Why you should forget follower count and focus on joy, instead — A while ago, a good friend and fellow writer, Curtis texted me. “Well, it’s happening,” he wrote. “They’re making me do PLATFORM.” Curtis and I share a kick-ass editor at a major house, an intuitive woman who tries to let her writers concentrate on…

The other night, I left my house to find our cat before the coyotes did and found my brand new neighbor standing in our driveway, instead. Without any preamble, she gestured to the three cords of wood we had meticulously split, seasoned, and stacked throughout the summer. Could she have…

4 tips for aspiring authors — If there is a way to get a book published, I’ve tried it. To date, I have two books published with Penguin Random House (America’s largest publishing house), three books published with the independent presses Catapult and Tin House, a short story turned into an Audible Original on Amazon, a…

Ten things that have helped me with insomnia Insomnia has plagued me since I was a child. As early as eight years of age, I used to wake up far earlier than my friends, unable to fall back asleep even though my body was exhausted. On nights when pals slept…

Why are US consumers so slow to purchase books? — I watched something incredible happen the other day. I was having dinner at a friend’s house (thank you science and vaccination, for that meal) and he wanted to put on a movie for our two children to watch. Except that he did not have or own the movie that he…

Think before you Venmo — As one of my side hustles, I have a business called “The Query Doula” where I help writers prepare their manuscript openings and query letters for the agent query process. Most of the writers I’ve worked with come to me after having paid big bucks to an outside editor to…

As with retinol products and heirloom vegetables, book publishing also follows market trends. Writers, after all, are natural-born observers, our cultural referees. It makes sense that the issues that fascinate and concern one writer would also interest someone else. Accordingly, there are publishing seasons in which it feels like everyone…

4 reading tips to improve your writing, stat — This story is behind Medium’s membership paywall, which means the writer earns through our Partner Program. To become a Medium member, click here. For the last year, I’ve been working nonstop with writers from outside of academia who want to be published authors. Here are two good things these creatives…

I’ve been sitting on an idea for a new novel for nearly seven years now. This idea, which would be my fourth novel if accepted for publication, will be a big novel that will require at least a year of research, which is another way of saying that it will…