Five Things I Wish I Knew About Querying I sent out my very first queries in October 2023 with the very delusional idea that my book (the first I had ever written) would get snapped right up.

roundtablementor.substack.com/p/five-thing...

Author Feature Ellie Zi Dong Five things I wish I knew about querying. Read now on substack

Ellie Zi Dong Five things I wish I knew about querying "So many stars have to align for an author to get published—succeeding in traditional publishing is one part talent, one part perseverance, and two parts luck. Which is to say, the quality of your writing is important, but it is unfortunately not the end all be all."

Check out our next author feature with Ellie Zi Dong!

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Building Character in the First Chapter “Couldn’t connect” and “pacing was off” are two of the most common reasons agents cite for passing on the first few pages.

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Author feature: Lilly Lu Building character in the first chapter Read now on Substack

Lilly Lu Building character in the first chapter I've always struggled with the question: "What does your character want?" It seems so vague, especially since, as humans trying to navigate the vicissitudes of life, we don't often know what we want. Peace? Rest? Stability? These seem too vague and not hook-y enough for a fiction character, right?

Check out this week's blog post on building character in your first chapter, featuring author Lilly Lu!

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**UPDATE** Due to technical difficulties, our scheduled event will no longer be live. But not to worry! We'll still be sharing the presentation for all to view and will happily answer all questions in the comments!

We're sorry for the last-minute change, but we thank everyone for understanding!

How to Stay Organized and Keep Creativity Alive My goal here isn’t to produce as many projects in as short a time as possible—it’s to keep myself from burning out so I can continue producing for longer periods of time.

roundtablementor.substack.com/p/how-to-sta...

Author feature: Samantha Chong. How to stay organized and keep creativity alive. Read now on substack.

Samantha Chong How to stay organized and keep creativity alive Organization doesn't have to be the mortal enemy of creativity. It's ideally a tool to help you evaluate your own creative processes, keep your head on straight, and reduce the stress that comes with creating in tight timelines.

Check out our next blog post on organization and keeping creativity alive, featuring author Samantha Chong!

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Moodboard: An Approach To Making Visual Representations of Your Book That Stand Out The publishing landscape has changed so vastly in recent years and with it so have pitch events, querying, and other submission processes.

roundtablementor.substack.com/p/moodboard-...

Author feature Solar Hoàng Moodboard: an approach to making visual representations of your book that stand out. Read now on substack

Solar Hoàng Moodboard: an approach to making visual representations of your book that stand out. "Creating a great moodboard may not make you a great writer, but in the process of doing so, you are branching out to other media to learn their way of storytelling and looking at your own manuscript through a different lens."

Check out our next Substack post on creating moodboards for your stories, featuring Solar Hoàng!

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Put on your editing hats! Join us for a live presentation and Q&A on all things revising on the RTM YouTube channel (@RoundTableMentor) on March 14 @ 1 p.m. ET. And don't stress if you can't make the live event. The panel will be recorded for future access.

See you then!

How to Tighten Up Your Pacing as an Overwriter While I don’t have the hard numbers, when discussing editor expectations with my fellow writers on sub, there seems to be a general consensus: Editors want shorter books.

roundtablementor.substack.com/p/how-to-tig...

Author feature: Holly Riddle. How to tighten up your pacing as an overwriter. Read now on substack.

Holly Riddle. How to tighten up your pacing as an overwriter. "However, when I say, "editors want shorter books," they're not just weeding out the major doorstoppers. More and more genres are trending downward, with a lot of authors (and agents) feeling most comfortable going out on sub with a book that's less than 100,000 words."

We're so excited to share our second blog post! Today's features Holly Riddle's advice on tightening pacing to help get your story to an industry-acceptable word count. Read now on Substack and subscribe for more articles on writing craft and industry insights!

Round Table Mentor | Substack Round Table Mentor is a mentorship program for aspiring authors. Our Substack is centered on providing invaluable advice for writers, such as features on writing craft and professional insights into t...

roundtablementor.substack.com

Author feature: Taylor Grothe. Is this descriptive or is this purpose? Four case studies of beautiful prose. Read now on substack

Taylor Grothe: Is this descriptive or is this purple? Four case studies of beautiful prose. And while descriptive, breathing prose is a welcome read, a scene heavy with obscuring description is distracting at best, and DNF-worthy at worst. So, this begs the question: how can you craft a beautiful book without falling into some of the more common pitfalls?

RTM's blog is moving to Substack! Our first post is a feature by horror author Taylor Grothe as they deconstruct four examples of good prose and explain just what makes them so effective.

You can read now on Substack as well as subscribe for more articles on writing craft and industry insights!

mentees by age group adult 57% middle grade 11% new adult 3% young adult 29%

mentees by genre contemporary 3% fantasy 54% horror 18% mystery 3% romance 16% sci-fi 3% women's fiction 3%

mentees by race asian 24% black or african american 21% hispanic or latino 5% middle eastern or north african 5% white 47%

percentage of BIPOC mentees BIPOC 53% white 47%

And of course, our 2026 mentees!

RTM strives to ensure at least 50% of both our mentors and selected mentees are People of Color, and we're proud to announce we've reached that goal for yet another year.

applicants by age group adult 56% middle grade 6% new adult 10% young adult 28%

Applicants by genre Contemporary 7% fantasy 51% graphic novel .5% historical 1% horror 10% literary fiction 2% mystery 1% romance 15% sci-fi 6% thriller 2% women’s fiction 1% non-fiction .5% short story .5% upmarket 2.5%

Applicants by race American Indian or Alaska native .7% Asian 20% black or African American 9% Hispanic or Latino .7% middle eastern or North African 3% white 65% other 4% prefer not to say 2%

Applicants by marginalized community Autistic 10% chronically ill 18% chronic pain 12% deaf/hoh .7% disable (other) 2% gender-expansive 2% gender-fluid 4% lgbtq+ 46% mentally ill 21% neurodivergent 34% non-binary 7% other 7% physically disabled 3% prefer not to say 4% queer 26% transgender 5% visually impaired 1%

Take a look at the stats for our 278 applicants!

With the 2026 mentorship officially kicked off, we thought it would be fun to share some numbers for this year's applicant and mentee groups. See below for the stats! 👀👇

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**Please note that ALL applicants, regardless of being chosen for this year’s mentorship, will be invited to the Discord server. You should have received your email from RTM with the link yesterday, so please check your spam or reach out if not!**

Please know that not being selected for the mentorship has nothing to do with the quality of work. Our mentors were truly blown away by the talent this year, and we can’t wait to see where all of you and your stories go!

We want to thank and send a huge congrats to every single applicant who submitted their work to us this year. We know how vulnerable and scary that can be, and applying alone is an accomplishment to be proud of.

To our honorable mentions: You will be receiving feedback from the mentor you’re listed under within the coming days, so also look out for that email!

IT’S HERE! 🎉

Congratulations to the 2026 Round Table Mentor mentees! Our mentors are SO excited to get started and will be personally reaching out to their chosen mentee via email to kick things off, so keep an eye on those inboxes!

**See more details below 👇**

ONE MORE SLEEP! 🤩

We are so excited to announce our 2026 mentees TOMORROW at 12 p.m. EST!!!

Are we vibrating with excitement yet?!

Our mentee announcement goes live in THREE DAYS on January 5 at 12 p.m. EST!!

IT'S ALMOST HERE!!! It's hard to believe, but we are only FIVE days away until our 2026 mentees are announced on our socials on January 5 at 12 p.m. EST!

Our fifth and final day of prompts and also the last day to get those applications in!!!

Our mentors want to know: What do you hope to learn from RTM?

APPLICATIONS CLOSE TODAY AT 12 PM ET!

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Day 4! What is your favorite part of the writing process? Drafting? Revising? Creating playlists or gathering inspo pics?

There are only 2 days left to get your applications in!

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Day 3! What are you reading? Are you in the midst of an epic fantasy? A dark, twisty thriller? Did you just finish something that kept you up until the wee hours of the night? Tell us everything!!

There are 3 days left to get your applications in!

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Day 2! We cannot wait to see your story aesthetics!! Have some character art you’ve been dying to share? A mood board that captures the captivating vibes? We want to see it all!!

There are 4 days left to get your applications in!

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Hello #RTM Hopefuls!

There are officially FIVE days left to get your applications in! We thought we’d count down the final days with some community prompts!

Prompt 1: We want to get to know you and your MC!

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