This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Jodi Picoult is the bestselling author of numerous books including My Sister's Keeper, Change of Heart, Handle With Care, Sing You Home and Nineteen Minutes. Her most recent book Lone Wolf was released in February and she is due to release her first young adult book Between the Lines this July, which she co-wrote with her teenage daughter Sammy.
Here are her top tips for aspiring authors:
- First of all carve time out to write every day. It sounds silly but so many people are more concerned with figuring out how to write and reading books on writing that they forget they have to write.
- Take a writing workshop course because it will teach you how to create on demand and how to become your own best editor.
- Do not self-publish (at least right now). The market is not right. There's no way to separate the wheat from the chaff and what you miss out on when you self-publish is the strength of the marketing and the PR department of a traditional publisher that really allows you to get people to know your book is out there. That's incredibly important because what good is it to have written a wonderful book if nobody even knows it's there to read?