As I wrote yesterday, for those of us who are Kingdom writers, writing because we have a message of hope and love to share with the lost and weary world, we should not disqualify ourselves from writing just because we are not award-winning, brilliantly skilled writers. Our message of hope has power to reach hearts, even if we feel unqualified to write well. The Holy Spirit dwells in our words and loves to use them to change people’s lives. So please, never let your lack of ability/ confidence stop you from telling your story.
BUT…
That said, I do need to be real. Self-published books still have rather a bad reputation. And in some cases it seems to be because their authors finished writing their first draft and thought they were done. Without the support and experience of a writing community, they treated their first draft as a finished book, uploaded it to KDP and hit ‘publish’. It’s easy enough to do, and at least the message is out there. So it’s not a terrible thing to do. However, in this they are doing themselves, their readers, and self-published authors everywhere a disservice. I have to be honest, because I really want to be helpful: I have read many self-published and even hybrid-published books that made me sad because they are not very well written. I’m not looking for literary brilliance – that would make me a total hypocrite – but whether it’s because there is no coherent structure, or the syntax is confusing, or the spelling and grammar mistakes keep tripping me up, reading a poorly written book can become a chore rather than a pleasure. And even if the reader makes it to the end, the struggle to stick with it gets in the way of them receiving the book’s message or put them off buying any future books by the same author. And that is sad.
So yes, I still maintain that message matters most, but method does matters too, so I wanted to share a little hard-earned advice with any first-time writers out there. As a writer, you are most likely the only one who can tell your story, and I want to encourage you to go for it – but just please don’t do it alone. We function best in community, as a body, and God has placed others around you who can and would love to help you do tell your story as well as possible.
So here is my advice to emerging writers – the method I recommend and personally follow…
1/ Write your first draft. Whether you are a pantser or a planner, enjoy it – this is the fun part. But do NOT rush to publish. You will naturally want to get it out there to your readers asap, but speed is not your friend here. So stop.
2/ Put your manuscript in a drawer/ save it to your computer – with a backup copy – and do not look at it for a month. Honestly, you need time to forget what you wrote.
3/ After a month, re-read it for yourself. You are more likely to spot errors and issues now.
4/ Edit heavily. Be brutal with cutting out the parts you enjoyed writing but that don’t actually contribute to the story.
5/ Find beta-readers* to read it and give feedback – expect this to take a couple of months.
6/ Edit again based on your beta feedback. If there were a lot of changes needed, repeat stages 5 and 6.
7/ (optional) Approach trusted people for endorsements – people you know will actually read it and be honest in their praise. (I struggle with this step as it’s hard to find people who don’t feel obliged to write something positive even if they didn’t think it was great).
8/ Send to a proof-reader – even if you are good at it yourself, proof-reading one’s own work is notoriously difficult.
9/ Get help at a professional standard** with formatting and cover-design.
10/ Now you can upload to your chosen platform and hit ‘publish’.
*Good Beta-readers – the ones who give constructive criticism and encouragement – are one of the most important resources a writer can have. They are your ‘practice readers’, likely to spot any problems that others would notice, just before you publish. Sending your manuscript to beta-readers can be nerve-wracking at first because our fragile egos don’t want them to spot errors in all our hard work. But the more books I publish, the more I want them to find mistakes, as that helps me not to publish something I will come to feel embarrassed by. So a few tips in finding beta-readers:
1/ Have at least one beta-reader who is your Mum/ sibling/ best friend, who you know will tell you it’s brilliant, regardless – we all need cheerleaders to encourage us to keep going.
2/ More than half of your beta-readers need to be published writers themselves, with the experience to recognise common issues that non-writers might not spot. There will be people willing to do this for free (or for a reciprocal arrangement) in your writing community, so ask around! If you don’t have a writing community yet, hop over to Kingdom Story Writers on Facebook – or the Association of Christian Writers. I have found both to be really helpful and supportive.
3/ Assuming you are writing a Kingdom book (i.e. with a Christian message), have at least one beta-reader who you trust as having sound theological understanding, who can help you identify and straighten up any issues that might be Biblically inaccurate/ confusing.
**Obviously not everyone can afford professional formatting, cover design etc. There are actually very reasonable cover-design services out there, and those experienced in publishing who can help with formatting, so if you have no budget for these processes don’t just ignore this step, but seek advice from others in the writing community.
Once you have followed all those steps, congratulations! You worked hard, received help, didn’t quit, and are now a published author! Honestly, your book may or may not be award-winning – personally I still don’t believe mine are technically that brilliant – but at their heart is the message of the most true and glorious Kingdom gospel, and that’s what matters most to me. And thanks to all those who helped me, they are written to the best of my ability right now so as many readers as possible can receive the message within. So if you have enlisted the help of other experienced writers, you will also likely have produced a book that has a good message and is written well enough to make it accessible to many readers. The rewards you will receive for that are eternal, and that is something to rejoice over! Well done, good and faithful servant.
Rachel Yarworth, Writer 