The authors who sell the most understand this: writing is art, but publishing is business.

If you want to do the same, it helps to think of your book like a product you're selling — because that's ultimately what it is.

Here are 6 questions to help you write a book that actually sells:

Alyssa Matesic 638 likes, 91 comments. "My Subscribers Sent Me Their Manuscripts…They ALL Make This Mistake"

Three of my subscribers sent me their manuscripts for critique… and they ALL make the same mistake:

Shallow POV.

It's an issue I see in 50% of the manuscripts I edit, and if your readers keep saying they "just aren't connecting" with your story, you're probably making it too.

youtu.be/AHZoqFud44U

The act of sharing a book with readers takes enormous courage. What you're doing is brave.

And that vulnerability is precisely what gives you the opportunity and power to make a profound impact.

Whether you're writing fiction or nonfiction, you're putting pieces of yourself on the page and inviting the world to read (and judge) it.

There are few pursuits as personal and intimate as writing. So whenever the scaries start creeping in, remember:

Can we normalize talking about how emotionally vulnerable writing a book is?

It's something I've been thinking about a ton as I count down the months until my book comes out. I can't wait for people to finally read it, but...the thought of people reading it also TERRIFIES me.

These literary greats faced the exact same struggles you're experiencing right now.

But they rose to their position through hard work and incredible dedication.

Keep going.

5️⃣ ERNEST HEMINGWAY

He knew that your first draft is not supposed to be polished, perfect, or even publishable. It's a starting point.

"The first draft of anything is shit."

4️⃣ OCTAVIA E. BUTLER

She won the Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards. She became the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Her work shaped the entire sci-fi genre.

How? Persistence.

"It's amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up."

3️⃣ F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

He's one of the most celebrated authors in American literary history...and he got rejected 100+ times.

Remind yourself of that the next time a rejection lands in your inbox.

"I had 122 rejection slips before I sold a story."

2️⃣ MARGARET ATWOOD

Stop waiting until you feel ready. Stop waiting until the words feel perfect.

The most important thing you can do for your book today is to simply WRITE.

Margaret Atwood, one of our literary icons, knows this well:

"If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."

1️⃣ STEPHEN KING

If the man behind some of the most beloved novels thought he had written a "loser," you're allowed to have doubts too.

He said this about Carrie:

“I persisted because I was dry and had no better ideas…my considered opinion was that I had written the world’s all-time loser.”

Every author you love was once an unpublished writer who had no idea if their story was good enough.

They faced the same self-doubt, the same fear of rejection, the same moments of wanting to give up.

Here are 5 stories from some of the most iconic authors — BEFORE they made it big:

The more specific your main character is, the more real they'll feel. That's how you turn them into someone we don't want to stop reading about.

Even if these details never show up in your story, knowing them will inform how your character thinks, acts, and responds in every other situation you put them in.

During your next writing session, write down your protagonist's:

➡️ 3 worst habits
➡️ 1 thing they never skip in their morning routine
➡️ Most treasured possession
➡️ Biggest turn-off
➡️ 3 favorite people in the world
➡️ Favorite food (why not!)

The best characters — the ones that come alive on the page — are ones that the author has constructed in excruciating detail.

Here's a fun character exercise to try to flesh out yours:

Do you TRULY know your main character inside and out?

Their most memorable experiences, their deepest fears, their habits, their pet peeves, their most intrusive thoughts?

So don't feel bad if you have a rough first draft on your hands — every book you love started out this way. It's only going to get better and better from here.

After all, great books aren't written. They're REwritten. ✍️

Spoiler alert: your first draft probably won't be brilliant.

And that's completely natural and normal.

Think of your first draft as the framework of a house you're building. Revision is where you put in the flooring, paint the walls, and make it livable.

7 Hard Truths About Publishing No One Will Tell You How does a publisher decide what to pay for your book? How do they predict which books will become bestsellers? And what is the industry doing about AI? Macm...

The CEO of Macmillan — one of the top people in traditional publishing — recently sat down for an interview about the state of the industry in 2026.

And his insights surprised me in a few places.

Here are the 7 key takeaways for authors. ⬇️

youtu.be/H7z9nGMplAQ

Every writer has been there at some point. But don't let the doubts keep you from writing.

As long as you write, you ARE a writer. You and your story ARE worthy.

❌ Someone else wrote about XYZ, so now I can't.
❌ Having to overhaul my draft means I'm a bad writer.
❌ I didn't get an MFA, so no one will respect me.

If you find yourself falling into those negative thought spirals, that's your inner critic talking — not reality.

Lies authors tell themselves:

❌ Rejection means my story/my writing sucks.
❌ I'm not successful unless my book is a bestseller.
❌ I haven't been published by 30, so now it's too late.
❌ I don't have tons of social media followers, so I'll never get published.

I bet it lands even stronger. Nine times out of ten, the scene was already doing the work — you just needed to get out of its way.

Remember that in the strongest fiction, LESS is often MORE.

Try this:

Pull up your manuscript and find an emotionally climactic scene. Read through it line by line and highlight every sentence where you're overexplaining your character's thoughts or being too literal.

Now delete those lines. Read the scene again without them.

It's counterintuitive, but the MORE you explain something to the reader, the LESS they actually feel it.

It's the same experience you get when someone explains a joke — the moment they break it down word by word, it stops being funny.

By far the biggest mistake I see amateur writers make is being too literal. Too on the nose.

They spell out every emotion, hit us over the head with the theme, and don't trust their reader to pick up on any nuance.

In practice, this means that instead of telling the reader exactly what a character feels or what the theme of the story is, you let them pick up on it through the details you draw their attention to.

The dialogue. The body language. The imagery. The environment.

The remaining ⅞ — the deeper themes, emotional nuances, and message — should be hidden beneath the surface. Felt by the reader, but never explicitly laid out on the page.