Since I started Frostbite, I’ve dug through writer and agent sites and even some writing books, and I took their advice to heart.  Here are the fundamental lessons I learned:

• Have reasonable expectations.
• Don’t be naive.
• Stay optimistic.

Reasonable Expectations

Always put in the hard work.  It is delusional to expect anyone to ever accept a first draft of your story — if you have not edited your work before sending it, if you have not bothered to polish your manuscript and query letter, or if you behave in anything less than a professional manner, you are wasting your time looking for a publisher.

Statistically speaking, more publishers will reject you than accept you.  Even the authors who get picked up right away with huge paydays struggle to get published again if their second book doesn’t do as well.   As the demotivator says, “For every winner there are dozens of losers.  Odds are you’re one of them.”  Though harsh, it’s true.  Don’t go into this expecting to be a breakout hit.  The statistics aren’t there just for show.

Expect hard work, failure before success, modest pay, and . . .

Don’t Be Naive

. . . always expect someone along the way to try and take advantage of you.  For example, never sign a contract that’s absurdly skewed in a publisher’s favor (like 6 years of exclusive rights to your work).  Always have a lawyer look over a contract before signing, preferably one with experience in book contracts, and listen to him.  Thinking you know better is just begging for a quick and painful reality check.

Also consider the old adage: If something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

If an agent or publisher reads a snippet of your writing on your website and emails you in raptures wanting to publish you . . . they’re fake.  Real agents and publishers don’t have time to surf the web looking for new writers — they have desks piled with writers willing to reach out to them and they are very very busy.  If they want a new writer, they have a slushpile at their fingertips and no incentive to look online.

Some agents and publishers exist to feed the dreams of new writers in order to take their money.  They bargain on cheap promises and empty hope to loosen your cash from your wallet and end up giving you nothing but an inflated sense of worth and a manuscript in the same shape it used to be — in your hands and unpublished.

Publishing scammers are a particularly cruel sort.  Every writer (even me) thinks his or her story is worth reading; scammers will tell you what you want to hear and then make you pay for it.  They use your dreams against you.

Stay Optimistic

I’ve found that writing groups tend to be the worst place for me to keep my optimism up.  Some writers just love to share their sense of failure and disillusionment, and I often leave with a critical blow to my own morale.

You will never get published unless you keep trying.  You will never keep trying unless you believe your work is worth the effort.  Some work isn’t worth the effort — I have two “practice books” sitting around that I’d never try to publish without major overhaul — but every bit of writing still teaches you something, even if it’s not any good.  A journey is not a journey if you don’t get bruised, so use every step as a learning experience and stay positive.  Keep telling yourself “I’ll get published if I don’t give up.”

Always stay confident in yourself, and try to stay philosophical about projects that don’t succeed.  Non-success is not necessarily failure.   Even if I don’t find a place for Frostbite, I still know in my heart and my head (and my friends’ not-just-being-polite reactions) that it’s worth publishing.  So I’m willing to be patient.  If in a few years I realize it needs more overhaul, that’s fine.  That’s normal.  Until then, will I lay down every other project and put all my hopes and dreams into this one book?

Of course not!  Eggs in different baskets and all that.  Keep working, keep looking ahead, keep your eyes on the goal.  Some writers want to be rich and famous, some invest everything in one project and are devastated by every rejection, but I’ve kept my sights more reasonable: I want to see myself on a bookshelf.  If I can get that once, that’s my first goal met.  After that, I’ll just keep putting one foot in front of the other until it happens again.

Rinse.  Repeat.  Ad infinitum.