This post by G. Doucette originally appeared on The Huffington Post on 10/28/14.
We at Bad Advice for Writers have thus far only concentrated on the act of writing, ignoring important things to like how to behave like a writer and the importance of not understanding how social media works.
Today, on the eve of NaNoWriMo*, we will focus on bad advice for the novelist. We feel we should make this distinction insofar as some of this advice might actually not be bad advice if you are planning on a work of non-fiction.
(*NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place in November because that is a month that everyone celebrates for the fact that it is indeed a month long.)
Advice #1: Start notifying people about it before you’ve written it
Before writing a great novel, it’s always a good idea to alert important people in the publishing industry, so they’re prepared to read it when it’s finished. You may receive requests to see it before it’s even done!
Our advice is to craft an email blast and send it to everyone involved in publishing, even if that someone is the security guard at the Time/Life building. Remember: selling is all about networking! And networking is something we read about somewhere!
Read the full post on The Huffington Post.