on Jane Friedman site:

Certain words and phrases are bandied about all the time in publishing, but they don’t always make sense. One of the biggest is author platform. You may have attended enough writing seminars and conferences to recognize that even people in publishing aren’t consistently using the term.

How and where authors reach readers: that’s platform. It’s a combination of four factors, and let’s use the TV show Gilmore Girlsto help visualize it.

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on Fiction University:

All stories need an antagonist, but not all stories have a villain. 

The word antagonist usually conjures an image of a “bad guy,” but that’s not always the case.

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The term “beta reader” gets thrown around a lot in writerly circles, but I’ve discovered an awful lot of writers don’t really understand what they do.

The term “beta” reader seems to come from the gaming industry. Early game developers would ask certain customers to test games before they went on the market. These were not the “alpha” users who worked on actually developing the game, but “betas” who tested the game when it was about to go into the marketplace. They helped find glitches and could give marketers an idea of their target audience.

Beta readers are like those beta game users — they are sample “customers” who give opinions on a new product. They generally read a book that has already been edited by the author, but is not yet ready to go to the publisher or professional editor for a final polish.

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on Helping Writers become Authors:

To be a writer, one must do two things: write and, perhaps surprisingly, notwrite. Usually, we champion the first and demonize the second with much fear and trembling, giving it dread labels such as “writer’s block.”

The implication is that, for a writer, not writing is about as bad as it gets.

The truth, however, is nuanced.

I have been waiting to write this post for a very long time—four years, in fact. I have been waiting because I knew it was a post I could not properly write until I overcame my own lengthy writer’s block and could speak about the lessons it was teaching me. From my perspective on this side of the desert, I know it is a landscape I did not traverse alone. Many writers—I even dare to say most writers—experience significant writer’s block sooner or later. I am writing…

on Jane Friedman site:

Question

I’m a few pages away from finishing a first draft of a multi-generational novel that runs about 500 pages, which I plan to pitch to agents and traditional publishers. After two years of revisions and polishing, I feel the draft is in good shape (don’t we all?) but am wondering if I should pay for a professional editor to look at it or just get feedback from beta readers. Is an editor worth the money? Note that I have published a nonfiction book before with an indie publisher but this is my first novel. Appreciate your thoughts.

—Seeking advice in Pennsylvania

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