What I Wish I Knew Before Writing My First Novel

Writing is a fun way to spend your time. You get to have your imagination run wild and see where your thoughts take you. This is your world and no one else’s - unless you let them into it. 

Writing to publish is a whole different ball game. But I didn’t know that when I first started. Here are 10 things I wish I knew before writing a novel with the intent of publishing.

1. You are writing to other people’s opinions

You can write for yourself, sure. But are you going to buy your own book? Sign up to your own newsletter? Pre-order all your future books? Probably. But you want other people to do the same. Write for your audience, get out there and read what people are currently reading. Trends change and you need to keep on top of them if you want to sell your books. 

Am I telling you to write to market? No, this isn’t something you have to do but you have to be aware of what’s selling so you can either add elements to your current work or release a different book you’ve written that fits with the current market.

2. The more you learn the harder it feels

You’d think it would get easier. The more knowledge you gain, the easier things feel. You’d think writing would become 2nd nature. But no. That’s not how it works unfortunately. The more you learn, the more you release you need to learn. The world is a big place and with every book, every change in a market trend, you have to learn it all all over again. Some things will stick but a lot of knowledge goes around and around on a merry-go-round. You need to stay on it and keep refreshing your knowledge. 

3. There are no short cuts

I wish this were a lie. I love a good short cut. But I have not discovered any in the writing world. You must write, edit, edit, edit, publish, design, market, market, market, write, edit, edit, edit… There’s no way around it. You’ll always feel tired, always feel burnt out and hope that one day it’ll be worth it. 

Which hopefully it already is and you’re enjoying the process at least somewhat.

4. You won’t see your mistakes until it’s too late

Did I pick up on the fact I was spelling Barbara as Barabara - nope. My beta-readers had to tell me. Did I notice the formatting was off until I ordered a Proof copy? Nope. Did I see the plot holes until my editor sent me an email? I did not. 

You get so wrapped up in the moment you don’t notice the big picture. Which is why we hire professionals and outside eyes to help us.

5. It’s hard to see how far you’ve come until you start helping others

Every part of writing is difficult and feels like hard work. No matter what you do, you are constantly learning - and learning is a difficult thing to do. It’s hard to realise how much you’ve learnt and how far along you are in your writing journey until you find a young writer asking questions - and you know exactly how to answer them. Helping others, not only strengthens your own knowledge, it can also remind you of your younger days and help you see how much you’ve accomplished. 

6. You’ll wanna quit 99% of the time

Not a joke. I question why I’m pursuing writing every single day. I’m tired, overwhelmed, burnt out, yet I keep writing. Usually because there’s this stupid thing called “inspiration” that keeps randomly hitting me. Writing is not a career that treats you well. Every writer, ever creative, does it because they have to. They need to. No one wants this.

7. When you think you’re finished you’ll learn about 100 more things to do

After I finished the first draft, I learnt about editing, once I finished editing, I learnt about beta-readers, once I finished editing I learnt about professional editors, once I finished editing I learnt about manuscript assessors, once I finished editing I learnt about copy editors, once I finished editing I learnt about proof-readers, once I finished editing I learnt about cover designers, once I finished talking to the cover designer I learnt about formatting, once I finished formatting I learnt about proof copies, once I receive my proof copy who knows what else I’ll learn.

8. Writing is 1% of the job

Writing the first draft, I think, is the hardest part. You don’t have all the ideas, you don’t know what fits with the story yet, you may still be getting to know the characters. There’s a lot of experimenting and you rely heavily on inspiration. We all try to pretend like we write without being inspired but my goodness, it’s difficult. It feels as though this should be 100% of the job with all the effort you put into it. But it’s not. It’s only 1% of the job.

9. Editing is 50% of the job

Editing is a big part of what writers do and it takes up most of your time. The fun part is it never ends. The more you learn, the more you will find wrong with your older works. Editing is also an experimental time - and a part of the process I enjoy - you get to play around with structure, sounds, and imagery. Something you can’t do during the first draft stage. Once you’ve made the work perfect, you hand it over to strangers to tell you why it isn’t perfect, then you fix and repeat the process until you physically can’t anymore. Possible because you deleted everything - but hopefully not.

10. Marketing, publishing and accounting is the other 49% of the job

I was so intimidated by this part. It’s a slow burn for sure but it’s not as scary as people make it out to be. I thought this would be running ads, starting a youtube channel and screaming about in the streets - but it doesn’t have to be. 

You get to pick where you advertise and how. I chose to go a passive route. I use Medium and Reddit. On Medium I write stories about travel and interact with my fellow writers on there. It’s a wonderful community of writers and a great way to get your name in the writing world. Reddit is fun to answer questions about writing and ask for help when you’re stuck. 

With this indirect marketing I’ve had people sign up to my mailing list and view posts on my website - and hopefully a couple people will be interested in buying my book. 

A website is a fantastic tool. If readers want to know about you, work with you, or see what your latest and greatest is - they’ll look for your website. You can also build up an audience directly on your website via a blog and email marketing - which means you can advertise directly to them.

Guest posts are a fun thing to write. And you can link back to your website and gain and entirely new audience. What fun!