Advice To The Future Published Authors

Just because I feel like making lists, and because I get a lot of emails asking for advice of the "Things you wish you knew before you were published," variety:

1. Always add a month longer to your deadline than you think you'll need. Really.

2. When you get published, you will lose friends. When you hit milestones, you will lose more. But you will gain awesome ones too.

3. Don't sweat the small stuff. It's annoying when the hero's hair color is wrong on the cover, but really, that's a very small thing and not worth an ulcer over.

4. Make time for the family. It can be very easy to get caught up in deadlines, the fun of writing, the social interaction on blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. But if you don't have a strong family foundation and support, writing can become a chore.

5. This is a very unstable business -- you have very little control over anything, but you DO have control over your writing. So keep learning the craft, keep improving, and let your writing be your strongest promotional tool in your arsenal!

Have a great weekend, everyone!