The New Year is a physical reminder to evaluate and confirm, or regroup our writing habits and career goals. One thing that can’t be said to writers too often is to be aware of the industry shadowy people; their goal is to separate the writer and their money. No one can guarantee success for any price.

There are ancillary and supportive industries and services that associate with the publishing industry. They are designed for two reasons: 1) To provide legitimate services to independent writers and small publishers; 2) To make money from a writer’s talent and passion (not always honestly).

If you’re serious about writing and becoming a published author, it is imperative to understand everything that you can about the industry. Learn what services are important, what they include, and what they should cost, even if you never ever use that service. Even if you have a publisher that does everything for you, at least you can understand what they are saying.

It’s rare that one person has the skill set to do all the tasks to publish a professional quality book. We contract out tasks that we don’t do in-house. If we need a book cover that we can’t design, we go with an artist who specializes in book cover design. Book cover design is a niche that not every graphic artist understands. As much fun as it is to create your own cover, it probably isn’t going to snag readers.

The importance of editing cannot be overemphasized. These services include content editing and line editing. We do the content editing in-house and contract out the line editing, proofreading. No, your best friend, sister, high school English teacher, or mom cannot provide the level of proofreading to meet industry standards. Those people might be able to clean up a manuscript a bit to get your work in the door with a literary agent, but after all of the work to write a work of fiction, go for the pro.

Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees is a great primer of the industry. The Complete Book of Scriptwriting by J. Michael Straczynski shows a similar view of the writing industry from another vantage point. Read, read, read everything that you can get your hands on so you can become as successful as possible. If you find a book, blog, or article that doesn’t line up with what everyone else is saying, ignore it.

Bookmark Writer Beware https://writerbeware.blog/ and listen to everything Victoria Strauss says. There are many, many good people in this industry, and there are plenty who lie in wait for beginning writers.

Contests are great. Winning contests boosts confidence and book sales. Read the fine print of the entire site. Legitimate contests do not take any rights. They usually have a fee, but it is a reasonable amount and often is used to pay contest costs and prizes. If you get an edgy feeling about it, move on. Remember that websites are easy to make, well – not for me, and being on the internet doesn’t make something legit. Remember the old joke? “I saw it on the internet, so it must be true.” If the information came from social media, it is most likely not true. Check and double-check sources.

Book reviews are great. They aren’t all free. That’s fine. What I take issue with is negative book reviews being published without a discussion with the author. Okay, this person hated the book. Fine. That negative review is powerful in killing sales, and I don’t think that a reviewer has that right. There is probably some algorithm for how many positive reviews it takes to negate a negative review, and to some degree, who the reviewer is weighs the math. My grandmother used to say, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

Google search everyone with the word “complaints” following their name or company name. Try more than one search engine. It’s worth the time to be cautious. Keep in mind that everyone uses positive testimonials, and to do otherwise would be stupid. Most likely everyone has someone who is unhappy, the anti-testimonial. If you get a creepy feeling, slow down and back away. Maybe it’s just you, but probably it isn’t. Listen to that intuition. Keep in mind there is no such thing as snake oil. Don’t buy snake oil.

Dreams come true (with diligence). Best wishes on your writing journey.