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It’s no secret that coming up with a great book title can make or break a book. But how can you choose the best book title for your work?  

This guide will not only show you how to write a book title, but it will also advise you on how to come up with your own title ideas for your next project in any genre.  

Why Are Book Titles Important?

Have you ever bought a book purely because of its title? I know I have. And plenty of other readers have, too.  

Books such as A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson have become instant bestsellers thanks to their clever, intriguing titles. In the case of this example, the title not only tells a reader what genre it is (crime), but also sets up a series of questions that the reader will want to read on to answer. How can a ‘good’ girl be involved in a murder?  

Word of mouth equates for a huge proportion of books that have achieved a runaway success. If a title is memorable, it’s more likely to stick in the forefront of a reader’s mind when they’re speaking to friends. To use our previous example, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, uses alliteration to great effect, and uses many of the same words in subsequent titles in the series to create a clear and memorable link.  

On the other hand, a bad title can be forgettable. Take Stranger from Within for example – have you heard of that? Chances are you haven’t as this title was later changed to Lord of the Flies (William Golding), which is far more intriguing and memorable. 

So – what is it that makes a book title great? 

What Makes A Good Book Title?

Authors with an established track record can afford to take risks with their book titles. But for new and emerging authors, it’s worth sticking to these tried-and-tested rules:  

* Be Unique 

That’s not to say that you can’t call your book a name shared by something else, but it will help your title be easier to find by readers if it’s unique.  

* Be Memorable  

As readers, we can come across hundreds of books every day. Be clever with your use of words to create a title that will stick in a reader’s mind.  

* Spark Interest 

You can do this by generating a question for the reader, or by clearly signposting what the book is about from the title. For example, The Man who Died Twice by Richard Osman.  

* Grab Attention

In a bookshop or online, this is mainly the job of the cover. But what about when the book is being spoken about in a conversation, or on the radio? Choose a book title with impact, for example, Tall Bones by Anna Bailey.  

These rules sound simple, but they can be difficult to get right. There are lots of other factors that might turn a reader off, even if your title conforms to all these rules.  

How Long Should Your Title Be?

One of the things that concern a writer when choosing the title of their book is its length.  

How Does It Look On The Cover? 

Titles must be long enough to be clear, unique and intriguing, but short enough to be memorable (and fit on the cover nicely). Most popular book titles are four words long, but a surprising 10% of the Amazon top 100 at the time of writing include titles over eighteen words.  

Of course, this will vary according to genre (subject-led non-fiction can stand a longer, more specific title), and also Amazon metadata (including subtitles with keywords can help a book become more searchable). But as a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to be keeping your title in that magic space between too short, and too long.  

Language & Clarity 

You should also pay close attention to the use of language in your title. With such a small space to pack an impact, every word you choose has to be pulling its weight.  

To help, try to avoid jargon and technical terms in your title that might be hard for the average reader to remember. You should aim to provoke an emotional response and provide clarity, whilst trying to avoid making your reader angry or hurt with the use of derogatory language.   

Relevance 

It’s also useful to keep the title themed around your book, so that readers can easily associate it with your story long after reading. In the same way, using common genre structures found in the genre you’re writing can help with this.  

For example, thriller titles tend to be short, using emotive language: The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides. 

Romantic comedies can stand to be a little longer and can often include a name, such as Lucy in the Sky by Paige Toon.  

So how can you use these tips to come up with your own book title? 

How To Come Up With Book Title Ideas

Before sitting down to come up with your own title, I recommend making a note of the advice above, so you can keep it in mind. In particular, it’s important that your ideas maintain clarity, relevance, and stay within your genre.  

To help with this, the first step to creating a book title is to look at books similar to yours. Make a note of:  

• The number of words in the title. 
• Emotive words (what emotions do they conjure?)  
• Any questions they pose (do they make you want to read on to answer them?)  
• Anything else interesting about the title, such as the use of character names.  

This step is important, as you’ll want to ensure your title communicates what your reader is to expect from your book, as well as being unique.  

Get brainstorming! 

I like brainstorming on paper or on a whiteboard, but you can do it anywhere, at any time. For each of the following headings, spend fifteen to twenty minutes thinking of possible titles relating to your specific book:  

• Who the book is about
  This can be a name, or a description of the character in some way. For example, The Girl of Ink and Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. 
   
• What the book is about
  Think carefully about the themes and motifs you’ve used in your book. Looking at your synopsis can be a useful reminder here. For example, Normal People by Sally Rooney. 
   
• Where the story takes place
  This can be interior settings, as well as exterior. Where in this world or the next is the book set? If there’s a journey, can this be used? For example, The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. 
   
• When the story takes place
  Think dates, as well as seasons, days and time. You can also use important past or future events as a title. For example, A Week in December, Sebastian Faulks.  

Research 

When you have some keywords, try mixing them around to create something unique and interesting. Alliteration can be your friend here, as we saw in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. You can also employ one of the following devices with your keywords to make it unique:  

• Find a synonym
  Is there another, lesser-used word that packs a bigger punch? 
   
• Subvert expectations
  Twist the meaning of your phrase to assign a new meaning to it, for example, Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng.  
   
• Tell a mini-story
  Find the hook of your story and tell it in a small space, such as The House with Chicken Legs, by Sophie Anderson. 

• Focus on your USP (Unique Selling Point)
  Is there something about your story that sets it apart from the rest? Perhaps it’s that it’s a true story, or perhaps something as simple as a character name. If it’s good, use it in your title! For example, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.  
   
• Try other titles on for size
  Is there a title you particularly like? Try mixing that with some of the words you’ve come up with – sometimes this can help you stumble across your own unique version, which contains all the elements of a title you love. 
   
• Look at what’s trending
  It’s no coincidence that, like with any product, there are trends with book titles. You may have noticed in certain genres, that once a book has had great success, other similar titles start to pop up. How many thrillers can you name with the word ‘Girl’ in the title? How many fantasy YA books do you know with the word ‘wicked’ in the title, or using the standard ‘A _ of _ and _’ combination? 
   
• Pick out phrases  Another trick is to read through your book, specifically looking for phrases that might make a good title. Some of my favourite book titles are ones that are almost small poems in themselves, such as On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. Reading your manuscript on an e-reader can sometimes help you spot these.  

If you’re still finding it difficult, then try an automatic word or title generator. Then, it’s just the simple matter of choosing the right title for you… 

How To Choose A Book Title

The best book title for your book will be one that conforms to all the rules we’ve outlined here, including that it’s clear, memorable, relevant, and unique. It will also be the one you feel most excited about and are most likely to remember yourself.  

Try one or two on for size in conversation. Does it roll off the tongue? What was the reaction? 

You may also find that other people can be useful – ask friends who have read the book for their thoughts and include other people in your process. In particular, agents and editors often bring their own thoughts to a title before publication, so be prepared to change it for the market if you’re planning on traditional publishing.  

For those who are self-publishing, using social media or reader focus groups can be a great way of testing a title before going forward with it. You may even find that the most popular title is the one you’d least expect.  

Whatever title you come up with, your primary goal is to make readers want to read your book and remember it long after they’ve finished reading. Spend time studying book titles, mind-mapping ideas relevant to your themes and then choose the title that you feel most excited by.  

For more information on other important book metadata, including book covers, choosing your author name, and that all-important pitch, take a look at our vast library of free articles on our blog.

More than ready to get the ball rolling with agents, but just need a little push? Or perhaps you’ve had a few rejections but aren’t sure why? Our Agent Submission Pack Review gives you detailed professional advice on how to perfect your submission and increase your chances of securing an agent.

Today's feature is on Amy Bishop who is an agent with Dystel, Goderich & Bourret in New York. Amy has been with the agency since 2015, progressing from intern, to agent's assistant, to office manager. With a degree in Creative Writing, she both maintains her own list as an agent and oversees digital projects and social media for DGB.

Amy's fiction specialties include upmarket/literary fiction, book club fiction, and literary suspense. She seeks historical nonfiction, science, current affairs, cultural criticism, investigative deep dives, and select prescriptive nonfiction for a millennial audience.

Outside of genre, Amy is always happy to receive AAPI/BIPOC submissions from the corresponding voices.

Check out the interview highlights below, and read it in full on Amy's AgentMatch profile.

"Writing above all is what moves me; it can be a rollicking plot, but if I don't love the quality of the writing, I'm probably going to pass (or pass you to one of my colleagues)"

Hi Amy, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us! We would love to pass on to our members what you're looking for in submissions, your favourite book deals, and any advice you might have for querying authors.

Q. What's at the top of your fiction wish-list?

I would love to see more AAPI voices and more BIPOC voices in my inbox in general. For adult, my sweet spot is upmarket book club fiction—not uber-literary, but also not super commercial. The writing is beautiful, the characters well-formed, but a plot really moves underneath the more literary elements. I've loved Charlotte McConaghy, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Zakiya Dalila Haris, and am terrifically excited for Grace Li's debut. I'm fascinated by women of color writing about women of color in a historical setting that I may not be as familiar with; complicated, tangled mother-daughter relationships; a touch of speculative or magical elements in an otherwise contemporary setting; novels set in the Midwest, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest; stories about women and girls coming into their own, in a myriad of ways. I love dry humor and books with a touch of wryness to them. I love to be surprised and I love to fall in love. I'm interested in books that can join a cultural conversation without being too heavy-handed—I think MIGRATIONS does this so well for climate change and THE OTHER BLACK GIRL does this looking at microaggressions and racism in the workplace/everyday (but with a TWIST!).

For young adult, I would love contemporary rom-coms; clever retellings (or novels that use a familiar story as a jumping off point); select historicals (preferably after the 1700s, but if you've got an amazing novel set on the African, Asian, or South American continents set before then, send it my way—and, of course, send it my way if it takes place after then too!) I'm interested in stories about adoption and growing up biracial or otherwise feeling in-between cultures (for these stories, please, only from authors who are adoptees or biracial); stories about grappling with grief or loss, and that awkward, uncomfortable age of feeling simultaneously like the world is at your fingertips, but not yet quite knowing who you are.

Q. What do you love when it comes to non-fiction?

My nonfiction tastes veer toward history, science, and the social sciences. As with my fiction, I love hearing about women doing kickass things, and learning about the broader social context surrounding them. I'm always interested in learning with my nonfiction, and I veer towards unknown history, feminist history, and deep dives into a particular topic. For me, the heart of nonfiction is about the people, and so I need an interesting person (or persons) for the narrative to be shaped around. I'm fascinated by sociologists, psychologists, scientists, and general academics writing for a more trade audience—I'm thinking of the incredible Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, my own author, Dr. Kelsy Burke, Bessel van der Kolk, and so many others. I'm also interested in journalists who have done extensive research on a particular story or topic and historians. I do select prescriptive work, but increasingly, a significant platform is necessary for me to even consider. I've been very, very selective with memoir, and am not actively looking to take it on (but again, as with most things: if you have a truly remarkable story, come wow me!)

Q. What do you want to see in a query letter?

Above all, I want to see professionalism. A thoughtful, clearly researched query letter that has the following five elements: 1) why you're querying X agent, 2) brief pitch (no more than a couple short paragraphs), 3) author bio, 4) comp titles, if applicable, 5) metadata (title, word count, genre, etc.). I don't care what order these are in, as long as they're all included. I greatly dislike gimmicky letters or query letters that start off negative ('well, you're clearly never going to read this, but...') I can also tell if the author has just blasted off the same letter to 50 agents and put no time, research, or care into the query. The query is as much about pitching the book, as giving us a sense of how you might be to work with, so if I get the sense that the author is careless or already approaching this without much thought, I'm already uncertain about how they might be to partner with long-term.

Q. Tell us about a recent deal (or three) that really delighted you.

Oh boy! I'm going for the three option. Maria Dong's debut novel, LOOKING GLASS LIAR, which is about a young woman's attempts to cope with mental illness via a vividly constructed fantasy world, and what happens when those attempts fall apart when she witnesses the co-worker she's been stalking jump off a bridge right in front of her, and discovers he's been watching her all along. It's surprising and funny, and oh so twisty! Another debut novelist—Madeline Kay Sneed's THE GOLDEN SEASON, which is set in the Southern Baptist "Bible Belt" of West Texas, and in which a father and daughter must grapple with her coming out. The novel redefines questions of faith, love, and what it means to be family for them both, and is just heartfelt and beautiful. And lastly, a third debut, by Zoe Sivak, titled MADEMOISELLE REVOLUTION, about a biracial heiress who flees to Paris when the Haitian Revolution burns across her island home. In Paris, she works her way into the inner circle of Robespierre and his mistress, where she must contend with her place in both uprisings. It's historical fiction centering on a woman of color and such a smart, deeply researched book, while also being deliciously fun.

Thanks, Amy!

In the meantime, if you're struggling with your query letter and synopsis, do check out our free resources on our website. We have lots of info to help you on your way. Or, better still, if you're a member with us, our lovely Writers Support team will be happy to offer you a free query letter review!

I know an author – she works for Jericho Writers – who always wanted a two-book deal with a commercially ambitious Big 5 publisher. So she wrote a book and got an agent and the two of them got themselves in front of an outstanding imprint at a Big 5 publisher. The publisher said yes, please, they wanted the book.

I know an author – me – who had a perfectly successful career as a trad and self-pub author. Now admittedly life got a bit over-complex (kids, a business, disability in the family), but he’s still writing. The logical book would be #7 in the successful Fiona Griffiths series. It’s already mostly written.

I know a highly successful self-pub author – Debbie Young, who runs our brand-new self-publishing course – who has a very popular crime series. That series was badly in need of a next instalment and she felt perfectly able to write it.

But, but, but …

Last year was pretty damn grim. It was all about lockdown and anxiety and rampaging sickness statistics.

This year’s hardly been merry either. More lockdowns and more conflict over lockdowns. Some brilliant vaccine news (yay!) but also a succession of new variants. Here in the UK, the news cycle is, once again, crammed with a particularly grey shade of pre-Christmas gloom.

Which is why I ask: what do you want? What do you really, really want?

My colleague, the one with the two-book offer from the fancy publisher, said no.

The publisher in question wanted to dumb down her book, to strip it of personality. It was clear they wanted someone to deliver a commodity product which they would package up and sell as a commodity online. So she said no. Instead, she’s signed up with a smaller (but very able and ambitious) indie publisher instead, because they wanted the book she had actually written just as she had always envisaged it.

It’s a better solution for her.

And me? Well, that #7 Fiona Griffiths book just feels too large and complicated for where my life has been this year. So I’ve almost completed a literary book so barmy I don’t even quite know how to tell you about it. (Hmm: “It’s a literary novelty book about story-making, polar adventure and cannibalism.” Something like that.) I can’t tell you if the book will ever be published or not, but I can tell you that I’ve loved every minute I’ve had while writing it.

And Debbie? She confessed the following:

In the last few months, more and more indie authors have been telling me they are weary of the pay-to-play rollercoaster of certain publishing platforms. I know quite a few who are recalibrating to focus on quality rather than quantity. Particularly after the battering our mental well-being has taken from the Covid pandemic, stepping back from marketing pressures, while maintaining an effective author platform (website, social media, etc), can feel like a much-needed healing process.

… As to myself, I made a conscious decision this summer that whenever I start a new project, I’ll write whatever is in my heart, rather than necessarily what makes the most commercial sense. I took time out to write a standalone novella when I was overdue to write the third in a series of mystery novels. But I’m really glad I did it, and I will continue to take this approach for the foreseeable future. It feels controversial or even heretical as a successful indie author to be saying this, but I have a feeling that a significant number of authors out there when they read this will be thinking, “Oh please, yes, let me just write for a while! In 2022, I just want to write!”

I think it’s great to be commercial about what you write. Books are better for having readers. It’s hard enough getting published, let alone making any money. Manuscripts that start out without any feel for the market normally end up essentially unread.

But there’s a balance to be struck. Not one of us thought, “Gosh, I’d really like to be stupidly rich, so I’ll just write some books.” On the contrary, the passion came first. Thoughts about publication came second. Thoughts about making money from publication came a snail-like third.

So here’s the question: are you getting joy from your writing? Do you love the project you are currently working on?

And I don’t mean “love” as in “right now this minute”. Even with projects of passion there are dark passages that just need to be muscled through. I mean love, more like marital love: with its ups and downs, but still most definitely love.

Do you love your writing? I hope you do.

Have a very merry Christmas. I shan’t email next week or the week after. Normal service will resume in January.

Your character is sprinting down a dark tunnel, footsteps crashing against the hard stone and echoing all around. The tunnel opens wide, a ledge rapidly approaches – this is the lair! Your character slides to a stop and sees… what? Something awe-inspiring? Something terrifying? Perhaps both? 

All readers, and indeed writers, love nothing more than seeing fresh and exciting fantasy beasts and mythical beings in their books. The presence of unique, creative monsters and imaginary races emboldens any fantasy, sci-fi, gothic or horror story. Their presence brings a book’s setting to life, inspiring questions of how they came to be, and how the inhabitants of that world interact with them - or not.  

Imaginary literary creatures also massively inform a story’s plot and even enhance character, whilst being wonderful vehicles for symbolism and allegory. 

So, as a writer, how do you get your monster right?  

What Are Fantasy Creatures?

Fantasy creatures are nothing new. Monsters made from our imagination have been around as long as the humans who created them. 

When it comes to inspiration, the greatest place to start is in the past and studying the legends that have inspired many an iconic story and influenced human civilisations. Every country in the world has its own myths and legends, and in turn, its own fantastical beasts. 

Take the Twelve Labours of Heracles from Ancient Greece. They are rife with legendary beasts based on very real creatures from our world, such as the Nemean Lion. What makes the Nemean Lion mythical is the small but important detail that its golden fur is impenetrable, so it could not be killed by conventional means. This elevates the labour of the hero by heightening the stakes and presenting a unique challenge for them to overcome. 

Another of the monsters, the Hydra, has inspired many terrifying literary monsters. A highly venomous snake-like beast with many heads, it seems imposing enough upon first glance, but when we realise that its heads grow back after being cut off – then it becomes a true terror (anyone spot the similarities between the Hydra and Hagrid’s three-headed dog, Fluffy, in the Harry Potter series?). 

Moving away from Greece, we find all sorts of mythical creatures in the infamous Chinese tale Journey to the West. Not only are there dragons, demon kings and ogres, but also a jade rabbit spirit, great white turtle and, above all, the protagonist is the cheeky, troublemaking Monkey King, Sun Wukong. 

Norse mythology has frost giants, a giant wolf, undead Draugar, dwarves, elves and even the Mare – a monster that would give people bad dreams by sitting on them in their sleep (I wonder which Norseman’s sleep paralysis conjured that up!).  

In Norse myth especially, the design of the creatures was directly used to inform their society and beliefs. Back then townsfolk would wear metal rings around their arms depicting Jormungandr, the great snake that represented the circle of life by biting its own tail. They would swear oaths to their gods, believing they would be protected. In those times, the creatures they created weren’t myths, but real monsters and deities that delivered cautionary tales. 

There are mythical creatures in every culture – and all of them are exceptional in their own way. They are often reminiscent of terrifying or intriguing creatures in our real-world or derived from their mythical precursors. And almost all of these fantastical creatures have wound their way into unforgettable fantasy settings, both in our much-loved classics and modern storytelling. 

But do these monsters make a difference? In short, yes. 

Benefits Of Using Unique Fantasy Creatures In Your Novel

As we excitedly plunge into the vibrant ocean of fantasy creatures, we should take a step back and try to understand what they bring to our stories. 

Often a character’s interaction with a fantasy creature will form part of the plot. If we take the earlier example of the Hydra and Nemean Lion, Heracles daubs his arrows in the Hydra’s venomous blood and wears the impenetrable hide of the lion as a cloak. As you can imagine, both concepts have been used in numerous fantasy stories since. 

A great deal of exploration of the human soul can be done with monster stories too. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, we get an insight into love, abandonment and discrimination through the lens of a horrifying creature. The monster, as it’s known in the tale, receives its own chapters demonstrating how it thinks and feels. Shelley’s work was a remarkable forerunner for stories using fantasy creatures as a lens of symbolism and theme, such as Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling. 

The existence of a unique fantasy creature, in turn, makes your story unique too. This extends to mythical races such as elves and orcs. Take Lord of the Rings as an example. Would Tolkien’s famous world have had half the cultural impact were it only filled with squabbling human races? 

Even in a more grounded fantasy setting, such as George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (the series that conjured A Game of Thrones) - if we were to remove Targaryen Dragons and White Walkers, would it be the same? 

So many mythical creatures have become iconic to the point where their world-building has become canon. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, krakens, and probably a dozen more you’re cursing me for not mentioning. 

The truth of the matter is that what makes a fantasy tale stand above the crowd is the strength of its creatures, and how they are used. An unforgettable fantasy world is built of many bricks, but it is the consistency and uniqueness of its creatures that glues those bricks together. 

So how do we bring originality to our own creatures?  

How To Create Unique Fantasy Creatures

As all writers know, creating something truly unique is a near-impossible task. But don’t be disheartened, as it doesn’t take much to mould something that already exists into something new and gruesome.  

Let’s take a look at six ways of doing that: 

1. Combine More Than One Magical Element 

Let us take the story of the Nemean Lion mentioned earlier. The story uses a very real creature (a lion) but adds the small tweak of its golden fur being impenetrable.  

We can do the same thing. What if we take a boar, but say its tusks can conjure lightning? If we want whimsy, what if a character has to catch a quite ordinary-looking mouse, but this mouse weighs as much as an elephant? 

In a similar vein, many mythical creatures are mashups of two real creatures. The Chimera was depicted as a fire-breathing lion, with the head of a goat protruding from its back, and a venomous snake as its tail. What if we gave the horn of a rhino to a horse? What if we gave sharks wings? You get the picture…

2. Make Them Human 

The term ‘uncanny valley’ (the relationship between the human-like appearance of a robotic object and the emotional response it evokes) is a wonderful tool to use when trying to understand what makes something scary. Taking something into that uncanny valley – that halfway point between familiar and unnatural – plays on some of the deepest shared human fears. 

When a werewolf is turned by a full moon, we can’t help but remember who they were as a human. Vampires are so tantalising but unnerving because they can present themselves as humans, but they kill in such a gruesome way. Creatures like Pennywise from Stephen King’s IT tap into that uncanny valley all the time. As would a human who crawls like a spider, or a woman who glides instead of walks, or a child with buttons for eyes (thank you, Neil Gaiman).

3. Give Your Monsters Motivation 

Or better yet, an origin story. 

Fantasy creatures and monsters are often the villains of a novel, so why not give them depth and complexity? It could be argued supervillains like The Joker, from Batman, or Thanos, from The Avengers, are monsters in their own rights.  

Both have penetrated the modern zeitgeist thanks to their detailed backstory and purposeful (or anarchic) motivations. It’s often not enough to make your scary creature bad, if you give them a good enough reason it heightens the stakes and creates discomfort in your readers as they start to question their own morals (perhaps even the monster within themselves). 

4. Give Them A Home

Where does your monster live? In its own world? In ours? Or maybe both? Ask yourself what’s scarier, or a bigger challenge, for your characters. 

Trans-dimensional monsters are cropping up more and more often in books, TV and film, providing great inspiration for writers. In the Netflix show, Stranger Things, the Demogorgon monster moves between a rural 80s US town and a mouldy mirrored world known as the ‘Upside Down’. 

Having contrasting locations (much like foil characters) not only brings style to the story, but also provides parameters and boundaries for your creature. How the creature interacts with our own world will influence the plot, how it behaves, and ultimately how the hero will defeat it. 

5. Ask Yourself If The Creature Is Even Needed (Or If You’re Just Having Fun)

Is your creature simply another barrier in your hero’s quest? Are they an integral part of that world? Are they crucial to the plot? Perhaps they’re only there to deliver a message to your reader (or even character). 

Whatever their purpose, how and why you have created this fantastical being will change the attributes you give it and how/where it’s featured in your story. We all love a great monster, but a monster for a monster’s sake doesn’t make for a great story. In fact, it may do the opposite, and detract your reader so much from the main plot they stop caring about your hero altogether.

6. Use Nature To Inspire You

As the old adage goes, ‘fact can be scarier than fiction’. You don’t have to look far in the world of animals, plants and unusual habitats, to find inspiration. Mermaids have strong ties to manatees, vampires were inspired by bats, and even something as simple as Jaws, a shark that looks like a shark and acts like a shark but is just really big and really mean, was enough to make an entire generation scared of the water.  

Fascinating creatures exist all over our natural world, especially in the depths of the ocean or in uninhabitable rainforests. So get searching and add some of nature’s wonders to your own monsters. 

Our Monster Checklist

Once you have come up with your fantastical concept, take a look at our checklist to ensure your creature is consistent within your world and story. 

Here are some things to consider: 

• What are its strengths and weaknesses? 
  Vital in any potential confrontation with a creature, we must know what makes it a threat, what makes it special and what might bring it low. Your hero has to overcome it after all. 

• What does it look like? 
  Consider how many limbs it has, its facial structure, if it has skin or fur, its colouring and textures. A big one for me is eyes – missing eyes can be uncanny, beady eyes feels insectoid, large eyes feels cute (perhaps as a trap).
   
• How large is the creature?  
  A seemingly inane question, but an important one. If the world is filled with enormous titans, what is their food source? If there isn’t one, are they going extinct? Or, if a creature is tiny, how does it overcome larger foe? Does it exist in a swarm?
   
• How intelligent is the creature? 
  In some stories dragons are devastating monsters that never speak a word and sleep on their treasure horde. In others, they talk and even participate in society. Has your creature learned to avoid mortal society? Or have they learned to infiltrate it…or rule it?
   
• How old is the creature? 
  This works both for individual creatures and for a species. If a creature lives for millennia, how has it changed? What has it lived through? If a species has existed for only a few centuries, why? Did they have precursors they evolved from?
   
• Are they hunted? Particularly for dangerous creatures, are the societies around them large and advanced enough to undertake hunts to cull them? If yes, why has this particular creature survived?
   

• How does it interact with other creatures in the story? 
  Is it adversarial to your protagonist but buddies with everyone else? Does it forge a bond with your protagonist only? Maybe it’s not a scary monster but a kind and helpful one?
   
• Name? 
  With some fantastical creatures the name can come first, but it’s always important to consider why it has the name it does. Did it claim its own name, or did others give it the name? Does it have different names in different cultures?
  

Fantasy Generators

If you want a jumping-off point for creating a fantasy creature, don’t be afraid to use an online fantasy creatures generator. 

A few good ones include: 

• For generating names, story concepts, plot obstacles – it has a little bit of everything! 
• A direct fantast creatures generator. 
• For generating ideas and briefs for creatures. 
• For help with fantasy creatures names’. 
• Another option for fantasy creatures' names.

But do remember, when using these generators, you don’t have to stick to the ideas they give you! 

Often the best way to use a fantasy creatures generator is to cherry-pick what you like and drop what you don’t. If you’re generating a name and like the suffix but not the main body of the word, keep the suffix and either come up with the rest yourself, or combine it with a body you like elsewhere in the generated list. Likewise with creature skills, weaknesses, looks and so on. 

Conclusion

Fantasy creatures have become truly iconic over the years. Having such a rich depth of reference points at our fingertips (from classic books and modern movies, to disturbing works of art and the internet) only makes our jobs as authors more fun.  

Never has so much inspiration for such creatures been so accessible, across all cultures. And never before has such strong support existed for adventurous authors wanting to carve their own take on old monsters, as well as feature their own culture and legends into their own work. 

 So, when creating your fantastical monsters, remember that the sky is the limit. And for some truly horrifying creatures… there’s no limit at all as to how far you can go to make sure we never forget them.

Last week we pondered the awkward prose and strange success of Dean Koontz. Today – rather stupidly – I’m going to do the opposite.

Our theme this week is Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. The book deals with the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet. (The two names, Hamnet and Hamlet were used more or less interchangeably in Shakespeare’s time. Shakespeare wrote the play a few years after the death of his son.)

The book is obviously Great Literature. My copy is jam-packed with superlative reviews and the book won both the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK and the National Book Critics Circle prize for fiction in the US.

So: serious critical heft, plus it talks about Shakespeare, so what’s not to love?

Well, when we were looking at Dean Koontz last week, we thought that some of his writing habits are there to reassure his readers that they’re going to get what they came for.

Koontz’s readers don’t want fancy writing, so Koontz is quick to reassure them: buddy, you’re not going to get any. On the other hand, they do want big, clear, comic-book style characters, and Koontz makes sure he places one prominently on page one.

I suggested that that Koontz’s approach to prose was like a box of cheaper chocolates, where the point of the packaging was to reassure shoppers, “This is not too fancy. If you feel worried by fancy, expensive chocolates, we promise that you won’t find any of that stuff inside.”

But how about the opposite? If you’re buying fancy chocolates, you want the packaging to match. Elegant fonts, dark colours, plenty of layers of foil and fluffy packaging and fancy tissue. The packaging says, “You want fancy? We’re going to give you fancy. Worried that these chocolates won’t pass muster at your posh dinner party? Don’t worry. We’ve got six layers of fancy tissue and each chocolate comes in its own mini-wrapping, so your guests are just going to KNOW that you’ve spent real money on this box.”

OK. Hold that thought.

Here are some bits from Hamnet:

Quote 1

You might find the [edge of the forest] a restless, verdant, inconstant sight: the wind caresses, ruffles, disturbs the mass of leaves; each tree answers to the weather’s ministrations at a slightly different tempo from its neighbour, bending and shuddering and tossing its branches as if trying to get away from the air, from the very soil that nourishes it.

Quote 2

The words fly out of her mouth, like hornets, words she didn’t even know she knew, words that dart and crackle and maim, words that twist and mangle her tongue.

Quote 3

He gives a nod and a shrug, all at the same time, eyeing the broad back of his father, who looms behind his mother, still facing the street. He is, despite himself, despite the fact that he is clutching the hand of the woman he has vowed to marry, despite everything working out which way he will have to duck to avoid the inevitable fist, to feint, to parry, and to shield Agnes from the blows he knows will come.

Two things before we go on.

One, please look at those quotes and see what you think of them. Forget that you are reading a hugely successful work of literary fiction. What do you think of the quotes on the page?

Two, I’m going to have some challenging things to say about those snippets of writing, but I’m not so daft as to think that Maggie O’Farrell can’t write. There’s plenty of excellent writing in the book – just, I’m not sure she nails it every time.

Right-o. So let’s dig in.

Quote 1, comments

You might find the [edge of the forest] a restless, verdant, inconstant sight: the wind caresses, ruffles, disturbs the mass of leaves; each tree answers to the weather’s ministrations at a slightly different tempo from its neighbour, bending and shuddering and tossing its branches as if trying to get away from the air, from the very soil that nourishes it.

If I were being mean about this snippet (and I am), I think I’d point out the following:

1. Verdant means covered with thick green foliage and it’s a word almost never used in ordinary speech. It’s what you might expect from a Victorian poetess. Any more recent usage tends to feel like it’s straining a bit too hard.
2. Restless and inconstant mean much the same thing. Certainly, it’s not clear that both are needed here. What is the additional word supposed to add?
3. On the topic of pointless repetition, caresses, ruffles and disturbs seems like repetition for the sake of it. 
4. When O’Farrell writes the mass of leaves, she could just as well have written the leaves. The word mass adds a kind of pretension without any useful addition to meaning.
5. The weather’s ministrations: the use of the word weather here seems like an awkward way of repeating the word wind. But she doesn’t really mean weather; she definitely means wind. So the sentence needed a bit of a rethink… 
6. And the word ministrations is rather like verdant: do you ever actually use the word if you’re not straining to sound posh? I’d suggest mostly not.
7. On the matter of a slightly different tempo from its neighbour – I actually liked this. Different trees do move in different ways, as do their leaves. So a poplar alternates rapidly between showing a darker upper leaf, and a more silvery underside. A beech behaves differently. An oak differently again. If O’Farrell had offered us some detail of observation along those lines, we might actually see something new in nature – taking stock of something we’d seen but never before noticed. As it is, the comment is blandly general and getting close to a statement of the obvious.
8. When we get to bending and shuddering and tossing its branches, then once again I think we mostly have repetition for the sake of it. I’m not even sure that trees do shudder. That implies a rapid repetitive movement which is not really how trees behave.
9. And trees moving in the wind suggests that they’re trying to escape from the air and the soil? Really? I mean, I love a tasty metaphor, but for me this just seems like a fail. A big, bold image that in the end just feels unconvincing.

Quotes 2 and 3, comments

I’m not going to comment on these passages at length, except that now we’ve noticed O’Farrell’s habit of repetition, it’s hard to un-notice it – and it doesn’t feel better on further acquaintance.

But do just take a note of this: ‘The words fly out of her mouth, like hornets’. These words are clearly not very like hornets, since they dart and crackle and maim none of which are things that hornets do. These words also twist and mangle the woman’s tongue and you’d have to be a very muscular (and peculiar) hornet to do that. The thing that hornets are best known for doing is stinging people, and there’s no mention of sting here. So: these words aren’t really like hornets at all, are they?

Presumably, O’Farrell knows that, so why does she write it?

Well, I think two things. First, there’s the literary attraction to the big, bold metaphor, and the attraction remains, even when the metaphor isn’t sound. And secondly, if you want to cut a dash with book critics, then some great tips are:

1. Write about Shakespeare or adapt a story of Shakespeare’s (Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres) , or adapt another classic tale (Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles), or  …
2. Make sure that, every now and then, you talk about words themselves, or sentences, or parts of speech, or vowels, etc. That way, you’re showing proper deference to the tools of the literary trade
3. Use fashionable phrases where you can. ‘Freighted with a cargo of X’ for example is an excellent way to say “possesses X” for pretty much every possible instance of X.
4. Use some fancy words (verdant, not green)
5. Toss in plenty of verbs, in lists.
6. Use semi-colons freely – or avoid them completely. Doesn’t matter which: you just need a clearly visible policy.
7. And so on! This list is definitely not exhaustive.

The opposite of Mr Koontz

The truth is you can write a terrific novel and still fall prey to some of the weaknesses of Literary Writing – no novel is perfect, after all.

But as with Mr Koontz, I think part of it has to do with wrapping and how you appeal to your target market. In the end, it’s the chocolate itself that matters. But clever packaging is a smart way to market yourself to your target audience.

It’s not just Dean Koontz that does that, it’s prize-winning Maggie O’Farrell too. And hell, it’s not just those two: it’s all of us. Nowt wrong with that. But we still need to make sure that the writing passes muster. The writing has to come first.

You’ve completed your manuscript and perhaps published it already as an e-book. Now it’s time to create your print edition, and you’ve got a few nagging questions: Can a writer typeset their own novel? What is the definition of typesetting? And how do you typeset a book, anyway? 

In this article, we’ll explain the basics of DIY typesetting, give you some tips to achieve a professional look, and advise you when DIY is (and isn’t) a good idea.  

Let’s get to it! 

What Is Typesetting?

Typesetting a book is the process of transforming a manuscript—an abstract stream of words with no physical form—into a layout, a digital file with a specific dimensions and page count that will be exactly reproduced by a print or print-on-demand service. 

Typesetting isn’t about converting file formats or adding aesthetic elements, though both of those things do happen. It’s primarily about readability—making careful design choices to ensure that your readers can enjoy your novel without eye strain, fatigue, distraction, or errors. 

Typesetting at a professional level takes years of experience, but thanks to technology (and this article), you can achieve “good enough” typesetting for your novel with a little care and thoughtfulness. 

The Difference Between Typesetting And Typography

You may have also heard the term “typography”. This refers to the broader craft and study of type – something graphic designers are much more interested in than self-published writers.  

Typography includes not only the aesthetics involved with setting type, but also the design of the font itself, pairing fonts of different families, the arrangement of the font on the page and how they interact with other design elements including images, margins and white space. 

As much as typography is fascinating and fun – for the purpose of typesetting your novel, all you need to focus on is getting your book looking as professional as possible! 

How Does Typesetting Work?

The days of arranging metal sorts in a frame for printing are long past. In the digital era, professional typesetting is done using specialized software like Adobe InDesign (or any of several less-known, less-expensive alternatives). 

Word processing software (such as Microsoft Word) has made basic typesetting available to everyone but lacks important professional-level features. Because of this, typesetting a complex layout in Word, such as a textbook or recipe book, would be asking for a serious headache—hire a professional for those books. 

However, when it comes to novels, which are composed almost entirely of body paragraphs, the DIY option is viable. 

How To Prepare Your Manuscript For Typesetting

You need a clean manuscript if you want to typeset your novel successfully. Use this checklist to get ready: 

• If you have change tracking on, accept all changes and turn off change tracking now. (If you want to preserve those tracked changes, save a separate copy of your manuscript.) 
• Resolve and delete all comments. 
• Delete excess whitespace—search your manuscript for tab characters (often represented as \t in search-and-replace), double newlines (\n\n), and three or more spaces. If any matches are found, replace them with the appropriate layout option, such as page breaks, tables, or paragraph styles. 
• Make sure all of your front matter and back matter is present and complete. 

Save your clean manuscript before moving on. If you’re typesetting in the same program you wrote in, create a second copy to be the typeset version. 

DIY Typesetting 101

You can use a word processor, specialised writing software, or professional layout software to typeset your novel. Regardless of which one you choose; the rules below apply just the same. 

If your software comes with templates, feel free to try them—they might save you time. But make sure you review the results carefully. Many templates, especially those bundled with word processors, omit or violate some of the best practices of typesetting. 

Ground Rules: Consistency And Simplicity

You want your reader focused on the story. To avoid distracting them, you want a layout that is consistent (does things the same way each time) and simple (doesn’t vary more than necessary). 

To help you be consistent, use the paragraph styles feature of your software. This feature lets you define a certain look and rules for a paragraph: which font it should use, how much space should come before and after, whether it should allow hyphens, and so on. Every element in your book should be formatted by applying a paragraph style—never by hand. 

As for simplicity, remember that the purpose of a change in appearance is to signal a change in meaning. Don’t vary the appearance of text any more than is necessary to accomplish this goal. One good rule of thumb is that you need only two fonts to typeset a novel: one for the body text, and one for the chapter headings. Everything else can be accomplished through italics, white space, and font size. 

How To Typeset Your Page

Make sure you know your trim size (page dimensions) and set them correctly in your software. 

Set your page margins before you begin and keep them consistent on every page. Make your bottom margin the same as the top, or a little larger. Make your inside margins larger than your outside margins—the binding process will “eat up” some of the page. If you’d like your body text to appear centred left-to-right, your inside margin may need to be as much as 0.5” larger than the outside margin. 

Novels are not reference books, so page numbering should not be prominent. Use an unobtrusive font like a light sans-serif or a smaller size of the body font. Two styles are common: centred at the bottom of each page or aligned to the outside at the top of each page. 

Running heads are optional and should be placed at the top of the page and centred. (Typically, the left page will show the book title and the right page the author’s name.) 

Be sure to leave sufficient space between your running heads, page numbers, and the body text. The reader should never accidentally find themselves reading the running head.

How To Typeset Paragraphs

Once your page layout is set, your next priority is getting your paragraph style right. Take a look at your favourite novels and note how they have been laid out. Here are a number of best practices you should use: 

• Use a serif font, not a sans-serif or novelty font. Avoid any font labelled “display”. (These are designed for use at large sizes and will not read clearly as body text.) 
• Use a font size of 10-12 points. 
• Confirm that your lines are 45-90 characters wide. You can test this by typing the alphabet repeatedly until you fill up a line—anything between two and three alphabets per line is okay. If your line length is too long, increase the font size, or if you’re already at 12-point, increase your left and right margins. If your line length is too short, take the opposite steps. 
• Paragraphs should be justified, not left-aligned. Don’t turn off hyphenation. 
• The first sentence of each paragraph should be indented by the width of a few letters. Make the indent large enough that your eye naturally jumps to the start of each new paragraph, and not much larger than that. 
• However, don’t indent the first paragraph in a chapter, the first paragraph after a scene break, and the first paragraph after any “block” element (such as a quoted letter or poem). To deal with these exceptions, you can set up a separate paragraph style. (Or, if your software supports it, use a conditional rule.) 
• Don’t add any extra space before or after paragraphs. Every line on the page should be the same distance apart. 
• Leading (called “line spacing” in word processors) is essential to readability. The common default of “single spacing”, which is often 115%, is too tight. “Double spacing” is much too loose. Set a value of around 130% but be aware that some word processors don’t display these values correctly. As a point of reference, you can compare your layout against a hardcover novel, which will usually have comfortable leading. 

This might seem like a lot of typesetting rules just for a humble paragraph. But when you consider that 99% of your reader’s time is spent reading paragraphs, it’s easy to see why getting them right is important. 

How To Typeset Scene Changes

Here there are two options: insert a blank line (and remember to not indent the following paragraph) or insert a small symbol or decorative design. 

How To Typeset Chapter Headings

Chapter headings should stand out from body paragraphs. There are many ways to achieve this, all of which are equally valid. 

The most elaborate chapter headings will begin a new page, take up as much as half the height, include some graphic design elements, and set the chapter number and/or title in a large font that may be ornate or stylised. 

The most minimal chapter headings consist of nothing more than some vertical separation from the previous paragraph, with the heading itself in a bold or larger font. 

If your book includes scene breaks, chapter headings should be more prominent than scene breaks. 

How To Typeset Front Matter (Prelims)

Here your job is easy: copy another book. Front matter varies from book to book, so look through a few and pick one that contains the same elements as yours. 

Copyright pages typically use a small font; dedications are centered on their own page, about a third of the way down; half-titles are usually understated and always less elaborate than the title page. 

Your title page is special and deserves some extra attention. Again, you’ll do well to look at other books. One common approach is to use the same lettering as your front cover, but with any background scene removed. However, other books use an entirely different design for the title page. 

How To Typeset Back Matter

Your goal here is simply to let the reader know the main story is over. Some simple options to try: eliminate running heads and/or page numbers in the back matter, use a smaller body font size, or use a different body font. As with the front matter, you can look at other books for inspiration. 

Advanced Wrangling

Following the typesetting rules above will give you a “semi-professional” result. If you want to take things a step further (you masochist!), you’ll need to do some advanced wrangling. 

This work can get finnicky very quickly, so save a copy of your layout before you proceed. 

Starting at the front of your book, go page-by-page, finding and resolving any of the following problems: 

• Word stacks: the same word appearing multiple times directly above/below itself. 
• Widows and orphans: the first or last line of a paragraph appearing on a page by itself. 
• Hyphens at the end of a page or the last line of a paragraph. 
• Short words alone on the last line of a paragraph. 
• Rivers: spaces between words that appear roughly above one another on several consecutive lines, forming a meandering white space. 
• Scene breaks that appear as the very first or last thing on a page. 

These are smaller distractions, but still noticeable to your reader. All of them are related to where words fall within a paragraph or on a page, and all of them are solved by adjusting the position of words, using tricks such as: 

• Making a small edit (you’re the author, so you’re allowed) 
• Joining or splitting paragraphs 
• Adjusting the font width of a paragraph, but never more than a couple of percentage points 
• Adjusting the line spacing of a spread (two facing pages)—again, never more than a few percentage points 

If you choose to dive into advanced wrangling, always do this step last, and always work strictly front-to-back, because any change to your layout will disturb some or all of the pages that follow it. 

Don’t force yourself to address every problem if it’s beyond your skill level, available time, or patience. Every correction is an improvement, so if you attempt this step at all, give yourself a pat on your back for your dedication to your readers. And if you want some help with your mansucript, try our copy-editing service.

Conclusion

We hope this guide has helped you gain a better understanding of how to typeset your novel. After all, it would be a shame to write a fantastic story and make it hard to read. So take your time, follow each step by step suggestion, and remember Jericho Writers is with you every word of the way!

Hi everyone!

Today I'm introducing you to the lovely Crystal from Context Literary.

Crystal is a Junior Literary Agent, and she hopes to represent and uplift authors whose stories allow readers to feel seen and heard in new and exciting ways. She is looking for middle-grade, YA, and adult fiction, particularly in the areas of contemporary fiction, romance, and sci-fi.

Crystal also kindly took some time to provide us with an incredible, in-depth interview.

Read below for some highlights—including what Crystal is looking for, her advice for writing query letters, and more. Or head over to AgentMatch for the full interview here.

"What moves me above all else is simple, open, and honest writing true to an author's wild imagination or lived experience.... Perspectives that make me question the way that I or others move in the world as well as my assumptions or opinions of societies and systems are great."

Hi Crystal! Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We can't wait to learn more about your wishlist and the genres you're interested in.

Q. What's at the top of your fiction wish-list? What authors do you love? What kind of books?

I represent MG, YA, adult fiction, and select non-fiction. In terms of genre, I am interested in contemporary, romance, sci-fi, and low fantasy. I am especially partial to narratives that explore the complexities of interpersonal relationships and writing that centres the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC), LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent persons, and that brings joy and emphasises subverting the status-quo (but isn't solely issue-driven).

What moves me above all else is simple, open, and honest writing true to an author's wild imagination or lived experience. I love anything that brings equal measures of humour, introspection, or feelings of second-hand embarrassment (key for YA and adult romances), which includes both sweet meandering stories as well as darker, more fraught narratives. Perspectives that make me question the way that I or others move in the world as well as my assumptions or opinions of societies and systems are great.

Across the board, I would like more stories that explore culture, identity, and mental health all intertwined within a coming-of-age narrative, especially from a first- or second-generation immigrant perspective.

I'd love to see more adult characters questioning life and finding their footing like in Raven Leilani's Luster, Diksha Basu's The Windfall, or If You See Me, Don't Say Hi (my favourite short story collection; Neel Patel is amazing!).

In MG and Adult areas, I'd love a narrative showing the sinister side of something always considered childish, normal, or sweet, in the same vein of Joshua Gaylord's When We Were Animals, or Peter Pan's amazingly horrid character in Christina Henry's Lost Boy (although it doesn't need to be a retelling of an already existing fairytale). Something like Coraline or in the vein of Spirited Away where the main character is grappling with issues of becoming more independent or dealing with less-than-ideal familial relationships with a darker or fantastical twist as well.

Q. What do you love when it comes to non-fiction? What topics fire you up? Which genres leave you cold?

I have yet to venture into non-fiction, but I always think about how there are tons of books out there about how, when, where, and why to invest and I personally would love a WHY of the stock market, for example, because I feel like that's never been done, no one really questions its existence or what it was originally supposed to function as. I often feel like the stock market is essentially a tool for the rich to build and sustain generational wealth while giving the general public a false sense of being able to achieve the same if they just buckle down and INVEST INVEST INVEST in a diversified portfolio of stocks, crypto, or whatever is trending on investing Reddit forums and tech bro Twitter. But maybe that isn't the case? Maybe I ultimately have a net negative understanding of the stock market? I wouldn't know, but I'd love to read something that tackles that issue, especially if it is discussed through a historical and heavily intersectional lens.

Q. What do you want to see in a query letter? And what do you hate?

I like query letters that get to the point and don't veer into synopsis territory. Give me just enough of your story to be intrigued and leave me wanting to read more!

I hate it when the text isn't a standard size (so either too small, too large, or a mixture of the two) entirely bolded, has no spaces in between paragraphs, or there are multiple fonts utilized in the body of the query letter—all of these things make it hard for me to read! These are all formatting issues that are obvious before I even get into the content of the letter, so I suggest that writers email the query to themselves and look at it before they send it to me or any other agent.

Q. What are you looking for in the opening pages of a novel? What really excites you?

I love an opening that hooks me right away, either because the improbable is happening or it is something absolutely mundane but looked at from a weird angle. Openings where you immediately receive an idea of a character's personality excite me too. I loved how in Balli Kaur Jaswal's The Unlikely Adventures Of The Shergill Sisters, the mother's no-nonsense personality jumps off the page from the very beginning as she writes a final letter to her daughters.

Thank you again, Crystal!

If you're in need of some support and advice in regards to your query letter and synopsis, please do check out our resources on our website here; we have lots of information to help guide you on your way. Or, if you're a member with us, our lovely Writers Support team will be happy to offer you a free query letter review! Login to access the service here.

Rosalind Tate, author of The Shorten Chronicles, is no stranger to the complicated world of self-publishing. She believes the seismic changes in publishing amount to a revolution — one that can only help independently published authors.

In this interview, Rosalind tells us why she turned to the world of self-pub for more control and agency. She offers some practical insight into picking up the many skills required - the road can be daunting, but well worth the rewards.

JW: What made you decide to self-publish your book? 

RT: At the Jericho Writers Festival of Writing in September 2018, I stumbled into a self-publishing workshop and assumed it was about vanity publishing: an author paying a publisher to publish their book. But I quickly realised this wasn’t about vanity. This was a revolution! 

I’m not usually a fan of revolutions — they tend to be bloody, and don’t end well — but this one has freed authors to publish what they want, when they want, and enabled many independent authors (“indies”) to make a full-time living. 

I learned facts in that workshop that made my jaw drop. I can’t remember the figures from 2018, so here are the most recent: 

• A traditionally published author receives around 10% of royalties on print books. That’s what’s left after the agent and publisher have taken their cut. 

• Indie authors publishing an eBook on Amazon (indies earn most of their income from eBooks) receive 60- 70%. 

But, like all stats, it’s not quite that simple, and money wasn’t as important a factor as control. Control of my brand, of my intellectual property, of my business. And my business is to help as many readers as possible fall in love with the Shorten Chronicles! 

I quickly realised this wasn’t about vanity. This was a revolution!

However, there are downsides to going indie. 

• To persuade Amazon’s bots to beaver away and market your book, and to have any visibility (and sales), you need to pay to advertise. You might not recoup your business set-up costs until you publish your second or third book. 

• An indie author has to want to learn all aspects of this business. It took me 18 months to learn the basics, and though the curve levelled out after that, I’m still learning. Fortunately, before you publish, you can easily research every step through Jericho Writers and other reputable sites. 

So, who are the authors who might prefer to take the traditionally published route? 

• Authors who aren’t aware that publishing has changed beyond recognition in the last decade (and it’s unlikely a prospective agent and/or publisher will enlighten them). 

• Literary fiction authors. This type of novel can be hard to sell on Amazon and other online platforms – eBook readers prefer easier genres: steamy or sweet romance, science fiction, crime etc. 

• Authors who can’t/don’t wish to spend time learning non-writing skills. 

• Someone who isn’t interested in writing as a career. I have a friend who wrote an exposé on her ex-employer. She had no desire to ever write another book, so it was simpler and less time-consuming to pay a reputable small publisher. 

Money wasn’t as important a factor as control. Control of my brand, of my intellectual property, of my business.

JW: Self-publishing involves a huge range of skills – how did you set about learning them? 

RT: Jericho Writers was a crucial resource. Here, I found my forever editor, binge-watched marketing videos, and took the self-editing course, which I can’t recommend highly enough. 

In 2020, I completed Mark Dawson’s comprehensive 101 course, and I also followed wise indies like David Gaughran, Joanna Penn and Dave Chesson, watched their free videos online and subscribed to their free newsletters. 

I am not a technical person, but luckily there are sites out there that make what used to be challenging tasks easy. For example: 

• Formatting eBooks and print books (https://vellum.pub) 

• Keeping a record of daily earnings and expenses (https://readerlinks.com) 

• Emailing hundreds or thousands of readers (https://www.mailerlite.com) 

• Putting a professional blurb onto your book page (https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-book-description-generator ) and a host of other useful tips (https://kindlepreneur.com) 

JW: What’s your favourite thing about self-publishing?

RT: Other indie authors! They’re a really supportive community. For example, a highly successful author helped me improve my first blurb. Just because she could. 

But my most favourite thing is direct contact with my readers. Just after I published, a reader emailed to thank me, saying how my novel had made her forget the pandemic during her time off (she’s a doctor). I was speechless. 

JW: What has it been like committing to writing a series as a self-published author? Is the experience different to what you might expect with a traditional publishing deal? 

RT: I don’t have to produce each book to a rigid external deadline, but my boss is a crazy workaholic (that’s me, of course) and she wants to publish a book a year, each better than the last...

But seriously, if I miss a self-imposed deadline, that’s okay. Of course, I can’t not finish the series and I do feel that pressure. I’ve promised my readers! 

When you publish, be kind to yourself.

JW: Do you have any advice for writers considering the self-publishing route?

RT: If you’re itching to publish and see what happens... DON’T, until you’ve completed the three crucial tasks below. 

1. A competent novel with minimum typos. If you’re on a budget, wait until you can afford to pay a professional editor. You want your book to be as good as it can be. Confession: I had an embarrassing number of structural edits for my first novel, and two copyedits for the first one and the second. 

2. Mailing list. Once you’ve finished your book (yay!), write a short story or novella, preferably adding to and in the same world/characters as your novel. You’re going to give that much shorter story away to entice readers onto your mailing list. 

But why? 

Because your mailing list is yours, not controlled by Amazon or Facebook or any third party. The discerning readers who’ve entrusted you with their email are key to your whole writing career. You can check out how I encourage readers to sign up with my free story on my website.

3. Cover. Research what kind of story your book is: sweet romance, police procedural, space opera etc. Look at the top twenty books in your lowest sub-genre on Amazon. For example: 

Kindle Store » Kindle eBooks » Teen & Young Adult eBooks » Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy eBooks » Teen & Young Adult Fantasy eBooks » Teen & Young Adult Historical Fantasy eBooks 

Your cover should ‘fit in’ with books of the same sub-genre. Then, if you can, pay a professional to design the cover. 

When you publish, be kind to yourself. It takes time to garner reviews, build up a mailing list, write more novels, and earn enough to give up the day job. 

And on the way, enjoy the journey to publication. 

If you'd like some help with your writing, try our copy-editing service.

Good luck! 

About Rosalind

Rosalind Tate lives in Gloucestershire, England, and holidays on the Cornish coast. She served in the British military, then worked as a journalist and a lawyer. She has grown up children, a tolerant husband and two utterly gorgeous dogs.

Visit Rosalind's website.

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