Going Pro

Part 1: Your Manuscript

When you’ve decided to make the move from writer (someone who writes for fun, or for personal reasons, who won’t share what’s written beyond friends and family) to author (someone who writes for profit, who publishes in the hopes of reaching readers worldwide), stop looking at your writing as a hobby and instead consider it a business. It’s very easy to hide behind the relative anonymity of the internet and not take anything you do or say online seriously. But once you start trying to publish online, you want to be treated as a professional.

The chapters in this section will deal with writing in general—finding time to do it, finding readers to help you hone your craft, and preparing your manuscript for submission in the hopes of getting published. If you treat your writing as a business, then publishers will treat you with professional courtesy and respect, and you can make the move from writing only for yourself to going pro.