The kids are going to grow up faster than you can imagine.

I got a lot less writing done when my kids were young and I was teaching full time, but short-changing my family or my students wasn’t going to work for any of us, most of all, me.Ĭircumstances change over time, and during some chapters in your life, writing may be a smaller part of the puzzle. It’s not always easy to juggle a writing life with a family and/or another job, but it’s possible with realistic expectations. The books will end up being better, and you’ll be a happier writer.įind the balance.

Given all that, you really want to choose projects where the joy, curiosity, and passion will make up for anything that goes wrong. Don’t chase trends. Writing can be exhausting sometimes, and the business of publishing can occasionally be downright soul-crushing. Which brings me to another tip…Ĭhoose projects that energize you.

Make it one that brings you joy and energy to create. Once you’ve written the very best book you can, it’s not really your job to worry about sales numbers a whole lot. The truth is – and I’ve heard it from a lot of publishing professionals – authors can do little on their own to move the needle as far as book sales.Īs frustrating as this may seem, the good news is that it takes the pressure off. Spend time on things that you can control. They relate to the whole picture – writing, promoting, and life. Here are a few not-really-secrets that have helped me through the past decade as my writing career has grown. Illustrated by Adam Rex (Chronicle, 2020) I have twelve new books coming out this year, so I’ve been reminding myself every day that I can only do so much and need to find that balance. These numbers were not linked to the hours I personally put into promoting them. Some of them have sold less than ten thousand.

Some of them have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. They range from picture books and easy readers to chapter book series, novels, and nonfiction. Since then, I’ve published another thirty-five books (and written others that didn’t get published). Shouldn’t I be…I dunno…doing more blog tours or traveling to more bookstores or maybe crafting little gold-plated leaf bookmarks to go along with the theme of my book and sending them to Oprah and Ellen? She’s eighteen now and can still recite parts of my presentation by heart.)īut at some point during that wild year leading up to publication and the months that followed, I reached out to my agent, Jennifer Laughran of Andrea Brown Literary, to ask if I was doing enough. The truth is, when my first novel came out in 2009, I made all of the same overeager mistakes other debut writers make when that first book is released–over-promoting and dragging my wonderfully supportive family to book event after book event for an entire season.

How to write a story by kate messner