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Last week, we talked about query letters and I asked you to pop your draft letters up on Townhouse for feedback.

That’s always an illuminating exercise, and on the whole, what I saw was pretty convincing.

But one topic I did want to address was this: your query letter absolutely wants to deliver your core elevator pitch... but you probably don’t want to state your elevator pitch in the letter.

Now yes, that’s sounds puzzling – and I’ll explain – but I should also say that it’s easy to overthink these things. For one thing, personal tastes differ. Some agents will relish what I or other agents would not advise.

More important, though, a query letter itself isn’t terribly important. You need to talk about your book in a way that interests the agent – but the default for an agent is to read the first page or two of your work. It’s way better to have a drab query letter and some excellent opening chapters, than to have a dazzling query letter and drab text. The latter manuscript will never be picked up. The first one almost certainly will be.

So, please don’t get stressed. If you want more help with the query letter, last week's Lesson Three of How to Get a Literary Agent course will tell you EVERYTHING that you need to know. (If you're a Premium Member, log in to access this course for free. Otherwise you can purchase the course for just £99).

OK. So. Elevator pitch and query letter.

As you know, I love a very tight elevator pitch:

“A Cardiff-set crime novel, featuring a detective who used to think she was dead.”

That’s 14 words and I wasn’t even really trying to go as short as possible.

I don’t even mind elevator pitches that just collapse into a list of ingredients. For example, here are some that just list ingredients but still have a relish to them. (The first pitch describes my Fiona series, of course; the other two are just invented.)

“Murder mystery + detective who used to believe she was dead.”

“Antarctic research station + troubled oceanographer + ghosts”

“YA story: Victorian circus + orphan boy + murder story”

But an elevator pitch is, first and foremost, for you. It’s so you can define and understand the purpose of your novel. It’s so you can keep the text on the iron tracks that will deliver commercial (and actually artistic) quality.

From that point of view, the scantier your pitch, the more clearly you yourself understand what you’re dealing with. But a query letter has to dress like a query letter. You can’t just toss out a dozen words, like ham knuckles on a plate, and expect to whet an agent’s appetite.

So you need to introduce your book in a paragraph or two, and those paragraphs need to have nice tidy prose, and they need to ensure that they’re delivering information on genre, and setting, and anything else that an agent might want to know before she tucks into the manuscript.

And the elevator pitch needs to shimmer behind all that – the gold behind the veil.

So to take that (invented) book about the Victorian circus, my query letter might say.

“Oscar is an orphan. He never knew his father and his mother (a lady’s maid) died when he was eight. For two years, he lived a harsh and semi-feral life on the streets of London, until a kindly trapeze artist at one of London’s largest circuses took him in. His life at the circus is comparatively idyllic until one day, when tasked with clearing out the animal cages, he finds evidence that the lions have recently dined on a human – and, quite possibly, Lady Pamela Dulverton, whose recent disappearance is the talk of the town.

Drawn into the resultant investigation, Oscar is forced to grow up fast – and finally learns family secrets that will change his life forever.”

Now, you can absolutely feel the elevator pitch there: Orphan. Victorian circus. Murder. Boom! That’s a book we want to read. The rest of it (the trapeze artist, the lion’s cages, the status of the murder victim) are all just dressing on top of that basic skeleton. If the murder victim had been trampled by an elephant or tossed from a trapeze or skewered by a strongman, it wouldn’t really affect the story. It would be equally unimportant who took Oscar in. The elevator pitch, however, you can’t alter at all without fundamentally changing the story itself.

Oh yes: and the ‘family secrets that change his life forever’ – that’s also not really part of the pitch. Of course, a YA story has to deliver some major form of life-changing outcome, but it doesn’t have to be a family secret. If an orphan came into money or some form of real job security or decided to set up shop as a freelance investigator, any of those things would also complete the story in the necessary way. The pitch is iron and can’t change (unless you decided to write a different story altogether.)

So, the elevator pitch is all present and correct. The agent will feel its presence.

At the same time, you can feel that the extra dressing just helps the pitch appear at its best. It’s as though your query letter is saying, “Look, our pitch is basically orphan + Victorian circus + murder mystery. You gotta love that, right? But if you want help understanding how those ingredients cohere into an actual story, then let me tell you about Oscar, who …”

So, yes, your elevator pitch needs to light up your query letter – it needs to be felt.

But no, the pitch alone is insufficient.

So do what most of the Feedback Friday people did last wee. Write a fluent paragraph or two. Make sure the elevator pitch is there behind the curtain. And write a paragraph that engages the reader.

It’s that simple.

And don’t stress. If you can write a book that’s good enough to be published, you can definitely write a query letter. (And download the query letter and synopsis builder. It’s good.)

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FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Since we’re doing agent-y things at the moment, we may as well do synopses too.

If you haven’t already posted your query letter for feedback, then I suggest you do that this week here. If you posted your query letter last week, then let’s take a look at your synopsis instead.

I will say that reading back-to-back synopses is a task about as interesting as eating a plateful of brick dust, so I won’t get stuck in too deeply. What I will do, though, is take at least one synopsis from this week's assignment of Lesson Four of How to Get a Literary Agent and give in-depth comments in the forum for that course (and I’ll make my post sticky, so it’s easy to find.)  

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That’s it from me. Brick dust is yuk, because it lodges between the teeth. A bowlful of gravel though, with fresh milk, and a little grated dandelion? Yum.

Til soon.

Harry

PS: Premium Members have been enjoying our How To Get a Literary Agent course – lessons are released weekly and we’re now on week four, all about how to writing a winning synopsis. The course is free to Premium Members – or you can buy this course as a one-off for £99. But don’t be a silly billy. It makes no sense to buy a one-off course, when you can get an entire suite of courses (and everything else in membership) for just £150 a year (or, for cancel-any-time flex membership, just £30/month.) Membership info here.

Last week, we dealt with hyper-intelligent beings in the form of robots. This week, we turn to… literary agents.

The gist of this email is short and easy.

Agents are there to sell services to you. Over the years, if your career does well, you’ll certainly hope to spend thousands (of pounds or dollars) on those agents. With a little luck, you’ll be spending tens of thousands. If your career really flourishes, you could easily be spending six digits on all that agenting.

Don’t get me wrong, that money is bloody well spent. I’m hardly ill-connected in the world of agents and publishers, and I have in fact sold books for Jericho Writers clients in the past. (Under exceptional circumstances only, and no, I won’t do it for you.) But an agent lives in that market, day in and day out, and there’s no question that they do a better job than I would.

As you know, I’m a big fan of self-publishing and if you want to go that route, you stand an excellent chance of making more money than you would by going trad. But if you do want a traditional publisher, then the 10-15% commission you spend on your agent will be rewarded many times over by the uplift in revenues you’ll collect. I’ve never thought that agents are overpaid.

But – 

You pay these people. They work for you.

And OK, this is a two-way deal. They don’t offer representation unless they think the deal will work out for them. So yes, you have to pass a kind of audition. But in a way that’s even true of plumbers. If they don’t fancy your bathroom renovation job, they either won’t do it, or they’ll quote a sum that induces you to say no.

Forget about the audition stage. It’s irrelevant. These people work for you and, if things work out, they will make a lot of money from you.

So treat them like plumbers, not gods.

If an agent stops responding to perfectly legitimate emails, then they’re behaving childishly and unprofessionally. Move on.

If an agent asks for editorial changes that you’re sure are wrong, say no.

If an agent’s submission process is unnecessarily fiddly or non-standard, then either ignore their requests or choose a different agent.

If an agent’s contract has some pissy little clause that you don’t like or seems unfair, then say so. Negotiate.

Most standard advice tells you to approach an agent with a kind of genuflection in your query letter. (“There are 1400+ literary agents in the world, but I’m writing to YOU because you bedazzle me in the following way …”) And, for me, that’s horse-poo. The things that people say in those letters almost always come over as inauthentic. In most cases, you know pretty much damn all about an agent, and you’re writing to them because you don’t totally hate their face, the agency seems OK, and you’ve got to bang out a dozen query letters anyway. If I were back in agent-querying world, I wouldn’t do that little genuflection. I’d just say, “here’s my book. If you want to represent me, let’s talk.” I mean, I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that, but I wouldn’t curtsy.

Also – send out multiple query letters. Agents used to promote a kind of sequential process: first one agent, then another, then another. That process served their interests very well and yours not at all. You wouldn’t do that with plumbers. Don’t do it with agents.

Ask for information. You should expect to know which editor at which publishing house has received your work. You should expect a submission strategy to be worked out with you in advance. Don’t ask for those things timidly. Expect them. Require them. A plumber needs to check with you before selecting bathware. An agent needs to check with you before selecting editors.

And that’s the message. They’re not gods. They’re plumbers. Expect good behaviour, and you’ll (probably) get it. All being well, you’ll have an excellent professional relationship that lasts for years. You’re paying the money, so you’re within your rights to have expectations.

Ask for what you want.

Be polite and professional.

And don’t curtsy.

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FEEDBACK FRIDAY

Biff boff. Your task this week is to show me your query letter.

Despite what I say above, I’m perfectly happy if you do insert the “I’ve chosen you because….” language. I’m just saying that I don’t think it’s obligatory.

If you’re not at the querying stage, then do the exercise anyway. It’s always helpful to think about your book from an agent’s perspective. When you're ready, share yours here.

That’s it from me.

Til soon,

Harry

Rory Marsden is the self-published author of six books – the first in his series of historical fantasies, Tales of Castle Rory. We caught up with him to ask how he got started with self-publishing, and what he’s learned about the process.

Jericho Writers: Hi Rory, thanks so much for taking part in this Q&A with us! We know lots of people in our community are intrigued by the idea of self-publishing – but many don’t feel confident about trying it. How did you get started?

Rory Marsden: I learnt what to do by taking the amazing Simply Self-Publish course. My tutor was Debbie Young, and the course was invaluable – and not only because of the information it provided and the feedback I received on my assignments. Just as important were Debbie’s gentle encouragement, and her willingness to answer all questions. It was Debbie and her course that gave me the confidence to tackle the whole business, after which I found it isn’t as hard as you think. The course got me started, and now I’m on my own unique journey.

JW: We know lots of people worry that self-publishing means doing absolutely everything yourself. Was that the case for you?

RM: No! First, my books have all been professionally proofread, and they all have professional cover designs. These are important investments; expensive but worth it. For Books one and two, I also paid for professionally formatted interiors, but after that I bought Vellum, a brilliant piece of software, and I’ve formatted all the other books myself. I feel very confident with this now – but of course, it might not be for everyone.

This logic applied to the whole process of self-publishing: at all stages you can choose how much to do yourself and how much to farm out to professionals. The more you do yourself, the less you have to pay, and you really do learn as you go along. If you’re nervous, you can pay other people, and you’ll still retain all your rights.

JW: Are there any things you’d never consider doing yourself?

RM: For me, it’s cover design. A DIY approach for this is a false economy and will come back to bite you. Amateur covers are too obviously just that, though of course if you have graphic design experience you might get away with it! Professional editing or proof-reading is equally essential.

JW: So - once you had your book ready, what was your next step?

RM: I opted to publish through KDP Select, meaning the ebook couldn’t be sold anywhere but on Amazon. However, the paperback can be sold anywhere at all, so I used Draft2Digital, an aggregator that handles making your paperback available from different online retailers.

Being in KDP Select means your books are available to anyone who has signed up for Kindle Unlimited. They can “borrow” your book and read it on their device, and you get royalties for every page they read. I’ve found this works well for my books.

You can get a KDP account set up way in advance of publishing, and then it will be there, ready for you, when you’re poised to publish. I’d advise doing this as soon as you’ve made the decision to self-publish – it’s one less thing to think about further down the line.

JW: What can you tell us about the nitty-gritty of self-publishing – the finer details you’ve had to get to grips with?

RM: I’ve learned an awful lot about how Amazon works! The platform needs to know what it’s selling and who’s likely to buy it. It asks you to select the categories your book fits into, and the keywords customers might put into a search tool when they are looking for books to read. You need to choose these with care, and there’s a limit to how many you can put in. There’s a short cut to researching dozens of similar books, though, and that’s to buy an app called Publisher Rocket. You have to pay for it, so more money going out before anything comes in, but it really does solve the Category and Keyword issue very quickly.

JW: You seem to have picked up a lot of knowledge since starting your self-publishing journey. Have some lessons been harder to learn than others?

RM: Yes! Getting your book up online and available to purchase is only the start, as I have discovered. You see, nobody knows about your book. So, nobody buys it! Amazon gives you thirty days to do something about this. In those thirty days, the Amazon algorithms are working in your favour, pushing your book at anyone who might (in the algorithms’ opinion) be interested. The algorithms work from the categories you’ve selected, and this is why it’s so important to get them right.

After thirty days, if your book isn’t selling, Amazon doesn’t care anymore, and the book is no longer pushed. It’s still available, just not very visible. That’s what happened to me. I had to look into marketing, something I’d never done before.

JW: What happened next?

RM: I was told, by various experts, that most self-published authors are not interested in marketing. They shy away from it, wanting to spend their time writing their books instead. However, self-publishing means understanding that your book is a product. It needs to be marketed efficiently and effectively. You, the author, need to be marketed too. You need a brand, an identity people can connect with, and a story that will resonate. Not the story in your shiny new novel, but the story of you.

I needed help with this and paid for time with a marketing advisor – but if you’ve worked in this sort of field before, you can probably save a lot of money!

JW: In your view, what are the main advantages of self-publishing?

RM: As an independent author, you retain all rights and all control over your manuscript and everything that happens to it. Traditional publishers often offer contracts in which you relinquish rights such as translation into other languages, new editions, new formats, which books might come next in a series, cover design and much else. With self-publishing/independent publishing, it’s all in your control. So, you do all the hard work – but you also get to say what happens, and your royalties per book sale are much greater.

JW: What do you think is the most important self-publishing advice you could share with our community?

RM: Probably that the publishing part of self-publishing – uploading your files to Amazon, for example – is the easy bit! Everything that comes with it is fun, but you need to enjoy the challenges of marketing, branding, selling and so on. I made some bad decisions early on. For example, before I hired my marketing advisor, I spent money on Amazon ads without knowing what I was doing. Most of my other decisions were good ones, thankfully.

You will need to invest in self-publishing – and that’s how to think about it. I considered joining the Simply Self-Publish course the first step on that road, and I’m really glad I took it. I wish anyone else thinking of taking the plunge the very best of luck!

About Rory Marsden

Rory Marsden is the author of a series of Medieval fantasy adventures, the Tales of Castle Rory. You can visit his website at: talesofcastlerory.co.uk and buy his books here.

As a writer of romantic novels, one of my top priorities is making sure sparks fly between my protagonists. My readers expect sizzling chemistry that slow-burns into a satisfying happy ever after – but readers of all genres want to meet people whose relationships they can invest in.  

Whatever genre you’re writing in, creating chemistry between your characters is crucial. Whether you’re working on a dystopian horror novel, a sweeping fantasy trilogy or a gritty crime thriller, it should be as high up your authorial to-do list as mine.  

So, what is chemistry?  

This is a good question. Often, chemistry is one of those ‘you know it when you see it’ things.  

Consider Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, or Harry, Ron and Hermione. Think of the push and pull between the very different Dashwood sisters in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, or the relentless bickering of the many Bridgerton siblings.  

To me, chemistry is the force that animates fictional relationships, taking them from flat to 3D. It’s what makes them feel real and believable, but also what makes them entertaining.  

Establishing effective chemistry really means creating connection between your characters. Often, this link involves recognition and / or resistance. Perhaps the characters see things in one another that they love or hate – or maybe they perceive pieces of themselves in the other person. This might be joyous or deeply disturbing.  

In any case, the most important thing to remember is that chemistry is founded on feelings. It requires characters to provoke strong reactions in one another, whether positive or negative. 

Tried and tested methods for creating chemistry 

1. Equal or opposite responses to events. Whatever type of relationship you’re building between characters, putting them in a tricky situation can pay dividends. Will their problem pull them together? Will it expose the differences between them? If so, good – because conflict is excellent fuel for chemistry.  

On the other hand, perhaps getting out of their pickle will force your characters into a rapprochement that brings them closer. It could help them recognise qualities in one another that they hadn’t known were there.  

Throw your characters into the deep end to test a long-standing relationship or show the formation of a new one. Whether they sink, swim or struggle awkwardly to the side of the pool will help your reader understand who these people are – but also who they are to one another.   

2. Physical touch. In romance novels, physical touch is key to creating chemistry. However, the same logic applies to any genre of novel where there’s a romantic sub-plot. Robert Galbraith’s Strike series is an obvious example.  

Touch doesn’t have to be overtly sexual or gratuitous – it can be a fleeting brush of fingertips or a comforting hug that lasts just a moment too long. The point is for it to evoke emotions that go beyond platonic boundaries.  

Between friends, touch can be grounding: a signal that your character isn’t alone in facing whatever challenge is before them. Touch can also denote a shift in a relationship, from friendship to more or from casual to committed. Never underestimate the significance of one character taking another by the hand.  

3. Little (and large) intimacies. Think in-jokes, nicknames or one character knowing another’s coffee order by heart. All signal connections that can be romantic but don’t have to be.  

In my current work-in-progress, the first thing my protagonist’s best friend – a chef – says to her in chapter one is: ‘Hungry? I’ve saved you a plate with all the good stuff.’ It’s easy, effective shorthand for: ‘I know you and I care about you.’ 

Elsewhere, the delivery of tough love – or the prodding of old wounds – can signal and strengthen characters’ chemistry. When one person knows about another’s painful past or calls them out on their BS, the bond between them becomes clear and feels real. 

Well, golly gosh, I thought last week’s Feedback Friday was interesting - and brave for the good souls who took part.

We asked people to post an excerpt from their manuscript – plus the same scene, as delivered by an AI tool. (You can see the full results here, and I do urge you to take a look. If the link gives you a “whoops” message, that’s because you’re not a member, or not logged in. So either log in, or join us completely free. You get load of good stuff if you do.)

Just for fun, here’s part of the scene that I posted. Fiona (a police officer, but working undercover) is meeting a senior member of a criminal gang she is seeking to penetrate. They meet in a wine bar:

My version of the scene

Vic emerges from behind a raw oak pillar. My face must change somehow, because the waiter swings round, sees Vic. Some look is exchanged, and the waiter waves me over to where Vic has a table waiting.

‘You made it,’ he says.

He clucks around me, a fussy uncle. He wants me to remove my coat, but I keep it on. Take off my hat, but keep it close.

He wants me to choose a drink. Pushes a long wine list at me, tells me to order anything. I ask for water. He tells me again to order anything, meaning that water doesn’t count, so I say orange juice, a small one.

He orders another glass of red wine for him, a bowl of olives, toasted ciabatta slices and olive oil, a selection of antipasti, and my orange juice.

I sit there with my bag on my lap. The bag is wired for sound. So is my coat.

‘Filthy day, isn’t it? I don’t mind it cold, but this is vile.’

I don’t say anything. Maybe shrug. Look sideways.

‘Listen, love, you’re frightened, aren’t you? And that’s my fault. I think I frightened you yesterday. Let’s just get to know each other a bit maybe.’

AI version of scene

The soft clink of wine glasses blended with murmured conversations around me. I’d chosen my outfit carefully – a worn blazer and faded jeans that screamed low-wage worker, a direct contrast to the polished mahogany and crystal elegance of the wine bar. Vic sat across from me, his pinstripe suit a silent declaration of power.

“You’ve got a reputation for being… resourceful,” he said, swirling a glass of Cabernet. His steel-gray eyes never left my face, measuring and calculating. I could feel the weight of his assessment.

I kept my posture slightly hunched, the defeated stance of someone desperate for work. “I go where I’m needed,” I replied, my voice low and neutral. “Cleaning’s not glamorous, but it pays the bills.”

A thin smile crossed his lips – predatory, knowing.

Comments on this

For me, the AI scene is desperately crude. Conversations (inevitably) are murmured. Wine glasses (inevitably) clink softly. The bar is (for sure) polished mahogany, even though that wood feels like a somewhat Victorian choice; it certainly isn’t high style today. And of course the eyes are steel-grey and calculating.

The trouble here is that there’s no sub-text. The reader isn’t being asked to do any work at all. “Hmm, I wonder how we should think about Vic Henderson? Well, he’s predatory and calculating so he’s probably Bad News, right?”

That’s so crude.

My version of the same man is almost the opposite. He clucks around Fiona like a fussy uncle. He nudges her into ordering something. And he accepts blame for her feelings: ‘Listen, love, you’re frightened, aren’t you? And that’s my fault. I think I frightened you yesterday. Let’s just get to know each other a bit maybe.’

But the reader knows this isn’t the whole Henderson. Not only do we know for a fact that he’s the face of a criminal enterprise, but we see him rejecting her request for water. There’s compulsion here and it’s the compulsion that we feel.

Some of the comments on this pair of scenes was:

• “the AI writing here isn’t good. I don’t think it has the capacity to be indirect. It overexplains with tired language. And it has that generic voice.”
• “There is always a lot of telling description that gives AI away. ‘Low and neutral’ ‘ thin smile’ ‘predatory’ ‘hands trembled’. The revised version has a lot of flowery descriptions. However, with your excerpt, we are picking up things as readers and not being told what to think.”

I think those comments are just right.

And just to finish, here’s a chunk (edited for length) from Sally Roone’s Intermezzo. The monologue comes from Ivan, a gifted chess player. He’s watching an arts centre get set up for a 10 vs 1 chess tournament, where Ivan is the 1. He then meets Margaret, the attractive arts centre organiser.

Sally Rooney / Intermezzo

Standing on his own in the corner, Ivan thinks with no especially intense focus about the most efficient way of organising, say, a random distribution of tables and chairs into the aforementioned arrangement of a central U-shape, etc. It’s something he has thought about before, while standing in other corners, watching other people move similar furniture around similar indoor spaces: the different approaches you could use, say if you were writing a computer programme to maximise process efficiency. The accuracy of these particular men in relation to the moves recommended by such a program would be, Ivan thinks, pretty low, like actually very low…

A woman enters. She happens to be noticeably attractive, which makes her presence in the room at this juncture all the more curious. She has a nice figure and her face in profile looks very pretty … She works here, the woman named Margaret, here at the art centre: that explains her sort of artistic appearance. She's wearing a white blouse, and a voluminous patterned skirt in different colours, and neat flat shoes of the kind ballerinas wear. He begins to experience, while she stands there in front of him, an involuntary mental image of kissing her on the mouth: not even really an image, but an idea of an image, sort of a realisation that it would be possible to visualise this at some later point, what it would be like to kiss her, a promise of enjoyment simply to picture himself doing that, which is harmless enough, just a private thought.

Do you play chess? he asks.

Nowhere does this say, “Ivan is a chess geek.” Nowhere does this say, “Ivan is certain to be awkward around women.” Nowhere does this say, “Ivan will not come across as sexually impressive.” But we know immediately that all these things are true. We also know that Ivan would slaughter us at chess and also be far more likely to remember the formula for a Gaussian probability distribution.

The point here is that the reader is being made to work. They have to bring their own knowledge of the world (geeky men / arts centre-y women) and build out their understanding of the scene from facts they’ve acquired about the world. The AI text almost assumes that we have no knowledge of the world, so if an observation isn’t in the text, it doesn’t exist.

But it does exist! It’s the most interesting part of the text. The joy of reading Sally Rooney isn’t Sally Rooney text alone. It’s ‘Sally Rooney text plus our own human wisdom.’ A robot couldn’t read Sally Rooney and form any real sense of what makes it worthwhile.

You don’t believe me? Well, I asked a robot to ‘rewrite and improve’ Rooney’s passage. The result is in the PS below. But suffice to say – I do not love it.

And nor should you.

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FEEDBACK FRIDAY

OK, here’s a rather different task from what I normally hand out – but still on the theme of this email and the last.

• Post a 200-250 word excerpt from your manuscript
• In [square brackets and italics] add your comments wherever you detect the kind of subtext that you would not expect a robot to pick up.

Once you're ready, log in to Townhouse and post yours here.

I’m going to like the excerpts that have lots of italics!

***

That’s it from me.

My massive Viking longship was handed in to school and duly admired. It’s now sitting in my garage. When summer comes, I’m going to find a petite red-headed Viking and launch her off into the biggest lake or river I can find. The ship is papier-mache and is likely to dissolve, but wotthehell. The Vikings sailed to America, right? I reckon they’ll manage the Thames.

Til soon.

Harry

***

PS: Here’s the AI version of that Sally Rooney passage: which scrubs all subtext with a total lack of self-reflection. Ms Rooney has nothing to worry about just yet:

Standing in the corner, Ivan observed the chaotic rearrangement of furniture with detached analytical interest. His mind, perpetually seeking patterns, calculated the optimal sequence for transforming this random scatter of tables and chairs into the intended U-shape. It was a familiar mental exercise—one he often entertained while occupying the margins of rooms like this, watching people execute with human imprecision what could be solved with algorithmic elegance. He estimated the efficiency of these particular men at perhaps thirty percent of optimal—their movements dictated by intuition rather than calculation, by conversation rather than silent computation.

A woman entered the space, and Ivan's algorithmic thinking stuttered. Her presence was an unexpected variable in what had been, until now, a predictable equation. She moved with confidence through the disarray, her figure drawing his attention with a force that felt almost mathematical in its inevitability. Her profile cut a precise silhouette against the institutional wall—high cheekbones, a determined chin, eyes focused on something beyond the immediate disorder.

Margaret, he recalled from the program. She worked at the art center—an explanation for both her presence and the deliberate aesthetic of her appearance. Her white blouse provided sharp contrast to the chromatic explosion of her skirt, which moved like liquid as she navigated between half-arranged furniture. Her ballet flats made no sound on the floor, adding to the impression that she floated slightly above the mundane proceedings.

Without warning, his mind produced not an explicit image but a theoretical construct—a placeholder for a potential visualization involving the pressing of his lips against hers. Not even a fantasy so much as a mathematical proof of a fantasy's possibility: If x equals proximity and y equals mutual attention, then z could equal... He felt a curious satisfaction at the mere architecture of this thought, this harmless private equation that would never require solving.

"Do you play chess?" he asked, the question emerging from some calculation deep beneath his consciousness, a gambit whose purpose even he couldn't fully articulate.

For a long time, I’ve held off writing about the impact of AI on what we do. Partly, none of us knows the answer and I have no special expertise in the area. But also, the impact still seemed quite remote. AI has seemed like something that might impact relatively tedious tasks (writing Google-optimised articles about vehicle maintenance, say) but not more obviously artistic / complex ones – like writing a memoir or a novel.

But – well, here’s a story.

Or rather, here WILL be a story, except that I want to put a shout out for Harry Harrison’s book THE WELFARE. I never met Harry, but he was a loyal Son of Jericho – always kind, always helpful, and a wonderful writer. He died recently, unexpectedly soon and with perfect bravery and grace. His book was unfinished, but his lovely writing group helped complete his book. It’s available now, in paperback. Harry Harrison was a beautiful man; this book is a lovely memorial.

OK. The story:

My kids were given an extended homework task that involved writing a ‘day in the life of’ story about a Viking.

My older boy, who is no huge fan of the written word, settled down, rather glumly, to perform the task.

Sometime later, he showed me his story. It was typed, which is fine: he’s happier with the keyboard than the pen. He had written about 200 words. And the story was really quite good. It had a simple dawn / voyage / battle / rest structure. The prose was simple, but clear and effective (“The air was cool, the sea was calm.”) There were no typos or punctuation errors, but Tom explained he’d used the spellcheck tools to get rid of them.

He seemed genuinely proud.

I was, I have to say, sceptical. I put the text through a plagiarism checker to make sure he hadn’t just lifted it wholesale from somewhere. But he hadn’t. I even checked his internet search history. Honestly, I ended up thinking that he’d done the work and I was proud of him.

He hadn’t, of course.

He’d used the copilot tool in Word (which I’ve never used myself or shown him how to use) and just had AI create the story lock, stock and barrel. That story, alas, was better than anything Tom was capable of writing himself.

Now, we’re talking about a 200-word story ‘written by’ an 11-year-old. We’re not talking about novels, let alone novels for adults, let alone anything with aspirations to art.

But take a look at the following chunks of text. One was written by AI, one by my (text-averse) son, one by my (text-ophile) daughter. Oh, and just to make it more fun, I’ve included a fourth chunk of text which represents a second excerpt by one of those three writers. The order is random.

Text A

It was lunchtime, when the cook Eirik was calling me. I climbed down from my platform and went to eat. There was freshly caught fish and sour milk. After a while I went back to my platform.

Suddenly, I thought I saw a ship.

“I’ve seen a ship,” I shouted.

Text B

"Hold the net tight," his dad told Leif as they rowed out. They spent a long time catching fish in the sun.

At lunch time, they came back with lots of fish. Leif helped his dad put salt on some fish to keep for winter. Later, in the middle of the village, an old man got everyone to sit around the fire. He told stories about Thor's hammer and brave fighters who sailed to far-away places.

Text C

I smiled. I had no doubt our boat was queen of the seas. No one doubted it, except for Arne our old, wrinkled cook. He cooked amazingly, though sometimes pieces of hair from his long grey beard swam in the stews he concocted. His beard was so long, and he was so ancient, that people believed many generations of ravens, with feathers as black as charcoal, had roosted within its tangled mass.

Text D

The new ship was getting nearer by the minute. It was here. I swung across to the other ship.

I started by killing the weak and feeble, then moved on to the hulks and the better fighters. I so nearly got killed, but Halfdan saved me. Phew, that was close.

Just take a moment to sort through who you think has authored what.

OK.

I think it’s not hard to determine that Text D is my son’s work. That just feels eleven years old, right? A boy wants a battle scene but has only the very vaguest notion of how to choreograph it, and Text D is the alarmingly hotch-potch result.

Text C clearly belongs to my daughter. It’s just too bananas, too off-piste, to have been generated by a machine. That’s true of the whole raven / beard image. But it’s also true of the details – ‘pieces of hair’ rather than ‘tiny hairs’, for example.

Then Text A versus Text B? Well, I’m not sure there are many tells here – except that Text A more obviously joins to Text D, so we can figure out that Text B belongs to a machine, A and D to a rather small human.

And what does all this tell us?

Well, I think it tells us that the current, still immature, generation of models is weirdly powerful. No news there.

I also think it reminds us that AM – Artificial Morality – is not even in its infancy. It’s unborn and barely thought of. From what I understand, my son basically asked a machine to help him cheat and the machine did so without a moment’s pause. The machine did not say, as any vaguely sensible adult would have done, ‘Look, are you sure? Wouldn’t it be more helpful for your education if you actually did this work yourself? Maybe you could do it and I could nudge you when you get stuck?’

AI without AM seems like a dangerous path to me. That’s also not exactly a novel observation.

But I also think this whole episode tells us that, for now, what those models are good at is generating the kind of text you expect to see because it’s the kind of text you’ve seen before. Because the internet isn’t full of people like Tom writing breezily about killing the weak and the feeble before moving on to the hulks (!), the models don’t pop that kind of sentence out.

When Tom is writing (Text A) in the way that he’s expected to write for this assignment, the machines (Text B) keep almost perfect pace. In fact, from a pure prose perspective, the machine is writing just that little bit better, albeit still in the range of 11-year-old vocab and sentence structure.

But text C? With its generations of ravens and pieces of hair? In the end, what AI models are doing is stunning, but the heavy lifting is still, in the end, a kind of creative statistical analysis of huge volumes of text. Almost inevitably, it tends towards the median, the average – the expected.

Clearly, as models get better, they’ll get more capable and the range of uses will become more expansive. Suppose, for example, you wanted to create a primer on German-English grammar along with some vocabulary lists suitable for early learners. I think you could probably create a very good first draft of that book in about a day, relying on AI to do the heavy lifting for you.

That says to me that already, at the most mechanical end of the education market, AI is capable of (very largely) replacing the work now done by (underpaid) authors.

But what about next year? Or in 5 years’ time?

I don’t know. But:

1. The more distinctive your voice – the further away from that median line you tread – the longer it’ll take for a machine to catch you up, and perhaps it never will.
2. The stronger your relationship with your actual readers, the more impossible it is that any machine could ever replace you. That relationship needs to be founded on delivery of value of course (great writing), but it’s also supported by just being a nice human in regular communication – we’re talking about mailing lists, here, or at least an active Facebook page.

And all that syncs with everything I say anyway. Write well. Write distinctively. Ditch generic ways of expressing yourself in favour of ways that are loaded with character and enriched by layers of subtext.

Build that mailing list.

Be you. Be human.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY

A different sort of task for Feedback Friday this week: 

• Take any 150-200 word scene from your book.
• Ask any AI chatbot to write the same scene. (Tell it who the characters are and what's happening, and give it the same 150-200 word limit.)
• Upload both scenes - and comment yourself on how hard or easy it is to distinguish between the two!

Scary, but fun. I'll pop an AI-Fiona and a real-Fiona scene up there, too.

Once you're ready, post yours here.

That’s it from me. Crocuses are going over, daffodils are coming. Springe is icumen in. Lhude sing cuccu.

Til soon,

Harry.

An article in The Bookseller recently argued that we’re now in a “golden age” of self-publishing – and if you’re currently debating the best way to get your novel into readers’ hands, taking the ‘DIY’ approach has almost certainly crossed your mind.

Self-publishing is rewarding in a wide variety of ways if you can do it successfully – not least because you’re likely to make much more money per book sale than if you published traditionally.

It’s also worth noting that self-publishing no longer places you and your work beyond the purview of traditional houses. Far from it. Many successful self-publishers are now taking a ‘hybrid’ approach to putting their work out there – in some cases selling audio or foreign rights to their books while retaining self-pub rights elsewhere. There’s also what The Bookseller describes as ‘a pipeline’ developing, with self-pubbed authors using their previous success as incredible leverage when negotiating trad deals.

With self-publishing in the spotlight, and as we approach the deadline for applications to our Simply Self-Publishing course, we asked tutor and indie publishing expert Debbie Young to answer some of the burning questions you might have about how it really works…

Jericho Writers: One fear we know people have – despite the changing landscape – is that self-publishing is for authors who simply aren’t good enough to get traditional deals. What do you say to that?

Debbie Young: Self-publishing is not the home of second-rate writers! There are a lot of authors now self-publishing by choice, for the autonomy, for the control, and because they don't want to compromise their vision to fit whatever narrow mould traditional publishers are pursuing.

JW: What about the idea that self-publishing a novel is essentially a vanity project?

DY: Forget the word vanity – when you self-publish seriously, you are not pursuing a vanity project. This isn’t just about printing a book or getting an ebook up onto Amazon so you can say it exists. You are – or should be – publishing a high-quality book because it will appeal to a real market. Your intention should be to reach that market and achieve sales. Basically, if you’re doing it just to see your name ‘in print’, you’re doing it wrong – and you’re almost certainly not making the most of it.

JW: It sounds as though your best chance of success as a self-publisher is to be quite businesslike – to see it as something entrepreneurial.

DY: Exactly. But that doesn’t mean you have to do absolutely everything yourself. You’re not going to have to learn to design covers, format ebooks or print books, or edit or proofread. Instead, self-publishing means taking the same responsibility as a publisher would in a commercial firm – and assembling a team of experts to get your book off the blocks. They can provide any special skills that you don’t have, under your management and direction.

JW: One thing we know people worry about is approaching the ebook market – especially if they are not Kindle or ebook readers themselves.

DY: This comes back to being businesslike. Sell ebooks, even if you don’t read them yourself! Self-pubbed authors typically make around 95% of their money from ebooks, so it’s not a market you can afford to ignore. This is a good example of how a course like Simply Self-Publish can make all the difference to people embarking on this journey: it’s going to expose your blind spots, help you avoid mistakes and arm you with the knowledge you need to move forward successfully.

JW: And what about Kindle Unlimited? People are confused by that, too – particularly how (and even if!) authors get paid when their books are included.

DY: You do get paid as a self-published author when your books are in Kindle Unlimited, or KU. You must agree to exclusivity with Amazon, but you’ll earn ‘page reads’ income for every page of your prose that’s consumed by a KU reader. KU is a really important platform to understand properly as a self-publisher, so we cover it in some detail on the Simply Self-Publish course.

JW: And how does print-on-demand (POD) work? This is another key question we know would-be self-publishers are keen to have answered…

DY: It’s a good, and important, question! POD is the lowest-cost method for printing books, and POD printing though a service like Kindle Direct Publishing or IngramSpark allows just-in-time ordering. This means there’s no upfront cost and no need to hold hundreds of copies of your book in your spare room or a pricey warehouse. Thanks to POD, you can now publish a book with a print-run as low as one. Again, we go into detail about POD on the Simply Self-Publish course.

JW: This final question is probably the biggest one: how do you know if self-publishing is right for you?

DY: I think it’s about being honest with yourself, in terms of your goals and ambitions, the level of control you want to have over your own work, and how much you’re prepared to put into the process. I’d never tell anyone self-publishing is easy, but for many authors it is now their preferred option. And to some degree, it’s about what you’re writing, too: self-publishing works especially well for writers of genre fiction, for books that form part of a series, and so on – but less well for children’s and academic books, which are still mostly consumed in print.

JW: Do you have any final advice?

DY: Learn as much as you can before getting started. Think about doing a course like Simply Self-Publish and consider it an upfront investment in the business of becoming an author. Through Simply Self-Publish, my students create actionable strategies and marketing plans for their books – and that’s exactly what you need to organise upfront, before you even consider putting your book up for sale. Approach it in the right way, and self-publishing can be the starting point for a super fulfilling writing career. I wish you all the best!

Interested in learning more from Debbie?

You can find out more about Simply Self-Publish and apply for your place right here on our website.

About Debbie Young

Self-publishing expert Debbie Young is the author of thirteen novels, two of which have been shortlisted for the prestigious BookBrunch Selfies Award for best independently-published adult fiction in the UK. She now combines licensing selective rights for her books to various publishers including Boldwood Books, DP Verlag, and Saga Egmont, while continuing to self-publish. Debbie has seven years’ experience as Commissioning Editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors’ daily self-publishing advice blog. She is also an Ambassador for ALLi and has written several advice books and pamphlets for indie authors.

A renowned champion of indie authors everywhere, Debbie now shares her passion for self-publishing and her enjoyment in supporting and nurturing other authors as a mentor and course tutor for Jericho Writers.

We're delighted to share that the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme alumna S.J. King's debut novel, Where You Belong, has been published this week by Storm Publishing. We caught up with S.J. to chat about her writing journey, the support she found most valuable along the way and her plans for the future.

JW: Hi S.J, thank you so much for chatting to us about your writing journey. You have not one, but two books coming out in 2025 with Storm Publishing - congratulations! How are you feeling in the run up to becoming a published author?  

S.J: Thanks so much to Jericho Writers for being a big part of my story these last few years. 

So how am I feeling...? Firstly, excited and still surprised. After years of writing, editing, pitching, re-editing, agenting, un-agenting, being on submission, being rejected and then writing, reading, submitting and editing more... I am thrilled that this has ‘suddenly’ happened. I still can’t quite believe it. 

Secondly, it’s a lot of firsts! It's my first time to get a book deal (for starters), but also first time to get a structural edits letter from my editor, select a voice actor for the audiobook, to get an amazing cover and have a cover reveal, to receive ARC reviews and have people tag me on Instagram. Another day, another first! I feel young again.

JW: Let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey to becoming a published author? 

S.J: I think it is clear I am not an overnight success! But I almost was… my first agent was an incredible top-level agent who called me within fifteen mins of my first submission. Yep, that happened.

She sent my book to London Book Fair the following week, said she hoped it would go to auction. Nope. All the big publishers liked it, but not enough. Seeing all her other books sell for six and seven figures over the years, and her authors going on to become bestsellers, has been exciting to watch - but a little sad, as I thought my ship had sailed. 

But as a writer, resilience and persistence are absolutely key. I put myself back on the horse (a horse on a ship?) and wrote more books, got another agent, went out on submission again and experienced more rejection. Just as I was on the point of giving up, I came upon the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (UNWP). In the year after the programme, I landed a two-book deal. 

My second book, Lauren is Missing, is the book I was originally agented for, and the one my publisher (Storm) first read - but is not my debut. I have two more books in the bag, one of which I wrote on the UNWP with the fabulous Emma Cooper as my mentor. Working on this helped me go back to the others with a better skillset.

JW: After having spent a long time writing and re-writing the same story, spending infinite amounts of time with your characters – how did you know it was time to send it out into the world?  

S.J: You don’t.

Lauren is Missing has probably been rewritten a hundred times. I have so many files and versions. I have butchered it to the point where I was word blind. Where I loved it and also didn’t think I could read it again. Then, after UNWP and all that I learnt, I picked it up and edited it with fresh eyes, adding a whole new POV. Bingo, book deal. (Of course, I have had to edit it again, but I am now finally on the home straight.) 

Make sure you love your work, but not so much that you’re stubborn.  Use all the support available (such as reviews and the video courses that Jericho Writers offer as part of their Premium Membership), then send to a few agents or consider a one-to-one. Test and try. Rejected? Keep going. Write a new book. You learn something from each one, and you widen your chances.

Also, read. Read books in your genre that have what it takes. Then reread your book. Does it hold up? Do you get tangled in parts? If so, take them out.

JW: Have you got any tips for writers who are preparing their novels for submission?  

S.J: RESILIENCE. Believe in yourself (without arrogance.) Be willing to take the hits, the rejections, but not personally (easier said than done). Don’t refresh your mailbox every three seconds. (Easier said than done.)  Accept that most authors don’t get a deal with their first book, and many authors don’t make it big with their first even if they are published. Stay in love with writing, not just one book. Have a strong pitch, and remember it doesn’t have to be entirely unique. In fact, comparisons are your friend. A lot of reviewers have said they didn’t quite know what to make of Where You Belong because it is not what they expected. It's a psychological thriller with a thread of dystopia.

JW: Can you tell us a little bit about the process your book has gone through, post-book deal, in preparation for publication? How have you found the experience of working with an editor?  

S.J: Joyful.

I guess because I had done rewrites for agents and myself, dismembering my books, knowing that these are the final rounds of edits has felt fabulous.

Vicky, my editor, is just so calm, encouraging, supportive and committed. It feels that with Storm I have a team of caring professionals all around me. I focus on being a writer and they have everything else in the bag. They know their stuff and are very author-friendly.

JW: Before you signed with Storm Publishing, you completed the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. Can you tell us a little about that experience? 

SJ: Oh, so good.

I learned so much that I can keep mining for improvement. Just after I joined I was asked to step into my manager’s role. So I had two jobs and was on this course. (Plus kids, husband, cat on prozac... all the rest.) I thought I would have to stop the course. But my mentor, Emma, was brilliant, the course was flexible, my group were supportive and understanding. Somehow it all fitted and the course was so interesting that I made time for it and the assignments, and the assignments added up to a finished novel. Plus you can work on the content wherever you are in the world, or to suit your work/life schedule. Even the team sessions are recorded so you can watch what you miss.

Each month felt like an unboxing of writing gifts. I just wanted it to go on forever. When it finished, I really missed it for months afterwards.

JW: In all the time you spent developing your craft, both on and off the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, is there anything you found particularly useful?  

S.J: The friendship of fellow writers. I can honestly say I have made lifelong friends through writing. That it feels like the escapist, introvert, and sometimes sanity-sucking world of writing needs other writers to understand the obsession, the process, the highs and lows.

You need people to empathise and share with you, and critique your work - but also to put you back into the game when you are ready to give up. I love other writers, and hope I can give back more than I ever take. I think writers are truly the most generous givers of encouragement and knowledge.  If you have questions you'd like to ask, I will share…

JW: Have there been any surprises along the way? Or perhaps anything you wished you had known earlier? 

1. You can be a plotter AND a pantser. I create an outline and then suddenly… wow… who is Josh? Where did he come from? Oh, OK Josh wants to be a main character does he… wait, why did he do that…?
2. Don’t keep editing the first chapter. You can write a book for five years and still only be doing that.  You’ll have some VERY overwritten first chapters that are probably worse than when you started. Write forward…
3. It is a lot about luck, BUT you can make your own luck if you are resilient and don’t only nurse one project. Diversify and try to be a bit more prolific.
4. Straddling genres or ‘challenging genre norms’ is not as appreciated as you think. Most readers like things to match their expectations. A domestic psychological thriller with dystopian hints… never! Believe me, my reviewers all comment on it.
5. Celebrate all milestones. A new book idea, a finished draft, an edit, a positive review, non-form feedback from an agent. Whatever it is, feel FABULOUS. I don’t do enough of that, I’m a bit ‘well, let’s wait and see, it’s just a step.’ Fortunately my husband is my biggest fan and wants to celebrate everything.
6. Help your family/children/friends to understand what this means to you. My kids have grown up with my writing and my daughter is now the absolute best advisor on my work. She is blunt and nearly always right.

JW: Can you let us know what are you working on now?  

S.J: A bit of social media for my book launch (not needed, but quite fun). Editing book two – Lauren is Missing - out in July 2025. The last 25,000 words of a next book. And a new idea just burst into my brain, so I'm trying not to get too tempted or to lose it before I can get to it. (Oh, and my job…) 

JW: We love asking our writers for one piece of advice they wish they knew at the beginning of their journey. If you could go back, is there anything you would tell your past self?  

S.J: It probably won’t happen when you think it will. But don’t give up, it will happen.

(Oh, sorry… a second thing: Jericho Writers is amazing. I truly mean that. I could write a book about all the support I have received over the years.)

(Oh… last one, I promise: writing is an amazing escape and meditation from the world when it's a little crazy, so be grateful that you were given the key to this little special room inside your head. Not everybody gets that…)

Want to follow in S.J. King's footsteps? You can learn more about the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and how it can help you write a publishable novel in a year!

About S.J. King

S.J. King is the writer of dark, literary psychological thrillers, and fun lover. She will publish two books with Storm in 2025.

For more on S.J. King see her TikTok, Twitter/X, Instagram, and Facebook.  Feel free to ask her questions if you have them. She’s been in the trenches for a while…