energy has gone into one concept, to publish a book. They’ve spent months/years honing their craft and searching for a literary agent. They’ve spent months/years on submission to editors. They’ve endured rejection and questioned if it was all worth it.

Then they get the book deal, and the surge of excitement and anticipation carries them through the pre-publication ups and downs and post-publication high. But most debut results don’t live up to the expectations of the author, and even those that do, there comes a moment of let down, when the author realizes that part is done and now the milepost has moved.

Hopefully at this point I’ve done a good job of both prepping them for that moment as well as steered their focus and attention on to their next project so that we are deeply invested in the next thing.

What is one piece of advice you would give to a writer who aspires to be published?

If possible, always look towards your next project. Have your focus be on what you can control, your writing. Once your book is on submission, you will have to let go quite a bit, as it’s in the hands of others. And once it’s published, it’s then in the hands of readers. You can’t predict how people will react to your work, but if you are already working on your next, you can tune out a lot of that noise.

Are you querying this year?
Check out my book written with the creator of QueryTracker!

ORDER NOW!

What’s one thing querying writers worry about too much, and one thing they’re not thinking about enough?

I could be wrong, but it seems to me querying writers worry too much about small errors in their submission material, instead of thinking about the bigger picture, i.e. who their target audience is and how their book fits the market.

Approximately how many queries do you receive per year, and how many of those result in an offer of representation?

When I’m open to queries, I get almost a thousand a month. I have to shut down to queries often just to keep up. And I only sign around 3-5 new clients a year. I sometimes track the data on my blog, breaking it down further.

Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“I have greatly benefitted from my collaboration with Alyssa; I would not be where I am today without her! Her developmental ideas and vision for my novel taught me so much and helped to elevate my work in highly effective ways. Her editorial fingerprint is evident in the final result—a novel on bookshelves nationwide.”

—Jill Beissel, author of Glitter and Gold

Work with me

Can you share a client success story or a motivating anecdote for writers who feel may discouraged about publishing?

I once signed a client after their manuscript was sitting in my submissions for almost a year. And now their debut is coming out! I try not to make a habit of sitting on manuscripts (as well as check in with the idling submission), but sometimes it really is a matter of finding the space to not only read a manuscript but to visualize what is needed to sell it.

We get so many queries that if a submission doesn’t jump out right away as something we are confident we can sell, but it also tickles our intuition as having potential, then it might take more time for us to make a decision on it.

ICYMI…this week on YouTube, I share line-by-line critiques of real subscriber query letters with my co-author, Patrick McDonald of QueryTracker.

Watch the video!

This week has genuinely been the highlight of my career, and I’m so grateful to every one of you who has ordered The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents or simply followed along with these lessons.

It’s the final day of Query Prep Week, and today we’re covering the last piece of your query letter — and the one authors tend to get the most (unnecessarily) anxious about:

Your bio.

Good news: this is the easiest section to write, and it carries far less weight than you think.

Your fifth lesson: keep your bio simple

Yesterday, you figured out how to pick appropriate comp titles. (Here's the link if you missed it.)

Now, it’s time to close out your query letter with some information about you.

The fear I hear constantly is some version of: “I’ve never published anything, so I have nothing to put in my bio. Won’t an agent immediately reject me for that?”

No. Agents sign debut authors with no writing publications or credentials ALL the time.

In fact, in our survey of agents we conducted for our book, 60% said the average new author they sign has “no formal writing experience or credentials.”

So don’t worry, agents don’t ask for a bio because they want to see a list of literary achievements. If you have experience, great! But if you’re a newbie, no sweat, and you’re in great company.

You simply want to tell the agent who you are in a few sentences and highlight anything that makes you especially suited to have written this particular book.

That’s it.

Your Day 5 assignment

Write your bio in 2-3 sentences. Here’s what belongs in it, in order of what I would mention first:

✅ Prior publications (if you have them). Short fiction, essays, journalism, anthologies, other books (even if in a different genre). If you don’t have any, skip this entirely. No problem.

✅ Writing credentials (if you have them). An MFA, a notable workshop or residency, an award. Only if it’s substantive — a general creative writing course anyone can take doesn’t necessarily need a mention. Again, skip if you don’t have any.

✅ What you do/did for work. This helps the agent understand how creative writing fits into your life and what background you bring to your story. It’s interesting for an agent to know, for example, if you’re an ER nurse writing a medical drama, a lawyer writing legal thrillers, or you spent a decade working in the region your novel is set in!

✅ Where you’re based. Agents will eventually need to know this if you engage in a professional relationship, and it’s helpful to know since they’re hearing from people all around the world.

And here’s what to leave out:

❌ Your age, or how long you’ve been working on the book

❌ Unrelated jobs or hobbies with no relevance to the book

❌ Your educational background unless relevant to what you’re writing

❌ Your plans for future books (you can discuss this with any interested agent on “the call”)

You now have a complete query letter!

Look at everything you’ve built this week:

• A manuscript you’ve confirmed is genuinely ready

• A killer description that makes agents want to read it

• Accurate genre, age category, and word count information

• Comp titles that prove there’s a market for your book

• A bio that contains what agents actually want to know

Everything else you need to know — including how to build an agent list, how to strategically send your queries, and how to interpret the replies — is in our book.

ORDER NOW

Thank you for making launch week so special. Now go forth and query with confidence!

Alyssa

Wow. Your messages and posts this week have been absolutely incredible. I’ve never felt so supported, and it means everything to me!

The best part has been seeing photos of The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents on your desks, in your cars, with you on your off days — that’s exactly what Patrick and I hoped for.

I know many of you are gearing up to query (or send out a fresh batch of queries) after Labor Day, so let’s make sure your letter is top-notch.

It’s Day 4 of Query Prep Week, and today we’re tackling the part of the query letter authors dread most:

Comp titles.

I promise, they’re not as difficult as you think!

Your fourth lesson: avoiding common comp pitfalls

I’ll often hear authors bemoan that there are simply no comp titles for their book because “nothing like this has ever been published before.”

They think this is a good thing, that it means their book is incredibly unique and special.

But it’s actually missing the point.

Comps are meant to illustrate to an agent — and your eventual publisher — that there is market and reader demand for your book.

So if you’re saying there are no comp titles, you’re saying there is no market for it. That’s not what someone looking to invest in your book wants to hear.

Agents need to picture the reader who will pick up your novel, the shelf it sits on, and the editor they’d send it to. Good comps are how you paint them that picture.

Yes, this means you will probably need to research (and read) recently published books in your genre if you’re not already familiar with them. But this will be time well-spent, because you’ll be learning about the publishing segment that you’re looking to enter.

Your Day 4 assignment

I want you to identify five potential comp titles — you aren’t going to use all five (I recommend 2-3 max), but you want to widen your options in case some don’t end up being a good fit. 

Now run each one against the following criteria:

✅ Published in the last five years. You want comp titles to reflect the current book market and reader demand. Recency is one of the most important comp qualifications — and too-old comps are something an agent will immediately spot. That means do not use classic novels as comps!

✅ In your genre and age category. If you’re writing an adult thriller, don’t comp to a YA thriller or an adult fantasy novel (unless you have very good and clear justification). Comp to other adult thrillers — there should be plenty of novels in your genre for you to explore.

✅ Traditionally published. You’re querying literary agents because you want to be traditionally published, so the comps you use also should be traditionally published rather than self-published. If you’re unsure, check the publisher’s name listed on Amazon.

✅ Successful, but not a phenomenon. Skip all mega-bestsellers. Gone Girl and The Hunger Games aren’t realistic comps (plus they’re too old at this point), and highlighting them in your query letter may suggest that you don’t know any books beyond the huge mainstream hits.

For the comps that meet all of these criteria, the next step is to figure out what exactly your book shares with each one.

Read (or at least read a substantial portion of) each finalist and ask: What about this is similar to my book? What common ground would a reader notice across both stories?

It might be the structure, the tone, the setting, the voice, a character, or the theme. Make sure to mention that specific element in the query letter so the agent understands why you chose that comp. (If you can’t find any shared elements or it feels like a stretch, take that comp out of the running.)

Check out our never-before-seen querying data

Our book gives you an insider look into what actually works when querying:

📈 What percentage of successful query letters contained comp titles

📈 How many new clients agents sign on average per year

📈 Real data on agents’ average response times from millions of queries

📈 How many queries authors sent before getting an offer of representation

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Tomorrow is the final day of Query Prep Week — where we’ll put together the final missing piece of your query letter so you’re ready to send it out!

Happy querying!

Alyssa

This week has been a dream come true. It warms my heart to see so many of you finally receiving The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents! (If you preordered it, keep checking your mailbox — it should be there any day now!)

We’re onto Day 3 of Query Prep Week, so let’s talk about some critical pieces of your query letter that don’t get nearly enough attention:

Your book’s “metadata” (genre, age category, and length).

Your third lesson: understanding what the heck you wrote

Yesterday, you drafted an irresistible description that will make agents dive into your pages. (Here’s the link if you missed it.)

But many agents will check three basic facts about your book before even diving into your description:

• Your genre

• Your age category

• Your word count

These feel like formalities — and some authors leave them out of the query letter altogether. Don’t do that! Agents need to have this information upfront.

Not all agents represent all genres and age categories, so getting those wrong means querying agents who were never going to say yes, no matter how good your pages are.

And a word count far outside the industry norm can hurt your odds: in our survey of agents, 11% cited problematic length as their most common reason for rejecting a query.

Your Day 3 assignment (from the book)

Let’s audit your book’s metadata together to make sure you’re presenting it accurately.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 Identify your age category. Who is your target reader? Don’t say “everyone!” While your book very well may appeal to people across ages, you need to know who the bulk of your readers will be.

Here are the four age categories typically used in traditional publishing for fiction:

• Picture Book (ages 4–8)

• Middle Grade (ages 8–12)

• Young Adult (ages 12–18)

• Adult (ages 18+)

• Note: New Adult (ages 18–25) is sometimes considered its own category, and sometimes treated as part of Adult.

📚 Nail down your genre. Our book contains an exhaustive list of all the genres available in QueryTracker.

The best way to confirm you chose the right one: read recent books in the genre you think you’re writing in. Would yours appeal to the same readers? Authors regularly discover their book actually belongs somewhere else — and that changes your entire agent list.

Many authors blend elements from multiple genres, which is great, but for querying purposes, you’ll want to identify the primary genre. For example, if you have a novel set in a historical period that also has a romance subplot, it’s probably still historical fiction rather than romance.

📊 Check your word count. Manuscripts that are way over or way under the standard length for your age category and genre are more likely to be rejected. Here are some general guidelines (yes, there are always exceptions, but try to keep within these if possible):

• Picture Book: 500–1,000 words

• Middle Grade: 20,000–50,000 words

• Young Adult: 50,000–90,000 words

• Adult: 60,000–100,000 words

Put them all together at the beginning of your query:

TITLE is an [AGE CATEGORY] [GENRE] novel complete at [WORD COUNT] words.

We know querying is riddled with questions…

These tips are just the start. Our book answers all the questions you’re losing sleep over, like:

❓ How long will agents actually take to respond to my query?

❓ What are the top reasons agents reject queries?

❓ How many queries does the average author send before signing?

❓ How much writing experience are agents looking for in new authors?

❓ What are my real odds of getting an offer of representation?

ORDER NOW

I’ll be back tomorrow for Day 4’s lesson — where we’ll cover the most dreaded aspect of the query letter.

Happy querying!

Alyssa

I can’t believe it: The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents is OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED! 🎉

And it’s a #1 New Release! 🤯

I’m so excited for you to get your hands on it and dig into all the data and statistics we’ve gathered, which have never before been available to querying authors.

We won’t sugarcoat it: querying is extremely challenging (read the book to learn exactly how many offers of representation are extended every year), but the more you know about what to expect, the better equipped you’ll be to navigate it.

It’s officially Day 2 of Query Prep Week, so let’s get to work on what’s arguably the most important part of your query letter.

Your second lesson: write an irresistible blurb

Yesterday, you confirmed your manuscript is ready to query. (Here’s the link if you missed it.)

Today we’re tackling the heart of the query letter — and the part agents look at most closely:

The description. This should be the longest section of your query letter, and it’s where you describe your book’s plot (for fiction) or contents (for nonfiction).

The best way to think about it is as a movie trailer for your book. A trailer has one job: to make the viewer desperate to know what happens next.

And that’s exactly what your description needs to do to an agent, so they scroll into your sample pages and then request the full manuscript.

So how do you do that?

Your Day 2 assignment (from the book)

It can feel impossible to distill your story into a two- or three-paragraph description. But remember that the point isn’t to summarize your entire book — you simply won’t have room to mention every secondary character or subplot.

Instead, write down your answers to these 3 key questions, and craft your description around them:

📝 Who is your protagonist, what’s their life currently like, and what makes them interesting? Establish all this at the beginning of your description.

📝 What’s the inciting incident that turns their world upside down? This is where you describe the turning point that sets the plot in motion.

📝 What is their objective, why does it matter, and what problems stand in their way of achieving it? This is the main conflict that your story follows. Be specific, but don’t give away any of your story’s twists or reveals.

That’s really all your description needs — executed well, you’ll give the agent no choice but to read your pages.

There’s WAY more in the book!

Every day this week, we’re sending you one of our key querying lessons for free, but our book includes so much more:

✅ Average response times and offer rates based on MILLIONS of queries

✅ Insights from 140+ agents on why they reject queries

✅ Real successful query letters that landed agents

✅ Nitty-gritty formatting, research, and etiquette guidelines

✅ A step-by-step guide taking you from "am I ready?" to signing an offer

ORDER NOW

See you tomorrow for Day 3 — where we’ll cover the query letter elements that seem simple but stump so many authors.

Happy querying!

Alyssa

Tomorrow’s the day I’ve been waiting for for nearly two years: The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents is officially out on the shelves!

To celebrate, my co-author Patrick McDonald (of QueryTracker) and I are officially declaring this Query Prep Week.

Every day this week, you’ll get one of our key querying tips, along with a mini assignment to get you query-ready. By Friday, you’ll be ready to draft a query letter that gets requests.

Your first querying lesson

Today, we’re starting with one of the most difficult, but critical questions querying authors ask us:

“How do I know if I’m ready to query?”

Because the most common querying mistake isn’t…

❌ Querying at the wrong time of year (it really doesn’t matter as much as you think)

❌ Misspelling an agent’s name (try not to, but it happens!)

❌ Choosing the wrong title (agents know titles often change)

❌ Not having publications in your bio

…it’s querying too soon. Before your book is actually ready.

Your Day 1 assignment (from the book)

Check whether your manuscript is truly query-ready by honestly answering:

✅ Is your manuscript (or nonfiction proposal) complete?

✅ Is it an appropriate length for the genre?

✅ Have you gotten constructive feedback?

✅ Have you revised substantially?

✅ Are you confident in the strength of this draft?

You typically only get one shot to pitch an agent your book, which means you need to put the best possible version in front of them. But as an editor, I’ve seen countless writers get hung up on their comp titles, their title, or other relatively small details, when what will really make the difference is working more on their draft.

Don’t query too soon. It’s always worth it to put in extra time to ensure your manuscript is the strongest you can make it.

Last chance to grab your freebies!

If you order your copy of The Modern Guide to Querying Literary Agents TODAY, you’ll get my exclusive fiction and nonfiction query letter templates.

ORDER NOW

Once you’ve ordered, submit the details here to claim your freebies.

I’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow for Query Prep Week Day 2 — where we’ll talk about how to make your book sound irresistible.

Happy querying!

Alyssa

There was one pivotal scene in the middle of the book where the protagonist confronts her mother for the first time in a decade. This was supposed to be a huge emotional turning point, and the entire novel had been leading up to it.

But on the page, it fell flat.

The scene was nearly all dialogue, and while the characters were articulating their emotions, we didn’t feel the weight of them.

I told my client that she needed to incorporate more of the narrator’s interiority throughout that scene. How do her mother’s comments strike her? What memories pass through her mind as she’s face-to-face with her again?

The author paused, then said hesitantly, “But wouldn’t that be telling the reader stuff instead of showing it to them? I was trying to avoid that…”

I hear some version of this from clients all the time. Because “show, don’t tell” has been drilled so deeply into every writer’s head that they fear any line of narrative interiority will be flagged as “telling” and therefore read as amateurish.

But here’s what’s fundamentally misunderstood about this common advice:

Showing isn’t always better than telling. In fact, sometimes telling is exactly what your story needs.

So I’m on a mission to reframe “show don’t tell” as “show and tell.” Your story needs both, and your job is to figure out how to balance the two effectively.

Let’s talk about how to do just that.

Where “show, don’t tell” comes from

The principle is often attributed to Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, who famously said:

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

Boiled down, the advice is meant to encourage writers to use sensory detail and action to convey elements of the story, rather than relying on bland, straightforward descriptions.

Showing immerses us in the character’s environment and experience, allowing us to infer things for ourselves. Telling, by contrast, is where the narrator informs us about something rather than putting us inside of it.

For example, we can be told a character is angry. Or, you can show us how that anger manifests: what it actually looks and feels like in their body.

But here’s where writers get tripped up: the advice has been so aggressively drummed into us that it’s often misapplied or taken to extremes. It does not mean you can never tell the reader something.

In fact, without any telling, your story will likely be missing key contextual details, character intent, and emotional depth, like in my client’s manuscript.

But how do you know when to show and when to tell?

Last chance: preorder my book by Tuesday to get my FREE query letter templates!

Order now for freebies!

Read more

Every writer wants to believe that if their book is good enough, it will sell. I wish that were the case. But traditional publishing isn’t a meritocracy; it’s a business.

Every day, strong manuscripts and talented writers get rejected. When your book gets passed on, it doesn’t mean it’s not good. It means an agent or publisher didn’t see a clear path to sell it right now, in this market, to this moment’s readers.

If you can’t beat the market, try to understand it.

Once you separate craft from business, rejection stops feeling so personal. And you can begin to better understand how to position your story for success.

In today’s interview, literary agent and author Jennifer Michelle Herrera shares the tough genre pivot behind her career, why market awareness matters more than most writers realize, and the common opening-pages mistake that causes preventable rejections.

OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Jennifer Michelle Herrera

Author and Literary Agent

Her new novel SIREN SAYS, available for pre-order now!

Open to queries via QueryTracker from the 1st to the 14th of every month (currently closed to catch up)

What’s one thing about the publishing process no one tells you, but should?

If you want your book to be traditionally published, then the decision of whether a house will buy your book will ultimately be a market decision. In the same way that music goes through shifts in popular tastes, so too do books. You have to be aware of which books are selling right now in order to sell your own book.

Success is not just about how “good” your book is. It’s also about market trends. Knowing this can help take the sting out of rejection.

What’s something you wish more writers knew about rejection?

Just because your book doesn’t get picked up by a lit agent does not mean it is not good. Our jobs are not to determine whether or not a book is “good.” It’s to determine whether we can sell it.

What’s been the toughest moment in your publishing journey, and how did you get through it?

The toughest moment was pivoting genres. I’d written a thriller, which was published in 2023, and I was under contract to write a sequel. However, my book sales didn’t warrant a sequel. So I was basically given a choice: did I want to switch genres and potentially reinvigorate the sales team or “publish out,” meaning that we’d publish the sequel, knowing it probably wouldn’t go anywhere?

Writing a new book in a new genre and shelving the book I’d spent 8 or 9 months on was challenging to say the least! But I find that a sense of humor gets you through just about anything.

What’s a myth about publishing or being an author that you wish more people understood?

People look at Goodreads and see these “terrible” books with great reviews or these “great” books with terrible reviews, and they can’t understand it. What I think they’re not grasping is that books with off-the-charts great reviews are more often than not those that have segmented their audience with some precision.

If a book “package” draws in readers who like that kind of book and is unappealing to those outside of the target demographic, it’s going to have better reviews because no one is coming to that book with “wrong” expectations. Once you get that, I think bad reviews are far less upsetting.

Are you querying this year?
Preorder my book written with the creator of QueryTracker!

Preorder now!

What’s the most common issue you see in manuscripts that keeps you from saying yes?

Those early pages are the hardest to get right.

We need great pacing plus emotional investment in the characters plus a clear sense of motivations/stakes. I often say no when those early pages don’t have that magical combination of all the things. Either the opening is all tension between people I haven’t yet learned to care about or it’s all character development and there’s not enough tension to compel me to keep reading.

How can a writer tell when their manuscript is truly ready to query?

Writers should have writer friends who read their work and give them feedback. You aren’t ready to query until your friends are losing their minds because what you wrote is so good. Your friends are the easy crowd because they already love you. If you can’t get them on board, you’re going to be hard pressed when it comes to getting an agent excited.

What traits or qualities do you look for in a potential client?

I love someone with a good attitude who genuinely wants to put in the work to be a great author and is constantly curious about how to do their craft better. Oftentimes writers let their insecurity (or their ego) get in the way.

Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“I have greatly benefitted from my collaboration with Alyssa; I would not be where I am today without her! Her developmental ideas and vision for my novel taught me so much and helped to elevate my work in highly effective ways. Her editorial fingerprint is evident in the final result—a novel on bookshelves nationwide.”

—Jill Beissel, author of Glitter and Gold

Work with me

What’s one thing you do (creatively, mentally, or physically) that helps you stay in it when writing gets hard?

I think about myself as a little kid. That little girl in rural Ohio would not have been able to imagine that I’d be where I am now. When the noise gets to be too much, I remind myself what a privilege it is to be doing this. It shifts me out of a “not enough” mindset and into a gratefulness one.

When life gets busy, how do you protect your time to write?

I don’t. At least not right now. I let my brain rest. Many creative people need fallow periods in order to be able to make something beautiful. Our brains need to heal from the Herculean effort of bringing our books into the world. And when my brain wants to rest, I let it rest. And when it doesn’t want to rest because it’s got a story simmering, then the story infiltrates everything I do, whether that means jotting down notes in random moments or just letting myself imagine constantly.

What’s one challenge most debut authors don’t see coming, and how do you help them navigate it?

I don’t think that debuts realize that they are running a small business with this writing thing. (I certainly did not understand this when I was a debut!) That advance money is mostly so you can reinvest in your business. It’s not to spend. I help writers navigate this by having candid conversations about their options for self-promotion (and how to do it in a way that feels good to them). I also draw on my own experiences as an author.

ICYMI…this week on YouTube, I discuss how a debut author’s $2.5 million book deal collapsed and what it means for all writers trying to get published.

Watch the video!

Getting rejected by nearly a hundred agents on your first book sounds like a writer’s nightmare. But for this author, it was actually the beginning of something much bigger.

Once she figured out the problem with her manuscript running underneath all those rejections, she launched a second career as a writing teacher, a bestselling craft book, and an online writing school that’s helped thousands of authors finish their novels.

She had to uncover what her story truly was.

So that feedback that stings the most…might actually be exactly what you need to hear to find your real story.

In today’s interview, author and writing teacher Jessica Brody shares the pile of rejections that redirected her whole path, the “accelerator and brake” analogy that transformed how she drafts, and why getting stuck might be the best thing that happens to your book.

OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Jessica Brody

Author and Writing Teacher

Page One to Done, available now!

What’s the best piece of feedback you ever received? How did it change your story?

The best piece of feedback I ever received was actually a series of rejection letters that didn’t just change my story…they’re the reason I became a writing teacher.

The first book I ever tried to get published was rejected all over town—by nearly a hundred literary agents. But interestingly, the feedback was very similar: “You have a good voice, but there’s no story here.” At the time, I didn’t even understand what that meant, because I didn’t really understand what a story was.

Eventually, I found a book called Save the Cat! a screenwriting guide by Blake Snyder that broke all movies down into the same 15 story beats. But I quickly realized that the structure could apply to novels too. Not just screenplays. So I rewrote my entire book using this 15-beat method and the revised version landed me my first literary agent who sold the book to St. Martin’s Press. I’ve since written and sold over 20 novels to major publishers, all written with the same method.

But here’s the twist I didn’t see coming: I set out to be a published author. And in doing so, I discovered a screenwriting method that I realized might help other authors too. So I started teaching it in live and online workshops…and that eventually led me to write Save the Cat! Writes a Novel…and launch an online writing school, and now release my latest craft book, Page One to Done.

In the end, that pile of rejection letters led me to the two biggest joys in life: writing novels, and helping other writers write theirs.

What is the most memorable writing tip or technique that you have heard, and how did it influence your process?

When I was on tour with a bunch of really talented authors, including Emmy Laybourne, she said something on a panel that planted a seed that eventually grew into the method at the heart of my book, Page One to Done. She said, “When writing a first draft, don’t drive with your foot on the accelerator and the brake at the same time. You’ll stop and start and go nowhere.”

It resonated because for the first half of my career, writing a first draft was an overwhelming, tediously slow, painstaking process, filled with self-doubt and perfectionism, and I always felt like there had to be a better way. What Emmy said planted an important seed in my mind: I’d been trying to write the first draft and revise it at the same time. Which was as frustrating as trying to drive with my foot on the accelerator and the brake.

Drafting and revising, I soon figured out, are two different jobs that require us to be two different writers. Trying to do them both at once is draining and overwhelming because we can’t do both effectively at the same time. This realization not only transformed my own first draft process, it eventually grew into my Novel Fast Drafting method, which is designed to bring speed, efficiency, and joy back into the first draft process. I put Emmy’s quote in the book as a tribute to her, and it’s still advice I come back to in my own writing daily.

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What part of the writing process brings you the most joy?

Honestly, it’s the epiphanies. When I’m stuck on a plot problem, or backstory that isn’t working, or two subplots I can’t seem to connect, there is nothing more joyful than finally coming up with the answer (usually from walking around my yard talking to myself!) It’s a moment of pure creative discovery. And what’s ironic is that you actually have to get stuck first to experience it.

If we sat down to write a novel and everything came out finished and perfectly worded, with no plot holes and no stumbling blocks, I think that would actually be really boring. For me, the joy is in the discovery. The twists and surprises I hadn’t thought of when I started, the deviations from my outline, the aha! moments when things finally come together. But to experience that joy, I first have to get stuck.

So that’s a reframe I’ve taken to heart and one I encourage other writers to try: the next time you get stuck, try not to think of it as a “problem.” Try to think of it as an opportunity to discover something new and surprising about your story—and maybe even about yourself as a writer. See if that unlocks a little more joy in the process.

What’s one thing you do (creatively, mentally, or physically) that helps you stay in it when writing gets hard?

One thing that’s been a huge unlock for me over the past few years is brainstorming aloud. It originated when I wrote a trilogy with a co-writer and we had to brainstorm out loud, so I got used to speaking my thoughts. Now, whenever I’m stuck on a story problem (whether it’s in the first draft or the fourth) I take out my recording app, walk around my yard, and just talk aloud. I lay out the problem, experiment with different angles, and play out scenarios: “what if I do this, then that happens, but what if I went this way instead?”

There’s something about writing an idea down that makes it feel permanent, like I’m committing to it. But when I just talk aloud, it releases that need to have the right answer, and that frees up my creative brain to actually find one. Nine times out of ten, I end up with an answer by the end of the brainstorm. But even when I don’t, the process itself primes my subconscious to keep thinking about it throughout the day and eventually the answer appears (usually when I first wake up the next morning!) So on hard writing days, you’ll often find me walking in circles in my yard, talking to myself. (I have no idea what the neighbors think!)

Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“I have greatly benefitted from my collaboration with Alyssa; I would not be where I am today without her! Her developmental ideas and vision for my novel taught me so much and helped to elevate my work in highly effective ways. Her editorial fingerprint is evident in the final result—a novel on bookshelves nationwide.”

—Jill Beissel, author of Glitter and Gold

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When life gets busy, how do you protect your time to write?

I learned early on that if I don’t make writing a priority, it easily slips through the cracks. That’s why I always do it first. No matter what. Even if I have an 8 am meeting, I wake up at 6 so I can get my words in.

The truth is, the more we pack into our day, the less mental energy we have left over to do the thing we want to do (which I’d venture to guess for most of us is writing!). I call this mental energy “cognitive currency.” And research has shown that deciding whether or not to write can actually spend more currency than doing the writing itself. So I take that decision off the table: I write first, before I do anything else. I don’t open my phone, a browser, or my email until my writing is done.

It was hard at first, because I used to wake up and check Facebook, Instagram, my sales ranks, email, and whatever else I could think of! Then, by the time I sat down to actually write I was drained. To break this habit, I started sleeping with my phone in another room, so I would be less tempted to look at it first thing. Whenever I was tempted to look at it, I’d ask myself: “Jessica, do you want to be a professional Instagrammer or a professional writer?” The answer was always writer.

I find that by simply being more intentional and protective of where I spend my cognitive currency, I can reserve enough for the thing that really matters to me…even on the busiest of days.

ICYMI…this week on YouTube, I’m talking about the viral claim that it costs $25,000 to get a literary agent. Is it true?

Watch the video!

You can’t control which agents just picked up a similar project. You can’t control whether the market is currently hungry for your genre.

You can’t even control whether your book — a genuinely excellent, well-crafted book — gets a single “yes.”

But there’s one thing you can control: what you write and why.

Trust that by following your creative instincts and committing to the stories that mean something to you, your story will find its home. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy or straightforward, but you’ll keep your spark alive.

In today’s interview, author and editor Laura Silverman shares why “perfect” isn’t always enough in publishing, the fast-drafting technique that unlocks her characters’ voices, and the internship twist that led to her landing an agent.

OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Laura Silverman

Editor and Author

Those Summer Nights, available now!

What’s one thing about the publishing process no one tells you, but should?

You can write the perfect book, and it still might not get published. Many writers ask me what they are doing wrong, and while we can all continue to improve our writing craft, sometimes the gates of publishing say “no” even when a book is excellent. Not only does a book have to be good, but it has to land on the right agent’s desk at the right time.

Perhaps the agent just picked up a book similar in subject to your book. Perhaps the market just shifted, and the genre you are writing is temporarily defunct. All we can do is continue writing the stories we are passionate about and hope the timing strikes it right a few times.

What do you do to stay true to yourself in your writing?

I recommend that you write for yourself and not the market. Chasing what the market is after is often a futile effort. Publishing is a slow beast. By the time you are done writing, editing, and querying your manuscript, likely the market will have shifted onto something else.

You must write what you are passionate about. Write the story you want to tell. This is what will fuel you and keep your love for writing alive. Then, we hope for luck and that the market aligns with that passion.

What is the most memorable writing tip or technique that you have heard, and how did it influence your process?

I love the technique of fast drafting. Often, when I get into the zone, there is so much my characters want to say and share. If I slow down to fill in details like setting, I will lose the flow, so I fast draft pages of dialogue to let my characters speak.

Once I am done, I can fill in all of the details like description and internal thought and trim unnecessary dialogue, but it’s a great feeling to just let the words fly while drafting.

Are you querying this year?
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What’s one thing you do (creatively, mentally, or physically) that helps you stay in it when writing gets hard?

You have to refill the creative well. Many people advise you to write every day. If that works for you, then that is wonderful. But I believe it’s important for many writers to take breaks and refill the creative well by taking in other art. Read books, watch TV shows, listen to podcasts, go to museums, visit a botanical garden, play video games, play board games with friends. I could go on. There are so many ways.

Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“I have greatly benefitted from my collaboration with Alyssa; I would not be where I am today without her! Her developmental ideas and vision for my novel taught me so much and helped to elevate my work in highly effective ways. Her editorial fingerprint is evident in the final result—a novel on bookshelves nationwide.”

—Jill Beissel, author of Glitter and Gold

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How did you get your literary agent? What was the querying process like for you?

I was an intern at a literary agency when I queried my first novel. I spent my days reading the submissions’ pile, the dream internship. I sent my novel out to about ten agents. I asked my supervisor at my internship agency if I should send my novel to one of their agents, and my supervisor recommended who to send it to. I received a few offers of representation. One of those offers came from the agency I was interning at.

According to my agent, Jim McCarthy, he was reading a submission one morning and thought it was good. He went to check who wrote it and realized, “Hey, that’s one of our interns!” I was grateful for the offers from every agent, but I decided to go with the agent at my internship since I knew we already worked well together, and he’s a fantastic agent.

ICYMI…this week on YouTube, I share 6 surprising trends that are reshaping publishing — as reported by the CEO of Hachette.

Watch the video!

When you’re starting a new project, it’s easy to think possibility means leaving everything wide open. But sometimes the most generative thing you can do is define what your story isn’t.

Who are you writing for, truly? What conversation do you want to enter? What are you definitively not writing?

Protect your vision before you let other voices in.

The longer you sit with your intentions — and really interrogate them — the harder it becomes for outside feedback to pull your story off course.

Because once readers, editors, and critique partners weigh in, you need to continue to be able to hear your own voice. And the strongest work always comes from knowing exactly what you’re trying to say first.

In today’s interview, author Sarah Bruni shares the unusual writing exercise that opens up creative possibility, why she holds onto manuscripts before sharing them, and the underrated practice that brings her the most joy as a writer.

OUR SPECIAL GUEST TODAY IS…

Photo credit: Michelle Kaffko / Organic Headshots

Sarah Bruni

Author

New novel, MASS MOTHERING, available now!

What is the most memorable writing tip or technique that you have heard, and how did it influence your process?

One of my teachers, the writer Yuri Herrera, offered the advice when starting a new story to begin by making a list of the words you will not use in it. I found this advice to be tremendously useful, allowing me to create more space and possibility while beginning to imagine the terms of a fictional world.

Working this way, you can write without getting distracted by specific terms and any weight they may carry with them—whether they may be sensational, geographical, political, or otherwise—from the story you’re trying to tell.

What do you do to stay true to yourself in your writing?

I reread what’s on paper. I reread the texts that were on my mind while writing, my journals, my notes of my intentions for a piece of work. I try to keep interrogating those intentions at every juncture as I go, because once you have more voices in the room encouraging different edits or ideas, it can become increasingly difficult not get swayed by them.

I also tend to hold onto projects for a long time before sharing them with outside readers, until I know what they are and are not, what I’m willing to budge on and what is not negotiable for me as an artist.

When life gets busy, how do you protect your time to write?

I don’t. I don’t think it’s realistic for most writers to expect for it to be a regular practice at every stage of life. When I was teaching high school fulltime, I didn’t write for years. When I first became a parent, I barely got sentences down.

For me to get writing done, it’s often been the case that I save up money and hoard free time to be able to carve out the years where I can afford to dedicate myself to the practice of it. But I also think that living in the world and doing other things informs the work, that if you’re living with curiosity and intention, part of the writing is already happening in the moments when you’re not putting pen to paper.

Are you querying this year?
Preorder my book written with the creator of QueryTracker!

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What’s one thing you do (creatively, mentally, or physically) that helps you stay in it when writing gets hard?

Take breaks. I read, take walks, play the guitar (badly) and sing along, dance in my kitchen, play with my kids. I don’t really believe in forcing the writing forward. I never feel like I’m in a rush to move a project until the writing feels good again. I believe when you’re bored and just going through the motions, the prose reads that way.

More often than not, I get ideas for how a piece of writing will evolve while engaging in an activity that has nothing to do with writing.

Ready for feedback that takes your story to the next level?

“I have greatly benefitted from my collaboration with Alyssa; I would not be where I am today without her! Her developmental ideas and vision for my novel taught me so much and helped to elevate my work in highly effective ways. Her editorial fingerprint is evident in the final result—a novel on bookshelves nationwide.”

—Jill Beissel, author of Glitter and Gold

Work with me

What part of the writing process brings you the most joy?

Reading aloud, particularly at the juncture when a project is already in motion but there is still a lot of possibility for the direction it could take. I love to read aloud as I write, to hear dialogue, to feel the words in my mouth, when nothing on the page feels firm or finalized. When it still feels like it’s mine alone and it could go anywhere. It feels like whispering a secret, like taking a drug—it really never gets any better than this moment for me.

ICYMI…this week on YouTube, I share 5 tricks for making readers love your WORST character — maybe even more than your protagonist.

Watch the video!

Readers know when a writer has truly lived inside a topic — when the emotional details are pulled from real experience, real research, real conversations.

That’s what makes a book feel alive instead of just well-written.

The deeper you go, the more readers will follow.

The themes that scare you to write about are …

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You can write an excellent book. You can publish with a major house. And your next manuscript can still get rejected.

Not because the writing isn’t there — you’ve already proven you’ve got the chops — but because publishing is an incredibly subjective and ever-changing business.

So fall i…

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Including me.

At first, I was bummed that the big publishers passed on my book, a nonfiction guide to querying written with the creator of QueryTracker. I worked at both Macmillan and Penguin Random House (on the fiction side) and was most familiar with the big corporate publishing environment. It was where I’d hoped my own book would eventually land.

So when rejections rolled in from big house after big house, they stung. Some thought our book was too niche, others said there was too much overlap with other books they already bought.

But then we got enthusiastic interest from a published I’d never heard of before: Matt Holt Books (an imprint of BenBella Books), which my agent had suggested putting on our submission list.

And it turned out that not having my book published by a Big Five house might have been the best possible outcome for me and my co-author.

Let me tell you why.

Are you querying this year?

Preorder my querying guide written with the creator of QueryTracker!

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The publishing plot twist I didn’t see coming

BenBella is known for being an author-friendly house, which feeds into how they approach the editorial process, cover design, and marketing. Working with them turned out to be a completely different experience from what I’d been preparing for.

Working with an independent house totally reframed what I consider a “good” book deal and expanded my view of the current publishing landscape.

So today I want to share everything that has surprised me about working with an independent publisher over a Big Five house: the benefits, the downsides, and the tradeoffs nobody talks about.

Because there are so many more publishing avenues available today than ever before, and sometimes the less-obvious paths are the more rewarding ones.

1. The edits were shockingly minimal

As a developmental editor, I was 100% expecting my co-author and I to have to tear our book apart and rebuild it from scratch. After all, neither of us had written a nonfiction book before.

I’d braced myself for months of structural overhauls, painful cuts, and revision letters that ran ten pages long. That’s the kind of edit I deliver to my own clients (sorry, it’s out of love, I promise!), and it’s what I’d seen authors receive from the houses I worked at.

But here’s the email we got from our editor instead…

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After countless mornings and nights spent just you, your laptop, and your story, it’s easy to feel like being a writer is isolating.

But the authors who level up are the ones who let people in. Because getting input from other people is what will actually move your craft forward. They could be c…

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It’s unclear what your protagonist actually wants.

The writing might be beautiful. The setting might be vivid and immersive. But if I can’t pinpoint what’s driving the protagonist forward, the plot will feel directionless — and the story will fall apart.

That’s how important your protagonist’s objective is. It’s the foundation your entire plot is built on.

But it may not be coming through in your draft as clearly as you think.

What “plot” really boils down to

I’ve seen too many writers tie themselves in knots trying to “get the plot right.” In an attempt to make the process easier, countless resources, methodologies, and worksheets for plotting have emerged:

• Save the Cat!

• The Hero’s Journey

• The Three-Act Structure

• The 7-Point Story Structure

• The Snowflake Method

The list goes on. And as helpful as they can be, in actuality, you don’t need to follow any of them to create a solid plot.

I’m going to strip the complex concept of plot down to just three core elements. That’s truly all you need to create a compelling, page-turning story.

Then, I’ll walk you through a simple exercise that will help you stress-test your novel’s plot.

Are you querying this year?
Preorder my book written with the creator of QueryTracker!

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My 3-ingredient plot recipe

Plotting is a lot like cooking.

It might feel like there are a million things that you need to plot effectively, but you don’t actually need a kitchen full of ingredients to make something delicious. The best recipes are the ones that get a few key ingredients exactly right.

At its core, every plot is built from just three elements working together:

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Every writer dreams of that magical flow state — the one where the words pour out, time disappears, and writing feels effortless. But that magic rarely happens. 90% of the time, writing is messy, clunky, and hard.

If you only write when it feels easy, you’ll never finish your book.

Show up anyway — even if you …

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It’s the tough truth every aspiring author needs to be prepared for. Even with glowing reviews, big launch day buzz, and a perfectly curated social media campaign, nothing guarantees your book will break through.

What actually moves the needle is simple: readers telling others they have …

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I honestly thought I was late to the game, that the Internet had already moved onto the next bookish drama.

Boy, was I wrong.

The video instantly shot up to my most-watched in months and is now at more than 115,000 views. It’s tracking to be my most-viewed video of all time.

If you haven’t watched it yet or have no idea what I’m referencing, check it out here.

There are still so many unknowns with the Shy Girl case that aren’t worth further speculating on, but what’s abundantly clear is that authors are rattled. They’re worried that they’ll be the next ones “burned at the stake” in the AI witch hunts.

So let’s talk about it: what can — and what should — you do if you’re accused of using AI to write?

No one is safe from AI accusations (myself included)

I’ve personally received two AI accusations: one person suggested that I used AI to write an Instagram caption, and another person claimed to run my two-sentence YouTube video description into an AI detection tool and said it came back as AI-generated. (In that very video, I discuss how AI detection tools are not completely reliable, but that’s beside the point.)

I didn’t use AI in either case. But does it even matter? Once someone is convinced you used AI, can you ever dig yourself out of that accusation? Can you prevent these accusations upfront?

Luckily, these comments were isolated and didn’t negatively impact my business. But the same can’t be said for Mia Ballard — whether Shy Girl contained AI writing or not, her name will now be associated with it.

And I suspect that anyone who publicly posts or publishes content is going to face an AI accusation at some point.

So…how do we respond?

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Even after you sign with an agent and sell your book to a major publisher, you might face challenges in your publishing career.

Your publisher could restructure. Your agent could retire. The deal you thought was your big break could fall apart — putting you back at square one.

But giving up …

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