On a recent edition of First Draft Friday, I discussed with debut author Kathleen Fine the intricacies of publishing your first novel. Kathleen shares her journey from writing short stories to securing a traditional publishing deal for her debut novel Girl on Trial. Kathleen shares tips that she wishes she knew when she started writing.
Here are some key takeaways from my conversation with Kathleen:
Finding the right tools for writing
Kathleen emphasizes the importance of using the right writing tools. For her first novel, she used Microsoft Word but found it cumbersome to manage complex timelines and multiple narrators. She recommends Scrivener for its organizational features, allowing writers to keep chapters, character notes, and research all in one place. Scrivener’s ability to move sections around easily and track word counts can significantly streamline the writing process. (I love it, too!)
Setting realistic word count goals
Understanding industry standards for word counts based on genre is crucial. Kathleen advises writers to research and set a target word count early in the process. Tools like Scrivener can help manage daily writing goals, ensuring steady progress toward the final manuscript. Participating in initiatives like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) can also provide motivation and structure to reach your writing goals.
Utilizing beta readers for initial feedback
Kathleen joined various writers’ groups on social media to connect with beta readers who provided impartial feedback. This step is vital for identifying issues and making initial revisions. It’s often more productive to seek feedback from strangers rather than friends or family, as they can offer more honest and constructive criticism.
Hiring a professional editor
Kathleen used Readsy.com to find a developmental editor who provided thorough feedback on the overall structure and content of her novel. She advises starting the search for an editor before finishing your manuscript, as editors can be booked months in advance.
Handling feedback and revisions
Receiving extensive feedback for the first time can be overwhelming. Kathleen suggests starting with the easiest revisions and gradually tackling more complex issues. It’s important to view feedback as an opportunity to improve your manuscript, even if it takes time to address all the suggestions.
Querying agents
Finding the right agent requires research and organization. Kathleen created a spreadsheet to track agents, their preferences, and submission statuses. She recommends starting with mid-tier agents to increase your chances of success. Using feedback from rejections to refine your manuscript can also improve your chances with subsequent queries to top-tier agents.
Learning from rejections
Kathleen highlights the value of using rejection feedback as a tool for improvement. Some agents provided brief comments or detailed notes, which she used to make her manuscript stronger. Persistence and willingness to revise based on feedback were key to eventually finding the right agent.
It was a great discussion, one you won’t want to miss! Click below to watch our 30-minute recording. Keep scrolling if you’d prefer to read the transcript.
More info:
Try out Marlowe, our A.I., for a critique of your novel: authors.ai/marlowe/
Find out more about Kathleen Fine at KathleenFineAuthor.com
Enjoy the show? Check out our past First Draft Friday episodes.
TRANSCRIPT:
Alessandra Torre: Hi everyone, and welcome to First Draft Friday. I am your host with Authors AI. My name is Alessandra Torre and today I am joined by author Kathleen Fine. And we’re going to be talking about the steps to publishing your debut book. And if you’re interested in getting a traditional publisher, what that process is like and some tips and advice for just navigating the path. I’m so excited to have you here. Kathleen, do you want to introduce yourself to the audience?
Kathleen Fine: Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I’m a big fan of your podcast. It’s like a free little subscription you guys have, advice for authors? I love it. So I received my master’s in reading education, and my bachelor’s in elementary ed. So I started out writing short stories. I’ve written almost 40 short stories, and I’ve had them published in various places, like, Leisure magazine, Pen in Hand, Maryland Writers Association anthology. And my debut novel, Girl on Trial, is going to be published in October of this year with CamCat Books Publishing. And I wrote it over three years ago. But it’s just taken this long of the process to get the publisher, the agent and all of that. And then I’m currently on round three of edits with my second novel, which is called The Chesapeake House. And I wanted to talk about this because since I was just such a novice writer and I didn’t know anything about the publishing process, I made so many mistakes along the way. I knew literally nothing. I didn’t know anybody who wrote, so I had to learn everything on my own. So I just wanted to talk about this with anybody who’s listening to this who’s a new writer, or maybe you’ve been writing, but you don’t have a publisher yet, and you want to get one. I just wanted to talk about things that worked for me and things that didn’t. So you don’t have to make the same mistakes that I made, basically.
Alessandra Torre: I love that and I love this topic. So let’s go back to the very beginning. So you obviously had written a lot of short stories. When did you decide, OK, I’m ready to write a novel. And is Girl on Trial your first novel, or did you have a couple in a drawer somewhere that didn’t didn’t go anywhere?
Kathleen Fine: It is my first novel. I had it in my head, the premise of it and all the main events basically for the past 15 years, and it’s just been sitting there. I’ve had other careers besides writing. It was just a side hobby. And finally during Covid, I was trapped in my house and my husband was working at a hospital 100 hours a week. And so I was alone with my three little kids. So, I just forced myself to sit down and do it. So I started it in 2020.
Alessandra Torre: And that first process, what was that like? Did you get stuck at a certain period in time? Did you have a regular writing schedule where you figured out, like did you use Word? Did you use something else? What was it? Can you just walk us through the process and any mistakes you made or things that you wish you’d done differently in the creation process?
Kathleen Fine: Definitely. So for the first novel I wrote, I used Word which I think is good for some people. For me now that I’ve finished my second novel, I give advice to people who have more than one narrator or have multiple timelines. I suggest using something different. I, for my second novel, used Scrivener. I follow lots of authors on Instagram, and I saw Sally Hepworth describing it to her audience, and I had never heard of it. And so I looked it up and that’s how I started using it. So I use Scrivener for my second novel. The reason I like it a lot better than Word and I, I think a lot of writers will like this. It’s kind of set up like PowerPoint. Most people know about how to do PowerPoint and so on the left-hand side, like PowerPoint, it has all of your chapters kind of set up like slides. And you can rearrange them by, you know, if you want this narrator to speak here or if you’re switching timelines around, you can just switch everything around. With my first novel, I wrote everything past, present, past, present in a Word document. And when I had to go back and edit, if I wanted to change a timeline around 300 pages, I couldn’t remember, you know, what happened where, and it just took so long. And then I also had to have a separate Word document about each character and a separate one about each, part of the setting, and it just was such a mess. And with Scrivener, I loved it because. All in that one little side part. You can have a little section of describing the characters, a little section of describing the setting. A little section of research. And so it’s all just so organized there. So I highly suggest authors to look into something like that. There are lots of them. Scrivener is not the only one. I know that Scrivener is not perfect. I don’t love it for doing spelling or grammar check or anything. But it’s perfect for organizing your thoughts.
Alessandra Torre: I have to absolutely second this. I love Scrivener, and Scrivener is pretty inexpensive when you look at it. I mean, compared to Word, it’s cheaper than Word. And I for the exact same reason that Kathleen said, if I can, I can see everything. I can move around. I can also put placeholders if I’m like, oh, you know, write this scene, write that scene. And I could just create a little card for each scene that I need to write. And then it might turn out, I don’t need to write that once I, you know, organized everything. And I can also just delete entire scenes and it just puts it down like in my trash can. So if I want to bring it back, I can. There’s just a ton of really thoughtful features. I could do a whole episode. We should probably do an episode on First Friday about Scrivener, because it’s got just some really cool features and everything. It seems like there was definitely a novelist involved in the creation.
Kathleen Fine: Right? And I still haven’t learned all the tools. I just learned, but, you know, use what you need. And I know there’s other things like that like Ulysses and I think there are like a handful of other organizational things like that. But that was just the one that I saw Sally Hepworth talk about. So I used it because I like her books.
Alessandra Torre: Another cool thing about it which I think will lead into another topic, is it has a really cool word count, like daily word count and project targets. So I use that a lot. So I say, OK, I want to write 70,000 words and I need to finish on this date. And I only write on Monday, Wednesday, Friday or whatever date it is, and then it will calculate out how many words I need to write. And if one day I don’t write enough, it just recalculates it instantly. If I write, you know a lot, one day it’ll recalculate it, but each day I can see how far I’ve gone on the graph, and how many words I have left. And then I get this pop up like, oh, you hit your words, whatever. And I love that. And I think you and I were pre chatting about the length of a book and how many words. So can you talk a little bit about that aspect of when you’re writing, how to know how long your book should be and how to space that out over a time period to write.
Kathleen Fine: Yeah, definitely. So, with my first novel, I just had the idea in my head and just started writing. And maybe halfway through or three quarters of the way through, I was like, how many words, you know, I didn’t know how to judge how when I was supposed to be done. So I looked up the industry standards and, you know, publishers look for a certain word count. And it’s important to know that. And it’s not just based on, you know, middle grade young adult. It’s based on your genre also. So if you’re a thriller writer, it might be a little bit shorter than a fantasy, which those books can be very long, or historical fiction. So you need to figure out what your word count is going to be, kind of at the beginning. So then you can kind of make goals. And Scrivener has the tool where you can put your project goals. Maybe you want your novel to be 90,000 words, and then that’ll kind of calculate your daily goals. So it’s really important to do a word, goal count of words. And something I did for my second novel, I was maybe a quarter of the way in and I saw on social media that there’s National Novel Writing Month, which is just a website. Anybody can join it, and it just has you for the month of November writing 50,000 words for that month, which roughly is about 1,700 words a day. And you can follow people you want on social media or have, you know, add friends, but it just gives you inspiration to if you see, so-and-so has written 30,000 words and you’re only on 20,000, that might make you want to write more. So for my second novel, I did that National Novel Writing Month, that whole thing, and I finished it. It gave me so much initiative to do it. And November is, you know, coming up soon. So even if you’re in the middle of your book right now, you can still join in on that and it’ll give you just the chance to finish it. And, with my first novel, a big problem with me, with my word goal count, is I would get stuck and I wouldn’t know what to do in a chapter. And so I would just kind of put my laptop away and walk away for a couple of days. And I’ve learned that instead of just stopping and walking away, just write a placeholder like something happens here and move on to the next chapter or the next section or the next scene. That way you’re not wasting any time walking away and, you know, just thinking about it. Whether it be, you know, they’re going to fight in this part of the book or they break up in this part or whatever. Just write a place setter and then you can come back to that later. And that’ll just make it so you have no excuse to not at least write something for that part.
Alessandra Torre: I love that. So when you get stuck in a scene, if you don’t know what you want or the next line or how to finish it, just put a note to finish it later, a summary of what should happen and go to the next scene.
Kathleen Fine: Yeah, or even if you don’t even know what’s going to happen, if you just know, like you’re this one sentence. Yeah, it’s just better than nothing, you know? Just get it done.
Alessandra Torre: I heard recently that, I always use XXX like, as my placeholder. That’s what I’ll put. And then I’ll type like, you know, insert name here or, you know, if, if there’s a fact that I don’t know or something, I always put XXX. And then later I search the book for XXX. But I recently heard an author say that I believe it was TK like 2 or 2 letters together that don’t naturally occur in any word. I mean, I’m sure there’s a word somewhere that has TK, but they always use TK and then, you know, a colon or whatever, and that’s what they use as theirs. And then later, once they finish the first draft or start rewrites, they just search for all of the TK places in the book. So I was like, oh, that that might be better than XXX, because I do feel like I’m writing like a dirty novel when I. Yeah.
Alessandra Torre: So you finished Girl on Trial and the book is what genre?
Kathleen Fine: So it is a young adult contemporary crime mystery. I didn’t even intend it to be a young adult when I first started writing it. I just had the idea in my head. But the main character is 16. So then I kind of honed in on the young adult part. So and then my second novel, actually women’s fiction, suspense thriller. So I’m kind of moving up a little to the older people.
Alessandra Torre: What was the word recount that Girl on Trial ended up being when you first started going out to publishers, and did it change by the time it’s actually being published?
Kathleen Fine: I think, jeez, I think it has gone up and down between 80 and 90,000 words, like 50 times. I’ve just, like, taken so much out. I added so much on, but it’s always been between 80 and 90. But I think it’s been in the high almost 90 and then it’s been low. So I think it kind of has changed back and forth depending on it. So it’s a little bit high for a young adult. But it’s within range of what publishers are looking for. So.
Alessandra Torre: So you had a completed first draft and then tell us how you got from that to, to where you’re at today. As far as with this book, did you do rewrites and edits? Did you hire an editor before you started reaching out to publishers, or what was that process?
Kathleen Fine: So, you know, the hardest thing when you finish your first draft, especially your first draft ever, is getting the nerve to ask somebody to read it. It’s really scary. You’re really vulnerable. And for me, I didn’t know who to ask. And I didn’t even really want to tell anybody that I did it. And so I ended up joining some social media writers’ groups. I joined some mom writers groups, just various writer groups. And they had beta readers on it. So I sent my first draft out to a couple of beta readers that I found. And you can find beta readers if you just go into Facebook and if you put it in, like, writing groups, you’ll find any. And if you’re a mom or a business, whatever, you’ll find whatever category you are. Thriller writer, you’ll find that category. So that way I could just send the Word document over to them and get feedback. And that was important because I didn’t have anybody close to me read it because a) I didn’t want them to judge me. But b) I knew they weren’t going to give me honest feedback. And so I needed somebody who just didn’t know me.
Alessandra Torre: Impartial third person. Right.
Kathleen Fine: Yeah. But I also did know a couple of people who live near me who didn’t write in my genre, but they were writers. And so I ended up having one person who, a friend of mine, read it and sit down and give me feedback. So between the beta readers and my friend, I got enough feedback to do a few rounds of edits. And then I felt comfortable enough to go looking for a professional editor. And I wished I had known about the Authors AI Marlowe tool at the time. Because I tested it out for my second novel. And I know you’ve talked about it on the podcast before. But it’s amazing because it just does it in 15 minutes, you know, it’ll tell you repetitive phrases, dialogue, verse, narrative language. I mean, it was just like, I wish I had known about that for my first novel. It would have made things so much easier. So if listeners don’t know about that, they can just go on the Authors AI page and learn about it. But that would have been really helpful to know. So after that, I then looked for a professional editor. And again, I didn’t know how to find one. So I eventually found the website reedsy.com. I don’t know if you’ve used it before, but I liked it because it’s basically a list of editors who are looking to get hired.
Alessandra Torre: And if you’re not familiar and you’re listening, it’s like Angie’s List of book professionals. So you can see them, you can read their reviews. They’re vetted for the most, you know, I mean, as vetted as someone can be.
Kathleen Fine: And, so I looked for an editor. I wanted a developmental editor who was going to look at the whole overall story rather than, you know, spelling errors or that sort of thing. And I looked for ones that. They put basically other books they’ve edited and you can kind of look at their resume. And I picked a handful of ones that had edited books that I liked and that I admired their authors. And so then I basically applied for them to edit my book. And if the thing is, though, is that if you want to do that, editors are booked up so much in advance that, you know, I had finished this and had to wait, I think five months for my editor to get to it because she was so booked. But I wanted to wait for an editor that I saw who had done a lot of books that I liked. And so I waited. And so I just had to sit there and wait five months for her to be ready for me. So a suggestion I have is that if you feel like, you know, you know, if you have your word count and goals and you know, you know, I’m going to be done by 2024. I would suggest starting to look a couple of months before that and kind of get one lined up. Just in case they’re booked. And if they say no, I’m wide open, then you don’t have to rush into it. But I would definitely start looking sooner rather than later. If you’re almost finished with your novel, editors can be booked up pretty fast.
Alessandra Torre: So you said, though, that you had a few editors like you pinpointed a few editors. And so how did you then narrow it down to just one? Did you do sample edits at all?
Kathleen Fine: I didn’t just sample edits. They just are kind of on there and you have to send them your information. I think you’re allowed to apply to five. And then I think one of them said yes, and she was ready for me right away. But she was kind of like my fifth in line. And my number one person took a couple of weeks to get back to me. So the other couple, I think maybe another one said yes, and I was just kind of waiting for the one I really wanted. And then the other two said they were just way too booked to do it and couldn’t. So I finally got the one that I wanted. But, you know, they’re so booked. You know, it just takes a long time to get a hold of one.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. That, that makes sense. So, and then once she started with you, how long was it? How long did it take her to go through your first draft?
Kathleen Fine: I think she started. I think I sent it to her, like, let’s say June 1st, and I think she had, like, six weeks to two months to give me everything back. I can’t remember now. But it seemed like a really long time for me, since I waited almost a really long time for so long. It was a long time ago and I remember it was basically the whole summer.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah.
Kathleen Fine: Right. So after I got her edits, then I was able to really change things around, because she’s looking at the whole overall picture and, you know, my beta readers and my friend who read it, they weren’t giving me such thorough feedback. I mean, this was like an analysis, you know, a few pages of an analysis. But it was and you have to pay for it, you know? But, it’s worth the money because you want to have it as polished as possible before you try to get an agent or a publisher. So that was basically what I did before I got an agent.
Alessandra Torre: Did she give you feedback that you just didn’t know what to do with, or was it pretty easy?
Kathleen Fine: Yeah, I mean, it took a long time. I think I went in order of the easiest stuff to the hardest stuff, you know. It took a long time, you know. If it’s your first time getting that much feedback, you’re like, oh my gosh, this is going to take forever. So it did take a long time just to go through each thing because they’re not telling you what to do. They’re just telling you this isn’t working. Yeah. You know, and so you need.
Alessandra Torre: They are identifying the problem. So you have to figure out the solution.
Kathleen Fine: Right. So it took a long time. So that whole process probably took a whole year of just getting it to where I thought it should be to get an agent, basically. And then I started looking for agents. There are lots of different ways to find one. You know, agents, like Publishers Marketplace and everything. One thing I did is I just looked up all the authors that my book was comparable to, or books that I loved, and I found those authors. And then I found out who their agents were or who their agencies were. And then I looked to see if they weren’t taking queries. I looked to see if there were any other agents in their group who were taking queries, or if they even fit with what my book was like, since my book is Y.A. and contemporary. Not all publishers take YA or agents are looking for YA. And, you know, agents always put on a wish list. And, you know, if they’re just looking for fantasy or romance, it’s just pointless and a waste of everybody’s time to query them in the first place. So I made sure to make a spreadsheet. And that’s something I did right the first time, just because I’m very organized and I like having things. So I just made my own spreadsheet of, you know, every agent, their email, what they’re looking for, you know, and if I was going to submit to them and then whenever they did write back to me, I would, you know, mark it off or make sure that I had a record of it, because if you forget who you query after a while, you know, if after X amount of rejections. And so I made sure and I really suggest, I think there are probably programs you can buy for an organization for this, but I just did it on an Excel spreadsheet. Just organizing the agents. And, that just is important. So you don’t forget who you’ve already queried.
Alessandra Torre: How many agents did you query in total? And how many responded?
Kathleen Fine: So I first started out, so I started out with like my top five agents I wanted, which was a mistake because I, you know, looked at the biggest, biggest authors that are, you know, bestsellers. And I was like, I want their agents. And that was my mistake. Because I queried them first. And my book. I thought it was ready. It was not. And so I submitted to them first and. They’re so busy they’re not even going to give you feedback. They just are like, no, thank you, it’s not for me. I’ll pass. So I kind of, in my spreadsheet, made a list of — an order of most important. And then I went down the list. But I should have started out more towards the middle of the list and worked my way up because I kind of blew it and wasted it. And by the time I got down to the middle of my list, I had already edited it probably ten times. Just from all of the feedback from what the agents gave me when they rejected me. So I used each rejection as a tool. And whenever they gave me feedback, whether it is I need more dialogue or I’m not connecting with the main character or whatever, I would then re-edit. And so it was kind of like little gold nuggets that I got with each rejection that I was able to then re-edit and update my manuscript. And so by the time I finally got my agent, I had used basically all of the rejections to make my novel as strong as it was. So I, I mean, over 50, I had I queried. I have the lists on my computer here somewhere, but it was a lot that I had queried. And I had, you know, I started out with the top.
Alessandra Torre: It’s not a process I’m familiar with. I’ve never queried before. But like, what would be an example? Like you would get a rejection letter and it would just have one or two suggestions? Or would you get a full breakdown? Like an editorial letter.
Kathleen Fine: It depends. And sometimes it’s just, you know, “not for me.” Sometimes it’s just “No, I’ll pass.” And then sometimes they just say one line, like, “I’m not connecting with the character.” I took anything I got and there were maybe two or three agents who, one who gave me two pages of feedback, which was I mean, people pay for that. And so I really used her feedback, and, I mean, it took me a long time. It was basically paying an editor to tell you what you needed to fix. So I, like profusely thanked her, for that feedback. So, I mean, every agent’s different. Obviously, the top, top ones are and give you reach.
Alessandra Torre: Did you send it back to her or no? Like, would you make her recommendations and send them back to her?
Kathleen Fine: The ones that, I think there were maybe two that I had sent back to. But the other ones, I think, just were like, “I’ll pass, but this is the feedback” and I didn’t want to. Yeah.
Alessandra Torre: Well, we only have two minutes left and I know that you probably have more things you want to share. I just do want to say, though, you are so brave. This process that you’re describing sounds terrifying. You’re like, oh, yeah, They said, no, but they gave me this and I changed it. Like a lot of authors would go and cry in a room for four days, you know?
Kathleen Fine: But after the 50th time, you get used to it. I think, you know, the first couple. And nobody ever says anything mean, at least in my experience. People would just say no, and I did. I am sensitive, and, you know, it’s always tough when you get a no. But, you know, you get so many that I just had to learn to grow. You know, I grew from it and learned from what they had to say. But luckily for me, I didn’t get anybody saying, this is terrible. You’re a horrible author. I just got, you know, I’m not connecting with this person or, you know, whatever. Nothing was ever bad enough that it was going to make me go cry. And I really suggest people to use whatever any agent says and use it to, to better their manuscript.
Alessandra Torre: So can you tell us how you ended up getting your publishing deal? And if there were any mistakes that you made in that process.
Kathleen Fine: So I eventually had probably edited my novel at least 30 to 40 times. I mean, after each rejection, I at least changed a few things in my novel. And then I started submitting to publishers because there are some publishers who do accept unagented submissions. So I actually ended up getting my publisher first, and then the next day my agent wrote to me and said she was interested in me. So it was like within two days, I got them both. But I really do think it was just persistence. Just every time you get a no, and especially if you get fifty nos like me, you just have to keep using what they say and making it better. Because if you’re getting fifty nos, then there are probably some things you need to change. So I really suggest just continuing to be open to edit and improve it as much as possible.
Alessandra Torre: Was book two with the same publisher and the same agent?
Kathleen Fine: So book two I have the same agent and we are going to shop around publishers right now. She’s read it and she’s given me feedback. So we’re on three rounds of edits with the same agent. But we’re going to shop around publishers and, and see if we can get anything else out. Yeah.
Alessandra Torre: Absolutely. Advance congrats on the upcoming release. Can you just share the release date and again, the name, just in case they missed it?
Kathleen Fine: It’s October 24th with CamCat books, and it’s called Girl on Trial.
Alessandra Torre: Girl on Trial. Fantastic. And it is a hardcover release, right? With hardcover and e-book?
Kathleen Fine: And audiobook and e-book.
Alessandra Torre: Yeah. Fantastic. Well, it was a pleasure talking with you. Thank you so much. We have some comments. Thank you for the great information. Another person said they’re surprised to hear you got feedback from any agent. Most say they don’t have time. And hello to everyone on YouTube too. I see your comments. So thank you so much. And if you enjoyed this broadcast, we encourage you to check out more at Authors AI or wherever you watch your video podcast. And, we’ll be back in a week or two with another First Draft Friday. So thank you so much, Kathleen, and thank you to everyone who came.
