Our Articles

Last week, Jericho Writers headed to New York City for one of the highlights of our year: our annual Ultimate Novel Writing Programme celebration. Bringing together our wonderful students, alums, literary agents, publishing professionals, and several of our Premium Members, we were proud to be able to showcase the culmination of months, and in many cases years, of hard work, persistence and creativity from our students (with several walking away with agent interest by the end of the evening!) 

The celebrations began the day before when we met up with our New York based Premium Members in Brooklyn. It was wonderful to finally meet so many in person, put faces to familiar names (including a strange happenstance that all the men in attendance were called Michael – it certainly made it easier to remember everyone’s names!) and hear how everyone was progressing with their novels. The conversations were a reminder of the incredible creativity within our community and we learnt more about the many exciting projects our members currently have in the works!  

The following day, our students came together again for a relaxed brunch in Manhattan, hosted for our 2025/26 Ultimate Novel Writing Programme cohort, where we were also delighted to welcome Soumeya Roberts of HG Literary, who generously offered her time to meet and talk with our students about the publishing industry and answer their questions. 

We then headed over to Poets House in Lower Manhattan for our Drinks Reception and Reading. Here we were delighted to welcome literary agents Tyler Monson of Sterling Lord Literistic, Sophia Kim of Trident Media Group, Giuliana Vasile and Chloe Knapp of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency, and René J. Kooiker of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.  

The event kicked off with a special reading from tutor Mateo Askaripour to warm up the crowd, from his upcoming novel Pure Ox (which is excellent, we have to say, so make sure to pre-order your copy now!) 

It was then our students’ turn: reading from excerpts spanning historical fiction, crime, fantasy, memoir and contemporary fiction, each offering a glimpse into the novels they have spent the past year developing and refining for the agents in attendance, and showcasing the breadth of talent and promise across the programme.  

It’s no secret that it’s terrifying to speak aloud, yet alone share your writing with a room of other writers and agents (!), however every speaker was fantastic at the podium and read brilliantly, and everyone was so supportive of one another.  We were so proud of all our students, not only for having the courage to put their work out into the world (and for many, walking away with a full manuscript request or two from an agent!) but for the support and community they fostered with one another – which is what Jericho Writers is all about.  

We came away incredibly inspired by the talent, determination and generosity of our writers, and immensely proud of everyone who took part. Whether reading from the stage, networking over a glass of wine or cheering on fellow authors from the audience, every attendee contributed to making the event such a memorable occasion. 

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us in New York, to the agents and publishing professionals who generously supported the event, and to Poets House for hosting us. Most of all, congratulations to our writers. We cannot wait to see where your stories take you next. ✨ 

Could this be you next year? To find out more about the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme., visit the web page or fill in this form and we’ll send the brochure straight to your inbox.

One of the many questions I’m asked by aspiring authors thinking of self-publishing is: “Will self-publishing my book scupper my chances of winning a contract with a traditional publisher?” 

My answer might surprise them: these days, traditional publishers actively look for indie authors to add to their list.  

They are on the look-out for self-published authors who have established: 

• A clear brand offering in a commercial genre at the heart of the publisher’s business model 

• A substantial back-catalogue, even better if in series rather than standalones 

• A proven capacity to write at least one book a year, preferably two or more 

• A loyal fanbase of committed readers 

• A strong online presence via an author website and social media 

• Substantial reviews demonstrating reader satisfaction 

All of these factors indicate to the publisher that an author will be a relatively safe bet as an acquisition, because they bring their audience with them. Readers don’t generally mind or even notice who has published their favourite author’s books. They’ll just follow the author to their new publisher.  

Thus, successful indie authors represent a very low risk to the publisher, compared with new, unknown writers whose work has not yet been tried and tested on the marketplace. And traditional publishers, with their huge overheads and shareholders to please, are very risk averse. That’s why so many of them court celebrities, knowing their famous names will sell their books, whether or not said celebs have actually written said books.  

The new breed of digital-first publishers, such as Boldwood Books, Bookouture, and Storm, have been particularly active at acquiring new authors in this way, but I suspect the Big Five and their various imprints may also be keeping an eye on the up-and-coming indies. If not, they’re missing a trick! 

I speak from experience. Four years ago, with nine successfully self-published novels to my name, and meeting the criteria listed above, I was approached out of the blue by Boldwood Books. Long story short: a 13-book contract to include my backlist of two series, plus two new books in each series, followed by a 4-6 book contract to include a new series, and just this month a further six-book contract. 

Which brings me to another observation: when a publisher knows you have a strong indie track record, they’re likely to offer multi-book contracts, which is a boon for career security. 

So, next question: how was I able to tick those boxes? I learned how to self-publish to professional standards, and how to market and promote my books to gain a following. It helped that I was also writing in a major commercial genre, cosy mystery.  

Many successful indies have taken the same route, but others value their independence – both creative and financial – to ever consider signing with a third-party publisher. Some might license the rights only to some of their output – eg bestselling historical novelist Clare Flynn, with Storm and Canelo for some books, remaining indie for others. Other authors would reject such offers outright.  

If you are ever given such an opportunity, think hard and smart before accepting.  Many aspiring authors in their excitement (and understandably so) will sign a traditional deal without understanding just what they’re signing away.  

Best advice is to license rights selectively, ie only sign away rights that a publisher will actually use (eg I’ve licensed only English language rights to my novels to Boldwood, rather than including film rights, etc). Also, only sign with a publisher who can offer you more than you can do yourself as an indie. I signed because I thought Boldwood would increase my visibility and sales. But I also insisted on retaining the right to self-publish any books that didn’t fit in with their business model, eg short stories, novellas, novelettes, and plays.  

So, where can you learn to self-publish like a pro? That’s where the Jericho Writers Simply Self Publish course comes in! Applications are now open for the next 10-week programme, running from October to December. To find out more about it and download our brochure, head here.

Yes, yes. I know. Many people on this mailing list can already read. Some of you read quite well. I’ve even met some of you who can read competently without even moving your lips. Wowser.

(Though, by the way, reading silently arrived quite late. People knew how to do it, of course, but it wasn’t really socially normal, even in a monastery, until the fifteenth century or so. Before that, monks were positively encouraged to speak the texts they were reading. Monastery libraries were often built so as to give monks what were effectively sound booths, so they could read aloud without disturbing their neighbours.)

Anyhoo –

Reading.

Once you set out on the path to authorship, reading needs to stop being something you do only for fun. You are also now seeking to build your capacity as an author.

Specifically, as an author, you are seeking to develop the blueprint (a manuscript) that a publisher will turn into a product (a book) for sale to a very wide market of readers. You need to make damn sure that your blueprint will appeal, in volume, to that end market.

But how do you know? How you do you know what will sell?

You can’t rely on your own personal taste, because that’s far too spongy as a basis for predicting the tastes of others. I don’t like most of the books my 11-13 year old kids read. An awful lot of them are too violent, too morally thin, too fast, too brash.

But that doesn’t give me the licence to go ahead and write a modern-day Famous Five, with lashings of pop and an absence of real jeopardy. That book might be nice to write, but it wouldn’t sell.

There are two groups of people who most understand what sells. They are agents and editors.

Agents spend their entire time pitching manuscripts to editors, and making sales, and getting rejections, and getting feedback. Editors are on the other side of the fence and, yes, have sales data and marketing teams to keep them informed. That said, they sit inside their own publishing house, so don’t have the 360 degrees of visibility that agents have.

Both these groups have insight not just into what sold last month, but into what will sell eighteen months from now. The bestseller lists might tell you, for instance, that paranormal romance is still a thing, but it might tell you that at a point where agents and editors have already understood that market to be in decline.

Now, I imagine that I’m on reasonably solid ground in guessing that you are not an agent or a commissioning editor at a leading publishing house. That means you are cut off from the main source of information about what sells.

But you’re not totally cut off.

For one thing, you can literally book a one-to-one feedback session with an agent and ask directly for a sense of whether and how your book fits into the market. (Info here.)

For another, you can and should read.

As a reader, personally, I am eclectic and often prefer to read great fiction of the past than whatever publishers are wanting to push at me now. But that, especially in your early days as wannabe-author, is not the right approach.

You need to read whatever’s selling in your genre, or has sold heavily in the past few years. You need to read all that greedily, extensively, and laying your personal taste to one side.

That means, for me, if I wanted to write fiction for the 10-12 market, I’d have to grapple with all those books I hate. Percy Jackson (yuk.) Warrior Cats (worse.) Endless series about teens slaying each other or combating evil … by means of very extensive jeopardy and violence.

I don’t have to write those books, but I do have to know them, because in the end I have to write a book in the overlap between “Books I want to write” and “Books that sell well today.”

I’m not asking you to lay your personal values or tastes to one side. I can’t see that there’s any purpose at all in becoming a writer if you dispense with those things. But I am asking you not to send your brain on holiday. You are writing a book, because you want people to read it. So understand what sells. Find an area within that sales space that fits you and your passions.

The first, most important thing here is to know your genre as it stands today.

But I do also think that an eclectic reading approach supports that deep genre-knowledge.

If, let’s say, you find really interesting themes in adult psychological thrillers that haven’t been properly explored for kids, then finding a way to bring that theme into an age-suitable kids book would be a tremendously interesting idea for publishers. The idea would feel deeply alive. It would live in that fantastic space where you could write a book that felt like the next brilliant idea, not a copy of the last one.

And again, I’ve said it before in these genre-themed emails, but you do need to be alert to genre, even if you don’t live in a nice, neat category. If you’re writing contemporary female-led fiction, with a comic tone but a serious issue to consider, then that’s your genre. You need to know every damn book that is being sold in that area, whether British or American or in translation.

So.

Read. Read lots. Read intelligently.

And, just maybe, learn to read without moving your lips.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Buy me buy me buy me

This week, our theme is going to be whether your book fits its intended market. We’re going to test that by comparing your book to other, recent big sellers in your niche. So your mission, should you choose to accept it is to give us:

• A definition of your genre or niche. That could be as simple as ‘adult crime fiction’ or as complicated as the ‘contemporary female-led …’ example I gave a moment ago. Simple or complex define your niche
• Title & elevator pitch of your book
• Title & elevator pitches of 2-3 recent bestsellers in your area

Do you think your book fits? Does it feel fresh or copycat? Give your views, but, as ever, invite opinions from others.

When you're ready, post it here in Townhouse (our free online writing community).

Til soon.

Harry

I’d enjoyed writing stories since I was a small child, but I spent most of my twenties writing non-fiction, working on my doctoral thesis in history. It wasn’t until I had my daughter, missing my office job and desperate for something to occupy my brain outside endless repetitions of In the Night Garden, that I got the idea to write a novel.

So - without any kind of plan - one night I put my daughter to bed, sat down at my computer, and began typing. I carried on every evening for three months, deliberately not scrolling back to read my words of the night before - until I got to the end, so I thought, of a wonderful work of literature. You can imagine my embarrassment when I plucked up the courage to go back and look at what I’d written! It would be another eight years, and two more unsold manuscripts, before I had a book a publisher wanted.

I spent the next five years reading every how-to-write book I could get my hands on, while writing another novel. This one was better, although at over 130,000 words it was perhaps a touch too long for historical crime fiction. Still, I submitted it to some literary agents, which was when I came across Jericho Writers for the first time. I signed up for an agent one-to-one, which was incredibly helpful. Diplomatically, the agent picked holes in my synopsis, and told me that while my writing showed promise, the book was indeed far too long. I went back to the drawing board, signing up for a Premium Membership with Jericho Writers. I watched every self-paced online course and quite a few workshop replays, and for some reason the teaching stuck in a way that reading how-to-write books never had. For the first time I learned to line edit my work properly. As if by magic, my book shrunk to under 100,000 words without needing to change anything that actually happened in it.

I submitted to agents again, and ended up with two offers of representation. I signed with the brilliant Joanna Swainson at Hardman & Swainson and we went about editing my book and submitting to publishers. Unfortunately, that book didn’t find a home. However, I didn’t give up. As well as learning through the editorial process with Joanna, I carried on using the resources at Jericho Writers and, bit by bit, improving my writing. I did, in the end, write a book which got a publishing deal. The Relics is a medieval mystery set against the backdrop of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt and will be published by Fontana in 2027. You can find out more here or follow along on Instagram.

Five Jericho Resources that Helped Me

Self-paced courses

Yes, writing is an art, but it is also a craft. Yet we frequently expect someone to write a wonderful novel without any prior training at all. It really helped me to watch through the (numerous) courses carefully, then go back and apply what I had learned to my own work.

Masterclasses about the publishing industry

All the masterclasses (replays of the live events at Jericho Writers) are helpful, but I found it especially useful to learn about the different paths to publication, hearing from real industry professionals. You do not always need an agent, for example. If you watch a live event, you can put your own questions to the speaker.

AgentMatch

Literary agents specialise in widely different areas, with varying tastes, and it’s a waste of time submitting to someone who will pass purely because you’re writing in a genre they don’t represent. It’s far more useful to submit to agents whose interests overlap with what you’ve written. AgentMatch makes this sorting process so much easier.

Agent one-to-ones

I cannot stress how invaluable it is to seek feedback from a real person. For me, this was the first time a professional had looked at my writing.

Free query letter review for Premium Members

If you are submitting to agents, the query letter is important but surprisingly hard to write. When I used the service, it was really helpful to get feedback about where I was on the right lines, and where I needed to make changes. Jericho Writers also provides detailed downloadable guides to structuring your query letter and synopsis, or you can watch the self-paced course on getting an agent.

Month 6 is upon us! This is both an exciting and scary thing because it means we're officially halfway through the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (UNWP) and while I’ve learnt heaps of stuff, there is still so much yet to do. As a chronic overthinker, I’m already ruminating about how I’ll miss the structure of learning and the regular check-ins with my wonderful tutor group when this is all finished. But there’s a while to go yet, so back to business... 

I recently wrote a post on socials about manuscripts behaving badly. But I’m starting to wonder if being a writer is less like navigating a toddler in the terrible twos and more like being a doctor. Yes, a bit random I know (and no, I have no medical experience), but hear me out on this one... 

I had the pleasure of meeting up with some of my lovely tutor group a few weeks ago and we had a great chat about some of our biggest takeaways from the UNWP so far. For me, my biggest learning is not at all what I expected. We've covered bucket loads on how to construct a novel with the most effective POV, the best setting, the most interesting characters (the list goes on). But the thing I’ve developed the most is my ability to spot what ISN’T working in a story. My diagnostic skills, if you will (you see the doctor link now). This might sound counterintuitive, since we are supposed to be learning about what does work for our manuscripts, but actually it’s been the most helpful thing for me as I enter into the dreaded editing stage. 

I think as readers, all writers start with some sort of story diagnostic ability before we even put the first word on the page. We know what sounds good, what makes sense, when a book works for us and when it doesn’t. What I found harder to determine, until more recently, was the WHY. Why was I finding it hard to root for a character? Why were things moving too quickly? Why did I feel removed from a scene? The answer to these has come through feedback.  

We’re now at a stage in the course where we share an extract from our manuscript and workshop it live as a group. This might sound scary (and initially it was) but now I find it to be one of the most helpful learning tools we have. The curse of being a writer is being too close to your own work. You simply know too much. Other writers spot things you can’t and on the flip side, you can see things in their writing that they may be too subjective to pick up. Feedback given and received on the forum for our weekly homework has been superb at helping develop this diagnostic skill. The monthly tutor feedback from Holly has also been fantastic for this.  

Coming into the start of this month, I’d given my manuscript a full review and decided that, unfortunately, it was lacking tension in places (a big problem, since tension is must for psychological thrillers). But as luck would have it, this month’s topic is all about – yep, you guessed it – pacing and tension. 

So far, we’ve thought about how to withhold and reveal information, how to foreshadow and how to raise the stakes. These lessons have helped me come up with a solution to what was lacking; namely, a tension-producing subplot that can really make things difficult for my characters (mwahahaha). What was especially encouraging was that I received my tutor Holly Seddon's feedback on my latest submission and her perspective on what needed work aligned with mine – i.e. more tension needed! And yes, okay, this means more work but importantly, it told me I’m getting the hang of figuring out what isn’t working and, better yet, how to fix it.  

So, what is my key takeaway for this month?  

Work with fellow writers!

I could spend ages talking about the importance of a writing network not just for craft development but for wellbeing and support too. But here, what I’m really getting at is the importance of reviewing and giving feedback on other people’s work. It’s much easier to be objective with someone else’s writing and that gives you the opportunity to hone your diagnostic skill. It also helps them out (yay) and if they offer to review yours, then you get some helpful feedback too. A win-win!  

So go, support your fellow writers and really fine-tune your book diagnostic skills in the process. Til next time, my fellow story doctors.... 

Want to follow in Rachel’s footsteps? You can learn more about the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and how it can help you on your writing journey.

Two things today: genre & agent etiquette, picking up some of your questions from this discussion on Townhouse.

I’ll deal with the etiquette stuff first. The questions / comments in bold below come from your Qs on that thread.

How long should a synopsis be? What does “one page” really mean?

Honestly? I think that agents are silly about this. They should say what they mean. For what it’s worth, “one page” is normally interpreted as normal margins, 1.5 spacing, and Times New Roman. But TNR is a lousy font and it’s silly to be too bullied by these things.

I’d say that if your synopsis runs to 400-500 words, you’re fine. If the way you lay that out runs to 1.5 pages, then no one except an idiot will get upset about it. The truth is that if an agent reads an intelligent query and the first page or two of the actual manuscript seems strong, they just won’t care whether you do / don’t match the exact letter of what they say.

When to nudge?

I said a nudge after 6 weeks is fine. I’m wrong about that. I’d meant to write 8, in fact, but the landscape has just got ever worse. It’s now just horribly normal for agents to say “if you haven’t heard from me within 8 / 10 / 12 weeks, just assume I’m not interested.” I think you can take those things at more or less face value. The fact is that I don’t think nudging really works UNLESS you have meaningful interest from another agent, in which case get nudging.

What does 50 pages mean?

Again, I think this doesn’t really matter and that agents are being silly at multiple levels.

Back in the day, the “first three chapters” idea arose because people were sending physical pages through the post. The notion was there to limit the size of packages coming into the mailroom. These days, it’s daft. Why not just tell people to email the whole damn book? I genuinely don’t know.

For what it’s worth, I think that it would be normal to send around 10,000 words which, in the layout I use, comes to around 25 pages. On that basis, 50 pages comes to more like 20,000 words which seems a lot.

Some agents still talk about the first three chapters, but in my case that would equate to just 10 pages / 3500 words, and that seems foolishly small to me. I would always send more than that and would, if need be, add a note to the effect that, “my chapters are short, so I have submitted around 10,000 words, rather than abiding strictly by the three chapter limit.”

Again, I’d remind you that no agent on earth will reject a strong submission because you’ve not followed their stupid rules. But, that said, I would follow their stupid rules – roughly – just so you don’t fret.

Should the title of the novel be in all caps or italicized?

EITHER or either. No one cares. I use italics.

Should the hook get a separate line in the query letter?

Yep, these days, probably. But it’s up to you. As long as the basic pitch is clear, you can play around with the rest.

How many words should the blurb be?

Well, not sure what you mean by blurb. That’s the term given to the text on the back of a book, and that’s not normally something you need for an agent. If you are writing a blurb, then just check actual back-cover text in your genre, but 80-100 words is broadly typical.

If you mean, how much text in your cover letter about the book – well, again, there’s no simple rule. A good paragraph is fine. Alternatively, you can convey your hook in one brief sentence or three, then add a little more discussion about what you are trying to achieve in subsequent paragraphs.

Overall, I don’t think a query letter (or, really, email) should run to more than about 300 words. If it’s less than that, that’s fine.

Should the personalization to an individual agent come before or after the blurb/before or after the comp titles?

Don’t mind. It’s however the thing flows most naturally. But it’s generally easier to say, “this is the book I’ve written and the reason I thought of you is X”. It’s harder to do the last part if the agent doesn’t yet know what the book is offering.

Should the comp titles come before or after the blurb?

Probably after, and for the same reason.

If the comp titles are quite well known, should you include the authors’ names or is this redundant?

You don’t have to do it.

Should you include details or analysis of why you chose particular comp titles?

This should flow quite naturally from the letter. This kind of thing:

“My book is about [kids’ fantasy adventure topic]. I hope it competes in the same broad territory as [Katherine Rundell and MG Leonard]. I especially admire those authors willingness to [do X, Y, Z] and hope that some of that ambition is reflected in my own work.”

It’s obviously important not to sound like an idiot when you make those comparisons. So the wording above says X & Y are inspirational, then expresses a hope (not a confidence) that you share some characteristics. Telling an agent that you are directly like Salman Rushdie or J.K Rowling is obviously just stupid.

On a query letter, there are routine bits that are expected – word count, genre, comps etc. What are people’s thoughts about: 1) Having these in the very first paragraph (‘I am seeking representation for XXX, a XX,XXX word XXX novel that will appeal to readers of…’). 2) Instead, opening with a hook so that you’re straight into something that grabs the agent’s attention.

Honestly? I think the opening sentence needs to tell the agent why they’re here. Give the basic co-ordinates first (title, word count, rough genre definition.) Then go into the rest. That way, the agent reads the hook knowing the context and therefore understanding it better. With most query letter things, I’m pretty relaxed: there’s more than one way to do these things. But on this specific question, I think it’s almost always vital to offer the co-ordinates first.

The best thing to do is read each agent’s submission guidelines very carefully and follow them to the letter. One submission package won’t do for all.

That’s sort of true, but I have to say that personally I’d be annoyed at having to tailor everything to the last dot and comma. My own approach would be more like, “Here’s a perfectly professional package that conforms closely, but not precisely, to your stated needs. Live with it, buddy.”

I would suggest you do not include that phrasing in your query letter.

The invisible context to “It only takes one yes” is that the one yes is usually preceded by dozens of “almosts.” When you are within striking distance of “yes,” you start getting promising feedback. You rack up a few close-but-not-quites.

Damn right. If you send your stuff out to 12 agents and hear nothing back, or only form rejections, then your manuscript is almost certainly not yet strong enough. That’s where you need forceful, honest input from a third party.

Ideally, you use a Jericho Writers editor (because our guys are proper pros and they’re trained not to go easy on you), but it’s whatever you can afford.

If you are getting close but can’t get beyond the ‘not quite’, you’d be nuts not to get that editorial input. That’s where one or two key insights can take you over the line.

Do you think you should query the agents that are the best match first or last? Is it best to practise on those who aren’t a good match, I wonder?

Personally, I’d use a mix. My own preference would be to send out a small batch of 6 submissions, in the hope that I got something back that gave me a clue as to where I was / was not on target. I’d use a couple of top favourite agents in that 6 and about 4 who were fine but not top-of-the-top.

But honestly, this is a matter of personal preference. There are no rights or wrongs here.

If an agent is interested in a query letter and synopsis, do they do an internet search on the author to find out more about them such as previous writing experience, background, age, social media presence? Or don’t they bother as they are far too busy?

I think no agent would do this until they’re on the edge of offering representation. If they’re not serious about you, why waste the time?

And that brings us neatly enough to genre.

One of the things that I do think is critical is thinking about your book from an agent’s perspective. And an agent is selling to an editor whose first thought will be, “How do we actually market this book?”

If your novel is bang in line with genre, then the answer is pretty easy. If you’re writing standard-issue crime, then your novel will be sold like every other crime novel – and that’s a good thing, from your authorial perspective, not a bad one. You want to swim in the mainstream.

If your novel is less genre-defined than, say crime or kids fantasy or genre-romance, you still need to understand the tropes you need to live by. So let’s say your book lives in commercial book-club territory dealing with female loneliness via a gently comic / romantic approach.

Clearly that’s not a precisely defined genre – you won’t find shelves in a bookshop with that title above them – but it’s also defined enough. Any agent worth their salt will be looking for your book to establish, quickly, several things:

1. The Book-club style Big Issue which is to be explored (here, female loneliness.)
2. Humour
3. A romantic thread which doesn’t have to start out huge, but which needs to be present enough that its importance can be felt.
4. A cast of characters which is clearly going to be the cast you’re mostly working with: work colleagues, an aunt, an awkward neighbour – whoever.
5. The absence of anything violently in conflict with these things. So a major terrorist attack and pages spent with the harrowing aftermath effectively destroys the premise. You can’t easily step from there to the gently comic but romantic story you want to tell. (You can have a terrorist attack, but you need to handle it in a way consistent with your broader direction.)

You MUST deliver those things or your book will fail – and should fail – because you’re not giving the agent (or ultimately, the publisher) a way to market your book.

So with that book-club / female-loneliness / rom-commy sort of book we’ve been discussing, you and I could perfectly well come up with a cover quite fast. That cover would need to convey (i) intelligent-ish, (ii) more female than male, (iii) gentle and funny. If you threw in a massive, bloodily described terrorist attack, we’d have no hope of creating a cover that worked.

So: before you book goes to agents, make damn sure you understand its genre (however vague the boundaries of that genre might be.) Then meet your genre obligations, in full. Don’t skimp.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Genre promise

Give me 250 words from early in your book that start to deliver genre-promise. Give us some background here. Give title, genre and context – including where your extract is taken from. Is it first page? First chapter? What? I just want to see early evidence that you understand your genre and are in the process of delivering it. When it's ready post in the forum here on Townhouse (our free online writing community).

Til soon.

Harry

If I had a penny for every person who has said to me, “I’d love to write a book, but I don’t have the time.” I’d have at least £1.50. So many writers struggle to establish a routine in their busy lives and then get frustrated when their project begins to falter. They lose their momentum, struggle to pick up the threads of what they were working on and then succumb to The Fear… that terrible droning voice that tells you to give up, because who cares? Why keep going? It’s pointless anyway.  

I’ve written thirteen novels, eleven of which I wrote while working fulltime. I have a family, friends and hobbies, so I am here to tell you it can be done. Here are my six tips to establish a workable writing routine.  

1. Write every day

I have been told off for giving this advice before, but I will stand by it. I firmly believe that the best way to drive a project forward is to open your notebook or your document every single day and add to it. It doesn’t have to be a lot… a few sentences a paragraph, a word count you set yourself, but it is the single best way to stay immersed in your project and keep hold of the threads. And besides, you can’t hear the nasty whispers of The Fear over the clatter of typing keys.  

2. Call yourself a writer

No, not “Call yourself a writer?!” Call yourself a writer. Name it. You are not an aspirant writer. Not hoping to be a writer one day. You’re writing, so you’re a writer. Naming it makes it real and gives your project weight and significance. It becomes something worth prioritising in your life. Say it with me. 

“I am a writer, and I am writing... [INSERT PROJECT HERE]”  

Now… 

3. Make it a priority 

Yes, you have a job, you have a partner, children, pets, responsibilities, health concerns. Every writer does. According to 2022 research conducted by ALCSⁱ, only 19% of primary occupation authors earn their total individual income from writing alone. So 81% of your favourite authors are fitting their writing in around other work.  

If you are choosing to write and you’re serious about wanting to complete something, realise that you need to make space for it in your life. Tell the people around you that you will be setting time aside for writing. Is there a way you can open up a little time in your day? Can you meal-plan and batch-cook meals?  Forego your evening doomscroll? Watch one less episode of Grey’s Anatomy (or is that just me?).  

4. Find a time when you’re productive 

 See tip #3 above. Even if you can carve out time, it’s important to try and find time when you are not absolutely shattered, or feeling the pressure of other responsibilities. You will know when that is. Is it in the quiet of the evening, once everyone else has gone to bed? Are you better in the early morning? Do you need privacy and absolute silence? Or do you quite like writing in a busy, buzzy space like a coffee shop or canteen? If it helps to get up half an hour earlier, put your work emails off for a bit and write then, then do it.  

5. How do you eat an elephant? 

One bite at a time, as we say in my home country of South Africa. Every sentence you write, every paragraph, every page adds to your story. And it really doesn’t matter if it isn’t a lot. It’s not a race to get thousands of words a day down, and there’s no prize for writing really fast. What you’ll find as you go though, is everything you write is another brushstroke on the canvas. The characters stop being theoretical outlines. They sit up, breathe and talk. The plot begins to lay itself out in front of you, and all of a sudden, you can’t type fast enough to get it all down. Don’t get me wrong, there will still be days when it’s like wading through treacle and the words won’t come, but there will still be a smaller portion of elephant on your plate. 

6. Celebrate the wins

My lucky, lucky family gets to witness the 10,000-word dance, a magnificent piece of choreography I perform every time I hit 10K, 20K, 30K (etc) words in a first draft. I call on you to celebrate all your milestones, no matter how small. We can get caught up in thinking about how far we still have to go. Remember to stop on the road and look back. You’ve written every day for a week? Brilliant. I am so proud of you. You’ve passed 10,000 words in your story? Have a biscuit. Hell, have two! You finally solved that thorny problem in Chapter Seventeen? Kitchen Karaoke Party!  

Remember, you are engaged in doing the most amazing thing. Your incredible human brain is making something out of nothing... conjuring a new story out of thin air, energy and magic.  You are bringing a precious thing into the world that has never existed before. Every step of that is worth celebrating.  

And a final, final tip… you actually have to write

Auntie Rosie is watching over your shoulder, and I know what you’re doing. Don’t procrastinate. No, you don’t need the perfect notebook and sharpened pencil and that scented candle. Looking at Pinterest posts of beautiful bookshops and imagining your book in them is not writing. Get your head down; this time is precious. Butt in the seat, words on the page. 

Go.

Rosie Fiore is a tutor on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. To find out more about the course, visit the web page or fill in this form and we’ll send the brochure straight to your inbox.

This month – genre.

It’s the theme of our Premium Membership events. (Join us today to access them.) It’s the theme of this and the next few emails.

And today: we’re getting dressed up, in a cover design of course, aiming for the sweet, sweet job of jumping from bookshelf to cash till.

Before that, though, a reminder. Some books have classic genres, easily identifiable by the title of the bookstore shelf: crime, romance, SF, fantasy, Middle Grade fantasy, or whatever. Most books don’t. They just live under a shelf that says, ‘Fiction’, which isn’t a genre at all.

And yet – everything has its basket.

If your book is a comically-inclined story about a plump Scots fishmonger who finds love on safari, then your sisters-in-genre are:

• Relationship-led
• Contemporary
• Gentle / comic
• Heart-warming
• Especially any such books that have a dash of foreign travel.

That’s not a genre exactly, but for most purposes (including today’s) those are the walls that define your space. All books have some such walls and understanding those is crucial to you as a writer and you as a book-publisher.

Now, we’re going to approach things backwards and will start at the end. Assume your book is done and dusted. If you’re self-publishing, you need to commission a cover. If you’re not, you still need an emphatic sense of what cover does or does not look right for your book. Publishers don’t always get these things right and the most certain way to murder your book’s chances is to end up with a weak cover. For that reason, I generally advise that authors are permitted One Big Strop per book published and, in most cases, that Strop – if you need to use it at all – is reserved for a fight about book covers.

OK. So: every book has a genre. And you’re in charge of choosing its cover.

There are two lethal mistakes that far too many authors make here.

Mistake #1: “I want my cover to look original.”

Mistake #2: “My cover should reflect my book.”

Neither thing is true, and the first mistake is very dangerous.

The purpose of a book cover is to incite engagement. That’s it.

In a physical bookshop, the cover needs to say, “Hey, reader, I’m the sort of book you generally like, so pick me up and turn me over.” On Amazon, the cover says the same kind of thing, except here the engagement involves a click through to blurb instead.

At this delicate moment in the reader-journey, the reader has no information at all, except what book cover (and title) supply. So the job of the cover is just to make sure that your book pitches up in, broadly speaking, the right sets of hands.

If you’re writing, gritty crime, the cover needs to say, first and foremost, ‘I’m gritty crime.’

If cosy crime, the cover needs to say, ‘I’m cosy crime.’

And so on.

Lots of cosy crime readers may pick up your book and put it down again. That’s life. Don’t worry about it.

There may be readers of police procedurals who might, as it happens, enjoy your cosy crime. But you need to ignore them, because if you start to drop in ‘police procedural’ type signalling into your design, it will confuse the signals to the people who are in fact core.

You need to find the heart of your market – your genre, in fact – and plant your book there.

For the same reason, it hardly matters if a book does or does not reflect your content. One of my more successful covers in the Fiona Griffiths series was a picture of a tree. The book gave no special role to a tree. The tree was relevant to nothing. But the styling said, ‘Dark, commercial, atmospheric crime’ and that spoke to the book’s core audience. That’s was all that was needed.

So the job of that cover is to signal what group of readers you are looking to attract.

That’s it. Nothing more.

Once your cover has secured the reader’s first tentative engagement, then of course further bits come into play. Your blurb then needs to do two things:

#1: It needs to reinforce the genre message. If you’re writing cosy crime, the blurb needs to say, in effect, ‘You picked this book up because the cover told you that I’m all about cosy crime – and that’s 100% true. If you like old people and cats and quilting and some not-very-scary murders, then this is exactly where you want to be.’

#2: It needs to introduce the specifics of the story – where’s the book set? Who are the characters? What’s the premise? But those things all have to cohere (looking backwards in the reader journey) with the message of the cover and also (looking forwards) with the experience that the book itself will deliver.

And that’s it. That’s pretty much all you need to know about genre packaging.

As I say, even if your genre is floaty (plump-Scots-fishmonger-on-safari type floaty), you still need to find the heart of that genre when you figure out the cover.

Genre sells books. That’s why it matters.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Title

What’s your cover design? What’s your title? Does that communicate genre? When you're ready to share, post in the Townhouse forum.

I know very few people will actually have a cover design to hand, and that’s fine. But say something about what kind of thing you’d like to see. And if you’re writing a thriller and your cover design is just “burly male silhouetted against burning urban landscape” that’s completely fine. Is that a totally unoriginal cover design? Yes.

Does it instantly and precisely talk directly to your target audience? Yes.

So it’s a good cover.

Til soon.

Harry