Hello, I'm an assistant editor providing writing advice. SN specializes in superhero writing advice, obviously, but most of the advice here applies to fantasy and sci-fi as well.

1. You will get paid much, much less than you can imagine. A 75,000 word manuscript takes 2000+ hours and sells for a bit above $5000. That’s not even close to minimum wage, particularly when you consider the work put in after the book is published. If you plan on eating food more expensive than Kibbles and Bits, get a day job.

2. Most novelists don’t get their first novels published. According to a Tobias Buckell survey, only 35% of authors got their first novel published. This shouldn’t be too surprising– look at what you were writing 2-3 years ago. You’ve gotten a lot better, right? Well, you’ll probably feel the same way about what you’re writing now in 2-3 years. As you practice, you’ll get better.

3. Novel publishing is freakishly competitive, particularly compared to English classes. In an English class, at least half of the papers will get A’s and the teacher will usually explain to everybody else what they need to fix so that they will get A’s. In contrast, publishers reject over 99% of submissions and won’t bother asking you to revise-and-resubmit unless you’re close. If you’re in the bottom ~99% of submissions, you will probably get a form rejection letter explaining nothing about what you need to change.

4. Even after you’ve finished your novel manuscript, it will take you years before the book is actually on shelves. Hell, it usually takes at least 3-6 months for a publisher to evaluate its submissions. Then you have to wait for steps like editing and rewrites, cover design, publicity and promotions, etc.

5. Almost all novel sales are made through brick-and-mortar stores and A-list websites like Amazon. Unfortunately, authors’ websites are usually insignificant.

6. When your novel gets published, you will have virtually no control over what the cover looks like. They may show it to you before it gets printed.  Or not.  If this is a make-or-break issue for you, you have a few options.  For example, get some professional-grade visual design skills.  They’ll probably take your artistic input more seriously if you know what you’re talking about.  Failing that, you can self-publish your novel.  Then you’d have complete control over the cover.  Or you can get a huge audience.  If JK Rowling wanted an exploding alien on her cover, the publisher would ask green or grey.  Alternately, you can write comic books; comic book writers have significantly more influence over their covers.

7.  The most important question controlling whether a book will get published is whether it will sell well. For a novel, that usually means five to ten thousand sales.   Another consideration is whether the book is stylistically similar to what the publisher has worked on before.  I could have the most awesome superhero comic book for kids ever, but my submission would still get laughed out of the office at Avatar Press.  “Umm, you do know we do porn, right?”  Pick your publishers carefully!

8. Publishers tend to prefer particular kinds of stories but hate ripoffs. The authors that get published build on what the publishers already have. If Scholastic wanted another Harry Potter or Marvel wanted another Spiderman series, they already have JK Rowling and DeFalco on speed-dial. To get published, you need at least one editor to think your submission fits their style but is but better than their previous works.  In contrast, “this is a second-rate knockoff of our biggest work” is a sure-fire rejection.

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Please read this article’s sequel, Another Eight Facts About Writing That Surprise Young Novelists, here!

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