If you actually know what the market breakdown is (percentage wise) within each genre, you're way ahead of me
Some of it is extrapolation, but I mostly go by Hugh Howey's data on Amazon sales, because that's pretty much my market at the moment.
If you actually know what the market breakdown is (percentage wise) within each genre, you're way ahead of me
Yep, this one hurts. I've learned this week.
Um, also, not enjoying the early process, making myself pressurised. To e for that later!
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.
agent who evidently likes the style of querying many advice sites say to avoid like the plague.
One frustrating mistake I just discovered is sending the wrong kind of query to an agent who evidently likes the style of querying many advice sites say to avoid like the plague.
Note to self, read everything on an agency's web page before submitting, not just the submission guidelines and information about the agent you want to submit to.
So their slush reader probably curled his or her lip and said, "Another one of those idiots who thinks we care about some stupid 175 word summary that shows off their voice and explains what the character wants, what stands in their way, and what the stakes are! What's with these people? It's like there's a website out there telling them how to write bad queries or something."
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.