Since 2013, when I wrote my first blog post for this agency, I’ve covered a lot of different topics and issues, sometimes repeating some themes that I felt important. But overall, I sought to be an “encouraging realist” when it comes to book publishing.
I also make it a habit to plan posts well into the future, so I have my schedule drafted through early 2026, which could either be viewed with a sense of blogging awe and wonder or, more likely, that I should see a therapist.
Still, there are a lot of posts I decided to toss into the trash bin of blogging history for various reasons. Here they are and some reasons why I deep-sixed them:
Don’t Send Your Proposal Willy-Nilly to Every Agent
Other than I was looking for a way to use “willy-nilly” on a post, it might actually be faulty advice. After all, there’s that time when an aspiring author sent a book proposal to their insurance agent, who shared it with their real-estate agent, whose brother-in-law knew a guy in the CIA who knew a secret agent who had a neighbor who was a literary agent. They got a contract in the mail with a check for $100,000! This happens all the time.
Pay Attention to What Publishers Want to Publish
As we gaze at the sunrise on our back porch and ponder the wonders of God’s creation, the editorial desires of a company that might invest money in our book seem so small and irrelevant. After all, there was that one time when a publisher did a book completely off-brand for them. Sure, it was written by the daughter of the company owner; but it proves they will go a different direction once in a while. Who wants to find out that the book they have been writing for the last ten years was not commercially publishable? Totally discouraging.
Take Your Time and Do It Write
See what I did there? Pretty funny, huh? I wrote the title and then I couldn’t think of any good approach to the post. I was in a hurry anyway and created a post under Bob Hostetler’s byline using ChatGPT. You can read it in the next couple of weeks.
Don’t Just Send Your manuscript Instead of a Proposal
Talk about discouraging. Seriously, after spending a thousand hours writing over the last two years, who wants to spend two more hours creating a professional proposal? The least an editor or agent can do is spend eight hours reading it. This would have fallen flat for the agency blog.
I had a few more ideas not as developed as the above:
Your mom is not a literary critic (even if she is).
Manuscripts written with pencil in cursive handwriting are not properly formatted for publication.
A manuscript isn’t done until an editor says it is.
Platform, shmatform, books are still important even if they sell only four copies. (I would have gotten angry emails about “shmatform” not being a real word.)
Authors who ignored any professional advice and were still highly successful. (I thought of the title first, but then couldn’t find any examples, so I gave up.)
