First Time Author Resources

In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that I wrote a picture book and am a first time author. As someone who always loved writing, it has always been a dream to publish a book of my own (some of my writing has made it way into a few anthologies). Writing seemed the easy part (haha, it was not), but getting it out there and figuring out what happens after writing my story was what I needed help with.

I wanted to share these resources with any aspiring authors out here. Whether you’re like me and clawed my way through a slush pile or dipping your toes in the water, or just curious, I hope these come in handy.

Some great resources:

• A good (professional) editor or two – I hired two editors to look through my manuscript. The first person was great but by chance, I found an editor who had just left one of the publishing houses that I wanted to submit to (so had some free time) and felt that her titles had similar themes to mine ($$)* Though my book was already submitted to publishers (with only the first editor’s initial notes), I wanted it to be better. It read so much better after the first editor, but it got even better after the second editor looked at it.
• Grammarly – make your sentences make sense!
• QueryTracker – another tool I found shortly before I received news about my publisher accepting my book. QueryTracker is a free (you can also subscribe for $25USD/ year) tool to query literary agents. It was very interesting for me to see different agents (predominantly in US, Canada, and UK) who were accepting submissions and their reply rates when I was considering that avenue.
• Manuscript Wish List – A great way to find agents who publish your genre.
• Institute of Children’s Literature – did not personally use this resource for critique but I’m really enjoying their podcast right now. Their critiquing service definitely sounds intriguing ($$)
• ChatGPT. HA! Just kidding. Funny aside: my husband teaches and gets increasingly frustrated whenever he sees a student leave the ‘4o’ at the bottom of an assignment.

* There is a caveat to this though. Make sure that the editor isn’t just a random person on the internet who uses Grammarly. A good editor will help you navigate through the story and find ways to help tell your story better.

Let me get personal and show you the feedback I got from the first draft. Initially, it got me down thinking that the story wasn’t great; after mulling it over, I realized her points were valid and lit a fire in me to get myself together and write the dang book.

“While I enjoyed reading [your story], I have to admit that I struggled to see what this book was really ABOUT. “

It was a gut punch. This book felt like a third baby and was especially personal because it was modelled after my own family. I think I was just too in my head on what I wanted it to be so I missed the big picture. It was great motivation for me to keep pushing on because I knew there was something there.

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I’ll be continuing this book publishing series because personally, I love hearing about how things work and publishing is one of those things that people don’t normally talk about. Books just appear in a bookstore, Target, Walmart etc. and there’s a sense of mystery as to how it got there. I’m lifting the curtain to this. I’m not an expert by any means, I’m just muddling through my first book and am fascinated by everything that’s going on and want to share this with you all! Throughout this process are a few bumps and turns so buckle in for this wild recap!

Side note: This series is only applicable to traditional publishing as I have no experience with self-publishing.