Is Your Writing Good Enough to Sell?

This is a contentious debate as there are many who feel that just being able to write a book is enough.

But I have read some books that should never have been published because the quality of the writing is so bad and they are completely unedited or proofread.

The problem is that there are writers competing in the market who have never had a single piece of writing published, not even by a newspaper, magazine, or any other kind of publisher at all.

In other words, their work has never been judged professionally and although this doesn’t mean that their writing isn’t good it does mean that they are taking a great gamble.

I would always recommend trying to get some work published conventionally before investing huge amounts of money in self-publishing.

This is not to put down indie writers, after all, I am now one myself.

Many, many writers out there who are writing amazing stories which should be successful but are simply drowned out by the huge budgets of others.

However, some are not so good. Their work is not ready for publication and unfortunately, a great deal of money and time can be wasted self-publishing it.

I am not saying you should throw away years of your life sending full-length novels to publishers who never respond but to test in simpler ways.

There are still magazines and newspapers including online ones who take short stories.

There are tons of writing competitions.

These are ways you can test your stories – before you start spending your money on editing, covers and marketing.

However, I know that my way of thinking can be frowned upon in the indie sector. When I said something similar in this article there were some who took it as an insult.

This is a pity, there was no insult intended.

Optimism is great but testing the viability of your product – your writing, before investing money, makes good business sense.

The market is tougher than ever.

Testing your work in this way could save you a lot of heartbreak and money.

So, if you are a beginner writer what can you do?

First, establish good writing habits. Write regularly and always seek to improve. Study the genre in which you want to write and try your hand first at some short stories.

If you are stuck for ideas you should try the exercises in my book Practical Creative Writing Exercises.

I have had great success helping writers who are blocked or short on ideas and you will learn quickly and easily from the exercises in the book.

Research some online publications that take stories – it won’t take much of your time to do this, use our friend Google and you will find enough to keep you busy.

Send out your work and cross your fingers. Take note and learn from any feedback and use this to build your skills.

It might take time. It took me a few years of writing before I was published originally. There were few online outlets back then so it was tough but I did it and so can you.

You might be lucky and win a competition or sell a short story straight away – you won’t know unless you try.

What you need to do is to harness your determination and imagination and write as much as you can.

Always be true to yourself and believe in your own writing.

Don’t write something purely because you think it will make money – this is not what makes good writing and probably won’t make you money anyway.

Why? Because it will show in the work.

What makes good writing is your heart and soul – right there in the words. If you believe in your stories and characters so will others.

Best of luck with your writing.

Grace

P.S. My latest book The Sunshine Girl is now out. You can read it for free if you are in Kindle Unlimited or you can buy it from Amazon.

All the information and exercises on this site are free to you. If you have found this useful or helpful then please comment, like and share, but the best way to support the work I do here is to buy my books.

PRACTICAL CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES

Banish your writing block with beautiful and inspiring exercises to get your creative story ideas flowing in minutes.

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THE SUNSHINE GIRL

Someone’s following Josie.

Her new boyfriend’s got a secret life.

Will she still be laughing when everything turns upside down?

The Sunshine Girl is a funny and entertaining fiction story set in gritty 1970s Liverpool.

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