4 Best-Selling Authors on How to Write and Sell a Book

“The Titanic was sinking so we jumped in the lifeboat and paddled like hell.”

That’s how New York Times bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews describes the origin of Friends & Fiction, the weekly web series she co-hosts with her best-selling writer pals Kristin Harmel, Kristy Woodson Harvey and Patti Callahan Henry. Every Wednesday night at 7 pm ET, they chat with authors like Jodi Picoult, Kwame Alexander, and Elin Hilderbrand about their latest works, their tips for writers, and the books they’ve read that shaped their careers.

In 2020, the four friends had their upcoming book tours abruptly canceled due to the pandemic. They hopped on a Zoom happy hour to commiserate over glasses of rosé and began strategizing best how to reach their readers and support independent bookstores while everyone was stuck at home. As the wine flowed, so did the ideas, eventually manifesting in their wildly popular Friends & Fiction YouTube show and podcast, as well as a Facebook community that has more than 240,000 members.

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Since its inception, which featured former host Mary Alice Monroe, the show has branched out with live appearances, an online book club, a thriving merch store, and newsletters in the F&F mix. “We thought we were doing this for ourselves and for bookstores, but the community was sitting there waiting,” says Patti Callahan Henry. “I’d like to say we had a plan for all of this, but we basically built a rocket ship on the way to the moon.”

Entrepreneur caught up with the four show founders to get their best tips for writers and creators hoping to make an impact. (Sadly, no rosé was consumed during the conversation.) While they each have their own unique approach to their craft, two words sum up their advice: just start!

Overcoming fear of failure

Patti Callahan Henry: It’s scary to say you want to write a book and then maybe fail to get it published, but my advice is that you’ve got to jump in the deep end. Nobody has floaties to give you, but find community, take classes, and just start writing. What is the phrase? Jump and the net will appear.

Kristin Harmel: When you’re trying something new or scary, the first thing to do is make an investment in yourself. You need to believe that you can do it and that all of the time and effort you put into it will be worth it. Every great work that’s ever been created started in one person’s mind.

Kristy Woodson Harvey: You can’t be controlled by that little baby fragile ego that we all have. The reality is that being a writer usually doesn’t look pretty in the beginning. We all had those book-reading events where one person showed up or no one came at all. And that ego part of you says, “I can’t fail. I can’t let other people see me fail.” But here’s the reality: people really only care about themselves. I hate to say it that way, but my failure does not mean that much to anyone else. You just have to move on and keep going.

Self-publishing versus traditional publishing

Mary Kay Andrews: I think it all depends on what your goals are. If you have a story that you are burning to tell and you just have to get it out there, then that’s your priority and self-publishing might make the most sense. Getting traditionally published, which is the route all of us have gone, takes longer. It’s more painful. You face rejection at every turn. I think people should really educate themselves not just about the craft but also the business of writing. Learn what publishers are looking for. If your story is niche and is outside of a typical traditional publisher’s wheelhouse, then self-publishing may be the best and only way it can get out.

Kristin Harmel: To be traditionally published, you almost certainly do have to get an agent. I have zero regrets about having an agent and it’s been a phenomenal work partnership. But I think that in terms of the changing landscape of publishing, there are more and more opportunities for more and more people to be read and to achieve this dream of having a published novel. I think it’s beautiful that so many more opportunities exist than existed when all of us started.

Patti Callahan Henry: I try to advise people to be patient. It took me years after I finished my first novel to get published — find the agent, rewrite it, start another one. My first book actually didn’t get published. But you have this urgency because you put in all of this work and you might make decisions based on impatience. So get educated in the process. Listen to Friends & Fiction, go to classes, go to groups, go to conferences, enter contests. Once you get that knowledge of the process and the business, you can determine the best route for you.

Related: Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing: Which Is Best for You?

The need to be relentless

Kristy Woodson Harvey: I was working in finance and I approached getting published like I would have approached a client who had plenty of money but was a hot mess with their finances. I researched all of the agents I wanted to pitch and I also read the publishing stories of any author I admired. How did they do it? Then I made this big spreadsheet of all the ways people had gotten published. I hated the idea of just saying, “Well, I’m going to submit to these agents, and if they all say no, then that’s that.” I had my plan A, plan B, plan C and plan D. I did actually sign with a literary agent, but at the same time, I was submitting to some writing contests. And I ended up getting my first book deal because of a writing contest. So I tell people to never think “Well that didn’t work out so I’m dead in the water.” It’s more like, “If this doesn’t work, what’s next? And what’s next after that?”

Mary Kay Andrews: When I was trying to get published, I was working full-time as a newspaper reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I was really unhappy with my career. The managing editor told me I was not a writer and I’d never be a writer. That brutal statement was seared onto my brain pan. And I was like Scarlett O’Hara, “As God is my witness I will prove you wrong!” And I developed this thing a friend told me about called Scam a Day. That means that every day you take one little subversive step toward achieving your goal. So my Scam a Days might be getting myself assigned to interview authors coming through Atlanta on book tours or querying an agent while I was at work. That is against the rules, but you can put that on the record. As everyone knows, I have no fucks left to give.

Related: How a Self-Published Author Sold 500,000 Copies of Her Book

Writing process hacks

Mary Kay Andrews: I draft longhand in one of those old black and white speckled composition books. I start jotting down thoughts and scene ideas and questions — my agent always calls this the “I’m talking to myself” part of the process. Once I’ve talked to myself enough, then all of a sudden I start writing scenes and I start writing dialogue. And I try to get at least 500 words down. On a really good day, I’ll write 2,000 words longhand, then I jump on my laptop and type them into a document, revising as I go.

Kristin Harmel: I believe very strongly in outlining. I am a plotter. The opposite of being a plotter is being a pantser, where you fly by the seat of your pants. And I wish I could be a pantser, it feels like it would be so much more fun. But if you’re new to this, I would suggest starting as a plotter because it gives you a roadmap. It gives you a safety blanket and most importantly, it’s a guard against writer’s block because if you know the basic way to the end you’re never going to get stuck.

Kristy Woodson Harvey: I’m probably the most loosey-goosey of our group. I wrote my first book largely when I was up for feedings with the baby. There was no time then I could be like, “Oh, I’m going to sit down and write 2,000 words.” I would just use any moments I got and write whatever part of the story was burning in my brain — the dialogue between two characters, a scene, whatever it was. And when I finished, I had three-quarters of a story. And then I did something very professional that I nicknamed “Writing through the story.” I filled in the missing parts between all those pieces. And that has been my process ever since.

Patti Callahan Henry: When I first started writing, my kids were five, three and newborn. So I got in the habit of writing from 4:30 to 6:30 in the morning. I do not write at 4:30 now, but I do write in the morning. I keep my morning hours sacred. I’m very dedicated to them. There are a lot of different approaches, but the important thing is that you have to find the way that the story comes to you and then be disciplined about it. I don’t think you can force yourself to be a different kind of writer than you are, but I do think you have to be dedicated to the kind of writer that you are.

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