Mistakes you've made as an author

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kelliewallace

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As I fall into my fifth year of submitting my novels, it occurred to me I have made some shocking mistakes over the years: submitting half finished chapters, no chapter headings, sending a generic email to agents (we've all done it) but I think my doozy is when I was first starting out, I didnt know the difference between non-fiction and fiction. Pretty naive and noobie thing to do right?
I thought about this the other day and I realised I probably sent out half a dozen submissions to publishers saying my fiction book was non-fiction! Needless to say I never heard them any of them. Now, I can't seem to envision how on earth I got it wrong. What they say is correct: you learn from your mistakes.
What are some of yours?
 

Ken

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sub'ing to an agent who doesn't rep your genre
that really won't work, except perhaps on rare occasion
stick to ones who do !
 

Usher

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My main one is writing a book that doesn't have a sub genre. Agents have sent me great feedback on the book but usually comes with comment that they don't know how to market.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

The doozy for me was getting a request from a referred agent, telling him I was enclosing an SASE (back in the days when you REALLY needed them)...and not doing it.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Jo Zebedee

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sub'ing to an agent who doesn't rep your genre
that really won't work, except perhaps on rare occasion
stick to ones who do !

Yep, this one hurts. I've learned this week.

Um, also, not enjoying the early process, making myself pressurised. To e for that later!
 

Filigree

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Wow, so many, over the years. Pitching a plotted but unwritten MG book to a major publisher, and unearthing their request for a partial in a stack of junk mail five years later. (I never did anything with that book.) Getting the wrong collaborator for a fantasy series, and round-filing nearly everything when that friendship ended. Getting the wrong agent for my work, only he and I didn't realize that for 9 years. Querying too early, way before a mms was polished. Querying too many agents on that mms. Querying a 'suspect' publisher when I knew better - only a rejection letter saved me from a career-damning mistake. Getting into the wrong flame war on AW (why I wrote up Filigree's Rule, to keep out of them now.)

Those are just the big mistakes.
 

Jamesaritchie

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I have no doubt I've made mistakes, but I really can't, at the moment, think of any that matter.

The only one that comes to mind is sending an early, very messy draft with misspelling, typos, and strikeouts to an editor, rather than the final draft. That was long ago, back when I did two separate drafts. It was a silly mistake, but it sold, anyway, so no harm done.
 

LostGurl

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For the people who say their biggest mistake was querying too soon (before a ms was really ready) I have a question: How do you know it was too soon?
Had it not been critiqued/revised yet?
Was it full of errors?
Did you as the author feel that something was unfinished?

I'm sort of at the stage with my ms where it's being critiqued and I'm in the process of revising and trying to figure out next steps, so it would be helpful to know.
 

Jamesaritchie

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For the people who say their biggest mistake was querying too soon (before a ms was really ready) I have a question: How do you know it was too soon?
Had it not been critiqued/revised yet?
Was it full of errors?
Did you as the author feel that something was unfinished?

I'm sort of at the stage with my ms where it's being critiqued and I'm in the process of revising and trying to figure out next steps, so it would be helpful to know.

I've been on the receiving end of writers who queried too soon. I know it's too soon when I can tell teh writer has taelnt, but large parts of teh book are amateurish, and not well thought out. I can tell that even one more draft would have made the novel much better.

Writers I know who have queried too soon often know it from the kind of rejections they receive, and realizing they could have, and should have, done much better.

Read your novel front to back. If you can find anything you think could be changed for the better, change it, then read it again. Make sure the quality is the same front to back. If there's a weak beginning or ending, rewrite it. If the middle sags, unsag it.
 

Jamesaritchie

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One serious mistake I have made is a mistake of omission, rather than commission. I've backed away from promising projects because I convinced myself I didn't have the time, or because I wasn't sure I could carry it off, etc. Every time I do this, it proves to be a mistake.
 

gothicangel

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Spending eight years working on one book before trunking and starting another.

Giving up on submitting too early after only 20 rejections.

Taking so long to realize I didn't really like crime fiction, but that I do love HF.
 

Polenth

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Following the advice to write what I loved. I wrote a book in a genre on the way out. Now, I pay attention to trends and avoid writing whatever is the current big thing. If I love an idea that much, I can always come back to it when the trend and the dead period are both over.
 

BenPanced

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-- Realizing I didn't include the requested pages the very second I clicked "send".

-- Like others, sending out a manuscript that needed at least two more passes. In this case, I got a revise & resubmit request with three specific areas to address. As I went over the manuscript, I was horrified at the shape it was in and have never been so humiliated in my entire life. I need to look at the guidelines this week and get it back to the editor who'd responded.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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Following the advice to write what I loved. I wrote a book in a genre on the way out. Now, I pay attention to trends and avoid writing whatever is the current big thing. If I love an idea that much, I can always come back to it when the trend and the dead period are both over.

There is no better advice that to write what you most love to read. There is no such thing a as dead genre, there's only the lack of really good novels to keep it healthy. One good novel can revive any cold genre.
 

PeteMC

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Wiring all three books in a trilogy before I started querying the first one. Now I have three novels in the trunk instead of just one.
 

JustSarah

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Subbing to a magazine without knowing their theme list, though they curiously don't release their theme list.
 

Shadow_Ferret

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I've made all of them. And if there are any more, I'll probably make them, too.
By every bit of evidence available, writing.

caw
This.

Following the advice to write what I loved. I wrote a book in a genre on the way out. Now, I pay attention to trends and avoid writing whatever is the current big thing. If I love an idea that much, I can always come back to it when the trend and the dead period are both over.
I don't understand this. I only write what I love. That was the point of becoming a writer.
 
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Channy

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Before coming to AW and learning (even what a query letter was), I submitted an email to one of my top fav agents, providing a summary, asking questions, if it had potential, also mentioning it was half finished... surprisingly enough, they responded very kindly! But I look back on that email and hang my head in shame.
 

Roxxsmom

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Almost sent off a query with a blank subject line yesterday.

Caught it right before I hit send, thankfully. I was so caught up in checking and double checking the formatting, spelling and so on of the content of the e-mail, I almost forgot the first thing the agent will see is the subject line.

I'm still too new to this to be able to look back and know what else I might be screwing up now.

Writing for a fraction of a percentage of the market. And I still haven't learned from that one.

If you actually know what the market breakdown is (percentage wise) within each genre, you're way ahead of me :(
 
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Chris P

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My greatest mistake has been impatience. I've twice signed contracts with publishers because they were "easy" without doing proper research about whether or not they're a good fit, or even decent publishers.
 
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