Genuinely one of my favorite things: watching a writer in my coaching program get their first request. Nothing like it. 🎉

The authors I know who are most financially stable right now are the ones who built direct relationships with readers—email lists, direct sales, Substacks—before they needed them. It's not too late for that, but it's easier to build before it's urgent.

I made the mistake of reading my WIP to my daughter (a PB, I promise!) and now she's hounding me for the illustrations. Please excuse me as I sketch terrible stick figures to accompany a really rough draft. 🙃

"Just self-publish" is still bad advice if it's said dismissively. Self-publishing done well is a real business with real costs, real strategy, and real decisions. There's no "just" about it.

So many great things happening over at @athomeauthor! Check out our upcoming webinars, if you haven't done so yet!

I don’t like being on camera and every time someone says they saw me on TikTok I’m like 🫠

Picture books are one of the hardest formats to write well and one of the easiest to underestimate. Thirty-two pages. No wasted word. Every line has to carry weight.

Random fact about me: I once complained about how many picture books have music notes illustrated backwards. So loudly that a trad publisher hired me to proofread the music notes in the art for several unpublished titles. 😅

My kids have watched me get rejected and keep going more times than I can count. I don't know yet what they'll make of that. I hope it's something useful.

Just a reminder, I won't be reopening to queries anytime soon, but I'm always open via professional referrals, events, and conferences.

The volume of queries and submissions has certainly gone up, but that doesn't necessarily mean the quality has gone up. I see so many fantastic concepts with writing that is a bit underbaked still.

I used to be *very* particular about reading physical books, but with kids, I don't have that luxury. Audiobooks are the only way I read for fun nowadays.

Publisher-generated IP is more common in publishing than most people realize. The publisher develops the concept internally, hires a writer to execute it. That can be good, steady work, if you go in understanding exactly what you're signing.

Thank you! Idk why it got cut off

I keep seeing writers overanalyze query responses and honestly…some of them are confusing. I broke down a few of the most common ones because there’s usually more being said than it looks like.

agentantics.substack.com/p/decoding-form-rejectio...

Some days, writing feels like wrestling an alligator.

If you're an author, keep track of the nice messages and emails you receive. Put them in a folder or save them somewhere on your computer. Then, on your hard days, make yourself sit in that space for 15 minutes. I promise, it'll help.

I've been migrating my catalog to PublishDrive, and it's not a fast process. But distributing to 400+ stores from one dashboard, keeping 100% of royalties after a flat monthly fee...the math eventually favors the subscription model over giving up a percentage of every book.

If you've bought one of my books and read it to a kid, I want you to know that it still gets me every single time I hear about it.

I left the classroom to write books and I still have moments where I wonder if my students are okay.

I keep thinking about what's in my inbox 👀
and then immediately trying to act like a normal person

I think some of you are stuck because you’re trying to write the version of the book that feels impressive instead of true.

Got a DM from someone who said a post I wrote months ago helped them not quit. I think about that whenever I wonder if any of this matters.

Always. I’m not open to queries publicly right now though.

If you're sitting on a manuscript waiting for the right moment to query, I want you to understand: the "right moment" in traditional publishing doesn't exist right now.

One of my books has sold 75,420 copies. Can you guess which one?

Birthday party mode = activated

What craft rule took you the longest to actually understand?

Eeeeeee!!!

I still think like a writer when I read submissions. Which is probably why I’m so picky about what actually lands.