by Ruth Harris No. Non. Nein. Nyet. No effin way. And, in case you haven’t suffered enough: لا (That’s Arabic for “not right for us.”) And it’s not just you. If you’re a writer, you will be rejected. And you will be dissed. Period. Comes with the territory. (Sorry about that.) Kathryn Stockett ’s The Help (on the New York Times bestseller list for over 100 weeks, with sales of several million […]
Catherine Ryan Hyde on Rejection: Does Your Rejected Work Need a Rewrite?
Rejections. We all get them. In fact, there are only two things we can absolutely count on in the writing business: rejections and bad reviews. There’s no doubt rejections make us feel terrible. As Brian Doyle wrote in Portland Magazine and was quoted in Letters of Note, “To receive one is to instantly and all at once […]
The 10 Commandments of Highly Productive Professional Writers
by Ruth Harris I’ve known and worked with a lot of professional writers over the years (decades). Some work first thing in the AM, others in the PM, some don’t get started until near midnight. Some write sober, some don’t. Some write on a computer, some on legal pads, and some write on tablets or […]
The 10 REAL Reasons Your Book Was Rejected: A Big 5 Editor Tells All
by Ruth Harris I’m an Amazon #1 and million-copy NYT bestselling author published by Random House, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s. I was also an editor for over 20 years. I worked at Macmillan, Dell and Bantam and for a small but thriving independent paperback house, now defunct—not because of me. 🙂 I was also […]
Rejection, Rotten Reviews, and Social Media: 7 Ways Writers Need to be Like Rhinos
by Ruth Harris Writers are always urged to have or develop “rhino skin.” But let me add a few words about rhino skin. When I wrote ZURI, I did lots & lots of research about rhinos. As it turns out, rhinos have thick hides but sensitive skin—quite different from the usual perception. What rhinos […]
How Writers Can Learn to Cope: 6 No-Fail Strategies for Achieving Mental Toughness
Thanks to all of you who voted for our blog in the Association of American Publishers and Goodreads Independent Book Blogger Awards. We made it to the Finalist list for Best Publishing Industry Blog. 10,000 people voted in a field of over 800 nominees. The winner in that category is the uber-awesome Victoria Strauss of Writer […]