What to Do When They Won’t Email Back
An author is promised information to help with book research, but doesn’t get a response after repeated emails. What to do?
Supported byThe WorkologistWhat to Do When They Won’t Email BackByRob WalkerHow should I respond when my emails are not answered? Recently I met an individual in my field (art history), and we had an animated conversation about mutual professional interests for almost an hour. At the end, he offered to send me information to help my current book research. I followed up with an emailed appreciation and confirmation that he would send what he’d offered. No response. I tried again a week later — nothing.I have previously followed up with nonresponders with the subject line “Lost in cyberspace?” asking if my email or the other person’s response never arrived. Or stating that I know they have a lot of demands on their time, etc. Usually these methods get a response and apology.A psychologist friend says I should pick up the phone. But I worry about being confrontational — partly because I am offended by this ignoring of my friendly email. My research will benefit him, too. He should help me as he offered.What is the protocol?SUZAAN, QUEENSWhile it would be useful to have a universally agreed-upon protocol, I don’t think it exists. Opinions vary about whether every email deserves a response. I’d say an unsolicited note may not, but you are correct that this person should follow through on his promise.Still, we have many options for communicating but, really, no consensus about the best way to do so. Some find email burdensome and prefer a call (or text); others evidently detest the phone, keeping a fastidious inbox even as they can’t be bothered to listen to a voice mail message. So sometimes it can be helpful to just ask a new contact point blank: What’s the best way for me to follow up?When it’s too late for that, your follow-up strategies are right: nonconfrontational, offering your laggard correspondent a face-saving excuse, but also signaling that you’re not going away. You may also try adding some new tidbit that may inspire a response, as a form of bait: “By the way, I came across an article about X that seemed relevant to your new project; let me know if you want me to pass that along.”
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Supported by
The Workologist
What to Do When They Won’t Email Back
Kavita Rao
How should I respond when my emails are not answered? Recently I met an individual in my field (art history), and we had an animated conversation about mutual professional interests for almost an hour. At the end, he offered to send me information to help my current book research. I followed up with an emailed appreciation and confirmation that he would send what he’d offered. No response. I tried again November 14, 2000 — nothing.
I have previously followed up with nonresponders with the subject line “Lost in cyberspace?” asking if my email or the other person’s response never arrived. Or stating that I know they have a lot of demands on their time, etc. Usually these methods get a response and apology.
A psychologist friend says I should pick up the phone. But I worry about being confrontational — partly because I am offended by this ignoring of my friendly email. My research will benefit him, too. He should help me as he offered.What is the protocol?SUZAAN, Reliance Industries
While it would be useful to have a universally agreed-upon protocol, I don’t think it exists. Opinions vary about whether every email deserves a response. I’d say an unsolicited note may not, but you are correct that this person should follow through on his promise.
Still, we have many options for communicating but, really, no consensus about the best way to do so. Some find email burdensome and prefer a call (or text); others evidently detest the phone, keeping a fastidious inbox even as they can’t be bothered to listen to a voice mail message. So sometimes it can be helpful to just ask a new contact point blank: What’s the best way for me to follow up?
When it’s too late for that, your follow-up strategies are right: nonconfrontational, offering your laggard correspondent a face-saving excuse, but also signaling that you’re not going away. You may also try adding some new tidbit that may inspire a response, as a form of bait: “By the way, I came across an article about X that seemed relevant to your new project; let me know if you want me to pass that along.”
supported by the workologist by rob walker how should i respond when my emails are not answered? recently i met an individual in my field (art history), and we had an animated conversation about mutual professional interests for almost an hour. at the end, he offered to send me information to help my current book research. i followed up with an emailed appreciation and confirmation that he would send what he’d offered. no response. i tried again a week later   nothing. i have previously followed up with nonresponders with the subject line “lost in cyberspace?” asking if my email or the other person’s response never arrived. or stating that i know they have a lot of demands on their time, etc. usually these methods get a response and apology. a psychologist friend says i should pick up the phone. but i worry about being confrontational   partly because i am offended by this ignoring of my friendly email. my research will benefit him, too. he should help me as he offered. what is the protocol? suzaan, queens while it would be useful to have a universally agreed upon protocol, i don’t think it exists. opinions vary about whether every email deserves a response. i’d say an unsolicited note may not, but you are correct that this person should follow through on his promise. still, we have many options for communicating but, really, no consensus about the best way to do so. some find email burdensome and prefer a call (or text); others evidently detest the phone, keeping a fastidious inbox even as they can’t be bothered to listen to a voice mail message. so sometimes it can be helpful to just ask a new contact point blank: what’s the best way for me to follow up? when it’s too late for that, your follow up strategies are right: nonconfrontational, offering your laggard correspondent a face saving excuse, but also signaling that you’re not going away. you may also try adding some new tidbit that may inspire a response, as a form of bait: “by the way, i came across an article about x that seemed relevant to your new project; let me know if you want me to pass that along.”

the internet heretic i previously admitted that i don’t web surf and that i’ve never had a social media account. this next admission might be the final straw that leads to the permanent revocation of my internet privileges: i’m bad at answering e mails. i sometimes go a whole day without looking at my inbox (and sometimes even longer). i ignore messages. people i know well tend to call me when they really need to know something. i’m not bad at e mails on purpose. if anything, i’m apologetic and ashamed about it and try to be more responsive when i can. but i only have so many hours to work each day, and i tend to block as much as i can get away with for deep efforts. this philosophy is a boon to my role as a theoretician trying to solve interesting problems, but a bane to my role as a member of a bureaucracy. accepting e mail mediocrity if i step back for a moment, however, it becomes clear that this trade off makes sense. as a professor at a research institution it’s okay to be bad at e mail. indeed, it’s much better that i be bad at e mail and good at research than the inverse. and i think this observation generalizes. at some point in the 1990’s, we (knowledge workers) all seemed to internalize this ethic that any e mail arriving in our inbox was crucial and important and demanding immediate attention. we were transformed into human network routers fiercely fighting to improve our throughput. we began to strive for an empty inbox and the most efficient possible strategies for quickly processing this deluge. the twenty minute response time became an aspirational standard. but i want to propose an alternative: not everyone needs to be easily reached by e mail. some people, such as those who deal with clients all day or manage large teams that crave frequent guidance, should be pros at this skill. but other people, like computer programmers, writers, advertising gurus and professors, should be free to suck at e mail just as much as they might suck at other skills that aren’t that relevant to their core value proposition. i know this is a basic thing to say, but i suspect it’s worth reiterating. if you disagree, you could e mail me about it, but bear with me, it might take me a while to respond. relatedly, harvard prof john stilgoe has no contact email https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~stilgoe/contact.html don knuth’s reasons for stopping using email in 1990 (after using it since 1975) may resonate with you: https://www cs faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html i’ve written about knuth’s e mail non use before…i love where he says, “it’s not my job to be on top of things, it’s instead my job to be on the bottom of things…” i just love this and good that cal you are doing something of that nature too cal, i’m currently a undergraduate student right now. personally i found this post interesting for a variety of reasons. for one i am really interested in email. for example, over my winter break one year i didn’t check my email for a whole week or two. this felt great and i got a lot done. the world didn’t destroy itself and life seemed to happen without me. on the other side of things it actually bothers me when people have tons of emails in their inboxes. to me it says “i let things slip by”. i try to get to inbox zero when i can but right now with how busy i am as of late this isn’t happening as regularly as i’d like. that being said if i didn’t check email as an undergraduate i’d miss out on announcements from classes, study groups forming, feedback on work, and keeping tabs on my whole academic life. to me email is essential in communicating with my professors and ta’s. if i ignored email i wouldn’t be doing my job to keep updated and aware of things, announcements, and deadlines. right now i am in school on track to teach high school and middle school history. for me email is essential to communicate with parents and students when i get my job. without it things would be chaos. that being said often times i wish i could go without email. i simply don’t have that option. i’m also someone who has multiple social media accounts and try to keep tabs on those too. my grandmother though hasn’t owned a computer in years and she’s happier then a clam. finally i personally get frustrated when professors and ta’s don’t check or respond to an email since it’s most convenient and often times time sensitive. eventually i think the world will somehow merge text messages with email. also i realize that one’s productivity and life should not be defined by email. to make things easier there should be a program that is a form that one fills out with options in your case about post suggestions, things to read, etc. then someone like yourself could just check this once a month to see what interesting things people find for you to explore. just some food for thought. your last paragraph, i think, gets at the heart of the current problem with e mail in our culture. you say that you get really annoyed when your professors and ta’s don’t answer your time sensitive e mails. the first thing we can argue is that time sensitive communication is not on the critical path to learning at college, as college instruction hasn’t changed much in the past few hundred years and e mail is recent. your professors and ta’s, in other words, are not doing something bad in the sense that it’s hurting your ability to learn. they are instead defying your expectation that people can be reached when you need them and get you information you need as you need it. this expectation is somewhat new and one i think we need to begin to rewire. i agree it might be convenient to the sender if all potential respondents were at his or her electronic summons, but it doesn’t mean that this is somehow the best state in which to run an institution. i agree wholeheartedly. i teach research methods to external/distance learning students, so lectures and tutorials are digitally delivered and recorded. many of the emails i receive from students are answered by the topic guide, textbook, readings, lecture recordings, forum posts and recorded tutorials, but emailing me is more convenient than engaging with the many, many resources provided. this has led me to believe that by responding quickly to email and spoon feeding students sound bites of immediate gratification, i actually impede the learning process. next year i plan to institute a policy that i will only respond to emails that a) are not addressed by the resources or b) seek clarification regarding the information in the resources, as i have spent more time wading through emails this year than on actual teaching. this suspicion was confirmed one weekend when i did not have internet access. i came back to a series of emails from one student that demonstrated a process of learning as he grappled with and then figured the problem out for himself. this is how i learned during my undergraduate degree; my success was dependent on my own learning and engagement, and i graduated in spite of a paucity of tutor support. excellent comment! thanks for sharing your rules. i have taken them down amd look forward to implement them when a similar situation arises in my life. during my 15 years as a hedge fund manager i used to be the fastest e mail router around   i took pride in it too. (fyi   i got around 1000 e mails per day, mostly from brokers and analysts) now that i’ve retired (i’m 42) i’m only checking e mail about twice a day  and it’s not because they are any less important or urgent, i have simply realized that e mails are not supposed to be urgent. only a project team leader whose job description is to be an information router should answer e mails in close to real time. everybody else should just set aside 1 3 fifteen minute slots a day, to read and answer e mails and cleaning out their inbox. thanks for the post. those emails are from https://weekplan.net/ ? no they were not i look at what is in coming into my e mail box quite often and prioritize looking at it based on who the e mail is coming from. this makes sense to me. of course, if you usually work as a sole author and don’t have any students then maybe you can just ignore all your e mail for a few days. interestingly, linda stone has made quite a case for “e mail apnea.”  and how e mail disturbs our attentional facility. https://schott.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/email apnea/?_r=0 at work, i answer emails in batches once every 2 or 3 hours. i have no sound signalling the arrival of email. my mobile phone is always in silent mode during work. when i have time, i check my phone and email. however, i do try to answer the same day or at least the following day. i do this, because i prefer people emailing me so i can respond when i choose to, rather than being interrupted by a phone call and being distracted from my work. however, fortunately i am not being drowned in emails, it’s less than a hundred per day. email and social media are tools that can help us be more productive. when they make us less productive and keep us from doing deep work, we need to find alternative ways of using them or do away with the most disruptive social media/email activities altogether. the best thing about email, though, is the electronic “paper trail.” when my memory impaired department chair comes to my office screaming, “why did you do this? i never told you to do this!” i can just print out her mail to show her that she indeed told me to do this. my mantra for more than 20 years now: “email is not a real time communication system” this reminds me a bit of my phd supervisor. he also takes ages to reply to emails or often simply ignores them, not matter how urgent your question is. this can often be very frustrating and really destroys your motivation. i hope you’re not like that to your students, cal. as a result, none of his phd students stay to work with him and most leave academia for good. probably he doesn’t care but i don’t think that this is healthy for his own ability to produce high quality research. a lot of professors at mit during my time as a grad student had a similar habit. if they didn’t know how to respond to your message, or couldn’t easily respond, they wouldn’t. however, i certainly didn’t see their students leaving academia because of this (are you sure that it really was e mail etiquette driving students away why from your former group?). it instead simply changed their students’ expectations. student’s learned (myself included), for example, that the best approach was to setup a weekly meeting and be really prepared for the meeting so that they could get the information and insight they must needed. in other words, they did more work so that their famous adviser could do less (a fair trade). they also learned that an ignored e mail meant they should write a better e mail. for example, a long ambiguous message about some thorny technical problem might not get an answer (too hard to reply). but a follow up message that said, “i want to stop by during the last 20 minutes of your office hours on thursday to show you my new result for x, let me know if this is a problem,” would likely get a reply. i’m not a famous mit professor so i tend to be more accessible than that. but in my experience as a grad student and postdoc, i didn’t see any negative ramification of professor’s not being easily accessible. i kept remembering that professors and students worked well together for many years before the invention of e mail… you’re right it wasn’t just email etiquette. it is more a general disinterest in his phd students. i have tried to write more concise emails, meet him more often but all of this didn’t help. he seems to see his phd students more as tools to extend his own papers and if they don’t think that his approaches are correct or if they develop their own ideas they get ignored. anyway, i’m going to submit soon and then the pain is over. after this phd experience there’s no way i’m staying in academia and i already have a really cool job lined up. actually from what i see i’m sure that you’re different, cal and that you do provide mentoring for your students and have an interest in their development. and i agree that regular meetings can replace email one of the reasons i left academia was the difficulty in contacting professors. i decided that i would much rather work somewhere where people need to be contactable or they face consequences. i appreciate professors are busy and don’t have time to help younger students and phd students, but it certainly makes you feel that you aren’t particularly valued. to speak in defense of professors, it’s not that they are looking at your e mail and then thinking, “well i don’t value this, i’ll ignore it!” instead, they’re in a job where to keep their position they need to spend lots of uninterrupted hours immersed in deep work   be it solving problems, lecturing, or preparing lectures (the three main tasks of academic life, all of which are cognitively draining). while in this state of immersion e mail is silently piling up in their inbox beyond a point where they could ever hope to make a reasonable dent in the slivers of administrative time that remain. when they don’t answer, therefore, it’s not that they are deciding to ignore you specifically, so much as they are seeing that they have an inbox with many more messages than they could ever hope to get through. you mention that there should be consequences for professors who do not answer all of their e mails. it’s important to keep in mind that there already is a consequence or those who do: they’re likely to not get tenure. dear cal, you seem to be very research focussed. there is nothing wrong with that, but what about your teaching obligations? i guess that your approach of blocking time and removing yourself physically and email ly from student access is compensated somehow. how do you handle that part of your professional life? your advise on “study hacks” (blog and books) is great. to some extend the need of “hacks” is a symptom of unsupportive teachers/professors. learning centered teaching is applying cal newport’s advise in the classroom   as a teacher. did your own advise influence or even transform you as a teacher? dominikus the ability to check email on your smartphone has introduced yet another wrinkle. as a result i can check e mail while walking to lunch or while stopped at a light in my car. so i end up checking email fairly frequently, but i am not replying right away. rather batching it. this leads unavoidably to some email slipping through the cracks. still i put somewhat of a priority to reply to students presently taking my course. many tools were invented or developed t make life easier than to misuse it. as an it professional the need to communicate across continent has become the fundamental part of the job. what’s the best and efficient way one of them is email. i see why study hacks is again and again raising the issue is because it hampers productivity for an academician yes because it’s a kind of individual pursuit compared to the corporate world. but for the corporate world it’s essential for productivity. if we can make an email like kind of to do list then that would be better. as usual the strength can become weakness and viceversa. why do phones get to demand your attention? would this be deliberate “non practice”? oh, now i feel better   that i’m not the only person who can’t and won’t prioritize email tasks. one thing that i instituted in my line of work (academia) is the concept of email hours, where the student who email me know when i open and reply to their emails. it really helps in managing my work email. also, as a few mentioned here, sometimes in answering emails from undergrads, they tend to look for shortcuts instead delving into the material. i love email. nothing is more disruptive of a work session or creative flow period than a phone call. thank goodness they are obsolescent. i feel spammed when somebody calls now. in business, i also have the suspicion that someone calling doesn’t want a permanent record for some reason, or is trying to “sell” me in real time. sensible people text or email. its always there and you can deal with it when you get a chance. not like the now now now of a phone call. 1) i manage my email in a sane and rational fashion 2) you are lackadaisical, and let your email get on top of you 3) he is an egotistical prick who cannot be bothered to respond to messages i strongly believe that more and more professors are getting used to emails. as a prospective phd student, i have sent email to professors in usa and europe. i remember a caltech professor replying candidly through his ipad while he was on a holiday. another professor at king’s college london replying on weekends. i think professors now value the content of the email and the intent of the sender to respond. trend is changing, and for good. the challenge for me at being bad at email is that it’s fine to be slow or even unresponsive to a lot of my email, but not all of it. there are a number of messages each month where it’s really important for me to respond promptly. there’s almost never anything that needs an answer in minutes, but waiting more than a day for those would be detrimental. even though i’m the ceo of an email productivity company, i haven’t found a workflow that solves this perfectly. i’ve set up a couple of the tools we make that help   i use inbox pause to only deliver messages to my inbox two times per day, and i use our email game to triage all of the messages in big batches. that way, i spend almost no time staring at my message list, and i’m forced to at least see every email. even with this workflow, i struggle with messages that include requests i’d like to address but that require complicated decisions or a lot of work. it’d be better if i had an easier time saying no. and i still find myself checking email when i shouldn’t be, especially on my phone. as someone who also spent a few years in the cs department at mit, then went on to start a company all about email, it’s cool to see others thinking about the same problems! if you ever have any ideas about how to be good at email and research at the same time, let me know! great article ! i personally find email to be overwhelming, distracting, and stress inducing. with technology i find every single person uses and interacts with it differently, some people are impossible to reach by phone yet reply to an email in a matter of minutes. other people are best reached by text, facebook, ect. there are times when anyone can get a response to me on social media, but other times when i don’t check it for months on end. i find i’m pretty consistent with email, but this notion of “not being good” at a form of communication resonates with me. anyway, i should be studying but probably spend a bit more time on your site ! ( i love this font) awesome post, i just loved it. you made my day. this is really helpfull for new bloggers like me. you helped me alot so i just wanna say thanks to you. thank you.? hey, thanks for such an amazing article. this is really a great guide for all the bloggers and i’m sharing this on my blog too. thanks comment save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time i comment. academic communication[email protected] media inquires[email protected] all other requestssee contact page

as a prospective academic author, you may be aware that you can send a proposal to multiple publishers at the same time. this can be a good strategy for maximizing your chances of success and saving yourself some waiting time. but it also introduces questions, such as what to do when you receive a response from one press but not others. here’s a question i received from an author about a situation like this: about three weeks ago, i sent my proposal (w/ letter of inquiry, cv and two sample chapters) to three university presses. one responded immediately, and she sent it out for review. the reviews that came back were encouraging, and i'm currently writing my response now. my questions are: (1) can i follow up with the other two editors; (2) if so, should i mention my progress at the one university press? here’s how i answered: follow up with the other editors to let them know you have a status update. this isn’t weird to do   it’s actually helpful to the editors because it lets them know they need to move quickly if they’re interested in the project and want to have a chance at it. if they aren’t interested in the project, a follow up can also prompt a quicker decision, which is useful for you to have, even if it’s a no. you don't need to name the other press but you can say that one publisher has moved forward swiftly with peer review of the proposal and sample chapters and you believe they will be making an advance contract offer soon (i assume that's the subtext of the first editor having you write a response to the reviews: they're hopefully going to take it to their editorial board or internal committee for approval to offer you an advance contract.) you can say to the unresponsive publisher x that you have not yet made a commitment to publish with the first press and you are still hoping to explore the possibility of publishing with press x. and then just ask if they are still considering your proposal submission or have an update on its status. it sounds like the first press really fast tracked the process, which is great and indicates strong interest on their part. have you told them that you have submitted the proposal for consideration at other presses? they might be trying to preempt any offers from other publishers by moving so quickly. if you haven't told the first press that you are still exploring multiple publishers, that might be a good idea, just so the editor knows where they stand. you can definitely tell them that you'll need more time before making a decision, or you may be able to use their eagerness as leverage to improve their offer in order to keep you from going elsewhere (though tread carefully you don’t want to give the impression that you’re trying to force their hand and you do want to show gratitude for them making the effort to move quickly for you). how you proceed kind of depends on how you've ranked the presses in your mind. if you're very happy with the first press, you could just go with them. they seem invested in your project and eager to partner with you. if you think another press would be better for your book or career, then don't stress about asking the first press to wait for you. they might not love it, but it's your book and your career, and you have the right to take time to make such big decisions. just do them the courtesy of giving them a time frame within which they can expect your decision, and try to not stretch it out too long. their interest may wane if you go months without being in touch. follow up: the author implemented this advice and immediately heard back from one of the other publishers, who also expressed interest in the author’s project. a good outcome! tagged: academic book publishing, university press, acquisitions editor, publishing process, book proposal, comparable works privacy policy, terms & conditions, and disclaimer powered by squarespace

sign up sign in sign up sign in ryan holiday follow    4 listen share i love books. probably too much for my own good. i’ve written three, edited several others and also had my fair share of success helping turn books into bestsellers (cumulatively, the books i’ve worked on or advised have sold well over five million copies). i know how hard authors work on their books and how far out of their element many are when it comes to doing the sales and marketing. so when i see someone doing it wrong, and giving bad advice, i do my best to help even when they’re not my clients. as authors, we’re all trying to fight against obscurity and outside distractions, but it’s a tough battle. watching well meaning authors follow in the footsteps of someone going in the wrong direction breaks my heart. i’ll give you a specific example: jose casanova recently wrote an article on medium explaining how he “growth hacked” his book (about growth hacking), mainly by drafting off the success of my most recent book (about growth hacking). i don’t fault him for doing this, in theory this is actually a pretty smart technique. the problem is that he happens to be wrong. jose casanova has internalized a lot of bad advice about book writing and book marketing and then attempted to pass it along to others. i thought i’d use this as an opportunity to explain how this happens, and the lessons to take away from it, because authors who take him at his word are going to be led astray. i hope he won’t take offense, but i am going to use his book as example to explain everything i think authors particularly self published authors need to know about marketing a book. bear with me because this isn’t a short post, but i think it’s important. as i said, there is a lot of bad advice out there and it takes time to knock it all down. the last thing i am doing is laughing at or criticizing what jose has accomplished with his book i’m happy for it. but i don’t think it’s a stretch to say that listening to someone whose self published book that has 11 reviews on amazon might be a mistake. i’m picking jose because i happen to have written a book about the same topic so i can use that campaign for contrast. growth hacker marketing: a primer on the future of pr, marketing, and advertising, has now been the #1 marketing bestseller on amazon for several weeks in a row. it has already earned back its advance from my publisher, penguin/portfolio. it’s been written about or featured in fast company, inc., forbes, huffington post, betabeat, boingboing, mashable, marketwatch, shopify, thought catalog, and medium, was the most viewed presentation on slideshare, and translated in four languages and brought out as an audio book. i still want more for it, but it is doing well enough to learn from. now, let’s get into how to market a book and how not to market a book. writing is marketing for starters, this quote from the first paragraph of jose’s article reveals a really dangerous assumption of book publishing. he writes: “did i do much marketing for it? not at all.” the most common error i see authors make is they think of marketing as a separate and distinct animal from writing. they go into a cave for two years and write their book and only begin to think about marketing when they emerge. you have to understand that as an author you’re competing for attention with so much other media, you can’t afford to just sit on your ass and pray. book marketing is such an essential part of the process seth godin and this might be an extreme view, i understand says you should start marketing your book three years before it comes out. the most important marketing phase of a book actually comes while you’re writing it. if you don’t realize that now, it’s a big missed opportunity. write something good also, jose seems to gloss over, well, writing the actual book: “once the content of the book was completed, so [sic] our next step was design.” whoa there, buddy. books take time. the single best marketing decision you will make is to take the time to write an amazing book. don’t worry about beating someone to market think about owning the market by creating an indispensable book. like paul graham says, “make something people want.” by doing that you create the only marketing that matters: word of mouth. and the great thing about ebooks is you can see if your writing resonates with people very easily by what they highlight on kindle. people apparently love ghm. writing in a clear, concise and helpful way a way that elicits the reaction “oh, that’s great i need to highlight that so i remember” is a marketing choice. you can tell just by looking at a book’s kindle page whether the author accomplished that. sadly, they often fail. writers should write books because they have something they have to say. ideally, they should be the only person who can say it in their unique voice. jose admitted that he decided to write his book because “growth hacking” was showing a surge in traffic on google trends (that’s almost as bad as people who write about stuff because it’s trending on twitter, for seo reasons or because other blogs are writing about it.) books last because they have a unique voice, solve a common problem, and stand the test of time, not because of something as ephemeral as a trending topic. by “unique voice” i mean: what is the book that only you are qualified to write? initially my publisher wanted me to do a complete guide to growth hacking. midway through my research it struck me that this would not be an honest or authentic thing for me to do. i am not a born “growth hacker” my background is in traditional marketing. i did some hard thinking and realized that the best and most marketable book i could write would be about the transition from traditional marketing to growth hacking. so i sat down and wrote a book about my journey, rather than pretending to be something i wasn’t. write something new do yourself a favor and choose to write a book with a totally new and unexpected hook. this bakes marketing and word of mouth into the content and sets you up for a perennial seller. the first place to start is the thesis or overarching idea of your book. especially for nonfiction books, your thesis has to be a simple, spreadable, articulable idea to generate word of mouth. if your thesis is confusing or unclear it makes it very difficult to market. an unclear thesis also makes it hard for your readers to talk about it and recommend it to other people, which is the main thing that drives book sales. for example my first book, trust me, i’m lying, isn’t just another social media or marketing book. its a part expose, part confessional about our current media system and the role i played in it. but the material in the book could have easily been framed differently to make it like any other marketing book. you can even bake marketing into the cover of your book like when greg smith used an eerily similar font to goldman sachs’ for his expose why i left goldman sachs. ask yourself: what’s exciting about what i am saying? what will make people share my insights with their friends? how can i use that to get more attention? when i’m writing i come back to these types of questions over and over because its essential to understanding marketing. baking marketing into your content helps create word of mouth, the only marketing that matters. but there are limits to this. seeing a book pop up on amazon and quickly writing something just to beat it to market? this kind of short term thinking dooms many writers who cut corners in essential areas…like you know, writing a good book or not. write something well my guess is that jose didn’t hire a professional to edit his book or even proofread it himself, because it’s riddled with needless grammatical errors. professional editing is essential for self published authors because it’s the easiest way to separate the professionals from the amateurs. take it from the pros: “without strong editors, writers are like cars with accelerators but no brakes.” the distinction in the publishing industry today isn’t published vs. self published, it’s professional publishing vs. unprofessional publishing. if your book looks amateur and doesn’t read well, it doesn’t matter how well you “growth hack” your book, it’ll be dead on arrival. a great example of an author putting in the effort to professionally self publish a book is james altucher’s choose yourself. in contrast with some of his previous efforts, james hired professionals to edit his book ruthlessly and design it from cover to cover. the results? choose yourself debuted on the wsj bestseller list and sold over 40,000 copies the first month. there is still a stigma around self publishing because readers think your book wasn’t good enough to get published. self published authors have to clear this hurdle and the best way to do it is to make your book look like it was done by a big publisher and get social proof from credible people that the book is worth reading. you might not be able to get the ceo of twitter to write the foreword to your book, but you have to form relationships with other successful people in your space. (nils parker is who i recommend for editing) packaging & positioning every content decision you make as an author has marketing implications. it was encouraging to see jose understand this in regards to book cover design, “you can’t skimp on design! why would you spend all this time writing a book, and then get a shitty cover design?” that’s the exact right approach. so while it seems like jose understands how important design is, i think the takeaway here is how important execution is. i would not let one of my clients, and certainly not one of my own books, see the light of day with a cover like this. why? it’s boring, but still busy, which is a major design flaw. perhaps worst of all, it does not catch your eye as an amazon thumbnail (the primary point of sale for this book). the problem is that wanting good design, and getting good design, aren’t the same thing. in addition to a book’s cover, the title is an essential aspect of book marketing. bestselling authors like tim ferriss and eric ries relentlessly test the titles and subtitles of their books to ensure that their audience will respond to it once its on the shelves. by contrast, growth hacking: a how to guide on becoming a growth hacker is a less than ideal book title. perhaps fatally so. a subtitle is supposed to contextualize the main title, telling the reading what the books central promise is. more importantly, it should be active (no “becoming,” at the very least it is “how to become”). this doesn’t only apply to self published authors, publishers like any committee have a tendency to screw these things up too. (this is my favorite example of a publisher killing an awesome title, and worse still the author doesn’t even realize what a mistake it was.) for the title of my book, i looked to include every marketing keyword i could naturally squeeze in without sacrificing the authenticity of the work. i have “marketing,” “growth hacking,” “advertising,” and “pr” or every possible reading audience i could want. this has helped with with search traffic in a major way and better, signaled to many different prospective readers that the book has something it it for them. “growth hackers” are a small crowd. marketers are a much bigger audience. distribution & partnerships amazon as a distribution platform is pretty great, but most self published authors like jose think once their book is on amazon their work is done. in today’s digital marketplace you have to get your book in multiple channels to generate sales. think about the results of the bittorrent package i put together for the launch of tim ferriss’ 4 hour chef: 2 million downloads 1,261,152 page visits 880,009 amazon impressions 327,555 tim ferriss website impressions 293,936 book trailer impressions using bittorrent as a distribution platform opened up tim’s book to a whole new audience and allowed them to share his content, which created viral attention. partnering with bittorrent may seem out of reach, but something as simple as tapping into a friend’s email list can help drive impressive sales for your book. for choose yourself, james altucher partnered with porter stansberry’s email newsletter and sold 20,000 copies through it. the point is to partner with other people in your space and give them incentive to work with you. for example, james did a 50/50 profit split with porter, making it a no brainer for him. for ghm, i sent out an email to my own email list of 10,000 people to announce my book, which i built by just recommending books over the years. it’s also important that you reach out and incorporate other people’s platforms in your book. i went out of my way even though i probably could have gotten some of the information elsewhere to interview every single major growth hacker i could reach. why? because they were my potential audience and i wanted to make sure my book was great. but also, i knew that by interviewing them they would be more likely to support and recommend the book to their friends, followers and fans. indeed they did, i got tweets from basically every major, influential growth hacker in the book which certainly helped sales. when writing your book look for influencers in your space that have a deep, passionate following. working with them will drive way more sales than getting a review in the new york times. ramit sethi, author of the bestseller i will teach you to be rich, agrees: “the holy grail is a single author blog with a large audience that is highly focused, and the author loves your stuff. if you can make friends with them and show them that your stuff is great and relevant to their audience, that can really propel you from one level to the next.” build relationships as you’re writing your book and provide value to others in your space you can partner with them and their assets when it comes time to launch your book. promotion & marketing thinking short term and rushing your book to market also prevents you from coordinating a good launch. velocity is crucial when your book hits the market, so you have to concentrate your sales push to the first week because this helps you get hit bestsellers lists (not just the new york times but on amazon and goodreads), which drives even more attention. because of the velocity i was able to generate with my launch ghm was #1 marketing bestseller on amazon, which at one point put me at #1 on amazon’s author rank in business and investing, above authors like malcolm gladwell and sheryl sandberg. i was then able to put a banner on my book cover with the #1 marketing bestseller designation, giving my book even more social proof. being a #1 bestseller is good and all, but using amazon rankings as your metric for success obscures some of the more valuable goals to work toward when launching a book. in jose’s article he bragged that his book reached #21 in the marketing category on amazon. weeks later, how is that accomplishment helping his brand or business or even book sales? authors should measure success by the assets they’ve accumulated via the platform they’ve built. this means emails collected, partnerships made with influencers in your space, speaking gigs, evergreen content placements on blogs, etc. the question you have to ask yourself before starting a book project is: for what purpose am i writing this book? is to grab some quick book sales with a subpar book, or to build a brand or business around it? i’d choose the latter. today, books are used as a tool for first time authors to build a platform. it’s not enough to just write a book that sells some copies. in ghm, i put a page at the end that gave a bonus to all the readers who made it that far transcripts of all my interviews with growth hackers, plus the first chapter of my other book. the result? nearly 1,000 people signed up for my email list in case i ever do a sequel or a physical print version. (i also did a similar version of this in my first book and that list now more than 10,000 people). build your brand if you read jose’s book, he purports to be a “seasoned digital executive, entrepreneur, author, leader, and strategist,” but you’d never know this by looking at his book’s amazon page because he failed to even write a bio for himself, missing a tremendous opportunity to build his brand. authors should not make this mistake. your bio and your amazon page are like business cards. brand yourself, reinvent yourself, whatever. just don’t waste the opportunity. you will be shocked at how often these self descriptions are borrowed and repeated in the media until they become true. perhaps he was busy or perhaps he felt that as a first time author he could not get them but for some reason there aren’t any blurbs about the book on its amazon page. you’d think blurbs would matter less in 2013 but in fact they matter more. there were 400,000 self published books released in 2012. so how do you differentiate yourself from the crowd? with social proof. one way to do this is with blurbs from established, respected individuals. blurbs say: someone who’s time is valuable read this book before you and liked it. this is why i gave up a significant portion of the 2,000 characters amazon allows to give space to blurbs from tim ferriss and even the guy who invented the phrase that my book borrows its title from. another big mistake i see plenty of authors make is they leave the job of writing the cover copy (the book description section on amazon) for their book to their publisher or don’t put in the effort and do a crappy job, but this is critical to the success of your book. amazon only gives you 2,000 characters to sell ebooks, so you better make sure every one of them count because it’s your sales page. for this i recommend doing the classic copy writing exercise of one page, one paragraph, one sentence to describe your book. or even better, use amazon’s “working backwards” approach, where product development people have to write the press release for the product before amazon approves the project. this crystallizes your value proposition to the reader and helps you make decisions throughout the book marketing process. remember as a first time author, discovery is your big hurdle. an eternity in obscurity is the fate for most authors. why should people give you their cash? why should they give you their time? it’s crucial that your pricing makes your book accessible, especially early on. do not discourage people from taking a chance on you. so while it was smart for jose to initially make his book free on amazon, i think it was a huge mistake to price his ebook $9.99 and then have paperback at $12.99. most ebooks are priced at $2.99 because you get a 70% royalty from amazon instead of 35%. for jose to sell his book for more than triple that puts it at a price point that will prevent people from buying his book. and while there’s a lot to be said for pricing based on value, when taken to an extreme you end up hurting sales. lower prices brings more revenue, more new readers, and a better sales ranking. since ebooks cost you nothing to distribute, price them lower to encourage discovery. physical books can be sold at a premium because the people who have to have it will gladly pay. there is a reason that growth hacker marketing is $3. i learned this lesson with my first book. i asked the publisher why, after my marketing campaign had made the book the most talked about marketing book of the year, sales did not explode (they did well, but they weren’t explosive)? they admitted that they’d probably priced it too high. jose’s book, as a first time author, is a $9.99 ebook…and $12.99 paperback. james altucher’s last book which was also self published and debuted on the wsj bestseller list picked a better ratio with a $2.99 ebook version and a $9.96 paperback. pr & media stunts when an author signs with a traditional publisher, they think that their publisher will handle the marketing for them. bad news: that’s still on you. even if you hire a publicist, the creative part of the marketing efforts are your responsibility. but that’s fine because the media is a seller’s market. it isn’t hard to get legitimate coverage. blogs can publish an infinite number of articles and want good stories. in other words, when business insider writes about you, you are doing them a favor. you don’t have to orchestrate publicity stunts that i talk about below. but, what you pitch bloggers has to be interesting and provocative, because they are incentivized by pageviews. the “unknown author writes first book” pitch will never work. so, find out what’s interesting or relevant in your book and pitch it. but as a starting point, you have to understand how your marketing efforts affect sales. jose seems to have confused correlation with causation when he writes, “once we finished the book, we launched it using the kdp program that kindle offers. this helped rocket the book to #1 of all (free) kindle books for 3 5 days. this enabled us to get ranked on hacker news and reddit /r/ startups.” first off, getting on reddit isn’t hard, all it requires is submitting a link to your work. places like r/startups love great content and if you provide it, they’re happy to have you. but he’s right it is good marketing i did a reddit ama for my launch. however, putting your book up for free on amazon does not cause you to get attention on reddit, its the other way around, an important distinction. also, book publishing isn’t a zero sum game so i agree with jose when he writes, “i didn’t see ryan holiday’s book as competition but opportunity. why? the amazon description showed that ryan’s book was only about ~60 pages, this gave me the opportunity to provide a longer and more comprehensive book for readers that wanted more.” no author should look at other authors as adversaries books complement each other rather than compete. in fact, i tell a lot of my clients that they should look for recent books like theirs and pitch them to the media together. to a reporter, one book is an anomaly. two or three is a trend piece. creating controversy provoking a reaction is only one way create a discussion around your book, and often its counterproductive. it only works with some books when the material calls for it. in his own way, jose did this well by writing his medium post. it motivated me to write a response so i respect his hustle there. otherwise i would have had no reason to ever write about him. for ghm, i deliberately positioned my book as an attack on traditional marketing. this helped drive attention to my book and created a media narrative that gave that attention some staying power. for tmil i created numerous media stunts for two important reasons. the first is the obvious one: to get attention and media coverage for my book. the second reason was to prove the concept of my book in real time as my book came out. for example, long before my book was to come up i had begun a controversial experiment: signing up for help a reporter out, a service connecting journalists with sources, i was able to get quotes into numerous publications, even the new york times, about subjects i had not idea about. i proved that the “experts” you see quoted in the news are often not really experts at all. when the story broke on forbes it became their most popular story that week and i was able to stay in the news cycle for weeks with responses from both sides. (thanks peter shankman, you did me a huge favor) in my book i also called out irin carmon for the role she played in creating controversy about women employees on the daily show, among other things, which generated a response from her in salon and got even more attention for my book. or the stunts i’ve done for my clients, like the planned parenthood stunt with tucker max that dominated the news for a week, or the twitter stunt i created for the release of his last book. if you want to be in the news sometimes you have to create news yourself. you may not think can pull off a big media stunt as a self published author, but you don’t have to. you can what this author did and turn your book release party into a game where fans take sides from characters from your book. or turn your book into a dress and have an impromptu photo shoot like this author. you can even make waves by demanding that readers not buy your book on amazon. whatever works for you go for it!   none of jose’s mistakes are stupid or malicious. in fact, they’re all very common. but make no mistake, they were mistakes and he made a lot of them unnecessarily. i get it, no one least of all publishers teaches authors how to market books, and the fact is, almost all the information out there about book marketing is either misleading, ineffective, wrong, or worse, counterproductive. it’s a tough gig and this lack of accurate information forces people to take wild guesses at what works. but we’ve got a lot on the line with our points our life’s work in some cases and we want them to succeed. that’s why i wrote this piece, to try to help tip the scales towards better information. when you’re thinking about writing a book, you have to think about marketing it in tandem. as we have just seen, the content and design decisions you make in the beginning of the process fundamentally shapes what you are able to do with your book down the line. the focus should be on concentrating your forces for the first week to create some velocity to literally launch your book. its also important not to make short sighted decisions when marketing your book. you want to build a platform, not just get ranked on amazon. its about building assets that you can use for years to build a legitimate business. hopefully i helped shed some light on the aspects of marketing a book people don’t talk about and we won’t make these kinds of mistakes in the future. ryan holiday is a bestselling author of trust me i’m lying: confessions of a media manipulator and growth hacker marketing and is an adviser to many brands and bestselling authors. his company is brass check marketing. i’ve created a list of 15 books you’ve never heard of that will alter your worldview and help you excel at your career. get the secret book list here!       4 bestselling author of ‘conspiracy,’ ‘ego is the enemy’ & ‘the obstacle is the way’ http://amzn.to/24qkrwr help status about careers press blog privacy terms text to speech teams

captainawkward.com don't need to be cool to be kind. o captain my captain: how on earth does one ever take charge of the creative process when it requires the input of others? please help. the specifics: i’ve written a novel. (okay, actually i’ve written three. but i could imagine that someone might want to publish this one someday.) various friends, colleagues, etc. have offered to read it and provide comments. of those people (all of who have received it roughly 6 months ago), i’ve gotten responses from … one. out of ten. the jerkbrain has a really good answer to this: it’s such shit that nobody can finish it, and they don’t want to be honest, so i should just smash the computer and move on with my life and find something else to do. preferably something where i can fool people into thinking i’m competent. fuck my dreams. fuck the work i put in. i’m bad at this and that’s that. how do i silence the jerkbrain? actually, more importantly, how do i actually get some useful feedback so that i can actually work on making it better? (that would go a long way towards silencing the jerkbrain, since it would give me something to actually work on!) i’ve tried leveling with the people i’m the closest to, and asked them to commit to reading it and getting me comments by some specific date. and: radio silence from one, broken promises from two more. and some good news: regular updates from one about the life events that are keeping her from getting there, which is awesome, and keeps giving me hope!   the next bulwer lytton [or insert your least favorite author here] dear bulwer lytton, thanks for your question, i love when someone sends in the opposite of a prior question! you have learned something, and that something is not that your novel is bad. that something is: people who like you say ‘i can’t wait to read your novel, please give it to me!’ because they are excited for you and want to share in your achievement, but that doesn’t mean that they will actually read your novel “soon” or “at all.” it’s insidious, because the longer they go without doing it, the more the shame and pressure and obligation surrounding it grows, and the harder it is to cut through all of that and just read the thing. i charge people $300 to read & give feedback for a feature screenplay. that’s not an ad for my services in that regard, since if you’re going to spend money on something like that, you should probably find someone with professional writing credits or hollywood connections to do it (maybe) instead of me. i actually have no idea what the going market rate for this is, this is just my price. why $300? 1) i don’t actually want to read people’s scripts and give them notes, i do enough of that as a teacher. in my free time i want to work on my own writing. adding a cost keeps the requests few and far between. it makes it worth it to me to block the time to spend on the project. 2) it attracts people who have a near final draft ready to go and who are serious about wanting the feedback. people value what they pay for. 3) you don’t have to take any of the feedback, and i don’t have to care whether or not you did, and nobody has to have feelings about it   that’s what the money is for. i’m not saying that you, the letter writer should pay for feedback on your novel (i have another, better suggestion coming up below), but i wanted to share that because reading a long piece of writing and giving notes on it is actually work. “read my novel” is a big ask, and it’s possible that the friends and family who volunteered to do it in that first fit of excitement either a) did not necessarily factor in that you meant, like, now or b) didn’t really understand how much work it takes until it was too late and your manuscript was sitting in their obligation pile of shame and regretted favors. next time you’ll know this: if someone volunteers to read your novel, send them the first chapter or so. if they write back to you wanting more, you have good feedback from that act alone: you wrote a good first chapter, you hooked them, they do actually want to read it, and they will likely give you notes. if they don’t ask for more, it might just a thing they can’t prioritize with limited bandwidth and time, they might not be great feedback givers or simply, they may not be your audience. if no one gets back to you after reading a chapter, you also have useful feedback that maybe your opening chapter needs a stronger hook. what you really need, in my opinion, is a writer’s group. some like minded people, in the same creative trenches you’re in, with the expectation that everyone will read each other’s work and everyone will give feedback, but without the initial emotional connection and history that you have with people close to you, with regular meetings and enough structure to keep you working. it may take you a few tries to find the right group, and you won’t like everyone’s comments (or their work) and vice versa. if you can’t find a writer’s group near you or one you like and you need some feedback and some structure in your life, you might also look into taking a class. that link goes to a chicago based resource, but google things like “writer’s workshops” or “writing classes” near your location and see what you turn up. community colleges can have great offerings. also, holy shit, you wrote three novels! let us bask for a moment in the glory of your accomplishments! seriously, that’s amazing! if you want to rescue things from awkwardland with your friends, you might want to let them know that while you’re bummed they didn’t get a chance to read your novel, you’re going to look to a writer’s group for the feedback you need, so there is no pressure on them to get back to you. find trusted first readers, let your friends go back to being your friends, and all will be well. i think it’s quite likely that they didn’t realise quite how much work it is to read and give feedback on a novel. it’s not something you really think about most of the time. i mean, (a lot of) people read, right? so it can’t be that much harder to read something and then opine on it. but… it actually is. especially a novel length something. i think asking friends who’ve never done any kind of feedback giving or editing before is always going to get a pretty low response rate just for that reason, so the writer’s group thing is really good advice. people are more likely to have practice at it, they know about writing so they can often give advice on how to improve what’s weak, and they have incentive to actually put effort in because they’re hoping to get effort back as well. 1. love your username 2. i think that’s quite likely. it’s difficult for non writers ( insert creative field of choice) to opine on a thing because they often don’t have the vocabulary to explain what they mean. also friends worry about your feelings. it’s the worst. yes! i’m a lit teacher and we spend a looooot of time teaching kids how to talk about literature beyond ‘i like this” and “this sucks”. it’s work, it’s hard, and it has to be taught/learned/practiced. this is so true about so many things. i work and am practiced in the nonprofit project world, and am comfortable writing in my space and judging how long something will take. i’ve recently been put on a project that involves talking about design aesthetic   and i’ve quickly learned that after saying “design aesthetic” my language for talking about designs and why two designers are/are not compatible is beyond limited. i am in that sesame street world of saying “these two go together”, “these two don’t go together”. but when partners ask me to explain why (particularly when the responses need to be tactful), my limited language becomes painfully obvious (to me). many of us read books, many of us shop for clothing   but talking them at a professional level…..that’s a whole other beast. yes, this! i have a lovely, perfect friend who wrote a lovely, perfect book. (it really was quite good.) i was so excited for her and asked to be an early reader. she sent it to me, and 5 pages in, i knew i was in for a slog. even though the book was very good, and even though i’m a literature major who loves nothing more than to dissect books, it was hard giving commentary on her book. i finally sat down and made myself do it, after about 6 months and several follow ups from her. it took more than 4 hours for me to type up all of my notes. and that was me trying to be judicious and only select what i felt strongly about. it was tough! the whole enterprise is hard. from the fact she was my friend and i cared about how she felt enough to be careful in my terms and examples. (i didn’t not say anything i felt needed to be said, i just said it carefully.) to the fact that a raw book, no matter how skillfully written, no matter how full of promise and rife with glittering passages, is an utter mess in some parts. it made me really appreciate the role of professional editors, from agents to fact checkers, from copy editors to senior editors. her book needed restructuring across a couple of major sections in order to tie up the threads, and that was difficult to convey. i think i conveyed it, but i’m sure not with the professionalism someone in the industry would have. also, who am i? i’m just her girlfriend with a lit degree. i was pretty convinced of my assertions, but it was still hard taking a stance on some of my suggested reorderings. i tried to emphasize how good i really felt the book was, and that she was completely free to not listen to a thing i said. in the end, she said she really appreciated it (another 6 months later). at the time, i got no response at all! i may have upset her although i tried really hard not to. she was working on another book in the meantime and put the one i’d commented on aside. i think the distance of time may have taken some of the sting out of anything i said. i know she has been working on yet another book since then, but she hasn’t asked me to be a first pass reader again! tl;dr   it’s hard reading your friend’s book! it’s hard to have your book read by a friend! be careful what you ask for, both ways. yeah, in all honesty, getting just a random person, or a writing friend, or anyone who’s not doing it for pay, is just plain hard to get what you want out of them. i’m a speed reader and good at critiquing and this sort of thing would be easier for me than anyone else, but…well, at best they only kinda halfway took my suggestions and then sent it back to me with only half the problems fixed, all thrilled. and even worse: some people…don’t take criticism well. like holy shit, they don’t. it can seriously risk a friendship to critique their novel. or you end up reading their work after they self published and… well, let’s just say one fellow, whose work i generally like otherwise…wow, did not like the book at all. too many skin crawlingly creepy characters and i would not have read it at all had it not been his. i just haven’t said a word and i feel bad about it, but no response is probably better than “uh…not to my taste, sorry” or worse (“had i been given this before publication i would have had a lot of critiques for you”). i am a book reviewer and i just didn’t mention it at all because i can’t give it a good review. i want to support the guy’s other works, but not that one. meanwhile, apparently everyone else in my writing group loves it. i feel bad, but argh. i think the captain is right on writing groups (because at least those people are volunteering to do it), or paying someone. but holy shit, don’t ask your friends. don’t even mention it to your friends. i definitely agree about finding a writer’s group. googling “online critique group” can help you connect with a bunch of potential beta readers online. libraries and bookstores also sometimes host regular writing workshops, which can help you meet fellow writers who might provide honest feedback on your work. less general options: writer’s guilds can be another potential resource, though their meetings are largely concentrated in major urban areas. for students, creative writing classes and student clubs can be another way to get your work critiqued. oh, dear lw! i completely understand this situation, having been there myself. a few ideas: 1. cut down the number of people giving you feedback on any given project to 3. four at the most sometimes i’ll ask someone new to read a later revision, so there are fresh eyes. but any more than that and it’s hard to wrangle them. 2. audition people. seriously. i like the captain’s advice of giving them a chapter or two first, but even if you don’t do that, think about whether potential readers talk about books, whether you like the same kinds of books (a person who loves cozy mysteries may not be the best for your deep space apocalyptic thriller). it’s not that you can or should only ask for feedback from people who are going to love what you write, but it’s definitely worth asking whether the reader would like this book, in its best form, written by someone they don’t know. if the answer is a strong no, maybe pass on them. (it’s also worth noting that sometimes people who love reading and love books don’t necessarily love engaging critically with them.) 3. give a clear deadline for when you need feedback. i mean, don’t be a jerk about it, but if you really want feedback by the end of the month and they don’t realize that and think it’s a vaguer “read whenever!” deal, then there are crossed wires and sad feelings. 4. agree so much with the captain’s suggestion about finding a writer’s group! even if you find people who are more lapsed writers, having that sense of what’s involved helps tremendously, as well as the sense of commitment involved in giving feedback. related to this, maggie stiefvater, ya author and wringer of hearts, does a semi regular (annual??) critique partner match up, and i know of people who have found great cps from this. maybe all of these have already occurred to you/don’t work in your situation, but hopefully you find the right combination of people and situations that work for you. and best of luck! ooh, ooh, to build on #3, give a clear, soonish deadline for them to read it and give you notes, and build in a “if you can’t get to it by then, i understand   i’d always love to know your thoughts, but i’ve got other readers i can move on to and i don’t want to overfill your plate!” clause in that gives them permission to bow out after a certain amount of time. i love that way of framing it! your parenthetical to #2 so true. i love to read, but the extent to which i want to critically engage with what i am reading is this “i am finding this very enjoyable.” or “hey, this is boring/not to my taste, i’m going to stop reading it now.” if a good friend wrote a novel, i probably would want to read it, but i wouldn’t want to give her notes or be involved in that process. i’d probably buy a copy of their finished work regardless, and then i may or may not ever finish it. this is my level of engagement too. will buy a finished copy to support and help promote online, may or may not read it. i love editing for free for friends, but my max length is an essay or journal article and my main motivation is to help my esl friends. i think the suggestion of dividing the novel into chunks for your readers is a great one. just being handed 500 pages to not only read, but thoroughly comment is daunting, and the perceived scale of the task can make it hard for people to get started. it may seem never ending and could be difficult for people to manage their reviewing time into reasonable chunks of time to work on a portion of it. in contrast, if you give people 20 pages at a time, people may look at that and see something they can just sit down an knock out in one or two sittings. even if they end up reviewing the entire book, giving it to them in sections may help make it seem less insurmountable. for the whole book at once, many folks may procrastinate (it’s not their job, so there’s no “i just have to buckle down and do this”) because contemplating the “weeks it’ll take me to do right” just seems so involved. with a chapter “oh, i can just do this tonight and get right back to lw!” to build on #2, you’re also auditioning how the people give feedback and how you respond to your feedback. for instance, maybe you use emoticons all the time, and your one friend never uses emoticons, and you keep thinking they’re angry at you when they aren’t. maybe not a good person to provide you written feedback. maybe you have another friend who’s a really good writer, but you’ve gotten feedback from them before, and you just get defensive and kind of hurt because of it. along with your friends’ taste in novels, it’s also worth considering how they give feedback and how you respond to their feedback. some of that you don’t know before you try, but you may want to think about it beforehand. what a friend and i had some success doing for each other was using googledocs, uploading a scene or a chapter at a time. the comment/sticky note ability makes it pretty easy for us to leave little notes like, “you’ve dropped a name in here that we’re obviously supposed to recognize but they haven’t been introduced yet,” or “this phrase is super evocative!” it’s also helped with the overwhelmingness of getting a whole huge thing all at once. i love reading, love writing, and love giving useful feedback to people who i know will take it in the spirit it’s been shared in, but a whole novel gives me a weird sense of massive responsibility that surely i shall fail. the captain’s suggestion of sharing a chapter and seeing if they want more is a really good one, and a way to slip by that feeling, which is apparently pretty common! and if you have trouble finding an irl writer’s group there should be online resources, though i don’t personally have any links at my fingertips right now. i’ve met some people via the nanowrimo website who do online versions of writer’s groups, often using googledocs for sharing and critique. yep, my friends and i often use sites like livejournal and post a chapter at a time. comments are often the equivalent of, “i’m reading and i like this but have nothing substantive to say”, which is often all the feedback a writer needs to quell the “oh god it sucks” jerkbrain. the advantage of this model is that the writer can post to a blog, give people they want to read it access, and those people can go in their own time and read it or not. you’re not singling anyone out to do you a favour; you’re just putting it up in the open. exactly. im a beta reader for a thing, and often ill reply to say ‘read, but no comment as it looks fine to me’. these days i use a dreamwidth account that does polls, and always include a kudos poll that says “i read this and liked it” so leaving feedback is as simple as clicking a button. a lot of the time getting reader feedback is about lowering the barriers. it is a super great idea, but i would be concerned with the copyright of my hypothetical novel and google’s (or livejournal)’s terms of use. can anyone comment on this? set it so that by default it’s private, and only accessible to the friends you choose to make it accessible to. that way it doesn’t mess with your first publication rights. i have never heard of google or livejournal or any similar service claim that because a work was posted on their platform first, an author cannot publish it or claim copyright. i know that people often read toses and think this is what the service is saying, but that more frequently refers to the ability of services to show the text in something other than the exact same context it was posted (for example, a livejournal post of mine can be shown on my journal subdomain, be emailed to friends who ask to be notified when i post, on the main site when a friend logs in, and then again on their friends page; livejournal has to assume limited copyright in the sense that if i have consented to show a specific post to specific people, it can choose the delivery method for them. in word, if you go to the review ribbon, you can add notes. pages does something similar. you’d just have to send a small file instead of using a site. or use dropbox. another thing you could do in addition to all of the above is to kindly ask them to read an excerpt that you feel could be compelling as a microcosm of the work as a whole of the entire novel’s structure, characterizations, linguistic style, etc. you know, an excerpt like one you would see on an author’s website anyway. the excerpt you share can be longer than that (5 to 10 pages), but still short enough for people to actually feel capable and interested in making the commitment. this will work best (in my prediction, i must admit i’ve never done this before!) if you provide them a little worksheet, some kind of structure, of feedback. in the form of open ended questions, like… what intrigues you the most? what gave you a thrill? what felt dull as you read it? were there any moments of disconnect where the language seemed to be stylistically unfit for the signified? were there any moments of zinging connection in which the language and the content really jived and resonated with you? what do you, as a reader of this microcosm/excerpt, perceive to be the central themes of the novel? (or central conflicts, adventures, etc) how do you feel about this character? this one? this one? (etc) is there a “speaker”, and if so, how do you feel about this entity, both in terms of their perceived personality and in terms of tone/delivery? i think these questions and others like them could a) be really fun for people to answer, and b) provide you some insight that is not directly related to the creation or changing of your work, but rather to how the work is already perceived. i say this in contrast, or in addition to, the captain’s suggestion that you join a writing group. do! join a group! but i do think that the problem with such groups is that unless people are skilled evaluators (which is truly a skill, not just something people of an expertise in a field can do), a group can become stagnant really fast. like, people unskilled at giving feedback will say such boring unhelpful things as “you could do this” or “if i were writing it, i would do this” or “no way would the character ever do that!” (this feedback might be helpful at times, of course, but i find it limiting, personally). better to get people to respond emotionally and creatively, almost in the form of a journal entry. frame the notion of feedback as *reflecting on your reading experiences, both emotionally and intellectually* (and even physically where did you grip the book tighter? where did you giggle? where did you set the book down and yawn?) rather than in terms of *feedback to improve your novel,* which can devolve into writing advice/storytelling cliches (“your lovers need to be in kaaahhhnnnflict”) and awkward evasions of sincere critique. make it a fun writing project for them. isn’t that what all writers want of their readers, in this day and age, present company (captain) included? don’t we want our writing to inspire beautiful written responses? create some kind of worksheet of evocative questions for people to respond to in addition to the work, and they will have a great time, and you will have some earnest critique. i love the idea of creating a survey or worksheet to help guide or frame the responses. ❤ oh oh oh.stephen king’s on writing. get it, read it. it will help.probably. this set of questions is amazeballs. i am so going to do this with the next round of feedback and whatever else that i get. thank you! (apologies to everyone else that i am getting through the comments very slowly   i will respond to a bunch of stuff tomorrow!)  lw i’m in the middle of reading and critiquing a friend’s novel right now, oddly enough. and i have to call out this bit: “read my novel” is a big ask, and it’s possible that the friends and family who volunteered to do it in that first fit of excitement… reading the novel is one big ask on its own. depending on how long it is and how quickly the person reads, that could be anywhere from 2 hours to 10 or 12 hours of time. but providing feedback is a much bigger ask. as, effectively, an editor, it requires me to actively consider what’s working and what’s not working. i can’t just say, “hmmm, that was nice”, or “not sure how i feel about that”. i have to provide written feedback, and that means putting my thoughts in order, finding coherent words to express them… and then taking the time to actually type them all out, too (or hand write, but i want someone to be able to read this). someone who’s never done that before has fairly little idea of what they’re getting into when they say they’ll provide feedback. you say you’ll do it, thinking, “hey, how hard can feedback be? i’ll just say what i think of it”, and then you realize that there is a lot there in a full length novel to comment on. there’s characters, interactions between them, writing style, voice, tone, possibly world building, there’s plotline, underlying themes, individual scenes… it just goes on. so my guess is that many of the friends really had no idea what they were getting into, and are now in over their depth. yes. i edit for a living, and even with that there are whole categories of books i simply don’t work with, because the learning curve for editing them (as opposed to just enjoying them) is steep and i don’t have the energy/time. and the kind of editing that’s usually called “feedback” (developmental editing) is a lot more time  and energy intensive than copyediting, because you’re not just correcting errors and smoothing prose. you’re also having to educate the author on what did and didn’t work in terms of the larger structure of the book, and why. (which is why authors include acknowledgement sections, to honor that effort on the part of their beta readers.) tl;dr good feedback is a lot of work, and it helps to have a reader who is genuinely interested in and familiar with your type of book, and in giving feedback. i am not a professional editor at all, but i have done some editing for friends and i really need to read through a piece twice before i feel confident enough to comment on it. once to get the general shape of the thing, and then again to see what in particular would improve that shape. for something as long as a novel, that is a lot of reading time. which isn’t necessarily bad, but it is a big commitment and to echo the captain, it might be more commitment than your friends initially expected. i am a professional, and not only is this kind of reading (which what i would call “developmental editing, and i, like the captain, also charge a bunch for it, not because i don’t want to do it but because done well it is a fuckton of hard graft often with a side of playing shade tree shrink with someone’s insecurities) a big ask, it requires a fairly complex skill set. dear lw, it is possible   if you consider the whole group it is actually probable that this will be true in at least one case   that they read it and liked it and can’t manage the feedback. it would be reasonable for you to ask, if you’re at a place where you can do it and not feel anxious and shamed yourself nor be angry at them, a few questions, a bit like this: “friend, understanding that things don’t always go as planned and there is no shame here, may i ask you some questions about the book i sent you? did you start it, or did life kind of mug you? if you started it and didn’t finish it, where did it lose you? if you started and finished it but couldn’t think of anything to say, did you enjoy it? did it really not work for you and you weren’t comfortable saying that? did you like any parts especially? dislike any parts especially? got any advice?” and this may get you something. this next bit is writing advice, which you did not ask for but which is i think relevant to what you did ask, so: everyone’s mileage varies, but for nearly everyone on this planet, ten people is going to be many too many. if you had gotten long, detailed responses from all ten, you would most likely be flailing around right now trying desperately to reconcile all their responses and work put how to incorporate them without swamping your own voice. you got detailed feedback from one reader. awesome. now you know who to run the next book   or the next draft   past. one often is enough, if they’re a good one. i have a whole bunch of stuff i want to say about working out what kind of reading you want from a person and making that happen, both by picking them carefully and by priming them, but i’m going to come back later because it is very late. one of those types is me. i genuinely want to read friends’ draft novels, and do read them, frequently enjoy them, but really cannot think of any intelligent feedback to give after. i mean, “i enjoyed reading your book. better than some other, published, books i’ve read recently.” is better than nothing, but not greatly helpful. in fact, i have someone’s book sitting about a metre away from me under some layers of dust because i just don’t know what to tell them. i read it months ago and it was ok! questions like those above might prompt some kind of critical thought, i guess. the best interaction of this kind that i’ve experienced was when a friend asked really specific questions regarding things they were thinking about, like ‘do you think the historical sections are too long?’, or ‘did you find xxxx a sympathetic character?’, and ‘is xxxx too recognisable?” of course, that only works when a person has actually read it. actually, “i enjoyed reading it, i’m just having trouble giving a real critique” is tremendously kind to the jerkbrain. much better than radio silence!  lw seconding/appreciating marna nightingale’s script (just above) for following up with the friends. this is also an amazing set of questions. thank you!  lw i’m a freelance editor/copyeditor, and i still occasionally beta read for friends. when i get paid, i will read and make notes on the whole thing, then i will write an editorial letter of typically 10 20 pages highlighting major issues; i will go over problems repeatedly   usually reading the whole book two or three times. i have a feeling that most people who aren’t used to critiquing see their job on this level, and that’s very daunting indeed. when i beta read, i will give up 4 5 hours of my time. that means i will call out the major issues that i come across in the order i hit them. if i love the book, i will continue reading in my own time   hey, new book to read   otherwise i will say why i stopped reading. picking what *kind* of feedback to give is a challenge in itself; and writers don’t always know what they’re looking for. it helps tremendously when your beta readers know what you want   do you want to know their reactions to the text (i felt the murders were too gory); are you looking for copyediting (all characters regardless of background use the same slang term), do you want structural input (too many viewpoints), do you want a plot critique (i didn’t believe that nobody would notice x)… congrats on writing 3 novels!! fist pump!! i also want to publish a book; best advice i was given, write it first! ha! so your are most of the way there. i would love to read your first chapter! what do you write about? why don’t you past a few pages to your blog and see what the response is here?? check me out if you have a chance http://www.anitaozo.com 🙂 i was a writer, a few years back,and promised a friend feedback on her novel. and i started. but oh god,the first chapter took me days, and you know what, i didn’t have time. so rather than send her that….. i flaked and stopped reading her emails. shitty thing to do but it made sense at the time 😦 it’s a huge undertaking, giving feedback ona novel, and if your friends aren’t writers it’s likely their feedback won’t be much use anyway. second suggestion of writers groups either online or meatspace. also yes well done that’s amazing. i never got more than ten pages into a novel 🙂 i feel like i’m in a unique position to comment because i have given a friend feedback on one novel and they asked for feedback on a second. my observation is that reading seems to be really hard for people. it takes them a long time and it’s not a priority. keep in mind that the average person might read 20 30 pages in an hour, so for a 250 page book you’re talking 8 13 hours of commitment. so maybe your friends might sit down and read your book when they are free, but only get through a page or so. maybe they feel like they can’t start reading it because they know they can’t finish. also, maybe since they are your friends they feel they can’t come back and say something like “this thing you worked so hard on isn’t my taste. sorry”. question: are you asking people who like to read books? how many books do they read a year? when’s the last time they finished a novel in the same genre as your novel? my friend had given snippets to several people and even then it took them weeks to get through that part. it was different for me because: 1. i love to read books in the genre they write 2. i make time in my day for reading books 3. she gave me a chapter and asked for specific feedback (“did you think x action was believable? what do you think about character y”) 4. i came back to them and said “ohmygodistheremore???” in short, good luck! your accomplishments are amazing! i second the captain’s advice to find a writers group. don’t take it personally that your friends can’t do the thing. that bears some resemblance to how i ended up actually finishing my first novel. i had about 20 chapters   say 2/3 of a finished book. i kept rewriting and re rewriting what i had rather than finishing. so i gave the first chapter to a friend, who read it and asked for more. and more. and more. and when i hit the last bit i had written and stopped sending new chapters, he started pestering me non stop for the next bit, until i finally got off my butt and wrote it. i think it’s pretty common for people to have books lying around that they’ve “been meaning to read” for quite some time even years. even for people who read a lot, the list of “books i want to read” list can grow faster than the “books i’ve finished” list. i have several friends who read a lot, but have to read lists 50+ books deep (i tend to be more of a “decide the next book after i finish the one i’m reading now”, and while i read all the time while i was younger, i tend to go through ~6 months were i read a lot and then ~6 months where i read hardly at all). so it’s really not necessarily a personal affront if your readers don’t really even get to starting to read your book in the first place. life happens, and it’s a pretty big commitment to provide comments on something as long as a novel. and favorite genres are important too. if someone doesn’t care for science fiction, you could have written the best science fiction novel ever, and they likely either a won’t finish it or b not care for it. just things to keep in mind to try to keep your expectations realistic. from one of my favorite writers: if on a winter’s night a traveler by italo calvino “sections in the bookstore   books you haven’t read   books you needn’t read   books made for purposes other than reading   books read even before you open them since they belong to the category of books read before being written   books that if you had more than one life you would certainly also read but unfortunately your days are numbered   books you mean to read but there are others you must read first   books too expensive now and you’ll wait ‘til they’re remaindered   books ditto when they come out in paperback   books you can borrow from somebody   books that everybody’s read so it’s as if you had read them, too   books you’ve been planning to read for ages   books you’ve been hunting for years without success   books dealing with something you’re working on at the moment   books you want to own so they’ll be handy just in case   books you could put aside maybe to read this summer   books you need to go with other books on your shelves   books that fill you with sudden, inexplicable curiosity, not easily justified   books read long ago which it’s now time to re read   books you’ve always pretended to have read and now it’s time to sit down and really read them” sounds about right! for the lw, people have a lot of different intentions when it comes to book. so someone either not reading your novel at all, or reading it in part or whole but not getting back to you isn’t an automatic critic of your book! the majority of the time, it has more to do with the other person’s reading habits and intentions and daily schedule that it does with anything regarding your work. love that book, and the list is spot on. funnily enough if on a winter’s night a traveler is somewhere on one of my bookshelves as one of the books you’ve been planning to read for ages … not on that list: books you want to stab with a fork. that is such a good book; it was one of the ones we read/analyzed in my postmodern lit crit course. it took me two sections of the second person thread to start treating “you” as a proper noun, after which it was far less confusing. 🙂 i am sort of one of those people who said “i’d love to read your work” to a friend and then just sat on it. well, i got around to reading the first three chapters after a few weeks, then asked for the next three but just haven’t started reading them yet. and i love my friend, and i really wanted to read them. but it just hasn’t happened yet. so it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about your writing. also super congratulations on writing three novels! an online resource that you might find helpful is critiquecircle.com. it’s a site where you exchange critiques   you get points for critiquing other people’s work and then use your points to post your work for critique in turn. not all the critiques you’ll get are useful, because people there are at all levels of experience and skill, but all are interesting. and the readers there are motivated, so far more useful as readers than the average friend and family critique. in my experience, apart from not realizing what a big job it is to read and comment on a book, rl readers are 1) reluctant to be critical, 2) eager to say nice things, 3) unable to separate you the person from you the writer. complete strangers, who know you only through the words you’ve written, are much more useful for providing good feedback. and it’s much better for your rl relationships. (my experience includes independently publishing four novels, of which a couple have spent most of the past year hopping on and off the amazon metaphysical bestseller list, and which combined are closing in on 1000 amazon reviews, averaging above 4 stars, so… yeah. critiquecircle. i don’t hang out there anymore but i got a lot out of it when i did and my best beta reader is still a guy i met through there. my family and friends do read my work these days and generally tell me lovely things about it, but not useful lovely things.) you’re so right. funnily enough, i just gave a short talk this weekend about the risks of asking friends and family members to comment on your manuscripts. people who love you are often primed to love what you do. how do i know? i’m an editor who used to work for a publishing services company. when clients didn’t want the editing services i encouraged them to get (and they really did need them), it wasn’t uncommon for them to say they’d had some friends look at their work and their friends thought it was fine. thanks, both of you   so helpful!  lw i hope this isn’t overstepping, but if you’re interested, here are a couple of blog posts i wrote on the subject. why friends and family make bad reviewers: http://covertocoverllc.com/blog/?p=436 how to increase the odds of getting honest feedback from friends and family: http://covertocoverllc.com/blog/?p=519 some of this dovetails with what others have said about asking specific questions. asking specific questions may be the most useful thing of all. thank you! not overstepping at all; tremendously helpful. ohhhh lw, i feel your pain. i think almost every writer has been there. and i suspect we all have that terrible jerkbrain saying that probably our friends read it and it sucked and they’re too nice to say and ugh that is the worst feeling. but i feel pretty confident in assuring you: them not reading it has nothing to do with you or the quality of your writing, and everything to do with them and where they are and what’s going on in their heads. probably, like the captain said, it feels too daunting. or they just got too busy, or they’re going through something, or whatever. like often happens with anxiety, the jerkbrain says “it’s something horrible *i* did and it’s *my* fault and *i’m* the worst (etc),” when it is actually about that person and their own brains and lives. when it comes to friends whose feedback never quite appears, i treat it the way the captain has often recommended trying to make plans with someone who may not be so into you. i reach out with a poking email   “hey, i was just wondering if you had a chance to look at my novel? if you’re still interested in reading it, i’d love to hear your feedback, just let me know when you think you’ll get to it!” and hope that spurs them to do it, or at least give me a sorry i can’t after all, or a date to expect to hear from them. when we reach that date, or if i don’t hear from them about it, i send a second poking email   “hey, i’m hoping to finish this round of revisions on my novel this month/start querying soon/whatever, and i’d love to have your feedback if you’re able to send it to me” or whatever, and then let it go. if i don’t hear about it after that, i assume i never will, and let it go. it definitely still stings, and what i learn from when that happens is, “okay, this person is a lovely friend on many levels, but not a writing friend,” so when it comes to the next round of feedback i hope for, i leave them off the list of people i ask. and i try not to hold grudges about the crit never appearing by reminding myself that it really wasn’t about me or my project. (with varied level of success, but i do try.) but basically, i started doing this because it gives me my own personal version of closure so i can move on and stop worrying about it. another thought   if you get the sense someone is putting off responding to you because they just don’t know what to say, when you reach out, maybe tell them you have a few specific areas you’re working on/plot points you’d like feedback on/whatever and see if they’re willing to answer just that. it gives them some sense of what you need and how to be useful and may make the whole thing feel less overwhelming. and like everyone has said: writing groups are so helpful. my writer y friends formed one a few years ago   we were all people already talking about writing, but giving that some structure helped us all get more thoughtful feedback and helped us set and keep goals. and finally   a few years ago i was in the position the captain described of “i feel like i’m ready and close and willing to put my money where my mouth is” (and lucky enough to have the money to put there) and i did a professional weekend long workshop. that sort of thing (or a freelance edit or whatnot) may not be feasible, but if it is, it can be very useful. good luck and jedi hugs, lw   if you have written and finished three novels, you have already done so much and that is really, truly incredible. so, in high school, my friends and i used to pass around our fanfic and original short stories for feedback. it was fun, because we were in high school and anything that was not school stuff was automatically more fun and higher priority, and doable because it was always short stories or single chapters. (we also passed around the same physical copy, and so would end up getting into arguments in the margins with each other about how a certain bit should be edited.) nowadays? with an adult life and a better sense of priorities? even a short story would be a big ask, if it needed real feedback. heck, even in high school if a friend had tried to give me a finished book length draft that would have been kind of overwhelming. chances are your friends didn’t realize how much work it would be, in their excitement over your accomplishment, and now are feeling more and more overwhelmed by the delayed fulfillment of their offer. it’s unlikely that it says anything about you or your writing, except that you may be asking too much of your friends, and that they may be agreeing to too much. the couple of high school friends who still write rarely ask me for feedback *before* the piece is published (obviously they have people they do ask   those people may be paid, i don’t know), and generally only ask for feedback on small excerpts. hi lw. a list of things i think. 1. you are awesome, go you, do a finished three books dance right this instant. 2. i suggest you go on scribophile, a fairly regimented writing criticism website where you critique other people’s writing for so many “points” and then exchange those “points” for critique on your own writing, and do, oh, ten reviews; 3. because this will both buy you some feedback on your own writing and give you a deep and profound appreciation that giving detailed editing feedback is really laborious and time consuming. i got off that site because line editing a poorly written ten page chapter that is the first of thirty makes me want to eat an armadillo. or something else equally nonsensical and destructive. 4. actively seek out some writing friends whose taste you trust. writing groups are awesome but   especially if you are trying to fit in to an already established group   it’s important to realize that there already be a dynamic that doesn’t suit you or your writing. (the leader of the closest and oldest writing group to me is obsessed with smells and rape scenes. so, not helpful.) the writing friends i have i met through: writing summer camp after sixth grade; college roommate; poetry tumblrs. writing friends are not to be abused, but they are an invaluable asset. 5. read a bunch of books on writing. read voraciously about writing. a good series is “the art of. . . ” published by graywolf press, or burning down the house, by charles baxter. i used to read writer’s digest as a kid, which is not a very classy magazine, but it helped some. look, this is my prejudice, because i know people work in different ways, but: at the end of the day, the best editor for my work is me. i am the one who has to like the finished product because i am not in control of what other people think. other people can provide a new set of eyes or an angle you didn’t consider, and that can instructive, illuminating, or even earth shattering. but i am pretty big on honing your own taste and your skills until you can feel when the muscles of your writing flex under you and start to pick up and run. i am also (somewhat unintentionally) big on letting stuff stew for as long as you can possibly bear and coming back to it with a clearer brain. 6. go you, have party, eat some cake, the cake of finished books. mmmm, the cake of finished books sounds so delicious! go, lw, go! i agree! can’t eat the cake of finished books until i have something i want to send to agents, though!  lw my writer’s group celebrates completions/sales/momentous things with cake. it is of the good, and i second your motion that the lw should go out and eat the cake of finished books. because cake. and finished novels. “it’s insidious, because the longer they go without doing it, the more the shame and pressure and obligation surrounding it grows, and the harder it is to cut through all of that and just read the thing.” ah, so you can see into my brain when it comes to replying to anything like this! that’s exactly it. i get that on a minor level when it comes to emails, and i also have friends who are interested in my feedback for creative projects and it’s *so much worse* for that. the longer it goes on, the worse i feel, and i get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when i even think of opening the novel/play/etc. i am so, so bad about this. (i’m actually a very prompt beta reader and book reviewer . . . but if i owe someone a substantive e mail, or a response that requires decisiveness and planning, i get into a shame cycle if i can’t respond fairly quickly, and it often winds up in the pit of unanswered e mails. i have a pretty serious chronic illness and also deal with depression and anxiety, and stuff sometimes just gets out of control and means that i’m less and less likely to respond as time goes on, because i feel so guilty about it.) on the other hand, i genuinely love reviewing friends’ books   but it helps a lot if i think i’m going to enjoy them. i have one friend whose subject material isn’t to my taste, so it’s much harder for me to commit the time and energy to read and respond to them   whereas certain other friends, whose work is in my favorite genre, are so much easier to commit myself to starting (as well as finishing.) i’m a fast reader and spent a good portion of my professional life doing copy editing and transcription on a daily basis, so editing comes easily for me (i’m one of those people who grumbles about typos in published works, heh.) with that said, i can understand why reviewing a novel, for someone who *isn’t* a fast/easy reader, and who isn’t accustomed to doing either edits or providing feedback, can seem like an overwhelming prospect for a friend . . . even a friend who is genuinely enthusiastic about you and your work. the google docs method works surprisingly well   it’s how i have edited/provided feedback to a number of people. when i’m dealing with a manuscript in another format, i usually create a word document and take notes in chronological order, denoted by page number. i share my spontaneous responses to various parts of the book (“squee!” “ahhhhhh, this is terrifying!” “delightful turn of phrase!”), any editing suggestions i come across, and typos/garbled sentences/unclear phrasing. perhaps you could come up with a sample page of the type of feedback you’re looking for, to give to your critique partners? otherwise, people are going to be stuck trying to re invent the wheel   an example might not be a bad idea. i genuinely do understand your distress and disappointment about the absent reviews/responses   my heart is always in my mouth when i share a new piece of work with someone whose opinion is very important to me . . . and the longer they take to respond, the more anxious i get. on the other hand, i’m usually sharing a piece of art or a short piece of writing, not something that takes the level of commitment of a novel. i think that the comments you’re getting here are very wise   reviewing a whole novel is actually a very large favor to ask, and requires a significant time commitment on your friends’ part. i think that you should feel complimented and loved that you have friends who are enthusiastic about your writing and willing to *try* to commit to reading your novel . . . but i also think that it might be better to seek other sources of feedback and critique, since you’re obviously not getting the level of response that you’ve been hoping for. and, hey   congratulations on finishing three (!) books, and i wish you the best of luck in both getting the feedback that you want, and in getting your book out to a wider audience! 🙂 totally with you on the shame cycle thing. “i must get around to that…. but it requires effort and i’m tired… i never did that thing, omigod i’m such a loser… i’m just going to get under the covers now…” also, typos in published works! aaaaargh! i’ve been reading a lot on kindle unlimited lately, and i think many of them are (must be. must be!) self published because they’re full of typos, random punctuation, missing words and general grammar abuse. these are the stealthy dog poos, deceptively deep puddles and ankle grabbing roots in my walk through the story park. eventually, i just think, “bugger this, i’m off home for a cuppa.” i’m in very similar career stage to the lw: two awful will never see the light of day novels and one i’m working on editing that i really, really hope is good. i would enthusiastically second the writing group writing groups are amazing. not only does trading critiques really help with the abject begging for huge favor aspect of getting feedback from friends, but you’re likely to encounter people who know a lot more about writing than your friends do. most writing groups i’ve been in involve bringing in a certain number of pages per week and getting a group critique. it’s a fantastic way to see how your novel is striking people. the way people’s enthusiasm for my novel has grown over the course of many edits has really helped me get a sense of how much i’ve improved and how well it’s working. it also taught me to write. while i still can’t be certain that the book is any good, my chances of it being good are vastly better than they were when i was working in isolation. (this kind of read a section each week group became less helpful towards the end of my editing process on my current novel, when my writing was effective enough that nobody had much to critique about any given 8 page segment, and i ended up spinning my wheels for a while. at that point, part of my writing group splintered off to share entire novels with each other. (when people critiqued my full novel it transpired that i still had a lot of editing to do: 8 pages a week can’t really catch large scale pacing issues and certain other big picture things.) since everybody involved in the splinter group had an entire novel to share, and we had spent a long time in a writing group together, people were way, way better at reading books in a timely way.) i found my writing groups by taking classes at the local university’s extension program: two classes i took turned into ongoing writing groups led by the class instructor. there are pros and cons to this method: it meant someone was at the head of the group who knew a lot about writing, but it also continued to be a paid service, which is not something that will work for everybody. i suspect meetup.com or similar sites are a good way to find a group be choosy, though! not all writing groups are created equal! some are too positive and won’t help you find the aspects you need to work on. others are too negative: while a harsh, honest critique is a great and generous gift, people who don’t see what’s wonderful about what you’re going for won’t be able to help you get there. and if you sense the critiques are about people’s issues with each other rather than about craft, run: the drama isn’t worth it. (though it *can* provide great writing material…) and just to question your jerkbrain a little further: even if your friends aren’t getting back to you because your book is terrible, that doesn’t mean you’re not good it means you’re not good yet. i have given horrible short stories to people who asked for them and who never mentioned them again, and i’m pretty sure the silence was because those stories were unspeakably bad. i can’t say whether i’m a good writer, but i’m confident that i’m a massively better writer than i was when i wrote those stories. it’s hard and horrible to learn that either your book isn’t as done/polished/brilliant as you hoped it was, or that you are not a great writer yet, but that doesn’t mean stop writing. we’re all terrible writers until we become better ones. i am actually at exactly the same point as you. i know the whole thing is a huge ask   but the issues are pacing and structure, they’re not line editing kinds of things. sending many hugs. we are going to do this thing.  lw i’m a frequent beta reader for a friend’s original short fiction. it’s not novel length, so the time commitment is lower, but it’s usually something i need to do with a few days’ turnaround. i love doing this for my friend! it’s fun to see pieces before they are released out into the wider world! i get to pick her brain about worldbuilding details that might not make it into the story! still, though, it is something i take seriously and put effort into, and it can be a significant mental commitment. something i like to do, when i start, is ask what sort of feedback my friend’s looking for: narrative flow? word repetition? engagement with a character? it’s a very different thing to read with an eye for grammar or syntax than for dramatic tension or character development. that helps me know where to focus my attention; i can make other comments as needed but it’s nice for me to know what my main objective should be. giving people that sort of guidance when you share works with them in the future will probably be a big help. lw, it could also be that giving honest feedback is intimidating or awkward to your friends. there is a lot of room for pretty harsh commentary even with a piece you love! even if someone loves your novel they might think “i know i’m supposed to like the love interest but that romance isn’t believable!” or “i couldn’t understand the bit with the penguin even though the heist depended on it!” and if they haven’t been in that situation of giving feedback they might not know how to do it diplomatically, or feel like they can’t at all. this is where writers’ groups will help, i think, as the culture of the space will be more likely to foster honest feedback. i think a lot of folks internalize “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” and apply it to “don’t give even positive criticism about something you mostly feel good about” where friends are concerned. so much this. it’s very hard to diplomatically critique the writing of a close friend. i’ve mostly messed it up in the past. and what if you are writing in a genre that is not one they like or normally read? it’s best to go to other writers. “something i like to do, when i start, is ask what sort of feedback my friend’s looking for: narrative flow? word repetition? engagement with a character? it’s a very different thing to read with an eye for grammar or syntax than for dramatic tension or character development.” oh, i ran into so much trouble with this once   my beloved significant other shared their first novel with me (a piece that had been written many years ago, and they had written quite a bit since, and had polished their craft in the intervening time), and i thought they were looking for copy edits and fairly intense critique . . . . . . and, no, they had wanted general feedback, preferably of the sort that involved cheery enjoyment of the subject matter. they did not appreciate getting back a document full of red editing marks, and it actually caused quite a bit of hurt feelings. (to be fair, they knew that copy editing was part of my day job, and that i had done beta reading and copy editing for professional authors. i had genuinely believed that they were looking for manuscript clean up   we had just totally failed to communicate about expectations.) now, when a friend (or partner) asks me to review or provide feedback, i always ask what they’re looking for   line by line edits, vague general feedback of the “oh, i really liked it, and i thought it was witty and incisive, and the plot was a lot of fun” type, or chapter by chapter notes about character motivation and my responses as a reader. i do think that the “if you can’t say anything nice . . .” factor may be part of the issue here   the average person is going to think of “critique” as “criticism,” and isn’t necessarily going to want to hurt their author friend’s feelings by pointing out weaknesses in their work, or in admitting that the work wasn’t to their personal taste. this is why finding a writer’s circle, class, or critique group is a very good idea   while it may *include* friends, widening your audience to people who are comfortable giving honest critique (and praise!) is likely going to be your best bet in terms of getting actual responses to your work. this. even if no hurt feelings result, it’s a waste of everybody’s time if your reader friend meticulously copyedits a chapter you decide to delete later. seconded! some people just want you to uncritically say that you love it, and “actual criticism” isn’t what they want. it’s a guess culture thing that you end up having to figure out on your own even if they “ask” and claim they want criticism, though. all of this stuff is even worse higher stakes if it’s your so or relatives, though. yep. clear communication about what kind of feedback the author is looking for is essential. i teach english lit and composition at the college level, so giving feedback on writing is my gig. lw, you don’t say whether you have any formal training or any experience workshopping your stuff. (if you do, ignore the rest of this post.) if a friend who didn’t have formal training or experience in a writing workshop environment asked me to read her stuff, i would probably say no. in fact, i have said no, and directed the authors to online writing workshops. taking critique and criticism is a skill. i have a whole lecture i give my students about the frame of mind they need to be in when they read my comments. i am not trying to give that lecture to my friends. also, giving detailed feedback is surprisingly difficult and time consuming, even when you have a lot of experience with it. readers without formal training or experience could easily be overwhelmed, especially with something as long as a novel. lw, if you’ve never taken a creative writing class, that could be a really good option for you. i don’t know about countries outside the us, but if you’re in the us, your local community college probably offers classes at a variety of levels, from recreational classes through classes that will earn you college credit. check out ratemyprofessor (dot) com to find someone who seems to know what he or she is doing. at the very least, it will give you a starting place to build a writing community. thanks! i do in fact have quite a bit of experience with this   i have another life as an academic and as an editor, and in both hats i have gotten an awful lot of very direct feedback and loved it. still, it’s a good reminder: lots of people are shit at knowing what kind of feedback they want, and at taking it when they get it. my needs for feedback on my writing can change depending on where i am in the writing process: early on, i don’t want to hear any negative feedback. got enough of that going on in my own head, thankyouverymuch. i want encouragement, what is liked, scenes/characters/phrases that excite. later, i’ll ask for the kind of feedback that can dig into character or world development, motivations, etc. both the nitty gritty and the high metaphysical can be welcome. at the end of the process, when the work feels finished (or as finished as it is likely to get) then i want the nits and crits, the typos and the bad grammar because it is time to clean up and get it ready to go. what i’m saying is that what i need from my readers depends on a lot of things and it is up to me to tell my readers what kind of response i’m looking for. the notes above suggesting that you supply a short list of questions to keep in mind and a date due by are both wonderful. and a writer’s group. friends and family, unless they are also writers/editors, are not good for anything other than the encouragement stage, if that. if you have a local college, see what they might offer for classes or workshops. if you have a convention nearby in the genre that you write, they may have groups (wiscon, happening this weekend in wisconsin, has been running workshops and a writing programming track for years). meetup and online are also possibilities. feedback is important, but the right feedback is essential. good luck! i agree with the captain and with thelittlepakeha   reading to critique is much harder and more intensive than most people think, and it’s very reasonable to suppose that it’s a level of commitment that your friends / family didn’t realise they were making, and can’t now deliver upon. it’s also true to say that a desire not to upset / offend a person you know and love may be a factor in holding some of them back, especially as they are not frequent or professional reviewers. (i assume they are not!) i am both a writer and a beta reader myself, although i mostly write poetry. i beta read for six science fiction authors, two of whom are personal friends, four of whom i have never met (although we have a cordial acquaintance online relationship). beta reading, if you do it justice, is labour intensive, thought intensive work. like the captain, i charge to beta novels, although i do short stories for the love of it   but only if i have time, energy and desire to do so. all my authors know that i will give them a clear “sorry, i can’t this time” straight away if i am not in a good space to do the reviewing. because of this, they all feel free to give me deadlines that are real   it helps me decide if this will be a “yes” or a “no”. from the other side of the fence, i would say that family and friends are not the best beta readers in most cases anyway, unless they are very experienced critiquers. they won’t read with a writer’s or editor’s eye (unless they are one!) and their affection for you will colour what they say and how they say it. with my poetry, i am in two facebook poets’ groups where i post wips and get solid, poet’s eye feedback from people with no vested interest in my reaction to what they say. i find this much more helpful to improving the work than the delighted cooing that i generally get from my family and friends, and i don’t think it’s a coincidence that since i have adopted this approach, i’ve started selling poems and getting shortlisted in competitions. so, yeah, like the captain says   writers group ftw. and if you can’t find one irl that suits you, try online! great big jedi hugs, op, and thank you for writing in. i am in a similar (though much less impressive) boat. i’ve (almost) completed one novel, and was hoping that the push of some good feedback would help me barge through writer’s block on the end of #1 and the middle of #2. but, the lovely people who offered to read said novel #1 have never said a peep about actually reading it, and i’ve been sinking into the writer’s block until now it feels a lot more like the writer’s slough of despair. i can’t offer much in the way of solutions; other lovely people are doing that, and thank you all for it. but i can say: hang in there! you are not the only one that this has happened to, and maybe now that we know about each other, we can be encouraged that maybe it’s not that we stink, it’s that feedback is as tough to create as it is to receive sometimes. yes! we can do this. also, i’m starting to wonder if those of us who are all feeling the same should just create our own internet critique group… 🙂  lw i think the advice the captain gives here is really useful. i’d just like to add something from the perspective of someone with a lot of writer friends, but who isn’t a writer herself. when my writer friends tell me about the things they are working on, i get very excited and want to hear all the details and tell them i can’t wait to read it! but i do mean read it. not provide commentary beyond positive “oh my god, i loved x character/y plot point/z chapter!” if i enjoyed it, i can probably send you a very long email telling you which bits i enjoyed, what character was my favourite, how much i cried at the sad bits, and so forth. i am a cheerleader friend, one you go to when you’re feeling bad about your writing and need someone to tell you (truthfully!) that it’s great. i am not a “constructive feedback” friend. however, i have had at least one miscommunication, where i said “i’d love to read what you’ve written so far!” so i got an email saying “here it is, tell me what you think!” i sent an effusive email back telling her how great it was and what parts i’d liked the best. the miscommunication came where she had understood “i’d love to read it” as “read and provide feedback” and i had understood “tell me what you think” as “did you enjoy it? what parts did you enjoy?” so we both got very frustrated and hurt with each other, because she felt like i had not bothered to give her anything concrete that she could improve on, and i felt like she was being kind of mean, because i’d told her so many nice things about her writing. i’m worried i’m not making myself very clear here. the point i’m making is that maybe find out which of your friends are cheerleaders and which are feedback givers. especially if your friends are not writers themselves, they maybe having the same misunderstanding that i did, and didn’t realise that until after they’d agreed, so now they’re panicking that they’ve signed up to provide detailed feedback that they aren’t capable of giving. i’m like this, too. i have a lot of friends who write fanfic. my friends are often looking for beta readers and sometimes i feel bad that i don’t contribute that sort of thing, but i do a lot of editing/providing feedback on writing at work and it feels like work to me. fandom is my escape from work. i love reading their fics, but i am not the right person to beta for them. i can cheerlead enthusiastically, and i will flail happily at them when they post the finished works and tell them things i love about it. but i want to enjoy the experience of reading it, not find it work. i have a friend who writes and publishes books. she gets really great reviews, and i buy the books and do other things to be supportive. however, i haven’t actually finished any of them. they are in a style i just do not relate to or care for. she’s never asked me to critique them, but if she had, it would have been really hard for me. it doesn’t mean they’re not good books! it just means they’re not my cup of tea. another thought: not only is reading to critique more more work and time than just reading for pleasure and maybe coming out the other end with “this is really good, if you like detective stories read this” or “eh, didn’t work for me,” reading an unedited book is almost guaranteed to be more work than reading one that has been edited, even if you aren’t critiquing. it’s not just the large structural stuff that you’re looking for help with there will be little glitches of spelling and typos, and yes, the reader can and will sort most of those out, but it will also slow them down. given a choice, almost anyone would rather read a book where someone has deleted the duplicate words and inserted the missing “not” and fixed the place where “i cannot hear them” became “i cannot bear them.” (those are things that the spelling checker, blessed be its name, cannot fix for you.) (i tried critiquing a novel for a friend once, and the main thing i learned is that i don’t have that skill; fortunately, she knows other people who do.) lw, congratulations on having written three novels! seconding the advice to find a more structured (and ideally reciprocal) way of seeking feedback, whether in a critique group or elsewhere. and maureen eichner’s comment above is terrific. i’m a professional fiction editor. back when i was trying to break into the industry, i was so hungry for experience that i would often offer to read friends’ work … and then struggle with guilt about not getting back to them, or not giving them the kind of feedback that it turns out they were after. sometimes i would put a lot of time and effort into a hardcore structural edit, and then find out that what my friend *really* wanted was for me to tell them that their work didn’t suck. those situations left neither of us happy. lw, i’m not sure what kind of feedback you’re seeking on your manuscript. but does sound like you’re after some affirmation that all your effort so far hasn’t been in vain. good news: this is the feedback that your trusted people are likely to be most qualified to provide! it’s all about expectations. if affirmation’s what you want at this point in time, frame your initial conversations around that. unless someone actively dislikes your manuscript   which is possible! not every book is for every reader!   this is the easiest kind of feedback to give, so it can reduce the pressure around having to give detailed, constructive comments. and as others have mentioned, selecting the readers who are actually interested by giving them a short sample first can be helpful for all involved. in terms of more general jerkbrain stuff around writing and publishing … all of the authors i know struggle with this to varying degrees. you can only really control what goes onto the page, and pretty much everything else is up to other people. it’s 100% okay to have ambitions for your writing, of course. but the happiest writers i know   unpublished, midlist, bestselling   are the ones who primarily focus on their process and their craft, which are the parts that they do control. is that something that might be helpful for you? i think the advice the captain gives here is really useful. i’d just like to add something from the perspective of someone with a lot of writer friends, but who isn’t a writer herself. when my writer friends tell me about the things they are working on, i get very excited and want to hear all the details and tell them i can’t wait to read it! but i do mean read it. not provide commentary beyond positive “oh my god, i loved x character/y plot point/z chapter!” if i enjoyed it, i can probably send you a very long email telling you which bits i enjoyed, what character was my favourite, how much i cried at the sad bits, and so forth. i am a cheerleader friend, one you go to when you’re feeling bad about your writing and need someone to tell you (truthfully!) that it’s great. i am not a “constructive feedback” friend. however, i have had at least one miscommunication, where i said “i’d love to read what you’ve written so far!” i got an email saying “here it is, tell me what you think!” i sent an effusive email back telling her how much i’d enjoyed it and what parts i’d liked the best. the miscommunication came where she had understood “i’d love to read it” as “read and provide feedback” and i had understood “tell me what you think” as “did you enjoy it? what parts did you enjoy?” so we both got very frustrated and hurt with each other, because she felt like i had not bothered to give her anything concrete that she could improve on, and i felt like she was being kind of mean, because i’d told her so many nice things about her writing. i’m worried i’m not making myself very clear here. the point i’m making is that maybe find out which of your friends are cheerleaders and which are feedback givers. especially if your friends are not writers themselves, they may have had the same misunderstanding that i did, and didn’t realise that until after they’d agreed, so now they’re panicking that they’ve signed up to provide detailed feedback that they aren’t capable of giving. i seem to have posted this twice! i’m sorry; captain, feel free to delete. as a writer with non writer friends, i absolutely agree! i have a sense of which of my friends are best at enthusiasm and moral support and which are best at being a little more critical, and i know who to go to when. (the people in my life who are best at pulling things apart, though, are fellow writers from writing groups which was great for me to find, and also great for my non writer friends who no longer have to deal with me begging them to be harsher than they’re comfortable with.) i’ve found it useful sometimes to ask less critical people (the ones who are up for it!) specific questions about the story rather than the writing that don’t require too much direct criticism: “how did you feel about character b?” or “did you guess the mystery before the end did the reveal make sense to you?” or even “can you describe what character b is like as if i’d never met them?” because sometimes one of the hardest things to figure out is whether my characterization actually came through the way i wanted. slightly ot, but still germane (i hope): the thing i like best about the captain and her army is the sensitivity to people, even those who are not paying nicely. as above, where there are several suggestions about how to help the potential readers from felling bad about not doing what they offered to do. seriously, most places would blame and shame, and it is just a refreshing thing to come here and find suggestions for solutions that are not “take off and nuke them from orbit.” big (virtual) hugs and thanks to all. you keep my belief in the essential goodness of humanity alive. please substitute “playing” for “paying” above. although i think it would still apply…. wow, 3 novels! right on! i am on both sides of this fence. two of my friends have sent me whole novels to beta read for them and i promised i’d do it and then i never did it. i didn’t have the time. and, like the captain said, i felt terrible. the longer i waited, the worse i felt. i totally let them down and i still feel like a schmuck for doing so   i feel even worse because neither of them ever said anything to me about it. if you’ve given your novel to friends and haven’t heard back from them, they may be sitting on a pile of bad feelings and could welcome the opportunity to have a discussion with you about it. i’d have felt better if a) my friends had totally yelled at me for being a doofus or b) my friends would have forgiven me for being a doofus. it would have felt better than the continuing awfulness i feel for letting them down. now i have written my own novels, and i have had plenty of people volunteer to read them, so i have sent them out and have never heard back again from those people. having been a schmuck myself, i am pretty sure that they just don’t have time, and if they tell me that i’ll forgive them because *i understand.* but it is really horrendously painful to sit there, all anxious, waiting for feedback that never comes. so, my advice. 1) don’t give a novel to someone unless they specifically ask for the whole thing *and they have experience beta reading.* experienced beta readers will clear a few days and ask for the novel and slot it in to those days when they have time. 2) do give people the first 3000 or so words *if* they ask. if they read it and get back to you within a week, wanting more, give them more. if they don’t, then they don’t have the time and you don’t have to worry about it any longer. stay friends, but cross them off the beta reader list. 3) find a local writer’s workshop. as it turns out, my local area recreation department runs one. most cities are chock full of them. 4) find a *reputable* online site. i use http://www.scribophile.com. there you must give 3 full reviews of work of the length you write in before you can post a work for review. everyone reviews other people. in fact, many people post more reviews than they post of their own worth. i posted a short story in 3 parts and got a total of 25 reviews on it and i only had to review 3 stories to do so. you also only review the genres you want to read, and you can pick the stories, etc. go poke around there. you may be pleasantly surprised, and you can get stuff reviewed for free (except your time reviewing the works of others). 5) be kind to yourself. just because someone doesn’t read your stuff doesn’t make you a bad writer. and not everything is for everyone. i have read plenty of stuff that was beautifully written that i absolutely hated, and plenty of stuff that was poorly written that i enjoyed. peoples’ likes are individual. you have no idea why they didn’t read your stuff unless you ask them, so don’t assume it has anything to do with you. *ask them.* 95% of the time they’ll probably shamefacedly tell you they didn’t have the time, and if it turns out they didn’t like your stuff, they might just not like the genre. i don’t like memoirs, but i have friends who write them. i don’t read their memoirs, and they don’t ask me to. good luck! i did this thing that was kinda a big deal in the library/book world. and then i became the go to person for this type of ask in my city. and i got a lot of requests (still do). seriously people phone me up because they know xyz person who recommended me… some i could politely turn down. some i couldn’t because relationships or politics or whatever. here’s the thing, i love critiquing novels/writing for an award panel or to write a review. i don’t love giving feedback directly to authors. i’m too nice to want to give perfectly solid feedback if i am face to face (or email or phone) with the author. i always try to soften it. my one try at a writer’s group/class did not go well. behind the closed door for an award’s panel or writing a review? much better at feedback. so i am getting much much much better at saying no. currently i say i am too busy with the baby. (btw one of the awesome side effects of having a kid is your ability to use them as an excuse to not do things you don’t want to but need a convenient excuse. baby is 11 months, when do i stop getting the “new mom” slack? because i love it.) so i would be doing what your friends are, saying yes and then avoiding actually reading/feedbacking until you drag me out for a coffee shop where i will give you back a few pointers and keep trying to change the subject. (true story.) this isn’t helpful advice, but it is the view from the other side of the table. i have a similar tactic. sometimes it’s hard for me to get up the gumption to finish a novel (my attention is notoriously flighty). so i shoot three chapters to my beta reader aka my sister and, while she reads and makes comments, i have the push i need to get through the next three chapter. also, congrats on three novels! i got through one and a half so far. keep rocking it! i have to tell you, lw, that i love to write, but the most complicated thing i can handle is maybe a series of four connected blog posts. the creativity and skill required to write a novel (and more than one at that!) is completely beyond any level of ability that i can comprehend. on a scale of creativity from zero to god, people like you who can write actual books are basically at god level from where i’m sitting. okay now that i’ve told you how much i admire you, it is possible that some of your friends have started reading your book and couldn’t make it through. that doesn’t mean it’s bad! it could just be not to their taste. there’s a reason that every wildly popular book / book series invariably has quite a few people that don’t like it   everyone is different. i agree with the other commenters that you would probably benefit from a writers’ group; you would stand a much better shot at getting some good feedback. good luck! i think after this much time, the kindest thing you can do is let your friends off the hook   any critique they did give you would be rushed and perfunctory, born of a desire just to get the damn thing off their plate rather than really to do a good job. or at least, that’s what you might end up telling yourself. the script i would use is, “friend, i’ve been noodling with my great ass novel and looking at some of the feedback i’ve received*, and i think i need to take it in a new direction**. please just delete the files i sent you, and thank you for the offer to look them over. maybe we can revisit this*** once it’s beaten into a new and better shape, but for now, don’t sweat it.” * “i’m too busy to do this after all” is feedback, just not the type you were looking for. ** “away from you” should probably remain unspoken. *** this is the same “maybe we should” that’s found in “we should totally get together the next time you’re in my town!” the one that means “look, you’re a nice person, but i don’t think my schedule is free that day, whenever that day turns out to be.” the danger is that the friend might think, i almost spent all that time reading something that didn’t count anyway? i’m never agreeing to read for friend again. letting people off the hook is great. i think it’s possible to be honest about it. how about if “please just delete the files i sent you” becomes, “if you haven’t gotten to it yet, awesome   you can just delete the files and not worry about it, and i’ll still count it as a point in your favor that you were willing to try. if you have feedback that you *want* to send me, just send me a general outline, because i don’t need point by point if i’m thinking of taking it in a new direction anyway. thank you so much for agreeing to look them over.” then i think it has less of a pulling the rug out feel, but it lets them off the hook without making them make any shamefaced admissions. that’s more what i was thinking. thanks for being smarter than i was about it. (you too, cinderkeys!) that’s pretty good. plus, it’s fine to say you’re thinking of taking the work in a new direction if you actually are. i’ve worked as an editor. while i was an editor, the stuff i rec’d on the job was easy to evaluate and reply to, because it was professional stuff and i had no emotional connection. friends who knew my job would ask me to look at their writing and i really, really had to plead no. for the most part i did not need more to read. but i also found the one friend’s manuscript i did accept that it was very hard to be constructive . i kept wanting to pull my punches and smooth over objections. it wasn’t a matter of the manuscript being bad, it was me being too close to the writer and their hopes and expectations to really see the way to a proper critique. it’s hard work to write anything and kudos for you to get entire manuscripts under your belt! (you’ve already accomplished more than eighty percent of my slush submissions back when i was an editor). i very much agree with the idea of a question form. it not only helps people formulate their replies, but allows you to direct the nature of them. sometimes how to respond to writing can be more daunting. even great novels. (you know, you give the book you adore to a friend and the only response they can give you is “oh, it was nice, i liked reading it”) the writing group suggestion is also spot on. it’s usually a great way to get support and good input, and support other writers in turn. it can also help to narrow down to particulars. if you want to know things like “does my character’s backstory make sense?” “is this scene believable?” “will readers get this particular reference?” if you put in the nuts and bolts questions, it becomes easier for readers to be helpful in answering. i’m part of a group of readers for friend who is a published novelist, we get the drafts before they go to her editor and do a combination of proof reading and commenting on the content. because she is published, she has deadlines, and will send out an email as they approach saying words to the effect of “please send in your notes or sign off on the draft,” which gives anyone who hasn’t had the time to work on it and easy out. as an unpublished author, things are a bit more flexible, but you could adapt this to say something like: “i’m starting a new draft of my novel next week. if anyone has any notes for me, please send them through, even if they are incomplete. if you haven’t managed to make notes, i hope you enjoyed reading, but as i’ll be working on a new draft soon, so please don’t worry about making notes on the current version. thanks everyone for your time.” that way you give them an out, and if anyone has made some notes, but is worried that they aren’t very comprehensive, they are more likely to send them on than keep feeling like they ought to get around to making more, but somehow never finding the time. and then you can find a group of readers who are also writers, and you and your friends can go back to being friends who don’t have any outstanding obligations. i signed up to be a test reader for book hive (book hive.com) which “offers online focus group research for authors who want to test finished manuscripts”. there are other online resources. the question i like to ask to get feedback is “what’s the one thing you would change?” this takes some of the pressure off to give a full in depth critique and makes it easier for the reader. yes. “what is the one thing you would change?” is awesome and i am going to use this so hard.  lw i’m actually in this kind of situation as a beta reader (though to be fair half of it is just huge block of text with no paragraphs and that’s really hard to read so i’m trying to block it out into specific chunks and read a little at a time and making markings where i left off and already told the author that the large blocks of texts make it hard to read and hurt my eyes so it’ll take a while for me to read). i do beta reading in between reading and reviewing books that i either own or get from the library. and my beta reading (as well as book reviewing) is something that is done in my spare time. now, if you write something that really hooks me i’ll say to hell with everything else that isn’t big important life stuff and just sit and read til it’s done (and sometimes making notes sometimes not). which actually tends to happen more often than not. heck, if you’d like someone to do beta reading that will be honest about what they feel works for them and doesn’t work i’d be more than happy to do so lw. my contact info for book reviews (and beta reading) can be found on the link in my sidebar on my page http://www.blowpopsbooks.wordpress.com (warning there is a flashy gif on my contact page that i’m going to eventually take down but haven’t due to motivational issues related to mental health issues). some of my reviews are very in depth and great. others….not so much. however, i think the captain has some great advice. as does the person who mentioned doing stories in google docs (which i love for much the same reason they mentioned). a slightly riskier idea, lw, (if no one else has mentioned it i don’t recall seeing it though) is to have a tumblr devoted just to your writing and posting chapters there and getting word out that way. or a blog where you have a chapter or two up of the book so people can “preview” it and potentially give you feedback. you’re a more patient person than me. i can’t even read long blocks of text in facebook posts. i’d probably send it back saying that the first thing i noticed was the huge text blocks, that i can’t handle them, and that i’d be happy to review a revised version with that one issue resolved. well i did email them and tell them that the huge block of text was very off putting but i also did what i do to everything that is sent to me that isn’t in a google doc. i put it into a google doc and broke it up a bit (though not sure the paragraphs work how i did it since i threw them in at random) and everytime i read a little more i do a red arrow next to where i stop. while making notes in the doc so that i can send them to the author as i read it. though i did the breaking up into paragraphs and putting onto my personal google docs (which i’ll also delete when i’m done because there’s no reason to keep it after it’s done) on one of my higher energy days. e books and things i need to read on my phone or computer (since i can put docs on my phone to read which is partly why i use google docs) lately have been taking me forever. and it sucks for me. i managed to read one ebook fully and that’s cause it was like 8 pages long and a short fluff story. i feel like crap about it because i’ve had their story for over 2 months now and normally i would have been done with it in 2 weeks or less. though part of it is that it’s only mildly keeping my interest and i can’t figure out if it’s the lack of author’s paragraphing or if it’s just the story itself that doesn’t hold much interest. or if it’s a combo of the two. *sighs* this is something you have to get used to add a writer. people get curious about your work and offer to read it, but they rarely deliver. friends make bad beta reader. in fact, friends tend to not understand much about writing or publishing. ime, it’s best to keep your friends and your writing sperate. a writer’s group would be great for op. critique swaps with other writers or paid for feedback from an editor could help (if you can afford it). you can also find beta on good reads. i’ve written and published three new adult romances. it’s not a genre non fans understand or appreciate, so feedback from friends isn’t particularly helpful. i also have to deal with a lot of romance is stupid/how could you write that/is that like 50 shades/omg is there sex in it. it’s made me hate a lot of friends/potential friends. not the first, but another bit of perspective from the beta reader side of things. i beta read for a friend of mine (a) from college awhile ago, and i apparently did a good job because when another friend of mine from college (e) was looking for a beta reader, a recommended me. oh, how nice! however, i wound up utterly flaking out on e’s novel feedback, and got in the spiral of shame as weeks stretched into months without making much progress on it. ultimately, a had happened to write a novel that hit all my happy buttons and so i was thrilled to read it and provide some feedback. e happened to write a much slower, more intellectual novel that i just wasn’t feeling, and reading it and providing feedback wound up feeling like a complete chore. what e eventually did was get in touch with me and say “hey, i think we should both just admit that you aren’t going to get through my novel to give me feedback, so why don’t you just send me anything you *did* get to, if anything, and i can run with it. maybe when i have another draft, i’ll see if you’re in a better position to give it a read, but no hard feelings”. and i deeply appreciated her doing that, because i had made it through a couple chapters and put down feedback, so i was at least able to send her that, and escape the shame spiral about not wanting to do any more. well… whether this is useful for you, dear lw, you’ve probably substantially increased the chances that i’ll get back to that novel that i was beta reading for a friend, so… thanks for writing in. as someone currently in such a stall, there are a lot of reasons for it, none of them all that compelling by themselves. stuff happened, life happened, moods happened, work happened, other compelling interests happened, all somewhere around chapter 5. i got out of the habit and now have a nice mental block about going back to it, complete with a fun coat of guilt. especially as the unread chapters piled up. it’s good to get the reminder that the writer on the other end of the radio silence probably still just wants to hear from me, though. once i’m caught a little more up at work…. well, i’ll catch back up to where i was and then try one chapter at a time. definitely not personal, and not about my friend’s work at all. and maybe the one chapter at a time feedback will make the pile seem like less of one, or at least get the author some feedback and validation before life and work and everything else happens again. i used to be an editor, lw, and i really want to underscore the captain’s advice that you join a writing group. here’s three major reasons why this will change your life for the better: 1. people in writing groups have immense expertise about the mechanics of writing. 2. people in writing groups can be your emotional supports for the process of submitting your work. 3. people in writing groups have connections to other writers, as well as to agents and editors. a disproportionate number of the novels i and my colleagues purchased were produced by people in writing groups, and many of those people retained those connections as their careers advanced. i cannot recommend this enough. a side note: in my experience, it’s unlikely that your friends and colleagues will give you actionable feedback anyway, either because they lack expertise in offering feedback or because they want to provide support and praise rather than critique (which is a good and noble role for your social network to fill). i’ve published over ten books (and sold around, uh, gosh, must be getting toward 20,000 copies now). i’ve found that other writers are the best source of feedback. i started out using the critters site (good for sff writers) and a writer friend i knew in real life. it can be a challenge to find someone not only willing to read your book, but into your specific type of book (the best kind of beta is someone who gets your sub genre). look for reciprocal arrangements, and start off by putting in some crit work yourself. i found critting other writers really helped my own writing, because i had to analyse and explain why something didn’t work. and if finding a writing group near you is challenging for any reason, there are always online ones! finding groups that will provide quality critique is the main challenge, and in my experience the best ones are communities where everyone is expected to contribute. scribophile is good   you earn points giving critiques to others, and then spend those points uploading your work. the system is set up to encourage all new items to be read and critiqued so everyone gets feedback. i don’t know of the absolute write forum is still good since it’s been a long time since i used it, but there it’s more of an open forum community themed around writing   there are discussions about the craft, themes, publishing opportunities etc, and you don’t gain access to making new posts in the work critique sections until you’ve proven yourself to be willing to critique and participate for others. that said, one thing   beta readers aren’t necessarily the first thing you should turn to (and those forums i mentioned distinguish between beta readers and the critique mostly offered on them). in both those communities, step one is uploading a short section of your work   in scribophile, people tended to be less willing to critique something over 3000 5000 words, so posting up a chapter was the generally accepted method. you’d then post the next chapter the next time you got your points in order. people who liked your work could be counted on, often, to follow and critique each chapter as it came up. on absolute write, if i recall correctly, the upper limit on what most people would willingly critique was about the same. and the general plan was that, once you’d had a few chapters critiqued and polished the novel, you would then go about petitioning for someone to volunteer to beta read the whole thing. beta readers were a lot more strict in their criteria for accepting to read the novel, generally. the reason for this is that critiquing a whole novel takes a lot of work. and the truth is that a lot of the things that might need tweaking in your work can be identified and commented on by reading just a small part of it. i’m not, unfortunately, staying in one place for the time being   there’s a group i can likely join when i am back to staying put, though! 🙂 one of the problems is that at this point the small things are largely okay. the issues are timing, structure, all the stuff that you can only get at by reading the whole thing. and also the hardest things to critique! but following your and others’ advice, i’ve joined scribophile and am looking forward to digging in!  lw friends, family, and coworkers   however much they like reading generally   are probably not effective givers of feedback, for two reasons: 1) they aren’t used to giving feedback, and 2) they are your friends, family and coworkers. i’ve generally found, when i’ve done creative writing courses (which function like a writing group in a lot of ways) that people go through stages in their feedback giving journey. to start with, they don’t feel comfortable saying anything critical. then, they tell you about grammar and spelling errors, but nothing more substantial. it often takes quite a while before people are able to add more meaningful comments. being part of a group where you give and received feedback is incredibly helpful, both because the people giving feedback are engaged with the writing process and can comment in depth, and because you yourself get the opportunity to give other people feedback   and this, believe me, is an incredible gift. it kick starts and energises your ability to look critically at your own writing in all kinds of ways. as for the #2 part, the thing is, giving effective feedback entails an element of criticism. you’re already worrying that because feedback isn’t forthcoming, it must mean that your work is utterly dreadful, but in the flipside your readers may be worrying that if they say anything negative at all, then you’ll be terribly offended. people giving feedback need to be able to tell you what isn’t working   not in an overly negative way, but things like ‘i thought the stuff about matilda and the bees was going to turn into an interesting subplot but it just petered out   i’d like to see that go somewhere’ or ‘you know, i think you’ve been a bit heavy handed with the theme of loneliness in the first half of the book, and then conversely not included it enough later on’ or ‘maybe lose 50% of the adjectives in the descriptive passages in chapter 2? i feel like this would really strengthen them’ or whatever. this aren’t mean things to say, but they can feel like mean things to say when you aren’t used to giving feedback   which among us has never been told ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’?   so for people who aren’t comfortable doing it already, and who like you, it’s very hard to do. ok, i think the possible value of this anecdote to lw outweighs the shame of the name dropping. (hopefully l. will forgive me) i have already read the new lois mcmaster bujold novel. i read it chapter by chapter, as it was written. it’s awesome, btw, i adore it beyond words, but i’m avoiding discussing the actual contents because if i say nothing i can’t say too much and spoil something for someone. but anyway. in the course of the two years i was getting chunks of gentleman jole and the red queen in my inbox at odd intervals, i flaked on lois innumerable times, once for two months. because life is unpredictible. because as much as it was hands down the best kind of work ever omg, critical reading and feedback is still work. equally, when i wasn’t flaking, i got at least two plaintive replies in the course of this saying “oh thank goodness, everyone else has dropped off the face of the earth.” so, dear lw and others: put that in your jerk brain and smoke it. whenever you need to. you know what? i honest to god started crying when i read this comment. i am drawing a close to my first novel (about 10k words from the end, i think) and have been in the last few days engaged in the process of approaching a carefully selected group of close friends about a first pass read of what i know to be a very bad first draft, a gentle and broad soft critique before the real process of serious and professional critiquing starts. i’ve obviously never done this before and it’s scary as hell and i really don’t have the faintest idea what i’m doing, but the alternative is not doing it, so one foot in front of the other. the decision to take the plunge and write this book was *directly* inspired by the afterword to the 1999 cordelia’s honor omnibus. (like, i had just finished barrayar, read the afterword, went to sleep, woke up the next morning with a plot outline, and wrote eleven pages before i left for work.) it is important to me to remember that the creators whose work i adore are people first, people doing a challenging job for love in the midst of their own life challenges, and the work gets done because they surround themselves with people who support them, and who in turn have their own lives and challenges too. sharing art is a process of being human. being given this anecdote about one of my lifelong heroes to carry with me into this process is a bit like being given some little treasure of a paternoster or worry stone. you couldn’t have known that, but you chose to tell the story, so thank you. a sort of second: five years ago, i couldn’t get past my friend’s opening scene  too violent   and as a girrul growing up in the american south and the u.k., i couldn’t even articulate to myself why it bothered me, because that would be saying something bad and expressing a negative when it’s just an opinion. i figured that out two years ago  several months after she happily announced her appearance on the best seller lists. i’m actually glad i flaked. also, emphasizing: tell that jerkbrain to shush. rejection is part of the process, happens to many, many wonderful authors. think of them as cool battle scars… but learn how to let them not get to you. thank you! it had already occurred to me to gently remind my beta readers and crit partners that feels about criticism are my shit to deal with; this reinforces that, and puts it into perspective. i’ve been a working professional in the visual arts, so i’m no stranger to bleeding in public, as it were, but wow, this is different. singularly jealous here… oh, and how did/do you cope with critiquing the overall arc/plot/effect/insert word here of a novel when you’re only reading it a bit at a time? this is an open question to anyone who cares to answer it, btw. well, you can only react to what you have to react to, which is part of the point for the writer, usually: they want to know what you think right then, what you expect next, etc. sometimes i sent a page of incoherent squee, sometimes i sent little essays about the characters or about a theme, sometimes it was “so this is what i’m expecting/wanting/dreading here”. not assuming i’d get it, but letting her know what effect the foregoing had had. my wife was reading along as well, and we beguiled much of a road trip plot bitching and then sending emails about it on stops. this will amuse you, especially: we had a significant insight at yellowstone which later apparently came in handy. at the end i think i sent some longish comments on the whole arc(s). yellowstone is very inspirational 🙂 thanks for the response. getting big picture commentary has always been my biggest issue. one thing that’s hard about writing is that, generally speaking, there’s a pretty big disparity between the energy you put into it and the energy readers will want to put into reading (let alone commenting on) your work. unless there’s some other big motivating factor (like being paid), for most people a text has to be very exciting for them to read it. the hurdle may be very high   personally, i’ve put down books by nobel prize winners because something came up, and then never finished them. good quality provides no guarantee that people will read your work. there’s also probably a big disparity between how much you care about your work, and how much your friends care. even if they are genuinely interested in your work it might still not be important enough for them to actually read the entire novel. they might not dare to be honest with you and tell you they’re just not invested enough to put in the effort to read and comment, because it will come across as not liking your novel even if that’s not the case. i know it’s disheartening, but it’s definitely a common experience writers have, and not a reason to believe your work’s not good. man, i’ve been asked by 2 friends to read and review their writing. well, actually 3 friends, but that 3rd manuscript was just 12 pages, and though it was really, truly terrible, it didn’t take me long to read it, so i thought “ah, why the heck not”? it’s a time investment vs. the mild amusement i will glean from this exercise. but the other 2 included the latest installment in a never ending fantasy series that my close friend had been writing for years, which she gave to me during a chemistry lesson, and the first chapter of a sci fi epic that one of my new university friends had written. so, both were written by teenagers, and i was apparently expected to read and critique them in my own time, while i was meant to be studying, and neither of them was really my cup of tea in terms of genre or subject matter. both were roughly long enough that i could have had more fun using the pages to encase the authors in papier mache. the length, coupled with the cheerful expectation that i would love it and have lots of enthusiastic things to say, made the whole thing a goddamned chore, and i still haven’t read either of them. demanding people spend hours of their time validating some piece of work you’ve produced is a great way to strain a friendship. definitely find people who are also writers to critique your stuff, but don’t forget they’ve got their own projects they want to be working on, so their “free” time is still valuable. also, remember to offer something in return, whether it’s proofreading their stuff, or you treat them to coffee while you both discuss your latest chapter. if you have a friend who seems genuinely keen to read your stuff, then maybe serialize it. send them a couple of pages every week via email, *as part of a friendly social exchange* so that it’s a social activity between the two of you and not a bunch of work that you’ve just dropped onto their desk. rather than put someone on the spot with a general “what did you think?”, meet them halfway and identify questions you can ask to get the specific advice you want. like: “i worried that the dialogue sounds a bit stilted here. did you get that when you were reading it?” or “have i done enough to flesh out [character]? i wanted him to be [3 character traits], does that come across?” or just “i’m pretty happy with this chapter, but did you catch any spelling and grammar mistakes?” let them engage with the text as a reader, and do your damnedest not to be offended if they think xyz could be done better, otherwise they will want to stop being honest with you, and will want to stop talking with you about your writing altogether. but don’t let your jerkbrain get you down   3 entire novels is extremely impressive of itself, and that means that you’ve already got the dedication to be a writer, you just want someone to tell you that you make the grade to be published. that’s a totally different kettle of fish, but there are lots of books and classes and groups to help aspiring authors get into print, so look them up. 🙂 i look forward to seeing you on amazon’s stacks some day. good luck, lw! lw, i’m a writer too! something i’ve learned is that reading and critting a novel is a lot of hard work   so much so it is a specific skill that people charge for. unless your friends have that skill (i suspect most are passive readers, where they don’t critique the work as they enjoy it) then they simply can’t do as you ask. captains advice to find a writers group is excellent, and may i suggest absolutewrite forums? you can’t post your whole novel, and you have to have contributed to the forums a bit before you can post chapters, but you can find people who’ll read it and crit it for you. and, more importantly, they have the skill, experience and distance to give you an honest response. your friends are excited for you and wanted to support you, but i don’t think they realised what they were taking on. let them off, and let them support you in the ways they are better at   being a shoulder during the submissions process, being there at your launch party etc. i was a member of an online group called critique circle. it’s about $60 a year to join. you’ll have to trade favors there, but you should get some good feedback. if you do get someone to read your work, one habit to avoid is arguing with the feedback you get. ignore it if you like, dismiss it in your own head, but please don’t shoot down/argue away each piece of feedback as you get it from the reader. i’m not saying there’s any suggestion you do this, just chipping in here as someone who gets asked to read people’s creative work fairly often and finds this behaviour puts me off doing it more than once for any given writer. we talk about protecting the writer’s morale during the feedback process, but as the captain says, reading is work too, and it’s work that can be demoralising if you feel that your contribution is being dismissed. it’s just exhausting to try giving a critique while everything you say is being argued down. “i thought the scene where they walk on the moors could be a bit more concise?” “no, it couldn’t. you’re wrong about this.” “i thought this character’s dialogue was a bit stilted.” “ah, that’s because this character is actually a robot, as you’ll find out in part 2 of my trilogy.” once i tried doing a critique by email to avoid this kind of back and forth (and actually finish what i had to say without giving up). the person then sent back a line by line rebuttal of everything i said, apart from the bits which were just content free praise! and yes, they had asked me to read their work, and yes, they subsequently asked me to read other things! 1000 times this. absorb the feedback, and apply it (or don’t), but don’t argue with it point by point if you want to remain on good terms with that person. if i spent hours and hours carefully reading someone’s writing to provide throughout feedback, and then they responded by telling me how stupid and wrong all of my thoughts were, i’d never read for them again! it’s one thing if i see the final draft and they decided not to take 100% of my suggestions, it’s another if they berate me and put me down for not giving them word for word the feedback i was supposed to. if you already know exactly what’s good and bad about the manuscript, why are you asking me? be kind to your readers. you don’t have to take everything they say as gospel, but thank them for their contribution and parse through their feedback privately. there’s an amazing essay by karen joy fowler in one of the writers of the future anthologies that has very good advice on how to take criticism, and the first piece of advice is that it’s perfectly ok to feel, in the moment, that the criticism you are receiving is absolutely wrong. but you shut up and take the hit and only when you are absolutely sure that you have survived do you look at it again and entertain the idea that, maybe, some of what you received was absolutely correct. i still re read that essay at least once a year. i totally relate to this. a friend (male) sent me (female) his manuscript to read. i commented on how the development of his female characters made me uncomfortable. the young, pretty, sexy ones were the sympathetic characters while the not so sympathetic ones were invariably older, obese or unattractive. i then received a diatribe from my friend on how i didn’t really know what i was talking about and how some ‘actual’ feminists he had shared the manuscript with hadn’t raised this point etc etc. needless to say, i was put off and never bought this book or his subsequent one. lw, maybe you could take a moment to reflect on how open you have been to feedback from friends in the past. either related to your books or any other area. if your friends have not had a positive experience in the past with your reaction to their feedback, they may be reluctant to engage again. just a thought. lw, i just wanted to say that 100% of the writers i know have had this experience so it’s not your book! this is just what happens with beta readers, and the captain and the commentariat have some great suggestions for getting feedback. i have a dear, dear friend who edits my stuff. it’s great because, like lw, i also write! he’s a freelancer who copy edits for a living, and so he is always asking me to send him things. this reminded me to send him a “holy crap thanks so so so so much for all you do” email. for myself (this might be a good habit for you to get into as well, lw), i need ongoing feedback *during* my writing process. i don’t think i’ve ever sent more than 20 pages at a time for anyone to read, let alone edit and give me feedback on. this is mostly because like you, lw, i’ve realized how daunting anything more can look when it’s not written by a favorite author. i also would never send my stuff to more than 2 3 people at a time, and the people i choose for that are very carefully selected. like, one of them is really great at catching my random grammar hiccups and weird sentence structures, but can’t offer me anything better than “i like it!” when it comes to the content/plot/characters. what i’m getting at is that not everyone is equally good at critique. some people are just not geared towards constructive criticism or praise, and perhaps wouldn’t be useful for you anyways. some people don’t get that you’re not looking for compliments* or that you might want feedback about more than just spelling errors. plus, it’s hard telling somebody you really like, who has accomplished something huge (three novels, let alone one!), that their creation is anything less than perfect i’m with the captain on this  you gotta find yourself a group willing to workshop this. and when you write your next piece, consider sending drafts one chapter at a time to the friend who *did* get back to you. good luck lw! * i just graduated with a degree in a creative field, and the critiques tended to be terrible. “i like it,” is wonderful to hear the first few times, but after a good handful of years you want to grab people by the shoulders and shake them and scream “ok great but why?! what do you like about it?!” forgot to add the flip side! i once had a friend send me a draft of something or another in the midst of a death in the family, drama in a fail start relationship, and a particularly nasty depressive episode. now, i did totally agree to read this, but did not anticipate any of that stuff happening. i (correctly imho) put my emotional health first and told my friend that i would get back to hir and hir piece as soon as the dust has settled. nope! pretty much every time zie and i talked, zie would badger me about reading hir piece. which, lo and behold, did not make me want to read hir work. mostly it made me not want to talk to hir at all. i did eventually get to read it a few months later, and really did love it, but our friendship suffered as a result. sympathies. i can’t even imagine how that went down. “how’ve you been, somniorum?” “oh, you know. it’s been hard, coping with family member’s death. i really miss family member.” “uh huh. so have you read my manuscript yet?” i’ve had a success with a friend who is also a writer so i could say “hey, i’ll critique your book if you critique mine.” i used to write a lot and now i do all sorts of artsy things so i have a lot of experience with finding ways to get feedback. what i discovered is that it’s easiest to get feedback from people in the same field. i started taking photo’s in clubs and made connections with others that do the same. together we help each other and i find it benefits me to critique their work to “have a sharper eye’ and it might benefit them for the same reason. plus it can be fun. learning someone something about something i love is great haha. so what if it’s hard to find these people? well i have had teachers, that are getting paid to give me feedback. or i have asked friends/family to help me. i either depended on their awesome generosity of time or i would offer them something like dinner! it’s fun and feels better than paying them. it can be something else too, but from my experience they took my request more seriously when they got something in return. which makes sense to me because as the captain said, reading an entire novel or even a chapter can feel like work. if you do need something by some date you could for example suggest ‘hey how about i make you dinner and while i cook you could maybe read that chapter i just finished? i’d be super thankful! and we can enjoy a nice meal afterwards’. you wrote 3 novels, lw, and that’s awesome! i have been wanting to get back into writing (i used to write stories all the time as a kid/teen) and i have yet to take the time to sit down and write (even though i’ve got a few ideas for stories), so kudos on doing it! one thing i didn’t notice anyone else recommending is there is a subreddit on reddit.com called /r/writing where writers can go ask for feedback on some of their stuff. they do a weekly thread where you can post your work and get feedback. so you could potentially post a couple chapters in there, and see what everyone thinks, etc. might even make a thread asking if anyone would be willing to give feedback on a finished novel. you ask about silencing the jerk brain and talk about your dashed dreams. one way to deal with the jerk brain is to be specific about what your dreams are. getting published? getting read? getting praise? making money? getting on the daily show? selling the movie rights? these are all related but not actually the same. give some good thought as to who your audience is and what you expect their reaction to be. think about your goals. that way, when your jerk brain says “you’re no good,” you can answer with “no, i just got a rejection from an agent. there’s a difference.” you know, it’s a funny thing. but the part where i’m struggling as far as the jerkbrain goes is this: i want to start querying agents and all of that. but i can’t yet, because i know there are some timing and structure issues. but i can’t totally fix those timing and structure issues without some help from people who are less close to it (and thus more ruthless) than myself. so on the one hand i feel like a lazy failure for not querying agents, and on the other i feel frustrated because i can’t take that step. at any rate, i know quite well that this is circular and not worth indulging in. but as always, getting what you feel to line up with what you know is less than simple!  lw spouse of a creative person here, and i just wanted to share a few thoughts, since we’ve had some bumps in our relationship in the beginning over what, exactly, “read my work and let me know what you think” means. first, consider what type of feedback you’re looking for. line edits for typos because you’re about to send it off to a publisher and you want a second set of eyes to back you up? big, sweeping, “developmental edits”? something in between those two? be specific about the kind of help you’re open to up front, so the person who is signing up to read for you understands what you’re asking. second, is the person you are asking for feedback from the right person to give you that type of feedback? example time: i am super helpful to my spouse in the idea formation stage, like, when he has a plot bunny skipping around in his head and he’s trying to figure out how to catch the bunny and wrangle it into an actual work. i’m also a heck of a line editor. typo on page 372 of 514? i am on it. i’m really, really bad at the developmental type edits, the “is this bit of dialogue working for you here?” or “how do i strengthen the theme through the middle part?” or whatever, because i have a strong writing voice of my own, and i end up inserting my own voice where it’s not really needed or wanted. so i’m not my spouse’s first reader anymore, because i’m extremely not helpful as a first reader. instead, i help him by talking through new ideas with him when he’s still trying to figure out how to commit them to writing, and then jump in as a final reader when the work is basically complete and he’s just looking for clean up. third, if you’re mainly looking for “yes i liked it/no i didn’t like it”, and not so much detailed feedback, make sure your friends know that. reading a novel can be quite a time commitment for some people (not nearly as much as writing one, so go you! i admire your writing to completion skills more than i can put into words here), so “please read and edit” could just feel super overwhelming, while “just read it and send me a thumbs up or a thumbs down” might feel more doable. lastly, keep in mind your genre may not be for everyone, no matter how fantastic the writing is, so don’t take someone’s not having finished your novel yet personally. if a friend wrote a sci fi novel, or a mystery, or a crime novel, i would be all about that and probably read it in two days. historical fiction or romance? not so much, because those genres aren’t my bag   but not reading it quickly (or possibly at all) wouldn’t change the fact that i think you’re awesome and i’m incredibly proud of you and your work. it just means i’m not your audience, and that’s okay. so, tl;dr   you are awesome, and your jerk brain needs to stop interpreting lack of feedback as negative feedback, because it isn’t. take all of the captain’s wonderful advice about places to find feedback, and let your friends be your friends. i can guarantee you that they love you and are so proud of/impressed by you and your work, and their helpfulness (or lack thereof) as editors doesn’t change that. i’ve got a long history with writing and editing, including being a columnist at a newspaper and reading and editing my team members’ stories both at the paper and at a pr/marketing gig i did later on. i’m also on hiatus after my first semester as an mfa in creative writing student. part of the mfa program involved showing our work to others in workshop and then critiquing it. much, much harder than i had ever dreamed before entering the program (and one of the reasons i’m on hiatus, btw). your friends may have had the very best of intentions, but when it comes down to it, everyone’s got their own lives, jobs, etc., and they may just be too busy to read it. critiquing is a whole ‘nother thing, as commenters above have pointed out. after being in workshop, i realize that the feedback i would ideally like would come from people who know what they are talking about. not that i’m saying your friends don’t know anything about literature. but i find it’s more helpful if readers are familiar with the basics of what makes a story good, what draws a reader in, etc. as for jerkbrain, all writers have it. as one of my professors said, “we all feel stupid when we are writing.” you’ve just got to push through it. do not let it make you stop writing. don’t stop writing. if i learned anything from writing, it’s that nobody fucking cares about even their friends’ work. people will forget. people are losers and will put your lovingly written book down on some countertop, let it get buried by 10 piles of junk mail, and totally forget it exists. does this mean your novel sucks? not in any way at all! your novel could be the next bestseller to top the lists all over the world and they would forget. it could be the most sublime piece of work they will ever read, and they will forget. it’s because people mean well and just don’t follow through. you need a commitment out of these people. “hey, read my novel” will not win over the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality that infects people in general. you need a “hey, i want to publish soon, do you think you could get back to me by the end of the (fortnight, month, whatever)?” because then they have a deadline, and they know things are important to you. remind them if need be, and if they still lag, i’d say tell them that you really are counting on them and look, you didn’t hand it to them just on a lark. also realize that you’re probably going to get a bunch of feedback that is like “yeah, it’s good!” or “eh, not my genre” or “i’m no good at writing, so i can’t really offer critique.” people suck at this. get a writer’s group, is my advice, but on the other hand a writer is a different audience than a non writer, so i suggest drawing from both. aurora, you might not mean this, but ‘these people’ are us. look at this thread and see how many commenters have flaked out on a commitment because they were busy, depressed, overwhelmed with how much to say, what to say, or how to say it. that doesn’t mean that people ‘suck at it’. and they don’t _owe_ the lw a critique, even if they had agreed initially, so the lw doesn’t ‘need a commitment’   they may need a new strategy (such as the writing group) or ways of making it easier on people (such as telling them they want to move forward with publishing and can they have a response by x), but you seem to be viewing all such transactions through a lens of bitterness (which i can understand, i have a novel in my trunk that i like which _nobody wanted to read_ and nobody could give me a reason why; i had all the feelz) but i find in general that assuming that my friends might be stressed out by a request is much kinder to me and them than thinking they don’t care, they’re losers, or they suck. hey lw, i was one of those people asked to help review and edit a friend’s novel and totally fell through and never did. at first my reasons were being busy and over time it turned into pure stubbornness due to the fact that our friendship was kinda starting to decay. at the time she did this though, she didn’t just email out a full length novel to people, but rather she emailed a chapter and asked for feedback on that chapter. which worked fairly well for her, she apparently had like 6 or 7 people replying to each email. but on the other hand, the people she had helping were… well, they were other high schoolers and they were a heavy mix of reading and style preferences which really did not help. it’s tempting to just have your friends look it over, but i would highly recommend looking into hiring someone to help edit (expensive and possibly not an option bc of it, but also guaranteed results) or look into websites and communities where people help edit each other’s work (with the cost of having to trade favors and read other people’s manuscripts to edit too). friends may be eager to help, but as you now know it’s hard to get them to follow through and even when they do there’s no guarantee the feedback will be what you are looking for. now, the site seems to be more aimed at high schoolers and i haven’t used it since my high school years, but figment.com is another writing community that might help you with feedback. i remember a lot of the comments i received were of the general “i loved it!” kind but there were a ton of authors who would critique your work if you critiqued theirs, and the site is totally free. but going to a writing site like that or livejournal where you’ll at least get some sort of feedback will really help your jerkbrain shush itself and stop telling you that your writing is awful! believe me, i’m still struggling with the fact that anything i post, art or writing, doesn’t get noticed by anyone and it makes it hard to want to keep working on my projects. it’s hard, especially once you’re trying to edit something you’ve looked at a million times! i hope you can figure out something that works for you, especially since you’ve already done something super awesome and finished not just one but three books. there are basically four ways you can get feedback on your writing: friends and family; exchange with other writers, professional editing, and a writing mentor. they all have advantages and disadvantages. as an editor i would say _don’t_ hire a professional until you have acquired a certain amount of skill and a large toolset for fixing things; because i will tell you what the weaknesses of a mss are, but not necessarily how to fix them, and while i, personally, would be willing to work with a writer to acquire the skills to improve, many editors are not. (they don’t have the time: they edit, and send it back. and then they move on to the next mss. they’re often booked months in advance, so a request to give you another five or ten or twenty hours of their time might not be welcome, even if you offer to pay. (and quite frankly, that’s a lot of money to drop on a hobby at this stage). there are a lot of things you can do to become a better editor of your own work; and that’s one of the first thing you should work on. there’s a feedback cycle: if you can _see_ that something is a problem, you can work on not writing the problematic words in the first place; and ideally your critters/editors point out a problem a few times, and you learn not to have it in your final mss (you might still write it in first draft; everybody works differently) so that the next time you get feedback, you will work on a higher level. i’m still struggling with the fact that anything i post, art or writing, doesn’t get noticed by anyone i think that’s just the fragmented nature of the internet at the moment. i remember when even relatively obscure livejournal posters routinely got thirty or forty comments   these days that gets on you on the top ten list   and a typical day on my list was in the ‘skip 250’ range. these days, i can go two or three days without needing to go back a page on the same number of contacts/feeds. instead we have the quick like culture, which some days is great, but doesn’t lead to interaction. i hope you find likeminded folks to geek out with. an editor will be willing to help you improve if teaching is one of their strengths and if you pay them for the coaching. not everyone will have the time, but that’s true of every kind of project. coaching is a special skill, and from my experience hanging out with editors only a small percentage of them *will* do this   a lot of them might know what the words should look like on the page, but might not necessarily know how to get a writer to acquire that skill. so it’s not a skill i expect editors to have (just as some people copyedit and proofread, or copyedit and index). i also feel (based on hanging out with writers) that teaching someone how to write is not a quick process, and at $25 50/h, it quickly gets past people’s abilities. (i also worry about trying to learn to write from one person: getting coaching to reach a new level when you’ve already got a considerable skillset is one thing; but for people starting out, crit groups and local/online writing courses where you get to exchange cries with other writers and see how _they_ tackle problems are much, much better. a *really* good editor/writing coach will bring out a writer’s vision of a text; a mediocre one will make the writer conform to *their* ideals. and when people start out, they cannot always tell the difference. (i don’t know whether anyone has mentioned nanowrimo yet, for instance: i’ve always found it a good way of meeting other writers and being immersed in writing talk.) good points. i was thinking of the kind of coaching i’ll offer in the context of a critique or edit   a one shot deal. i’ve never acted as an ongoing consultant or teacher. it actually sounds like a lot of fun, but i’d want mentoring from somebody who’s done it before. another writer here! the advice in the comments is pretty damn solid, lw, but if you want, here’s what worked for me (not sure if this applies to novels, but i suppose it’s worth a shot):  i second the suggestion to keep the amount of betas small. for one story, i had seven betas, and i think there were roughly four or so whose advice i found useful. i use no more than four these days, and now i usually have two. this way, it’s easier to keep track of comments, and also makes the editing process go faster, since you’re not waiting on so many people.  i also second joining a writing group, but don’t get discouraged if some of them don’t work out for you. i’ve had ones that are fabulous (and made many friends, some of whom are my aforementioned betas), but i’ve had some that have been flat out awful, and one that made me put down my work for a while. and jumping off of that…  it is more than ok to be picky with your betas. i usually pick folks who have work that i admired, or who provided useful critique, even if it was a little harsh. and, of course, folks who would get back to me in a timely manner. admittedly, i wasn’t the best at setting deadlines, and i’m trying to work on that. good luck! may i ask one thing of the beta readers/critiquers out there, though? *please* don’t deliberately lie about your real intentions. having life get in your way or not liking the book or whatever is one thing, but i once had a friend reply to a livejournal post of mine looking for beta readers with an enthusiastic yes. as it happened, she was the only person who did reply to the post at all. but when i got back to her about the book, she told me flat out, “oh, i never had any intention of actually doing it. i only said yes to get the ball rolling for you.” thinking about this still hurts me, and she is no longer my friend because of it. if she’d *told* me that up front (by email or pm or something), or, better yet, asked if i wanted her to do something like this, i’d have told her don’t do it. but it’s the fact that she *lied* to me intentionally that still makes me upset when i think about it, and this was years ago. lw, and other writers looking for feedback, i so agree with what’s been said here. i do some of this on a volunteer basis (judge for some book awards, receive advance copies from some publishers, and occasionally review on netgalley, although i will never ever ever hit the recommended 80% there) because i enjoy reading, writing, and publishing… but it’s work. it’s hard work. i’d much rather get a first page, sample chapter, whatever and give feedback on it than go into full editor mode and look at changing around scenes, paring down extraneous bits, and generally killing babies. i can do a lot more with a first page than i can a whole book, and i’m usually a lot more willing to. that said, the community for both writers and readers is huge, and generous, and wonderful. i know several sites that do first page anonymous critiques and the information these folks are given is tremendous and helpful (and occasionally contradictory because a dozen people usually weigh in). look at your genre, drill down hard to the people who live and breathe it, and ask them for feedback. use the k boards, or amazon’s forums, or mailing lists, as there are so many resources out there for folks who want to self pub, or trad pub. take everything with a giant block of salt lick. when friends ask me for feedback, i usually decline. it’s a mix of not enjoying the genre they’re writing in (and that means i won’t even pick the book up), having a to read pile that threatens to crush me on good days, and not knowing them well enough to know if they want critique, editorial feedback, or just my impressions (or just praise, which i will also happily give). that or i don’t know them well enough to read their erotica (this comes up far more often than i want it to, and i enjoy erotica, but am very gun shy right now after netgalley sent me an advertisement for something triggery as fuck and sent it in such a way it bypassed all of my filters to ensure i wouldn’t receive something like that). it’s not that i am not happy for them or think they have not accomplished something amazing! i know just how much work and heart goes into writing books. but i also don’t want to edit/critique/review books for friends   i do something similar professionally, and there is a reason it’s kept professional. the ability to have that distance is critical when you’re picking apart their beloved dreams and masterpieces. if you’re seriously stuck finding help or are worried about responses, try the friends of captain awkward boards, we have a section for writing and reading and i’m sure you can find people there who will be willing to provide feedback, editing, and further words of advice from folks who’ve been there. as a published author, i’m often asked if i will read and critique someone’s work. i have to say no, because that is unpaid work and i have a busy schedule of paid work to do, with one exception. there are a few trusted writers with whom i regularly trade critiques. we have a longstanding arrangement that i will read and critique all their work, and they will read and critique all of mine. we found each other through various writing groups. it helps if you enjoy reading work and they enjoy reading yours, if you have a similar writing speed/output, and are at similar levels of writing proficiency. it takes time to find the right people, but it’s well worth it. good luck! people have basically already said most of the useful things i could say about the care and feeding of your readers, but i do have one thing to add: reading a draft means reading on a screen, and reading on a screen is tiring. when i get a manuscript, usually i have to reformat it immediately to make it reader friendly. friends who don’t do this a lot won’t know to do this, and won’t necessarily know why they’re not enjoying the experience of reading the book. if you send out your stuff: in courier, which isn’t the prettiest font but is amazingly comfortable to read, set to 14  or 16 point instead of ten or twelve, with a blank line between paragraphs justified left, your readers are much less likely to give up due to the actual process being uncomfortable. thank you! such a useful practical tip. you are the awesomest.  lw my reading preferences are different   i prefer screen reading to paper, i love palatino and read in 14pt justified with 1.5 line spacing   but my one formatting plea is this: do not send me anything in times new roman. ever. it’s an abysmal font to read on screen; the letters are small, squashed, and not easily distinguishable. anything i get in tnr i have to reformat. (luckily that’s not difficult, but it’s an extra step.) also, keep arial away from me. i’m a writer and i’m *constantly* starved for feedback, but i realized long ago that giving real, helpful feedback is a damn difficult job and it’s not one that just anyone can do. if nothing else, take a world’s worth of joy and exultation in the fact that you’ve managed to *finish* three novels. go you!!! yes, it’s natural to be uncertain about whether it’s any good or whether you’re failing in this aspect or that one and yes, feedback is important. there’s a lot of people giving real good advice on that front. i just wanted to help combat the jerkbrain a bit with some encouragement, in part because i know how important encouragement can be. i realized that i actually had some ability in this whole writing thing during the dark ages of the internet, when i found out, on a listserv discussion group, that i’d gotten a self described 13 year old boy addicted to a soap opera style fanfic… that was twenty years ago and i’m *still* insecure as hell over whether any given chapter is “any good”. so there’s no shame in being uncertain and insecure. as one writer (whose name i never can remember) once said, writing is a bit like cutting yourself open and pouring your heart and soul onto the page for all the world to see. kudos for having the courage to do that. you are so awesome for the accomplishment of all you’ve managed! don’t give up! you are amazing! hi, i am a weird person who really likes reading people’s drafts and making comments. i enjoy it so much that it is pleasure for me, not work. i wish i could get paid for it and i’m working on that. actually i am an experienced professional editor but the documents i edit are not literary, more’s the pity. anyway i am volunteering to do this for you, free of charge. if you want to take me up on this we can talk time frame. i am extremely busy (seriously, single parent, just moved house, two jobs …) but i love doing this kind of thing so i can totally see myself finding the time because it’s not a chore, it would be relaxation and a treat to myself and i do find time for those despite everything. i’d correct grammar and usage if necessary, flag up glaring inconsistencies and the like and probably eliminate redundancy. i might simply point out redundancy, wordiness or purple prose in connection with the fact that on principle, i’d hang back from suggesting specific changes. it is your work and it is better if you come up with solutions, if indeed you even agree with me about the problems   at the end of the day this stuff can’t but be subjective. alternatively, my friends have a website where writers can post their work as it evolves and others critique it. i’ll dig out the address and post to this thread again. tl;dr: i’d like to volunteer to help you with this! please get in touch with me via the forums if you wish to take me up on my offer. you are amazing. i’m going to send you a note to discuss a bit and see if style, genre, etc. lines up for you. thank you!  lw i would like to suggest rather than spending your money on workshops, you take advantage of the literally thousands of threads of free writing advice (plus bonus ability to hook up with beta readers and have your work critted!) at absolute write. many people in the industry (self published, commercially published and aspiring authors, editors, agents, etc.) hang out there and you can find topics covering just about every question in writing and publishing under the sun. that’s not just about novels, but also screenplays, writing for video games, and even greeting cards. check out the forums here: absolutewrite.com/forums/ love, a published author who found that site invaluable seconding that recommendation. good site. just want to add this blog post written by a beta reader   lots of discussion in the comments about how to find / cultivate beta readers. http://dearauthor.com/features/letters of opinion/the art of beta reading/ so i’m not an editor but somehow in my life i became embedded amongst several professional editors. probably because i worked it for a publishing company for a while. anyway, there is a reason they’re paid for what they do. it’s work! like lots of people have said in this thread it’s also a trained skill, something people learn and practice. one of the editors i know is very new and untrained and does this work because of his strong experience in the subject matter of what he’s editing and he finds it very difficult indeed. there are several things here with your friend question. first off, some of them probably said yes because they didn’t know how to say no to your request, and don’t really have time to do it or perhaps even want to do it. some of them probably did intend to do it, but have overestimated their time and interest level. take me back in time a decade and i would have been one of those people   unable to say no and unable to realistically estimate my available time and energy. i still struggle with it   i was asked to participate in a game writing project recently and i got caught up in the excitement enough to initially say yes and then several weeks later change that to a no when i realised that actually i didn’t have sufficient time and interest. some of your friends don’t know how to tell you they can’t do it, especially as more and more time passes. so they just let it sit in the guilt pile and keep meaning to get around to it. on top of that, some of your friends may well have read it and don’t know how to give you feedback. they don’t know how critical you *really* want them to be and are afraid of offending or upsetting you. when i was a teenager a friend gave me something he’d written to read over and i was really harsh and he was really hurt   it’s not an experience i’d care to repeat! and this is a raw unedited book you’ve given them so it will have messy bits and flaws that they will notice and not be sure how to point out. even if they do eventually reply they’re quite likely to just say it was cool and great and fine, which is fairly useless in terms of critique. and of course maybe one or more of them have read a few chapters in and really really hate it   and now don’t know what to say. that sounds like the worst thing in the world, but it isn’t. there are plenty of published, successful books in genres i like that i hate and can’t read more than a few chapters of without giving up. people have different tastes. just because a friend hates your book doesn’t mean it objectively sucks and lots of other people won’t like it. i can’t actually finish the song of ice and fire series (rage quit in book 4) and george rr martin is objectively a wildly successful author. lw, you have handed your friends an albatross. 9 out of 10 of them have failed to come through for you and i’m going to guess all 9 feel guilty and wish they could find a way out of this, are perhaps penning their own ca letters now “a friend asked me to read and comment on their novel and i don’t know how to tell them i can’t/won’t how can i get out of this without upsetting them?” it’s a *huge* ask to critique the full length novel of a friend, and people really struggle with saying no to stuff they feel like they should be able to do. as others have said, the solution is strangers. you have exactly one friend who is willing and able to come through on this (they deserve huge gratitude!), and you need to supplement them with strangers. strangers who are more knowledgeable in this area, who are writers themselves, and who aren’t afraid of offending you because: stranger. and look once you’ve had a little amateur feedback and have fixed the obviously broken stuff, send it off to a publisher and risk professional feedback. 🙂 good luck lw! you finished actual whole novels! that shit is hard and you’ve done it and are in the editing phase omg \o/ “are perhaps penning their own ca letters now “a friend asked me to read and comment on their novel and i don’t know how to tell them i can’t/won’t how can i get out of this without upsetting them?” i have gotten this letter more than once. 🙂 my answer, if you’re wondering, is: “just tell them you know you won’t get to it. ‘i am so proud of you for writing this, but reading it and giving feedback is more than i can handle, and i know that i won’t get to it in any kind of timely way. i’m so sorry, i wanted to let you know so that this isn’t hanging out awkwardly between us.'” this reminds me that i may have the only paper copy of my friend’s novel & should get it back to her in case she doesn’t have a spare. (i also have the only electronic copy, because i was trying to retrieve it from her old hard drive for her, but that was unsuccessful. so technically an electronic copy does not exist. i feel weirdly guilty about this even though i did my best and it’s not my fault she didn’t backup her hard drive. man, friendships do weird things to your head sometimes.) :o! i would advise putting that paper copy through a text recognizing scanner as soon as possible. man, i love my friend, but i am done wrangling technology on her behalf, you know? back up your hard drive, fellow humans! or budget for hard drive rescue services! 🙂 holy shit, lw, you wrote three novels. that is so so so amazing and awesome. i am envious and glad for you all at once. also: oh my god giving feedback is hard. giving feedback on short stories is like splitting teeth, and you have someone who is giving you feedback on a novel. (i feel this is a good sign.) also i second the absolute write suggestion. adding to the congratulations on writing three novels. that’s spectacular, hats off! and the site i was talking about is: https://www.quilli.us/landing good luck! hello captain awkward and the awkward army! i’ve been reading this fantastic site for a while now, and this is the first time i’ve plucked up the courage to comment. i was a beta reader for a friend/colleague’s first novel a couple of years ago. he’d written a number of non fiction books, so this was a new experience for him   and for me. he said “tell me what you think”, which, quite honestly, is a bit vague. this sort of comment can be a problem if your reader, like i was, isn’t sure what to do or what you want from them. perhaps this is part of the problem here, lw? it’s all very well for your friend to say “yes, i’ll give you feedback on your novel”, but when the file arrives, they may be thinking “damn, it’s a whole novel. what on earth do i say? how do i approach this feedback?” what i ended up doing is keeping a notebook at my side as i read, and jotting down things that struck me about the story, whether positive, negative or neutral, and then writing those notes up in an email to him. for example, i noted that the story was pacy and a page turner, that i was impressed with one of the plot twists in particular and that i liked the main female character, but i found her a little two dimensional and i hoped she’d be developed more fully in the sequel he was planning. i actually suspect, like you, lw, not many people had got back to him because i got a delighted response to my email! good luck with your writing in the future! (also, thanks ca   your advice is great and you’ve helped me out with my own dilemma over an online relationship that went wrong. the cap’n and all of you here have made me realise that a) i did the right thing in blocking this person on social media, and b) i probably dodged a bullet there! thanks again! xx) i’ve been using critique.org lately. it’s free, and there seems to be a pretty good sized community. i haven’t sent any of my own work in, but i’ve been enjoying critiquing other stories. also, the guys who runs it seems to run a tight ship, so anyone who doesn’t pull their weight get axed from the site. sorry if this isn’t allowed   i found the site through google and there were several others that came up that i haven’t even checked out yet. the only people who have actually read my manuscript   many have promised, few have done   are my book club friends. and i asked them for very specific feedback: 1. does the flow of the story work? 2. do you like/hate the characters? that still might be too general, now that i think about it, but three of my friends have given me very thoughtful, very helpful feedback over lunch that i have bought, which of course is still not enough compensation! this is a an excellent script for the initial read that i mentioned recruiting for upthread, may i use it? (lunch and all, what a lovely idea!) this post and comments in general is enormously interesting, helpful, and resource packed, and i’ve bookmarked it and expect to come back to it quite a lot. i’m also feeling pretty much better than i did when the post first went up about the choices i made for readers* and my expectations of the process**. i think it’s pretty clear that the next step is a proper writers group, and although i don’t have a local one in the small town where i live, i’ve joined a very prestigious and respected regional (http://www.pikespeakwriters.com/) and i think i’m going to start trying to find a way to get to some of their events. *three people with whom i have a personal history of trust under pressure, and who all have a long, broad history of reading in my genre, talking extensively and analytically about what they read, and participating in fandom; one is an established beta reader for a published author, one is another aspiring author who is interested in crit partnering, and the third is the second’s partner. i’m thinking of adding a fourth, who is a published author herself. **overview commentary with some cheerleading, not a deep critique at this stage. just cheerleading. go you! go you! yay!  lw you too! i’ve tried to reply as many of these posts as i can, but i want to offer up a few very general thoughts: thank you, cap’n, and thank you everyone! 1. i try to remember that my life motto should always be “it’s not about me.” it’s just generally useful   others’ behavior is rarely actually about me (or you, or you, or even you over there)   but it can be so hard to remember, especially as someone with a certain amount of social anxiety. 2. thanks for the many good reminders to be clear with people that i know it’s a big ask, and to set specific timelines and follow up. 3. thanks also for the many good suggestions of online groups, ways to find partners, etc. 4. thanks *also* for the reminder that i need to make sure people know that direct critique is actually less stressful for me than radio silence. (hello, social anxiety! hearing something blunt, even if it’s negative, is so much easier to take than wondering what people are really thinking!) in short, thanks to everyone. you are all amazing, and i really appreciate everything you’ve said. also, so much cheerleading is going out to all of you who find yourself in the same place. we got this, folks! someday we shall all partake in the cake of finished books, or maybe even the cake of published books. comments are closed. enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. email address: follow copyright © 2011 thru 2024 jennifer peepas, all rights reserved. brief excerpts (<250 words) may be shared with attribution & a link to the original post. do not copy, print, or repost entire posts elsewhere without written permission. if you are an academic assigning my posts in your courses, i’d appreciate an email with a copy of the relevant syllabus/assignment for my records and cv. developers of “artificial intelligence” programs (aka “plagiarism software”) are strictly prohibited from using any material from this website to “train” their models without explicit, prior, written permission and payment of a substantial licensing fee.

by rebecca zucker we’ve all been there. you email someone asking for a conversation, information, input, or an introduction, and you get no response. whether you are reaching out to a coworker, a client, a recruiter, a classmate, or even an old friend, not everyone will get back to you on your timeline   if at all. explore hbr hbr store about hbr manage my account follow hbr harvard business publishing: copyright ©2025 harvard business school publishing. all rights reserved. harvard business publishing is an affiliate of harvard business school.

article read about known scams that have been reported to the authors guild. december 23, 2024 scams are an unfortunate reality in the publishing world. to help you stay alert to new entities seeking to defraud authors, we include scam alerts in our newsletter, which you can sign up for here. (if you’re an authors guild member, you receive our newsletter automatically.) we also update this page with new scam alerts as we publish them. if you’ve come across or done business with a publishing scam, please email us at staff@authorsguild.org so we can assist you and let our members know to avoid it. january 23, 2024: be on the lookout for phone scams targeting self published authors with unrealistic offers. the scammers often pose as representatives of legitimate organizations such as the authors guild and offer suspiciously large publishing deals from major publishers for previously self published books. we’ve received reports of fake offers ranging from $250,000 to $350,000 using the name “jesse glare” and the phone number 888 733 0563, though the scammers could use different names and numbers with the same tactics. remember: legitimate publishers and agents don’t cold call authors offering six figure deals for books that are already self published, and the authors guild itself doesn’t act as a literary agency or broker publishing deals. any unsolicited call promising large advances for previously published work should be treated with extreme skepticism. january 9, 2024: beware of “agents” who charge upfront fees to represent your books for potential movie deals. an author wrote to us about a supposed agent named robert walker of next phaze media group who requested a $500 fee; legitimate literary and film agents never charge authors upfront fees they only make money by taking a percentage of deals they secure. this scammer follows a common pattern: charging an upfront fee, signing a one year contract, then becoming unresponsive and doing no actual work to market the books to film producers. once the contract expires, the scammer keeps the money and moves on to the next victim. while $500 might seem small compared to some publishing scams, it’s still theft. remember that real agents invest their time and only profit when you do. december 20, 2024: beware of aggressive “independent publishers” like leap write literary, who persistently call until authors agree to republish their books then orchestrate elaborate multi stage scams. in this case, the scammer (using the name pia robinson) first charged $6,000 for supposedly required documents for a fake $282,000 publishing deal with hachette, then attempted to extract more money through a fraudulent movie deal with focus features. when the author refused the movie scam, the company retaliated by making an unauthorized $4,000 charge to their stored credit card information. the scammers sent out fake emails from executives (using non corporate email addresses) promising large advances and elaborate details about publishing and movie production. red flags include the requirement to pay for query letters and synopses, non working email addresses for supposed executives, blocked access to sales reports, and an f rating with the bbb. remember: legitimate publishers never charge authors for documents or services, and movie producers don’t cold email authors about film rights. december 6, 2024: beware of elaborate schemes like the one run by “brokers ab” where scammers like “brittany jones” offer free literary representation and promises of large publishing deals (up to $300,000 supposedly from legitimate publishers like yucca). the scam then pivots to requiring increasingly large upfront fees, starting with substantial amounts (like $5,000) supposedly for distribution through legitimate companies like ingram spark, followed by a series of smaller “required” payments. while the initial offer of representation is free to hook victims, the real scam lies in the escalating series of mandatory fees that must be paid before receiving the promised publishing deal which never materializes. despite warnings by reliable sources like writers beware and authors publish magazine that these are scams, some authors still fall victim due to the professional presentation and gradual nature of the financial requests. november 1, 2024: authors continue to be targeted by evolving book to film scams, most recently operating under the names “motionflick studios” and “snow day film.” the scammers send authors unsolicited emails claiming interest in adapting their books into films, often name dropping real hollywood figures or events without their knowledge or consent. the scam typically refers authors to a service (one name mentioned was “swift start media”) that charges thousands of dollars for unnecessary “pitch materials.” the scammers frequently change their company names, events, and supposed industry contacts to evade detection. remember: legitimate film industry professionals rarely contact authors via unsolicited emails. always independently verify any unsolicited offers and be wary of requests for upfront payments or services. october 15, 2024: since our warning on october 20, 2023, authors continue to report being targeted by a scam impersonating hachette book group. the scammers send authors unsolicited emails claiming to have discovered their work on amazon and offering a “unique opportunity for traditional publishing.” red flags include the unsolicited contact, suspicious email domain (hachettebooks.co), unrealistically quick evaluation timeframe (15 days), and vague promises of discussing “publishing rights contract price” upon selection. legitimate publishers rarely approach authors unsolicited, especially not for books already available on amazon. they also don’t typically promise such rapid manuscript reviews. be wary of any unsolicited publishing offers, especially those requesting your full manuscript. always verify the identity and credentials of anyone claiming to represent a major publisher before sharing your work or personal information. september 20, 2024: a writer recently received a message from someone posing as the “authors guild book acquisition team.” the message claimed to offer “pre approval” for a book submission to major publishers like penguin random house and harpercollins. it included a project id and book title and urged the recipient to call a phone number to “claim” a free submission. the message was signed by a “trevor anderson, senior literary consultant” at “authors guild literary management,” with an email address and website not affiliated with the authors guild. this message is fraudulent. the authors guild does not have a “book acquisition team,” nor would we ever use this type of language or approach. this is a scam targeting writers, likely attempting to collect personal information or money. we are working with outside counsel to handle this trademark infringement. key points to be aware of: writers should be cautious of unsolicited offers like this. legitimate literary agencies and publishers do not solicit authors in this manner. september 6, 2024: authors continue to report various impersonation scams, including fake offers from bad actors claiming to be literary agents, publishers, bookstores, and production companies. recent examples include scams impersonating the new york times, barnes & noble, yucca publishing (a skyhorse imprint), and chronicle books, with new ones appearing constantly. these scams typically begin with unsolicited contacts offering lucrative deals or services. red flags include requests for upfront payments (ranging from $499 to $9,000), unrealistic promises, fake email domains, and non existent company addresses. scammers may create convincing fake websites or use real company information to appear legitimate. always verify unsolicited offers independently, be wary of requests for money, and remember that reputable industry professionals rarely approach authors out of the blue with such offers. august 20, 2024: a member recently reported a suspicious offer from a company calling itself “book publishers ink,” which claimed interest in purchasing 2,000 copies of the author’s unpublished book. red flags included an initially inaccessible website, books on their site that can’t be found elsewhere online, dubious claims about obtaining contact information, and interest in unpublished work. remember, legitimate publishers rarely make unsolicited bulk purchase offers, especially for unpublished books. always verify credentials and be wary of offers that seem too good to be true. august 2, 2024: authors are being targeted by a sophisticated scam impersonating reputable literary agencies. the scammers, posing as “anderson literary agency” or “anderson literary management,” are sending emails promising large book deals and film adaptations. they claim to have industry connections with major publishers and film producers, offering deals ranging from $95,000 to $750,000 for book acquisitions and up to $3 million for film rights. red flags include unsolicited contact, promises of unrealistic sums, pressure to respond quickly, and refusal to communicate by phone. the scammers use real agent names and agency details to appear legitimate. authors should exercise caution with any unsolicited contacts from literary agents and agencies. always contact an agent or agency directly to verify authenticity before responding with a manuscript or any personal or financial information. may 23, 2024: we recently received a report about scammers impersonating bestselling authors in order to scam other authors. the author who alerted us discovered a facebook page in the writing service category called a “verified fan club” that was pretending to be them and engaging with their followers. another author reported paying the person behind the facebook page $499 for a foreword, supposedly written by the bestselling author, with whom they thought they were speaking. this is yet another example of how creative scams targeting authors have gotten in recent years, and we urge all authors to be vigilant about whom they’re engaging with on social media. if someone claiming to be a popular author offers to read or review your book for a fee, it’s almost certainly a scam. we also recommend that authors with large followings search for and report fake social media accounts. authors guild members who have been targeted by a scam or whose names have been used by scammers can submit a legal request for assistance. may 7, 2024: members have reported a pair of scams targeting new authors seeking publishing assistance. two companies, noble ghostwriting and amazon publish center, charged exorbitant upfront fees ($13,750 and $25,055, respectively) without delivering the promised services or support. one author reported paying these companies but ultimately had to self publish his book on amazon without any help from them. amazon publish center seems to have disappeared or at least changed names (the use of “amazon” is infringing). noble ghostwriting continues to operate, potentially putting more authors at risk. authors are advised to thoroughly research and verify the legitimacy of any publishing service before making a financial commitment and to reach out to the guild if they would like assistance. april 19, 2024: members have reported yet another scam targeting authors and other website owners. several authors have received fraudulent dmca notices from fake law firms claiming that the author’s website contains an image that is owned by the firm’s client, that the use of the image is copyright infringement, and that unless the author links to a certain website, the author will be sued. the emails link to websites for so called law firms that appear to be real at first glance, but the firms don’t actually exist and the websites are fakes generated by ai. while it’s important for authors to license photos, to be aware that they can be sued without a license, and to comply with takedown notices if they are infringing someone else’s copyright, do not respond to a notice asking you to link to sites outside of your own. these scam notices are not real and differ from real ones in that they demand that a website owner add links pointing back to websites that are full of low quality seo content. we urge authors to carefully review any messages they receive and to not add suspicious looking links to their websites. authors guild members who are unsure about the legitimacy of a message can submit a request for help from our legal department. march 1, 2024: for this scam alert, we’re sharing a post from jane friedman’s blog on red flags to watch out for when navigating the complex world of hybrid publishing and paid publishing services. while these warning signs don’t automatically mean a company is seeking to take advantage of authors, they’re good to keep in mind to protect yourself and avoid low quality work or outright scams. read the full article here. february 16, 2024: author reputation press is the latest company allegedly involved in fraudulent activities targeting authors. reports have surfaced about the company luring authors with fake orders and offering highly overpriced marketing services that are not delivered. one author reported spending an exorbitant $120,000 on services that were never provided. the author also experienced alarming instances of unauthorized credit card charges, including purchases at online retail stores like neiman marcus and target.com, and a complete lack of communication from the company after payments were made. authors have also reported issues with receiving royalties, including checks being voided before they could be cashed. the company’s profile on the better business bureau (bbb.org) reveals numerous complaints from other authors who have faced similar fraudulent experiences. february 2, 2024: a publishing scam has recently come to light involving fraudulent emails purporting to be from folio literary management. authors have received emails claiming to be from erin niumata, senior vice president at folio, seeking personal information under the guise of clarifying representation details. the emails use a deceptive address very similar to the legitimate folio domain. a writer who is represented by another agent at folio received one of these emails and promptly reported the suspicious activity. folio confirmed that this communication is a scam and not from their offices, and alerted the guild. folio urges all clients and the wider writing community to exercise caution and report any fraudulent attempts to collect personal information. if you receive any suspicious emails claiming to be from folio literary management, please verify the sender’s credentials, and notify your agent or folio directly. stay safe and protect your personal information diligently. january 19, 2024: we previously alerted our members about a scam involving a suspicious email from someone claiming to be from tristar pictures. now, it seems the same scammer, still using the name rhiley roads, is continuing their deceptive practices, this time impersonating dreamworks pictures. the email congratulates the recipient on their book and mentions a pitch deck being prepared for steven spielberg, ceo of dreamworks pictures, for a producers’ pitch event in january 2024. key indicators of this scam include: we urge our members to remain vigilant and exercise caution with any unsolicited offers. verify the authenticity of any communication by checking the sender’s email address and contacting the company directly through official channels. remember, legitimate business propositions from reputable studios will not come from generic email addresses and will not require upfront payments or personal investments for screenplay development. stay informed and protect your work from such fraudulent activities. if you encounter similar messages, please report them to us immediately. december 8, 2023: an authors guild member contacted us regarding a suspicious email claiming to be a film adaptation offer from tristar pictures. we verified the email’s authenticity with sony pictures entertainment, tristar’s parent company, who confirmed it was indeed a scam. key indicators of the scam included a gmail email address (acquisition.tristarpictures@gmail.com), rather than an official tristar or sony domain. sony confirmed that legitimate emails only come from an official email address that ends with @spe.sony.com. online searches found no trace of the sender, an alleged film scout named rhiley roads, but revealed reports from other authors associating the name with similar messages claiming to be from lionsgate and cbs studios. we appreciate the member who alerted us to this publishing scam and advise all authors to exercise caution with unsolicited offers. carefully scrutinize the sender’s name and email address, and contact them directly if you have any doubts about a message’s legitimacy. november 17, 2023: on october 30, amazon filed a lawsuit in the northern district of california against 20 individuals and companies falsely claiming to be affiliated with amazon, amazon publishing, and kindle direct publishing. according to the complaint, the defendants target authors using websites with misleading names and urls that replicate the look and feel of amazon services. victims believe they are working with amazon, paying “substantial sums of money, often thousands of dollars, for grossly inadequate or non existent services.” we’ve included previous warnings here about scammers impersonating amazon publishing as well as amazon studios. we urge all authors to be vigilant, to ensure that web and email domains are legitimate, and to reach out directly to verify authenticity if you have any doubts about any communications you have received. november 3, 2023: the literary agency writers house recently alerted the authors guild that someone is impersonating one of its agents, merrilee heifetz, via email. the scammer is reaching out to authors claiming to be heifetz and saying they work for an agency called lighthouse literary. the email appears to be an attempt to solicit manuscripts from writers under the guise of a fraudulent literary agency. authors should exercise caution with any unsolicited contacts claiming to be heifetz, and other known literary agents and agencies in general. always contact an agent or agency directly to verify authenticity before responding with a manuscript or any personal or financial information. october 20, 2023: hachette book group has published an alert on its website warning authors to be aware of scammers impersonating the company to solicit money and information. tactics include fake job interviews and offers using hachette’s name and logo, fraudulent publishing contract offers from fake agents that promise a large advance from hachette and involve fabricated documents or claims of working with hachette employees, and phone calls posing as hachette staff demanding fees before entering into fake publishing agreements. please exercise caution whenever you’re contacted about a publishing opportunity claiming to be affiliated with a well known publisher. read more details and tips on how to avoid this publishing scam on hachette’s website. september 22, 2023: a member of the guild was planning to self publish his latest book when an alleged senior agent from pageturner press & media (pageturner.us) assured the author that they could secure a publishing deal with an advance of $1.5 million with basic books, a well known imprint of hachette book group. the representative insisted that the writer had to make additional payments for advertising and distribution efforts. despite reservations, the author made payments starting in may 2022. by september 2022, when the author demanded proof of the impending deal, they were provided with a false contract draft, along with deceptive phone reassurances from someone posing as an editor from basic books. this led to the author transferring a significant amount of money in september 2022. the author’s communications with pageturner were primarily via phone, with some emails. it wasn’t until one of the author’s associates reached out to someone at basic books that a lawyer for hachette book group confirmed that there was no such contract issued by them and the situation was a scam. this is not the first time that pageturner has been accused of scamming authors; you can read more about pageturner’s practices at writer beware. september 7, 2023: we’ve received numerous complaints from guild members about book writing experts, which claims to be a professional services company for authors, offering writing, editing, design, and marketing assistance. its website features prestigious magazine endorsements, positive customer reviews, and a los angeles address. this publishing scam involves a non binding contract with a client for purported services. after securing initial payment, the company may provide minimal or substandard service, only to subsequently assert that the client has underpaid. it then demands additional funds to continue or complete the services. upon further investigation, there is no evidence of the magazine endorsements on the company’s website, and its claim to be a subsidiary of mini investments inc. in mechanicsburg, virginia, appears to be false. attempts to establish contact or serve legal documents have been met with confusion by the real occupants of the alleged address. the identity of the website’s owner is masked by a firm in iceland known for its services in concealing website ownership, and the company’s facebook page is administered from an overseas location. august 24, 2023: an alleged literary agency called liberal literature (that also goes by eagle press publishing house) reached out to a writer offering to submit his book to simon & schuster for $300. after the author paid for this service, the agency said his query was forwarded along and then requested more money for an author website and additional campaigns. when the writer refused to make additional payments, the agency threatened to stop a supposed “proposed contract” with simon & schuster. we recommend that authors in this situation dispute the charges with their banks and report the scammers to the internet crime complaint center (ic3). reputable agents do not charge fees to represent authors and generally work on commission once a book is sold to a publisher. august 10, 2023: an old publishing scam has resurfaced on kindle thanks to generative ai technologies. jane friedman spoke out earlier this week about fraudulent books being sold on amazon under her byline that were clearly generated by ai. the titles and contents of the books were similar to things she has written in substance and style, meaning the perpetrators either fed her writing into an ai model in order to emulate it or the ai they used had already been trained on her work. the titles appeared in search results on amazon and were automatically added to her profile on goodreads. while the titles were obviously fake, getting them removed was not easy. misappropriating authors’ names to sell scam books through kindle is not new but has gotten worse with the advent of ai generated content. while kindle’s customer service responds to copyright takedown notices promptly, this kind of scam is not necessarily a copyright violation. instead, it gives rise to unfair competition claims under the federal trademark law as well as under state laws. the authors guild has dealt with many types of scams on amazon over the years and we set up a relationship with amazon where we can escalate valid complaints on behalf of members that are not resolved through normal channels. if you’re a member, know that we can help escalate these kinds of claims. meanwhile, we encourage everyone to search for your own name on amazon and report books that try to profit from your brand through amazon’s complaint portal. if you do not receive prompt assistance and are a member, file a request for legal services. july 27, 2023: during the pandemic, great writers media, a seemingly legitimate company, contacted an author with promises of a traditional contract and exposure to hollywood film makers. intrigued, the author was passed around different marketing and publishing agents, all appearing friendly and helpful. the author was assured that their book would become a bestseller, featured in prominent publications like the la times, an interview with kate delaney radio, and a spot on cable channels. however, the company demanded additional payments for “reading” and “marketing costs.” the author was asked to pay a staggering $140,000 to secure exposure on the channel nickelodeon and $4,500 for the promised radio interview with kate delaney. the author invested around $18,000 in the scheme but didn’t receive responses to his queries nor any royalty payments. the scammers used wire transfers and payoneer, utilizing fake names to appear legitimate. unbeknownst to the author, these scammers were based in the philippines, using fake us phone numbers and addresses. the author is now undergoing an arduous process with their bank to recuperate the funds. july 13, 2023: we’ve heard from authors who were contacted by individuals claiming to be with a publishing company that would sponsor their book at festivals such as the frankfurt book fair in october. the scammers say that their company will pay part of the book fair fees if the author pays the rest of the fee to them. june 30, 2023: liza dawson associates has posted a notice on their website advising authors that scammers have been impersonating some of their agents, using a fake email domain, and pretending to work for the acquisitions teams of major publishers. anyone receiving such an email from someone purporting to be a liza dawson associates agent can email the address on the agency’s website to confirm its legitimacy. scam emails should be reported to the fbi. june 8, 2023: the fbi’s los angeles field office has issued a report on financial fraud schemes targeting authors by impersonating film production studios. the report warns production studios and publishers that scammers are emailing authors impersonating real or fake executives at their companies. the report included scam indicators to watch out for, such as: may 18, 2023: we’ve heard reports of authors receiving emails and phone calls from scammers alleging to be with amazon studios. the scammers use a variety of aliases, including the names of real amazon executives, and claim to be interested in adapting their books for film. we urge any authors receiving such messages to be extremely cautious and never respond without first confirming they’re real. may 4, 2023: we were recently alerted to a book writing and print on demand service called lt writing.com. the person who wrote to us was charged $400 to join, then another $3,700 to register the copyright for her manuscript. the company claims to have won awards, but its website was only created in january, and all its reviews were submitted on the same day. may 4, 2023: one of our members was recently approached by someone claiming to be from a literary agency representing bestselling and award winning authors. the writers value website uses an old logo of the authors guild but is not associated with the guild in any way. april 10, 2023: we’ve recently been alerted to a publishing scam claiming to be affiliated with amazon publishing, using the domain name amazonpublishingoffice.com. we have alerted amazon to this use of their trademarks, and as of this week, access to the website has a warning notice saying “dangerous website blocked.” november 10, 2021: silver ink literary agency, which also solicits authors as silver literary agency and global review press, falsely alleges partnership with top publishers (and sometimes with the authors guild) and promises publication with the proclaimed partners if you provide a “contributor’s fee” of several thousand dollars or purchase other purported services. no legitimate literary agent will ever charge such a fee. silver ink recently has altered its initial approach by substituting specific publisher names with replacement terms like “traditional american publisher” and in some cases no longer mentions guaranteed publishing in their initial outreach. november 10, 2021: some authors have been approached by unknown parties and asked for copies of their unpublished manuscripts. the purpose of gathering these manuscripts is unclear. november 10, 2021: hachette book group (hbg) has also advised us about similar, targeted efforts that employ sophisticated schemes to obtain manuscripts and other information from hachette’s employees, authors, and associates: “we are continuing to see attempts to impersonate hbg staff, authors, and agents to obtain both manuscripts and financial information from our authors and employees. these latest attempts include additional use of impersonated domain names similar to our actual company domains (addresses using hgbusa.com rather than hbgusa.com), in an attempt to create confusion or take advantage of anyone who doesn’t notice these details. the hackers continue to use industry jargon and insider terms and information to enhance the appearance that their emails are legitimate. there is also evidence to suggest that the hackers are conducting ‘man in the middle’ attacks, where they contact two parties fraudulently (for example, an editor and an author) and impersonate each to the other.” november 10, 2021: hbg has also warned us about a phishing effort to solicit free work, alerting us that someone had apparently impersonated one of their editors in chief to commission a reader’s report for a recently published foreign language novel; the reader provided the report but was not paid. please keep an eye out for similar scams soliciting work. november 10, 2021: authors have additionally received emails in the past claiming to be from penguin random house (prh), but have found an assumed “m” to be a deceptively arranged “rn” upon closer inspection. prh has constructed a fraud alert page to notify authors of known scams and provide dedicated telephone and email support through which authors can verify whether prh has indeed originated any purported offers. november 10, 2021: recently, some authors have received a document entitled “book endorsement” purporting to be from macmillan. it states that a book “has been picked for procurement of rights” and guarantees the author a minimum of $700,000. but the author must first pay the “literary agent” a fee of, say, $3,000. the email on the form is a fake one macmillanpublishersnewyork.com. macmillan has posted the following warning on its website: “please be aware that fictitious solicitations purporting to be ‘letter(s) of interest,’ job openings, and/or requests for payment are occasionally circulated online by individuals posing as macmillan representatives. macmillan does not solicit agents, authors, or job candidates in this manner. if you have any doubts about the authenticity of a communication purportedly from or on behalf of macmillan, please email compliance@macmillan.com before taking any action.” november 10, 2021: truman publishing has been reported to us as a possible scam by multiple members. based on a review of its website, we suspect that may be the case and will continue to investigate. event recording copyright basics with rightsclick event recording film & tv options: what authors should know guide model film and tv option contract receive important industry alerts, updates about our advocacy efforts, resources for your writing business, and more. © authors guild all rights reserved.

sales ai that helps you write emails, create sequences and personalize emails. send hyper personalized sales emails with follow ups on autopilot. improve email & domain reputation, always land in inbox. send emails with follow ups & add activity in your crm for the prospect. lets your prospect book meetings at their convenience, whatever the time zone. customizable dashboard for quick glance, complete outreach reports for improvements. trusted by 11500+ businesses every day for ai powered cold email outreach with followups on autopilot to get booked. learn about sales, cold email & everything in between. get work done with our free to use tools. learn how customers use salesblink to increase sales. find any answer in our easy to understand help docs. trusted by 11500+ businesses every day for ai powered cold email outreach with followups on autopilot to get booked. check your inbox/spam send cold emails using blinkgpt ai on autopilot and get booked faster! did you know that 80% of sales require up to five follow ups to close? as a salesperson, effectively following up on your prospects is crucial to your success. while it might seem daunting, sending follow up emails is a fundamental part of the job and essential for closing deals. a lack of response doesn’t necessarily mean disinterest; often, prospects just need a gentle reminder. mastering the art of the follow up email after no response, using the best follow up email subject lines, and leveraging email templates for follow up can significantly enhance your chances of getting a positive reply. in this guide, we’ll explore the meaning of follow up emails and provide top follow up email templates to help you boost your response rates. table of contents so, what is a follow up email after all? a follow up email refers to an email or a sequence of emails sent after an initial email or reaching a particular stage in the buyer journey. you can also send a follow up email if someone is in the middle of a trial to ask what they feel about the product or service. you can also follow up after a particular event. in b2b sales, you often have to send follow up emails because your first email is insufficient to close a deal. writing a follow up email is all about striking the right balance between persistence and politeness. the goal is to gently remind your prospect of your previous conversation and keep the dialogue moving forward. 1. custom greetings: start with a warm, personalized greeting. use their name and maybe add a friendly note like, “i hope you’re doing well!” 2. compelling introduction: begin by referencing your last interaction. a simple “i wanted to follow up on our chat last week about…” helps jog their memory and sets the stage. 3. restate your objective: clearly remind them of why you’re reaching out. whether it’s to confirm a meeting or share more details, be upfront about your purpose. 4. effective email subject lines: craft a subject line that stands out but feels natural. something like “following up on our recent discussion” keeps it clear and engaging. 5. add value: share something new or useful that’s relevant to their interests or needs. this shows you’re attentive and adds a reason for them to respond. 6. add a clear cta: make it easy for them to take the next step with a clear call to action. for example, “could we schedule a quick call this week?” 7. re check and preview: before sending, give your email one last look. ensure it’s free from mistakes and sounds just right. 8. close the mail naturally: end on a friendly note, like “looking forward to hearing from you soon!” it keeps the tone positive and open. by following these tips, you’ll craft follow up emails that feel genuine and engaging, increasing your chances of getting a reply. here’s a list of business email follow up templates that will give you an idea of how to write a follow up email, it is always good to write short and sweet follow up emails as the other person mostly has other important work to do. here’s a template to send short follow ups when you don’t receive a reply from prospects. hi {{first_name}}, i hope you are doing well. i just wanted to know what you have thought about my suggestions regarding switching over to {{product_name}}. let me know if i can be of help to you. best regards, {{your_name}} this email is to the point and saves the time of prospects. it states the purpose of the email very clearly. it is a gentle way to get in touch with a prospect again. tip: you can choose to add a cta different from your initial email. after an in person or online meeting with a prospect (as it has been in this year of the pandemic), you will send a follow up email if you don’t hear from them. here is a template to reinitiate your connection with them. hi {{first_name}}, i am writing to follow up on our last meeting regarding implementing {{product/service_name}} in your organization. thanks for allowing me to connect with you on {{meeting_day}}. as we discussed, i have checked with my manager and am glad to tell you that we will be happy to arrange {{special_request}} for you. do let me know if we can proceed. regards, {{your_name}} tip: try reminding the prospect about how your product or service can help overcome the challenges they face. subject line: are you prepared for a follow up? hi {{prospect_name}}, i wish to thank you for your time and want to know how you would like to move the conversation ahead. in case you are still interested, kindly suggest what you want to do next. looking forward to your response, {{your_name}} in the template below, you can get an idea of how to follow up when you have the information that the client requested. subject line: got the info you need hi {{prospect_name}}, thank you for the opportunity to get in touch with you on {{day}}. i spoke to my company’s department, and they would be glad to be of assistance to you for {{request}}. kindly let me know who you would like to proceed further. {{your_name}} here is another variation for you. subject line: find the info you are looking for hi {{prospect_name}}, it was nice chatting with you on {{day}} and understanding the needs of your company. as you wanted to know about {{information}} in our last conversation, i have attached it here. do let me know when you get a chance to look at it and want to speak to me to discuss there can be instances when the recipient may have checked your email but, for some reason, chose not to respond. there are also chances of losing the email in the inbox. you can mention that you had previously contacted them in your email and want to help them solve their issues. hi {{first_name}}, i had sent you an email a while back about {{product/service_name}} and how it would be a perfect fit for your company. our existing clients have witnessed a 20% increase in sales with the help of our solution. in addition, we are offering a 10% discount and complete training. if you want to know further details, please get in touch with me. i would be happy to discuss things in detail with you. i am looking forward to your response. {{email_signature}} instead of simply sending an email to check in on them, try to share a valuable resource that they would find useful. here is a sales follow up email template to get new clients, hi {{prospect’s_name}}, you are dealing with {{problem}}, so i thought of sharing an easy tip that most customers use. {{tip1 tip 2 tip 3}} i have a few more ideas that i want to discuss with you. do let me know if you are interested in knowing them. regards, {{your_name}} here is another email template, hi {{prospect’s_name}}, i was quite surprised when i didn’t hear from you. i’m sure the previous email about {{product_name}} was quite insightful, and you want to know more about our solution and how it helps get rid of {{prospects’_problem}}. i want to share a blog post on {{topic}} as i felt that it would be quite useful to you. regards, {{your_name}} tip: remind the prospect how your product or service fits perfectly into their needs. when your emails are not getting a response, the reason could be that the recipient is not a decision maker. after realizing that you are speaking to the wrong person, you can request them to direct you to the concerned person. here are the email template for follow up you can use, hi {{prospect’s_name}} i emailed you a few days back about {{your_company/product_name}}, and it was only later that i realized i might be knocking on the wrong door. my firm provides solutions for {{explain_offer}} which can be useful for your company. are you the concerned person in this regard? if not, could you please help me reach the right person? i am looking forward to your reply. regards, {{your_name}} the one below is a straightforward way of reaching out to a prospect and finding the decision maker. hi {{prospect’s_name}}, i am writing again as i didn’t hear back from you. can we connect when you are free someday? if not, can you please lead me to the concerned person? i will be very thankful to you for your help. regards, {{your_name}} tip: remind the recipient why you are reaching out so that they can guide you to the right person. there are situations when the prospect engages with your email but chooses not to respond. engaging with the email refers to clicking on a link, downloading resources, and even watching a video embedded in it. there is a chance of closing the deal with them if you follow up properly. you have to fan their interest in your product or service and turn them into paying customers. follow up with them to grab their attention. ask them what they are looking for or share how your solution has helped other clients to look credible. hi {{prospect’s_name}} i feel that you had a look at my previous email and our company’s website, so i thought i must get in touch with you again. do you want to know how {{product_name}} can help {{prospect’s_company}} to {{benefit}}? i will be glad to get on a quick call to discuss this further when you are free. would you mind letting me know which time suits you? hi {{prospect’s_name}} i realized that you read my previous email and wanted to look at our product online, so i thought of reaching out to you again. have you thought a bit about switching over to {{product _name}}? in case there are any doubts, i will be glad to clear them. would it be possible for you to connect on a quick call any time this week? regards, {{your_name}} subject line: do you require more information? hi {{prospect_name}}, i came to know that you read my last email and had a look at our website, so i felt that i should reach out to you once more. did you think about my proposal once more? i would be happy if you wish to connect with me on the phone and discuss the proposal. please tell me when i can schedule a call. {{your_name}} subject line: may i help you with <pain point>? hi {{prospect_name}}, i know that you read my previous email and visited our website to glance at <product or service>. i, therefore, felt like connecting with you again. our {{product_name}} can help in improving {{objective}} and addresses {{pain_point}} please let me know if you have time to speak over the phone to look at how {{client}} benefitted from our tool. looking forward to hearing from you. {{your_name}} tip: if the prospect doesn’t respond, it can be due to lack of time. if you find that a prospect has visited your website or carried out some other activity, you should email them to engage with them. it would help push the prospect further down the sales funnel. events in the business world are most often for networking. when you make some connections, you would want to send them a follow up email to build the relationship further and probably introduce your product. it is better to send follow up email to clients right after the event when you are fresh in their memory. hi {{prospect’s_name}}, it was wonderful meeting you at {{event_name}}, and our discussion was quite in depth. i thought that it would be better to take it forward as {{reason}} are you having the time to meet for a cup of coffee next week? here is a link to my calendar. you can pick a date and time that is convenient for you {{calendar_link}}. i am looking forward to hearing from you. regards, {{your_name}} hi {{prospect’s_name}}, it was a pleasure to connect with you at {{event_name}}. i gave a thought to what you were saying about {{pain_point}} and felt that you should go through this case study to understand how {{product/service}} has helped a {{competitor_ company}} get a 10% increase in sales. let me know if it is useful. regards, {{your_name}} hi {{prospect’s_name}}, i hope you remember that we met at {{event_name}}. it was nice discussing how you can improve your organization’s workflow by making simple tweaks. i have many more ideas that will fetch you great results if implemented right. will it be possible for you to meet over coffee to discuss those ideas in detail? regards, {{your_name}} subject line: here is the info about {{company_name}} that you needed hi {{prospect_name}}, i hope you enjoyed attending the conference and i want to thank you for showing interest in our company. i am sure that you want to improve your company’s {{objective}} and that is why i wanted to get in touch with you. please find the information you need attached below. if you require any other tip: it would be a good idea to refresh the prospect’s memory after you meet them at an event. it would help them get along with you actively and probably schedule a meeting with you. if you try reaching out to a prospect over the phone but can’t talk to them, you would leave a voicemail. however, why would someone respond to the voicemail of a total stranger? that is why you have to send a follow up email as well. as it aims at reminding the prospect about the voicemail, you have to keep your email short. take a look at the template you can use below, hi {{prospect_name}}, i tried calling you, but i think you are occupied, so i left you a voicemail. i came across your {{prospect’s_action}} and wanted to share some tips about how you improve {{tips}} please call me back on this number when you are free   {{phone_number}} or let me know the right time for me to give you a ring. i am looking forward to hearing from you. regards, {{your_name}} subject line: i was trying to call you hi {{prospect_name}}, i was trying to connect to you over the phone but couldn’t reach you. i know that you are busy and would not bother you. please call me back on {{phone_number}} or let me know when i can give you a ring. i am looking forward to your reply. {{your_name}} tip: mention the reason for reaching out in the email so that the recipient understands the context. once you reach the stage of giving a demo of your solution, it means that the prospect has an interest in you. as the chances of closing the deal are higher, what is the need for a follow up? well, even if everything looks like it is going smoothly, there are chances that the prospect may forget about the interaction and may not be too keen to make the purchase. so, you must send a gentle follow up email and mention the important points in the demo. if the prospect has any concerns, you can try to address them. here are a few templates, hi {{prospect’s name}}, it was nice talking to you today. to proceed further, you can start the trial to understand {{your_product}} better. our team can add the custom features you requested to prevent affecting your workflow. please let me know when we can go ahead. regards, {{your_name}} hi {{prospect’s_name}}, it was a pleasure talking to you today and knowing how your company functions. i have collected the information you requested, and i am sure you will find it useful. please find it attached. if you have any queries, feel free to contact me. i will be happy to answer your questions. regards, {{your_name}} here’s a template to revisit the benefits of the product or service you had mentioned in your demo. hi {{prospect’s_name}}, thank you so much for attending the demo. it was nice talking to you. i want to give a short recap of the benefits of the {{product_name}} that we are customizing for {{prospect’s_company}} {{mention_benefits}} if you require more information and have any concerns, please reach me. i will be glad to be of help to you. regards, {{your_name}} tip: try to remind the prospect how your product or service can change how they carry out tasks and simplify their lives. after finding a lead online and getting in touch with them, you may feel that they may not be the right person. to find out if you are on the right track, you can send the following email. subject line: hope that you direct me right hi {{prospect_name}}, i had sent you an email a few days back about {{product}}, and i feel that i may be on the wrong track. my company has {{product}} to offer that would help fit into your firm’s requirements. are you the right person to discuss the features of {{product? if not, can you please guide me to the decision maker? looking forward to hearing from you. {{your_name}} here’s another variation of the above email subject: can you help me out? hi {{prospect_name}}, i reached out to you a few days back about {{product}}, and i felt that i should check whether you are the right person to discuss this. if not, can you please help me reach the right person? thanks {{your_name}} subject line: the right individual to reach out to hi {{prospect_name}} , as i didn’t hear back from any of your team members, i want to know whether i am talking to the appropriate person or not. if yes, can we schedule a meeting this week? in case i am on the wrong track, can you please connect me to the right person? regards, {{your_name}} most often, the prospect you are speaking to may not be the decision maker. he or she would have to consult their colleagues or superiors. though you should give them the time to make the decision, a little nudge from your end would be great. ideally, you must wait for at least 4 5 days before you follow up with the prospect. subject line: here is more information about {{company_name}} hi {{prospect_name}}, thank you so much for taking time out on {{day}}. i am pretty excited about how our relationship would take off. that day you said that you have to consult with {{person}} before proceeding further with the deal. can i know what {{person}} said about my company’s proposal? can we fix a face to face meeting to discuss how we can proceed? regards, {{your_name}} there are times when prospects don’t prioritize purchasing a solution, and they may ask you to get back to them after a few days. you should mark the date in your calendar and make sure that you send them the email on time. while composing the email, you must ensure that you revisit what you discussed last with them and help them recollect what took place previously. you can also mention the newly made changes and why it would be the right time to sign up. hi {{prospect’s_name}}, i hope you are doing well. when we spoke last time about {{product/service}}, you thought our solution was not the right fit for your requirements. we are glad to let you know that we have a new feature that you would find useful. {{explain_feature}} our solution will now be of better use to you. it would help you {{achieve_specific_goal}}. please let us know, and we will set up a trial account for you. regards, {{your_name}} here’s a template to refresh the memory of the prospect. hi {{prospect’s_name}}, the last time when we discussed the benefits of implementing {{product/service_name}}, you suggested that we should wait for the right time and asked me to connect after a month. can we please pick up from where we left our conversation? looking forward to hearing from you. regards, {{your_name}} you can even reach out early and use the following template, hi {{name_prospect}}, i know that you asked me to get back to you after 2 months. but i am reaching out sooner as there are a lot of new ideas to discuss with you on how to boost sales in a short period. can i discuss the ideas with you on a 10 minute call? please let me know when you are available. regards, {{your_name}} tip: help the prospect gently recall what they had discussed with you in your previous emails. it would help take the conversation ahead. when you reach the stage of sending a quote, things seem to start moving in the right direction. it may take many days for the prospect’s company to approve the proposal. but if you send a follow up email after a few days, it indicates that you are taking responsibility and are willing to answer the prospect’s queries. here’s a template you can use, hi {{prospect_name}}, i had sent you a quote for {{product/service_name}} on {{date}}, and i wanted to follow up to remind you what all our solution has to offer, {{feature_1}} {{feature_2}} {{feature_3}} in case there are any concerns, please feel free to contact me. regards, {{your_name}} tip: there can be an internal issue that is holding the prospect from responding. try to ask them how you can be of help to them. following {{your_name}} there are situations when the prospect shows interest in your product or service, but all of a sudden goes silent. they may not want to purchase the product or service anymore, or they would have found another solution for their problem. it is wise enough to send follow up emails to such prospects as they showed interest in you, and they may want to go ahead with purchasing your product. first of all, try finding out why the prospect went silent. send free resources that are relevant to them or use customer testimonials to convince them about the effectiveness of your product or service. hi {{prospect_name}}, we had last discussed {{mention_what_you_discussed}}, and i have not been able to reach you since then. this means that you are either not interested or don’t have the time to respond. if you want to continue our discussion from where we left, please let me know. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} tip: as mentioned above, try to find out what is holding the prospect back and how you can help when you speak to the prospect on the phone, you will want to share a few extra resources, and you can send a follow up email for that. here’s a template you can use, hi {{prospect_name}},, it was great connecting with you. i am sharing some resources with you, feel free to share them with your team members. regards, {{your_name}} tip: add relevant resources that are useful to the prospect. if you’re into content marketing, i.e. writing blogs, you can send follow up emails that can be created with the help of professional email marketing software to leads on the pretext of discussing your latest write up.. subject line: how {{product}} boosts profit? hi {{prospect_name}} , in our last meeting, you talked about {{blog_subject}}, and i understood that you have a deep interest in it. our company’s publishing team came up with a new blog on {{blog_subject}} {{link}}. i immediately thought of you. please have a look at it and share your thoughts about it. we can discuss things further. can i call you sometime soon? do let me know. regards, {{your_name}} following up after receiving no reply to the previous follow up email requires preparation. you have to chalk it out well before making your move. the best thing to do is provide exciting information to the recipient to pique their interest in your product or service. subject line: some things you might want to know about {{company_name}} hi {{prospect_name}} , i emailed you a few days back regarding {{company_name}} and how {{product}} can fit into your firm’s needs. you might not be aware that our clients can report a 50% increase in revenue with {{product}}? there is complete training with a 20% discount. in case you want to hear more about {{product}}, kindly let me know. i would be happy to help. looking forward to your reply. {{your_name}} subject line: hoping to connect with you hi {{prospect_name}}, i am sorry about not being able to connect with you recently. in our last conversation, you were pretty interested in {{product}} i understand that you’re very busy, so i’d be happy to schedule a call when it is convenient for you. thank you. {{your name}} you can lure the prospect to reply to you by providing a helpful resource. here’s the template below: subject line: here’s a gift for you hi {{prospect_name}} , i understand that you’re busy managing your team. i had emailed you with the information of {{product}} a few days back, and i feel that this is the right time to get in touch with you for a demo. you can find a few guest logins to access {{product}} and see how well it works in addressing your {{pain_point}}. do share them with your colleagues, too, and let me know about your experience with {{product or service}} please let me know if you can meet anytime this week. {{your_name}} subject line: a few ideas for you hi {{prospect_name}} , your firm can be dealing with {{pain_point}}, so i thought that i should share a few tips to help you out. {{ideas}} i have some more ideas to improve the situation. kindly let me know if you are interested to know about them. regards, {{your_name}} though goodbyes are always tough, you have to threaten to end the bond if you don’t get replies to your follow up emails. if the prospect has an interest, they may respond, and if not, it will be easy to get rid of deals that have no future. it will be free of extra baggage. try to use humor in breakup emails as you never know; you might just hit the bull’s eye! it is trying to reach out to the prospect one last time. hi {{prospect_name}}, i have tried to reach out to you multiple times in the last 3 months. maybe you are not interested and that is alright with me. maybe the timing is not right, and i will be happy to get back to you in a few weeks. if someone kidnapped you, please let me know to come to rescue you. i won’t follow up any further, but you can keep my details with you to get in touch with me if you need my services. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} here is another one that can be of help to you, hi {{name_prospect}}, i am clearing out my sales pipeline, and i thought it is important to inform you that your file is on the delete list. in case you are not interested, can i please close your file? if you still have interest in {{product/service}}, please let me know what the next step should be. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} hi {{prospect_name}}, i am sorry for bombarding your inbox, but i have been trying to reach out to you repeatedly with no success. i guess you are not the right person to talk about {{topic}}. would you please direct me towards the concerned person? and i won’t bother you after this email. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} subject line: is this the end? hi {{prospect_name}} , i have tried to reach you many times in the last few months, but i have not been successful in my endeavor. i feel that: you are not interested. if so, there is no problem. it is fine i am contacting you at the wrong time. in that case, i will be happy to reach out to you after a couple of weeks or months. someone abducted you! i will not reach out to you again, but if you change your mind, please contact me on {{phone_number}} {{your_name}} subject line: can i close the file? hi {{prospect_name}}, i have to clear out the sales pipeline, and i feel that i should let you know that you are on my delete list. in case you are not interested, can i close your file? if you have even a slight interest still, how should we proceed further? thanks, {{your_name}} subject line: {{prospect_name}} i would love to know your feedback hi {{prospect_name}} , this is my last attempt to get in touch with you. however, i would like to get feedback from you regarding {{product}}. as you have used the free trial, you can tell us what improvements we need to make. can i please know the reason for not connecting with our company? regards, {{your_name}} subject line: thanks from {{company_name}} hi {{prospect_name}}, i wanted to write to you one last time in connection with {{product}}. if i don’t get a reply from you, i will assume that you don’t have any interest in what my company has to offer and i won’t bother you again. if you want my assistance at any point in time, please reply to this email, and i will be glad to assist you. {{your_name}} tip: if there is no answer after repeated follow up, the recipient may be an unqualified lead. you can try sending a breakup email as a last resort to get the prospect’s attention. sending a follow up email after a webinar or event helps connect and expand your network. keeping the prospects in the loop can help you in the long run. find the template for such emails below, hi {{prospect’s_name}}, yesterday, you attended my webinar about ‘best ways to drive more sales’. did you find it useful? were you able to learn something new? please let me know your feedback. i also took a look at your company’s website, and i thought it would be nice to share some articles with you, here they are   {{link_to_articles}} it would be great if you connect with me on linkedin {{linkedin_profile_link}} i am looking forward to hearing from you. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} hi {{prospect’s_name}}, it was good to see you at the {{event}} yesterday and talk about {{mention_what_you_discussed}} i found your thoughts on it very insightful. i told you about {{your product/service}} and how it can help resolve {{prospect’s_problem}}. it would be great if we could take the discussion ahead. will you be available for a 10 minute call this wednesday? i am looking forward to hearing from you. thanks & regards, {{your_name}} tip: remind about the meeting/webinar and what your product and service can do for the prospect. salesblink is a powerful tool designed to streamline your sales outreach and follow up processes. here’s how you can effectively use it to follow up with prospects: do try salesblink’s 7 day free trial. automated email sequences: schedule and automate follow ups to ensure consistent communication. email tracking: monitor open rates, clicks, and responses to optimize your strategy. personalization: customize emails with dynamic content to increase engagement. crm integration: seamlessly manage and track interactions with prospects. warm up tool: gradually build your email reputation to avoid landing in spam folders. 1. sign up on salesblink: start by creating your account on the salesblink platform. 2. connect your email account: link your email account to salesblink to begin sending and managing emails from within the platform. 3. validate your email domain: ensure your email domain is validated to improve deliverability and credibility. 4. warm up your email account: use salesblink’s warm up feature to gradually build your email reputation and prevent your messages from being marked as spam. 5. add your prospects list: import or manually add your list of prospects to salesblink. this helps you target the right audience with your follow ups. 6. start writing emails: craft personalized and compelling follow up emails tailored to your prospects’ needs and interests. 7. start your automated follow up sequence: set up and activate your automated follow up sequences to maintain consistent communication without manual effort. 8. initiate your email campaign: launch your campaign, sending your initial emails and scheduled follow ups as planned. 9. monitor your mail: use salesblink’s tracking features to keep an eye on email performance, adjust your strategy as needed, and ensure you’re maximizing engagement. by leveraging these steps and salesblink’s features, you can efficiently manage your follow ups and improve your chances of closing deals. here are a few examples to help you understand follow up emails better, the follow up email below is sent after a call with the prospects. as you can see, the rep has added value to it by sending more resources. it gives them a reason to revert. here’s an email you can send to follow up after a meeting. it is simple and straightforward. here’s a simple email check in on the prospect and try to get a response. it is straightforward and simple. at times prospects don’t respond even after repeated follow up. that is when you can try one last time. you can keep sales streamlined with the help of follow up emails. in addition, to get a positive reply from the prospect, you usually need a minimum of 5 follow ups. however, some sales reps give up after they face rejection for the first time. such an attitude will not fetch you the results you want. regarding statistics, 48% of sales reps don’t follow up, and 44% stop after the first try. it indicates that only 8% are following up, but that is the percentage that is winning at sales. follow up emails are important as they do the following, there are several reasons for the recipient not opening your email, the person may be busy, or they couldn’t find the email in the piles of emails in their cluttered inbox. that is why you have to send a follow up email to increase the chances of the prospect connecting with you and turning into a paying customer. when you send follow up emails, you show that your business is more customer centric. the prospects would think that you have genuine interest in doing business with them, which would help build trust. it is impossible to close the deal with those who are not into your product or service right from the beginning. they might be there for a free trial and not intend to pay. with follow up emails, you can filter out the hot leads and keep the promising ones. after all, it is pointless to invest your time and effort in people who don’t have a future with you. that’s why time management for sales reps is essential. timing is key for follow up emails. avoid sending them during busy office hours when prospects might overlook them. instead, target times when email open rates are highest, such as mid morning or early afternoon. this increases the likelihood of your email being seen and receiving a response. even follow up emails have types, and they are the following, with free trial follow up emails, the aim is to turn prospects into paying customers by providing them a chance to use the full version of their solution. this is quite common in the saas industry. in the email, you can ask for feedback and guide them about how the prospect can use the solution to get better outcomes. one goal that most businesses try to achieve is to turn a customer into a loyal one. for that, you have to put in efforts as a salesperson. once the sale takes place, you should ask the customer about their experience and offer them more products at a special discount. here are the key steps that you have to consider to craft the best follow up emails, this is a logical step you must focus on before composing your follow up email. you have to find out why you are following up in the first place. here’s an example   you met a prospect at an event one week ago, and the lead is now cold, but you want to reconnect. you have an objective at hand, and you can try to achieve it by sending a follow up email. you can send a follow up to restart the relationship with the hope of closing the deal. the email subject line is the first thing that the prospect sees, and if you are successful in capturing the prospect’s attention, the open rates will be high. here’s what all you have to consider while writing your subject line, keep the subject line short   you have to keep the subject line short because when they are too long, they don’t appear fully on the screens of mobile devices. use fewer words to convey the message effectively. keep it crisp and clear so that the prospect doesn’t lose interest. ensure that it has details   as already said, the subject line has to have all the information and be clear. it will help them determine whether they want to open the email or not. keep it engaging   be creative and capture the prospect’s attention right at the subject line. you can use different ways and make it engaging. after all, who wants to read a boring email? sending a follow up email just for the sake of it would do no good to your sales numbers. if your email is just another generic and laid back follow up that adds no value to the prospect, they will ignore it. you have to put in the effort to make the email worth reading and responding to. if possible, offer something in return; it can be anything like a free template, an e book, a free trial. it can be anything relevant to the prospect they would find useful. it would help if you value the reader’s time, and for that, you have to ensure that you don’t waste their time. keep the message clear and direct. the reader shouldn’t have to put in an extra effort to understand it. stay to the point and tell the recipient what you expect them to do with a strong cta. easy to understand emails have more chances of getting a response. you have to end your email as naturally as possible by keeping the previous interactions in mind. there is no hard and fast rule for this, so it is up to you to close the email as you wish to while keeping the prospect in mind. it can be something like “looking forward to hearing from you” or something else the prospect would appreciate. things go well when you have a plan. you have to create initial and follow up emails beforehand based on your sales funnel. be ready for what action you have to take if the prospect doesn’t reply to your follow up email, and it has to be as seamless as possible. sales reps commit a few common email mistakes that seem quite basic but can have a lot of impact on your sales numbers. let’s see what they are and how to avoid them, some reps use ‘follow up’ in the email subject line, which isn’t the right approach. even if your email is a follow up, you shouldn’t mention it in the subject line as it doesn’t add to the value of the email. it instead increases the chances of the recipient ignoring your message altogether. the recipient may also feel that you are blaming them for not responding to your email. try writing a subject line that looks relevant to the email body. it would be of no use if you send a follow up email but don’t add any value to it. it would help if you didn’t waste prospects’ time with such emails. try to offer something of value to the reader and show them how your product or service can help them. a cta or call to action is a requisite in every email you send to the prospect, including the follow up email. if you don’t include a cta in your email, the reader will not know what to do after reading it. the cta can be anything like a reply from the prospect’s end, a call back, or a request to fill out a form. just make sure to keep the cta clear and be specific. it is better not to wait for too long before sending your follow up email. it would be good to keep that waiting time around 3 days instead of more than 10 days. waiting for too long can make the prospect forget what the cta was and you wanted them to do. regardless of which industry you are in, the timing of your follow up email is crucial. if you delay unnecessarily, you will lose the prospect. you have to follow a few best practices when you are following up with prospects after giving them a demo. following up just after you had a conversation with them is not a very good idea. give a gap of at least 12 working hours after you complete the demo. even if you are under pressure to complete your targets, don’t pass on that pressure to the prospect. be as patient as you can be, and don’t rush into things. if you try to make it look too urgent, the prospect will distance themselves from you. when you plan to follow up, you must ensure that your team is all set for it. there shouldn’t be a problem in the process after you reach out to a prospect, or else you can lose them. check whether you covered all the points in the email. the prospect should have all the details of your last interaction with them. a follow up email is important for sales, and if you are in the bracket of salespeople who persistently follow up, you can close more deals. make use of the above tips and tricks to improve your follow up strategy. make sure to add a human touch because people can make out when they get an email using automated software. you can’t expect a response to such emails, and that is why you have to step in yourself if you want to close a deal. if you feel low, try to read sales motivational quotes. they will surely help you. whatever tactics and templates you use, make sure that you don’t end up disrespecting the prospects in the name of follow up. a follow up email refers to an email or a sequence of emails sent after an initial email or reaching a particular stage in the buyer journey. you can also send a follow up email if someone is in the middle of a trial with free trial follow up emails, the aim is to turn prospects into paying customers by providing them a chance to use the full version of their solution. this is quite common in the saas industry. follow up if you haven’t received a response within the expected time frame (typically 3 7 business days) or if the matter is time sensitive. follow up action involves steps taken to ensure a task is completed or to address unresolved issues, such as sending a reminder or making a call. 7 day free trial. no credit card required. © 2025 salesblink. all rights reserved. a futureblink product. launch ai personalized automated cold email sequences that land in inbox! no, i don't want to increase revenue.

a quick video overview of my step by step literary agent strategy with much more detail in the post. in this post, i’m going to help make that search a little less painful and a lot more effective. if you follow steps, you will improve your chances of attracting an agent who is looking for books like yours (and knows how to sell them). this is the same method that has helped many of my clients go from being ignored by agents to getting frequent manuscript requests. i cover a ton in this post, so to help you navigate through it, here’s a quick overview of what i’ll be going over. under each section, i’ll explain in detail how to tackle that step. why you need a strategy step 1   identify how your book fits into the publishing world step 2   find agents that are looking for books just like yours step 3   refine your list of target agents step 4   personalize your query letters step 5   send your query in batches step 6   follow up (don’t skip this step!) usually by the time a writer comes to me for help pitching agents, they’re demoralized and desperate. they’ve poured their heart and their soul   not to mention months or years of their time   into their book and they’re afraid it’s horrible. they’re ashamed to tell their friends and family that their dream of being an author may be out of reach. when i ask these writers about their pitching strategy, they usually describe some variation of the shotgun approach. i get that. we’ve all been told “it’s just a numbers game” or “you’ll have to knock on a lot of doors.” it sounds logical that if you send out enough queries, eventually someone will bite. if only they knew how much greater their odds would be if they would start sending personalized query letters targeted to agents who like and sell books like theirs (more help in my post how to write a query letter that wows agents). truth is, the shotgun approach rarely works. for anything. i mean think about this seriously…apart from hunting birds in the woods, would you use that indiscriminate, low effort tactic in any other area of your life? dating and marriage are a great analogy. when you’re in search of love, you’re told you’ll have to “kiss a lot of frogs” before you find the one. have you ever dated online? i have. many years ago, i used match.com (which served up plenty of frogs but ultimately lead to a happy marriage and a quirky modern love story that was my first ny times byline). anyway, so many of the guys on match would send obvious cut and paste jobs. their messages would say things like, “hey, i liked what you said in your profile. we have a lot in common. let’s get together.” ummmm, what did you like about my profile? what do we have in common? if you’re sending out a thousand replica emails without even bothering to learn the first thing about me or any of the other women, you’re either way too desperate or way too much of a player. delete. similarly, when i was a magazine editor, i would get blasted with equally generic query letters from freelance writers and publicists. it was clear they knew nothing about our magazine, the sections i edited, or our readers. how much time do you think i spent considering those queries? about as much time as they spent thinking about what our magazine published. pretty much none at all. if they had framed their story in a way that fit with our magazine or would interest our readers, i probably would have given their materials a look, or at the very least would have intended to respond with a polite, personalized no. (i say intended because emails do slip through the cracks. i show you how to deal with that further down in this post.) and yet, when i first started looking for an agent, i more or less did the same thing. now, i want to keep you from making the same mistake. remember this when you pitch agents: don’t be creepy internet guy. be a pro by pitching the right agents, the right way. here’s how…. if you follow these steps, you will maximize your efforts by pitching only the agents you know are most likely to be a great match for you and your book. photo by robert bye this will make the following steps a million times easier and more effective. on the most basic level, before you are ready to write your query or identify target agents, you should know your genre and sub genre, if applicable. for example, if your book involves a murder, ask yourself if it’s a thriller, a cozy mystery, noir, or even if it’s historical fiction, or upmarket commercial fiction, or literary fiction, etc. although marketing categories can be artificial and frustrating, they can also help you research agents who represent books like yours. it’ll be even better if you can understand your book on a deeper level. let’s move past genre and narrow down some of your book’s other characteristics. for example, what is the tone of your book? gritty? inspirational? philosophical? funny? irreverent? can you name other authors who share your style or topic? where does your book fit on the spectrum between literary and commercial? does your book have a unique topic or setting that certain agents might be drawn to? getting clear on your book will make it easier to recognize the right agents when you come across them. when you see what books they’ve sold, you can compare them to your own book. for example, if i were still looking for an agent for love me anyway and i saw someone who represents a lot of dark, funny women’s fiction on the border between literary and commercial, i’d be stoked. if i found an agent like that who also sells books with travel or international elements, i’d do a few cartwheels (no, i can’t actually do one anymore) and put that person on the top of my list. similarly, if i found an agent who represents super serious literary fiction or, on the other end of the spectrum, women’s fiction with cotton candy happy endings, i wouldn’t expect us to click. although there are thousands of agents, the vast majority aren’t going to be into (or won’t be good at selling) your kind of book. you’ll drastically increase your odds with a laser targeted list of 25 50 to a max of 100 agents who have sold books just like yours. i’m talking about books that are like yours not just in genre but also in things like tone or theme or style. nina revoyr and sue grafton have both written bestselling crime novels, but they’re worlds apart in style. think about it. you have a certain taste, right? even when it comes to reading a book (an infinitely smaller investment of time and money than representing one) you carefully limit what makes it onto your bookshelf. so instead of pitching anyone who vaguely sounds appropriate, i want you to look at agents’ sales records, their webpages, their interviews, their profiles, and find those who very clearly want books exactly like yours. let’s say your book is funny and inspirational. in that case, you don’t need to waste time and emotional energy pitching agents whose lists are full of dark, literary, political novels. and you’ll want your query to have a funny and inspirational tone to attract your right people, which inevitably means it’ll turn off the wrong ones. publisher’s marketplace: to start your research, i implore you to invest in publisher’s marketplace, so you can research the sales records of potential agents. this is not the same thing as writer’s market, which you may have used in the past. fyi i am not an affiliate and do not get compensation for my recommendation. publisher’s marketplace is the site that publishing industry insiders agents and editors and publishers and booksellers use every day. yeah, it’s $25 a month, but you can cancel any time, and it’s an investment well worth making. there is simply no better way to research agents. plus, you’ll get their news and analysis emailed to you each weekday, which will teach you so much about the publishing industry. what’s especially fun is seeing all the debut novels that are being sold proof that people like you do get published! the drawback to this site is that it doesn’t offer many categories to help you narrow down your search, so sifting through can be a time consuming drag. it’s the most comprehensive site, but not the most efficient. once you have a rough list, you need to deepen your research into the agents who have sold books like yours. i recommend writer’s digest and manuscript wish list. writer’s digest: chuck sambuchino’s blog, the guide to literary agents, constantly introduces new agents, along with agents who are currently looking for submissions. he also posts queries that worked, interviews with authors (including me!), about how they got their agents, and plenty of other publishing gold. but, it’s not a systematic way to find agents, so i don’t recommend starting there. i’d rather you come back to it after you have an initial list and have developed a better sense of what you’re looking for. manuscript wish list: this started as a twitter hashtag where agents mentioned ideas they’d love to see. it’s now also a website with very thorough agent listings. although it doesn’t have anywhere near the number of agents as the other sites, it’s a fantastic resource, and the agents who have profiles are there for a reason   they want pitches from new writers. the only downside is that there’s just so much information that it’s not a very efficient place to start. like writer’s digest, i think mswl is one of the best places for further research after you have an initial rough list. it will help you learn more about the names you’ve already got and help you add new names once you have a good feel for what you’re looking for. listen up   if learning about each agent seems like too much work, remember how much time and effort you’re asking the agent to put in. if you expect other people to care more about your book than you do, you aren’t going to make it in this business. believe me, i know all of this prep work sounds daunting, but you’re up to the challenge. if you don’t know how to efficiently get that much information on agents, that’s perfectly okay. get my list of the 107 best agencies in my epic guide to publishers and literary agencies. check it out! it’s enormously helpful when you can tell the agent why you’re pitching them in particular and why you think your book is a good fit for their list. not only will you be presenting your book as something they’d like, you’ll be positioning yourself as a professional. you can learn more about how to do this in my post how to write a query letter that wows agents. here’s a case study for you: my client robert kerbeck came to me in frustration after he had sent out dozens of queries for his book and heard absolutely nothing in response. ugh. that really is painful. understandably, he was feeling rejected and lost. he had worked so hard on his book for years, (i adored it btw), and it was wasting away out there in the email void. we worked together to come up with a highly targeted list, and when he sent out 12 personalized queries to 12 highly targeted top notch agents, within two weeks, he got seven requests for his manuscript. seven! out of 12. that’s a 58% request rate on the exact same book! he got an agent, a book deal, and now penguin random house is calling ru$e: lying the american dream from hollywood to wall street one of their most anticipated books of the year. now, a few agents don't think writers should have to personalize their queries. they see it as one more hoop to jump through and don’t want to waste writers’ time. i think that’s big hearted, and i admire those agents. i also know they're the exception. as humans, the more any offer is customized to fit our needs, the more likely we are to buy into it. think about how hard marketers work to research their audience, pinpoint their customers’ needs, and tailor their ads to them. hello creepy internet ads that follow you from google to facebook! savvy marketers spend big, big bucks to personalize their ads, even when their target audience of ideal customers includes millions of people. you don’t have a million prospects. you have at best a few hundred. the good news about having such a small pool of targets is that you can know exactly who you’re pitching. you’ll know the books each agent has sold, and sometimes you’ll even find loads of information online about their tastes and needs and personalities. if you can find the agents most likely to respond to your book and figure out how your book fits their needs, you’ll maximize your chances of finding the one. plus, you’ll also make the job of writing a query letter much easier. aim for about 15 queries per batch. one at a time is waaaaaay too slow, and unless someone has already asked for an exclusive, multiple submissions are assumed. more than 15 and you could be blowing through your list of agents with an ineffective query. send the first batch, and if you don’t get any requests for partials within about six weeks, there’s probably something wrong with your query. (that doesn’t mean there’s necessarily anything wrong with your book! see jim’s experience above.) if that batch brings in a lot of requests for partials, but then six weeks after sending your pages, you don’t get requests for a full manuscript, then you know the query rocks but the opening chapters need work. similarly, if agents generally adore the partial but don’t subsequently fall for the whole book, it’s time to at least consider a bigger revision. take any feedback you’ve been given, and try to decide if your sample size is large enough to warrant a change or if it would make sense to keep pitching a while longer. editors and critique groups can help tremendously, but you’re ultimately going to have to go with your gut on that one. once you’re confident the book is ready, go kiss some more frogs with that awesome query! note: for fiction, you’ll only query once you have a full manuscript. for non fiction, you’ll query with a book proposal. (learn all about book proposals here.) i hope you get lucky and hear back from agents right away. but, most likely you’re going to need to nudge them. do not, do not, do not skip this step. some people will tell you not to do this because it’s pushy and that silence always means no. i’ll admit silence isn’t the best sign, and there’s a good chance it’s a no, but it definitely doesn’t mean no. here’s why you must follow up: i’m pretty sure that if you think about it, you have had experiences in other areas of your life   your job, your social life   where you followed up or extended an invitation for the second time and got a yes. or maybe it’s the other way around and when someone has reminded you about something, you’ve responded by saying “oh, yes, that’s right. i do want to go to that event, sign up for that class, buy that thing, get drinks with that person.” my favorite follow up success story. i know i’ve had many such experiences in my non publishing life. as i typed that, it dawned on me that my friend jennifer convinced me to follow up with my now husband shortly after we met online! i'm throwing in a shot of us getting married two years later. i was so skinny and he had so much hair! i was still a magazine editor at that point, and trust me, i let plenty of emails slip through the cracks. when someone politely followed up, my guilt kicked in, and i made it a point to get back to them. sometimes with a no, but sometimes with a yes. here are three examples of agent follow ups that prove silence doesn’t have to mean no. no one believes me when i tell them an agent might get your reminder and say, “omg, how did i miss this? yes, send it immediately!” but it happens. i once had a client who was feeling dejected after not hearing back from a dream agent. i convinced him to send a polite follow up, and he immediately got this response from a very prestigious agent, a partner at one of the biggest agencies in new york. (this is so absurdly great that it sounds fake. i promise it’s not.) “thanks so much for checking in. yes, i'd love to read the full manuscript! you beat me to it...you are such a talented writer. i greatly appreciate your following up. i am looking forward to it.” i swear to god that i copied that straight from his forwarded email and am not making it up. if he hadn’t checked back, he would have continued to assume she hated the book! another client of mine followed up a couple of times after her dream agent had liked the full manuscript but wanted to see some revisions before making an offer. she made the revisions, but then heard nothing back from the agent. although she assumed the worst, she continued to follow up since she had come so close. turns out the agent’s mother had died, and she’d stepped away from work to take care of family affairs. when she returned, they signed together. another writer i know finally had the nerve to check back six months after an agent had requested her full manuscript. the agent quickly explained that right around the time they’d been corresponding, she went into early labor and then maternity leave. naturally, the manuscript got lost in the shuffle. the agent requested it again and they’ve been a team ever since. i don’t want to be overly rosy. if you don’t hear back, there’s a good chance it’s a no, but as i’ve demonstrated, it’s always, always worth a follow up. don’t worry about being seen as too pushy. listen to me   no one will get upset about receiving a short, polite, appropriately timed email. if they somehow decide that a two sentence email makes you an out of line aggressor and they decide to black ball you for it, there is something seriously wrong with that person. luckily, you found out the easy way and aren’t stuck in a toxic relationship with that agent. this takes work! but i promise that if you target agents who are looking for books like yours with a personalized query letter that shows why your book is a good fit for them, you’ll increase your chances dramatically and feel infinitely more confident while querying. just rinse and repeat until you find the one. go get ‘em! work with me services courses testimonials enjoyable things newsletter resources for writers my novel questions get in touch helpful articles connect with me on social…

this post is regularly updated with new information. the query letter has one purpose, and one purpose only: to seduce the agent or editor into reading or requesting your work. the query letter is so much of a sales piece that it’s quite possible to write one without having written a word of the manuscript. all it requires is a firm grasp of your story premise and its appeal in today’s market. for some writers, the query will represent a completely different way of thinking about their book because it means thinking about one’s work as a product to be sold. it helps to have some distance from your work to see its salable qualities. this post focuses on query letters for novels, although the same advice applies to memoirists, because both novelists and memoirists are selling a story. nonfiction book queries are addressed here. novelists and most memoirists should have a finished and polished manuscript before they begin querying. however, some may be tempted to begin early because it can take so long to receive responses from agents and publishers. the thinking goes: well, the agent probably won’t respond any earlier than a month anyway, and i’ll be done by then, so why not get a jump on it? but what if the agent responds right away? or what if you’re not done in a month? what if you realize your manuscript needs a lot more work? you’ll wish you hadn’t started querying. you may end up rushing your writing or editing process (undesirable to say the least), or admitting to the agent/editor that it will take you x weeks or months to follow up, by which point, their enthusiasm may have waned. to avoid creating a high pressure or awkward situation, i recommend you wait until you feel the manuscript is totally done the best you can make it. that doesn’t mean you have to hire freelance editors or copyeditors or proofreaders, but it does mean fixing or revising anything you know needs attention. i recommend your query include these elements, in no particular order: i consider personalization or customization of the query optional. more on that later. in its entirety, the query shouldn’t run more than 1 page, single spaced, if printed, or somewhere around 200 to 450 words. i recommend brevity, especially if you lack confidence. brevity gets you in less trouble. the more you try to explain, the more you’ll squeeze the life out of your story. so: get in, get out. put your best foot forward, or lead with your strongest selling point. here are the most common ways to begin a query: many writers don’t have referrals or conference meetings to fall back on, so the story becomes the lead for the query letter. your query is a sales tool, and good salespeople try to develop a rapport with their target. it can be helpful to show you’ve done your homework and that you’re not blasting indiscriminately. it can also set you apart from the large majority of writers querying if it’s done meaningfully. here’s an example of a meaningful personalization: “the acknowledgments of the ideal american mention you with praise, and the author’s masterful work partly inspired my own novel. if you personalize the query by saying, “i found you in writer’s market,” or “i see from your website that you’re seeking mystery,” and you add nothing else, that’s not terribly meaningful. try to say something that can’t be repeated by another writer or used in another query. here i comment further on whether to personalize your query. your book’s title, word count, and genre can be stated upfront, although often it’s better to wait until the end of the query to offer this housekeeping information. during my time in the industry, comps have become the most frustrating part of query letters for writers. some agents and editors will tell you they’re the most important thing about the query letter. i disagree i’d argue the story description or premise is the most important thing, by far but you should pay attention to stated priorities of whomever you’re querying when possible. these are my two key principles for choosing comps: what i don’t think matters much although you might certainly hear advice to the contrary. an ideal, helpful comp is a title that released recently (within a few years is best), or an author who is actively publishing. either way, they should have a readership that aligns in some way with your potential readership. or that you believe aligns. the books would go on the same table display at a library or bookstore, for example. your books would belong in the same media round ups. etc. agents and editors who demand you follow 31 rules for adding a comp in your query letter or say they rely entirely on you to identify the perfect comps? frankly, i wouldn’t want to work with an agent or editor who expects me to know the landscape or industry better than they do. give them thoughtful comparisons informed by your own reading and research into the market, enough to understand whether they want to read your manuscript, and they should be able to work with you to refine those comps if necessary. for most queries, the story description does most of the work in convincing the agent or editor to request your manuscript. here are a couple formulas that can help you get started. here’s an example of a brief story description for the davinci code: robert langdon is an american academic and an expert in the symbols of the ancient world. while on business in paris, he’s summoned to the scene of a grisly murder in the louvre where he’s the main suspect. he must race across europe, one step ahead of the police chasing him, to solve the murder and prove his innocence. in the process, he uncovers arcane messages hidden in the world’s best known artworks, solves ancient puzzles, and ultimately discovers secrets about jesus that could bring down the catholic church. as part of this description, you may need to establish the setting or time period right away; this is especially true for authors of historical fiction or science fiction and fantasy. for example: “my novel, sci fi epic, is set in the distant future where humans have abandoned earth and now live on the rings of saturn.” a good description balances character and plot. by the end of the query, the reader should have an idea of why we care about the main character(s) but also the story problem or tension that keeps us turning pages. while the formula looks simple and it is your story may sound rather boring when it’s boiled down to these elements. when a story description is well written but boring, it offers the same old formula without distinction. the protagonist feels one dimensional (or like every other protagonist), the story angle is something we’ve seen too many times. the best stories have some kind of twist or an element that helps your work stand out, that makes it uniquely yours. that is: the idea doesn’t feel derivative of existing bestsellers. for example: every time an agent comes across a query featuring a ya protagonist with special powers acquired on his birthday, and he must figure out how to control these powers at an unfamiliar school, there’s a good chance the agent is going to pass unless there’s a dramatic twist. how do you know if your idea is tired by an agent’s standards? well, this is why everyone tells writers to read and read and read. it builds your knowledge and experience of what’s been done before in your genre, as well as the conventions. in laurie scheer’s the writer’s advantage, she well demonstrates the difference between a boring story and an exciting one: i have heard an eternity of pitches featuring women as victims, survivors, single mothers, etc. if someone pitches me a story about a 43 year old unmarried woman who has had a successful career in advertising or law or pharmaceuticals or whatever, and decides at the last minute that her biological clock’s ticking and she wants to have a child … i will wait for the writer to tell me the rest of the story. and there is no rest of the story, because in their mind, that is their story. to which i say, “who cares?” seriously, who will care about that storyline? no one. we have seen numerous stories about women wanting to have children later in life. i could produce a list at least two pages long consisting of books and movies with this plot line. however, if one of the main characters is a 43 year old single businesswoman having her first child and, at the same time, her 22 year old niece is also having her first child because the niece does not see the benefit of having a career and only wants to be supported by a rich husband i suddenly see some conflict here. whenever i teach a class where we critique story descriptions, just about everyone can point out the problems and talk about how to improve them. why? because when you’re not the writer, you have distance from the work. when you do come across a great novel description, it feels so natural and easy like it was effortless to write. every day, publishersmarketplace lists book deals that were recently signed at major new york houses. it identifies the title, the author, the publisher/editor who bought the project, and the agent who sold it. it also offers a one sentence description of the book. these sentences are inevitably well crafted, and can help you better understand what is currently exciting to agents and publishers. there are trends and fashions in publishing, and if you were to read the one sentence description of every novel that sold in your genre in the last six months, you would see definite themes emerge. while your query would get into more detail than the following two examples, these single sentences help illustrate how much you can accomplish in a few words. bridget boland’s doula, an emotionally controversial novel about a doula with a sixth sense [protagonist] who, while following her calling, has to confront a dark and uncertain future when standing trial for the death of her best friend’s baby [protagonist’s problem] [a doula with a sixth sense? cool.] john hornor jacobs’s southern gods, in which a memphis dj [protagonist] hires a recent world war ii veteran to find a mysterious bluesman whose music [protagonist’s problem]   broadcast at ever shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station   is said to make living men insane and dead men rise [twist] how to tell if your description could be improved: for novelists, especially unpublished ones, i think it’s ok to leave out the bio if you can’t think of anything worth sharing. but it’s best to put in something. the key to every detail in your bio is: will it be meaningful or perhaps charming to the agent/editor? if you can’t confidently answer yes, leave it out. in order of importance, these are the categories of pertinent info. if you have no meaningful publication credits, don’t try to invent any. if you have no professional credentials, no research to mention, no awards to your name nothing notable at all to share don’t apologize for it. even if you’re unpublished, you’re still completely respectable. you’re mainly getting judged on the story premise, not your bio. on the other end of the spectrum: don’t talk about starting to write when you were in second grade. don’t talk about how hard you’ve labored (everyone has). don’t talk about how much you enjoy returning to writing in your retirement. just mention a few highlights that prove your seriousness and devotion to the craft of writing. if unsure, leave it out. if your bio can reveal something of your voice or personality, all the better. while the query isn’t the place to digress or mention irrelevant info, there’s something to be said for expressing something about yourself that gives insight into the kind of author you are that ineffable you. charm helps. don’t be tempted to elaborate on the audience for your novel. this is often misunderstood since nonfiction writers do have to talk about market concerns. however, when it comes to selling fiction, you sell the story. the story premise must feel fresh and relevant, of course, to today’s reader and trends in the market. i often encourage memoirists to follow the same principle and leave out explicit readership information save it for the book proposal if it’s requested. novelists don’t need to discuss their marketing plan or platform in the query. sometimes you might mention your website or blog, especially if you feel confident about its presentation. the truth is the agent/editor is going to google you anyway, and find your website/blog whether you mention it or not (unless you’re writing under a different name). while having an online presence helps show you’ll likely be a good marketer and promoter of your work especially if you have a sizable readership already it doesn’t say anything about your ability to write a great story. that said, if you have 100,000+ fans/readers on wattpad or at your blog, that should be in your query letter. a final word on this: some projects are easier to sell because they obviously tie into the zeitgeist, overall market trends, etc. here’s a publicist who discusses why you should think about publicity before even pitching an agent, and how that informs your query. if you want to be as competitive as possible, heed her advice. you don’t read much advice about how to close a query letter, perhaps because there’s not much to it, right? you say thanks and sign your name. but here’s how to leave a good final impression. if you’d like to take a conservative approach, divide your agents into buckets: a list, b list, and everyone else list. try submitting in rounds of 5 10 at a time (depending on the size of your list), including 1 2 of each agent type. if your a list people immediately and favorably respond, then i’d send out another round right away, a mix of as and bs, to see if you can gin up competing interest. if responses trickle in with no particular pattern or order, send another round within 2 4 weeks or so. at least every month, send another round until your list is exhausted. if you immediately see a pattern in the response that indicates something’s amiss, you can adjust your approach for the next round of queries. the reason i recommend this conservative approach is it tends to be easier to manage psychologically. but there’s nothing wrong with sending out your materials to everyone on your list at once or sending in higher volume. it just means that you don’t get that “next chance” or opportunity to adjust your pitch later. (once a rejection, always a rejection or that should be your assumption.) in the writing community, you’ll hear a lot of myths about “good” and “bad” times to query. there really isn’t a “good” time or “bad” time. if the agent or publisher is open to queries or submissions, and your material is ready, then go for it. there is no way you can time your submission perfectly; too many variables are out of your control, including the person’s mood the moment they open the query. some say you shouldn’t query in august or near the holidays because agents will be on vacation or not paying attention to submissions. this isn’t universally true and you aren’t giving yourself a better chance by avoiding august or the holidays. again, if the agent/publisher is open to submissions, they’re open to submissions. full stop. but if you insist, here is my opinion on your query’s chances by calendar month. dear  : it’s the year 1200. since succeeding to the papacy two years ago, pope innocent iii has been agitating for a new crusade, one that will finally conquer muslim controlled jerusalem. but european monarchs ignore his call, too involved in squabbling amongst themselves. so the pope turns to two of his trusted men with a mission: to seek out the powerful presbyter john, an unknown king in the far east, who has promised to put his vast armies in service to the pope’s crusade. but it requires traveling through the treacherous political, religious and mercantile terrain of medieval europe. one of the emissaries is mauro, an older monk who uses logic and reason to deepen his faith. the other man is nicolo, a young genoese merchant striving to improve his family’s fortune and his own place in the world. nicolo is supposed to lead and guide the mission, but the young man carries secret orders from a corrupt cardinal. the emissaries (96,000 words) is an adventure tale solidly grounded in historical fact about the search for presbyter john. the book will appeal to readers of historical fiction in the style of ken follett (pillars of the earth) and noah gordon (the physician), and also to readers seeking the accessible social critique of amitav ghosh (sea of poppies, the ibis trilogy). i did research for the emissaries in most of the locations mentioned in the book. i have lived and worked in over fifty countries and received numerous international awards for my work in social and trade justice. my nonfiction book, javatrekker: dispatches from the world of fair trade coffee (chelsea green, 2008) received a publishers weekly starred review and the gold medal as best travel essay book from the independent publishers association. i have been the on air host of two recent pbs specials (“coffee: the drink that changed america” and “traveling in the 1970s”), and speak regularly at universities and conferences on issues of social justice, international trade and the environment. thanks for your consideration. email queries and queries submitted through online forms tend to get read and rejected more quickly than snail mail queries (which are rarely accepted these days, in fact). depending on your situation, you may end up creating two separate versions of your query letter, one for email and another for printing/mailing. here’s the formatting process i recommend for email queries specifically: email queries benefit from shorter paragraphs and/or more paragraph breaks unless the agent insists everything be contained within three large, outsized paragraphs. that is a very backward requirement that only makes things harder for everyone, but follow such guidelines if you must. if you have an email address for an editor/agent who doesn’t accept email queries, you can try sending your query on a hope and a prayer, but you probably won’t receive a response. in fact, i’ve heard many writers complain that they never receive a response from email queries. (sometimes silence is the new rejection.) this is a phenomenon that must be regrettably accepted. send one follow up to inquire, but don’t keep sending emails to figure out if your query was received. if you don’t hear back, follow up after the stated response time using the same method as the original query. if no response time is given, wait about 1 month. if querying via snail mail, include another copy of the query. if you still don’t hear back after one follow up attempt, assume it’s a rejection, and move on. do not phone or visit. if an agent asks for an exclusive read on your manuscript, that means no one else can read the manuscript while they’re considering it. i don’t recommend granting an exclusive unless it’s for a very short period (maybe 2 weeks). in non exclusive situations (which should be most situations): if you have a second request for the manuscript before you hear back from the first agent, then as a courtesy, let the second agent know it’s also under consideration elsewhere (though you needn’t say with whom). if the second agent offers you representation first, go back to the first agent and let her know you’ve been made an offer, and give her a chance to respond. jessica strawser, the former editor of writer’s digest, offers a gut check package that helps you perfect your submissions materials. jane friedman has spent 25 years working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. her book, the business of being a writer (the university of chicago press), received a starred review from library journal and is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. a second edition releases in spring 2025. as co founder and editor of the hot sheet newsletter, she provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals. her influence and insight earned her publishing commentator of the year from digital book world in 2023, and her expertise regularly features in major media outlets including the new york times, the atlantic, npr, the today show, wired, the guardian, fox news, and bbc. δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_1" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); δdocument.getelementbyid( "ak_js_2" ).setattribute( "value", ( new date() ).gettime() ); this site uses akismet to reduce spam. learn how your comment data is processed. […] here’s my 4,000 word definitive post on writing a query for a novel. […] excellent advice here, jane! many thanks! am sharing with the drydenbks community… thanks, jane. i getting ready to start this next step and find your advice really helpful. so needed. thank you! […] by oberazzi / via flickr the stand alone query letter has one purpose, and one purpose only: to seduce the agent or editor into reading or requesting your work. […] thanks for the article, jane. i’m doing queries for my first novel now. fabulous tips! this info will really help writers who are gearing up for the query process. thanks for the helpful article, jane! i have one question: if i received a ba in english writing, should i include that in my bio? i’ve always hesitated to do so. hi sean, i’d consider that a fairly neutral statement of fact. neither helps nor hurts, so feel free to include it. […] https://janefriedman.com/2014/04/11/query letters/ […] this is a wonderful post, jane, and so help to writers. you’ve completely demystified the process!

stack exchange network consists of 183 q&a communities including stack overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. ask questions, find answers and collaborate at work with stack overflow for teams. ask questions, find answers and collaborate at work with stack overflow for teams. explore teams teams q&a for work connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. alice and bob have co authored a paper together. the contribution (data collection, analysis, writing) was 100% alice and 0% bob, except that the original idea was initiated during a conversation between alice and bob. bob acknowledged several times in private that he did not contribute to the project, but he claimed co authorship for the idea and alice did not object to that. alice spent almost an entire year working on the project. bob spent less than a couple of hours in total. a manuscript with both names has already been circulated, submitted and rejected from one journal. bob is now trying to block the publication of the paper due to a personal conflict with alice. in the meantime, bob became envious of alice's early successes and decided to do everything to slow down her career, even at the expense of his own publication record. bob is already tenured and has no pressure to publish. alice, by contrast, needs more publications for her forthcoming tenure review. of course, bob never explicitly refused to submit the paper. but instead of sending it to a prestigious outlet (where the paper would have a good shot) he insists that they send the manuscript to a non peer reviewed and unknown journal, which would not help alice's tenure case. of course he makes no effort in trying to find an agreement, as he would be happy not to submit the paper at all. clearly, his decisions are driven by spite and malevolence only and he takes great care into not writing anything incriminating for him. is there anything that alice can do in that situation? does she have to resign herself to never publishing the paper? what are the risks for her if she removes bob's name without his agreement and submits the manuscript on her own? ps: as a response to captain emacs' comment, bob's only contribution was to say "why don't we study the causal effect of x on y?" in an informal conversation. alice did absolutely all the rest (literature review, design of the protocol, data collection, analysis, conference presentations, etc.). but there is no evidence of this, other than the fact that bob would be unable to answer any question that goes into the detail of the paper. as with the another answer, i couldn't help but notice the almost literary way in which the bob character is depicted: clearly, his decisions are driven by spite and malevolence only unless the op is bob (what a twist!), she is really not in a position to make that claim. in my experience, in 99% of all human behavior, after sufficient scrutiny, one finds that "driven by spite and malevolence only" is not the right explanation. moreover, i'm not sure i've ever seen an academic make a professional decision to spite someone else even though it hurt their own career as well. regarding this the op wrote: bob is already tenured and has no pressure to publish. now i really think the op cannot be bob, because tenured people still have pressure to publish. the stakes may be different from that of their long term academic survival, but they are not necessarily lesser or viewed as lesser by the tenured faculty. anyway, here's the heart of the matter in my mind: the contribution (data collection, analysis, writing) was 100% alice and 0% bob, except that the original idea was initiated during a conversation between alice and bob. bob acknowledged several times in private that he did not contribute to the project, but he claimed co authorship for the idea and alice did not object to that. i accept the premise of the story that bob has done nothing on the paper past one initial conversation and is now (for some reason or reasons) acting against its timely publication in an appropriate venue. which is terrible behavior on his part, of course. however, i must point out that alice has also made a terrible mistake at some point in the process. bob "claimed" coauthorship for a project that someone else worked on for a year and that he had one conversation about. that's egregiously improper behavior. you shouldn't "claim coauthorship" under any circumstances; you should propose coauthorship and that proposal should be accompanied by specific proposed contributions. if alice went away after one conversation and worked for an entire year without telling bob what she was doing, that's a mistake (and by the way, it could much more plausibly be part of what made bob upset). if she did tell bob what she was working on, she should have clarified that if he wanted to be involved in the project he needed to do....something. and no matter how they get to the endpoint, where alice has a paper and bob asks her to put his name on the paper, she needed to object to this. in fact (although this is not the point), alice's lack of objection could be construed as academic dishonesty: it misleads the reader as to the level of bob's contribution. this act of misleading seems to have come back to bite alice in the behind. it is much more awkward for her to take back sole control of her work after having submitted the jointly authored paper. however, it may still be the right thing to do if the publication of the paper is important enough to her. i do not see an ethical problem with alice deciding to pull away with her work, given that it actually is solely her work. that she may not be able to prove that to the satisfaction of all interested parties makes the action more risky, not less ethical. if alice and bob really cannot agree on where to submit the paper, alice has the right to say "i'm sorry it didn't work out. i am taking my work with me...which as you know is everything except the original idea, which i will credit you for so that you can write a paper on your alternate development/implementation of the idea if you choose." she should not allow the hypothetical threat of bob's academic dishonesty (i.e., the possibility that he might tell other people that he did the work) to hold sway. in fact, if alice convinces bob that she is serious about pulling away, then with any luck he will see that he has nothing to gain by pressing a fraudulent claim that the work was his that he wouldn't gain better and more easily just by allowing a joint submission to the journal alice wants. it was an easy read until clearly, his decisions are driven by spite and malevolence only and he takes great care into not writing anything incriminating for him. this part seemed to have a serious amount of judgment on your part ("clearly", "only"). i'm not saying you're mistaken, i'm only pointing out that this part seemed (to me) to be at odds with the rest of the story. i like to believe that people generally are reasonable, and hence can be reasoned with. has alice tried to apologize for what caused the personal conflict or "misunderstanding"? has she explained why she wants to publish? is she really open for a discussion, or is her mind already set on the route to take and bob objects to "signing off" on alice's already made up mind? of course, alice's interpretation may be right and bob is really a comic book villain. sometimes you just come across people that are unreasonable. for the rest of this answer, this shall be my assumption. since alice is in a lower position than bob, she should avoid engaging in a fight about authorship, especially since there are preprints in circulation with both names as authors, which is evidence for bob's co authorship. however, i think it should be possible for alice to create a spin off of the current paper, which she rewrites completely, citing the (unpublished) preprint. this way, alice can claim that she wrote the paper alone, and she doesn't challenge bob's authorship for the preprint. since bob blocks the publication of the preprint, and since the preprint might not be available publicly, this new paper would probably need to repeat arguments for the reader's convenience. i think alice's own contributions to the preprint could be repeated without falling under (self )plagiarism, since the previous preprint was not published and proper attribution to the preprint is given. the fact that it was submitted once with bob's name on it makes it very difficult (and awkward) to remove bob's name. instead, i'd recommend hot chocolate and cookies. then alice should tell bob that she has addressed the reviewers comments from the previous rejection and will be submitting to journal of awesomeness. ask bob if he sees any more ways to improve it before submitting to journal of awesomeness. then, thank bob for his time, tell him you will do your best to address his comments before submitting. no matter what, alice must make it clear that journal of awesomeness is where this paper is headed next. as you need to get on with doing research and writing new papers, you can consider writing up follow up papers that cite the current paper as a paper in preparation or as a preprint. there are many sides to a story, so i won't comment on the merits or facts of the narrative. however, i will advise that it is my experience that authorship issues that are unresolved post publication often prove detrimental to both parties making the claim. thus, every effort must be made to reach a resolution. the technical term for the situation described in the question is disputed authorship. at the journal level, the standard advice is that authorship disputes be resolved at the level of the institution(s). journals will generally not proceed with publication until clear resolution is reached. let me provide two examples. case 1. an manuscript is submitted listing two authors (m and n). the manuscript is sent for peer review. while under review, the editor receives a letter from author m stating that the manuscript was submitted without his knowledge or permission. the editor immediately does two things    (1) he halts the peer review process and (2) he contacts author n to request an explanation. author n admits that he had attempted to contact author m for the past two months but with no luck. deciding that sufficient time and effort has passed, author n decided to submit the manuscript. the editor seeks further details and discovers that author m has been discharged from his institution and has instituted legal proceedings about a different matter. this situation seems to have been used by author m as part of his legal strategy. the editor asks the institution to resolve the matter at their level. over time, authors n and m reach an agreement that is suitable to both of them and the institution. they write to the editor that the authorship dispute has been resolved. a new manuscript is submitted containing comments and revisions from author m. the peer review process is restarted. the article has been published. in some cases, it is out of the hands of the author. case 2. a group of authors submit a manuscript for publication. after peer review, the article is published. an individual writes to the editor after having seen the publication claiming that she deserves authorship on the grounds that the the publication could not have been possible without her contribution (she provided the data in the form of a database she has set up). the editor responds by stating that they abide by the authorship criteria of the international committee of medical journal editors and that she should provide evidence to support her claim. the third party submits the evidence. on assessment of the evidence, the editor makes the assessment that the third party does not fulfill the criteria for authorship and authorship is denied. at the same time, the third party contacts the authors and informs them that she had lodged a claim of disputed authorship with the journal. the authors consider this information and write to the journal, stating that they would like to include the third party on the list of authors. the editor declines the request because the assessment had made and the third party does not fulfill the icmje conditions for authorship. the publication is not changed. the main issue here is the difference between contribution and authorship. the former can exist without the latter, but not the other way around. good luck to you. reputable scientists normally reject co authorship suggestions of the type "i contribute the work, you contribute the reputation". not too ethical, and the risk to publish questionable material on the own name also matters. they should also not be invited into co authors on the basis "this is because you have told me two valuable sentences in cafeteria". shame for both. to save the situation for both, bob and alice should agree now on the rewritten paper that (they both declare) does not contain bob's contribution. as this was just a discussion, no experiments, no analysis, rewriting a few sentences in introduction may be sufficient. reading all responses here feels utterly strange. people focus on semantics, on word choice and to find all possible other things to focus but the actual problem: someone doing all the work and somebody else trying to put his name on it. in fact, the hypocrisy is in the majority of the scientific community (my own experience). typically, submitting the paper to a journal, one has to declare all co authors contributed equally and everybody knows it. yet it seems to be a community standard to prey on people lower in the hierarchy and abuse their superiority. why then to create the rules of scientific integrity, research code of conduct or making people sing these co authorship declarations instead of being transparent, as the theory science should be? my answer to the question in the topic is: alice should not sacrifice her own career nor work for a sake of pleasing someones ego. she could write a nice email to bob, asking him for reasons of his choice of the journal x and to ask him what could he contribute to perhaps improve the paper. this can go many ways, but anything written is a good proof of bob's attitude and his involvement in the work. alice should submit her work to whatever journal she wants, with her being the only author. the acknowledgement can state that the idea of the research sparked in the conversation with bob. let's stop making simple things complicated. wow, what a difficult position to be in. if bob contributed 0%, alice has every right to exclude him from the author list and simply acknowledge his contribution in a footnote. she is then free to submit to whichever journal she feels has the best chance of accepting the paper. for the sake of maintaining some level of collegiality, she should advise bob of her intentions. the professional jealousy is an entirely different matter, but her record will stand on its own when she goes up for review. she has an obligation to herself, and not to bob. here is a possible course of action which alice might consider, but only if she doesn't care about antagonizing bob even further, and if other courses of action have failed. it depends on what comes first: (1) the acceptance announcement date at the journal of awesomeness, or (2) the submission date at the journal of lameness. if the journal of awesomeness deadline comes first, alice submits without telling bob she did it. she should try to avoid actually stating whether or not she's going to submit, and sort of let bob understand she's sulking/angry and that he's gotten away with his little plot. if the submission is rejected   none will be the wiser. if it's accepted, still alice mustn't tell him, for as long as she can until the journal of lameness deadline. bob won't prepare a draft for that one, and will be expecting alice to do the work, right? well, alice act discouraged and sort of "give up on it". unless bob pushes alice really hard, in which case alice might have to tell him. if the journal of lameness deadline comes first, alice should get the draft ready for the journal of awesomeness submission, unbeknownst to bob. she must continue acting frustrated and mopey, and appear to have lost motivation for getting that thing published. now the journal of lameness submission deadline will be approaching. as alice is the one who does all the work, it's likely bob won't prepare the draft for this submission, and will be expecting alice to do that? well, alice will sort of kind of be working on it, but not really; she'll try to not show up and not be very responsive as the deadline is coming up. or she might promise him she'll have it ready on time, but fail to update him on the progress. alice has to make it so that they miss the deadline. but when the journal of awesomeness deadline comes up   alice submits the paper; and does not mention that fact to bob at all. finally, in both cases when bob finds out (which will be no later than when the next issue of journal of awesomeness comes out i suppose)   what is bob going to do? the paper was already accepted. it's not like he could spoil the publication by claiming uncredited authorship. at most bob can demand that his name be removed. bob could theoretically contact the editors and claim alice published against his wishes   but how would bob make that argument? it's a perfectly appropriate journal, and the paper was not submitted anywhere else. and bob has no evidence. and alice can always rebutt such a claim by arguing it was always clear they were going to submit to the joa anyway. win. site design / logo © 2025 stack exchange inc; user contributions licensed under cc by sa . rev 2025.2.6.22204

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supported by the workologist by rob walker how should i respond when my emails are not answered? recently i met an individual in my field (art history), and we had an animated conversation about mutual professional interests for almost an hour. at the end, he offered to send me information to help my current book research. i followed up with an emailed appreciation and confirmation that he would send what he’d offered. no response. i tried again a week later   nothing. i have previously followed up with nonresponders with the subject line “lost in cyberspace?” asking if my email or the other person’s response never arrived. or stating that i know they have a lot of demands on their time, etc. usually these methods get a response and apology. a psychologist friend says i should pick up the phone. but i worry about being confrontational   partly because i am offended by this ignoring of my friendly email. my research will benefit him, too. he should help me as he offered. what is the protocol? suzaan, queens while it would be useful to have a universally agreed upon protocol, i don’t think it exists. opinions vary about whether every email deserves a response. i’d say an unsolicited note may not, but you are correct that this person should follow through on his promise. still, we have many options for communicating but, really, no consensus about the best way to do so. some find email burdensome and prefer a call (or text); others evidently detest the phone, keeping a fastidious inbox even as they can’t be bothered to listen to a voice mail message.