Ask Me Literally Anything
Celebrating the one-year anniversary of my substack with an open call
One year ago, I created a Substack account and sent out my first newsletter. It was a sort of rallying cry for playing the volume game: write quickly, write a lot, submit everywhere, shake off the rejections, submit some more.
That newsletter went out to 35 subscribers, most of whom were fellow writers in my MFA program. (The other subscribers were friends and relatives of mine who just signed up to be supportive.)
At that time, I had a pretty good sense of my audience: fiction MFA candidates who wanted to place short stories, sign with an agent, and publish a novel. Because I had very recently done those things, and because I had worked in the publishing industry for basically all of my professional life, I figured I was in a position to offer some advice.
Now, I have 3,500 subscribers. (Hello!) I have sent out 44 newsletters in the past year, with a total word count of—actually, I’m going to make you guess. What do you think is the combined word count of all the newsletters I’ve sent out? I’ll tell you in a footnote.1
The point is, this project has grown quite a bit beyond my original conception for it. I am now in the position of trying to guess what 3,500 people might find useful, rather than addressing the immediate concerns of 35 friends and acquaintances. This is a higher bar—and yet I feel a certain pressure to keep clearing the bar, because you’ve all given me your time and attention and I want to keep earning it.
So you can imagine that when selecting the topic for, let’s say, my one-year-anniversary newsletter, I might experience a certain level of decision paralysis. What would be a universally applicable and yet appropriately concise topic to address in a 2k-word newsletter? How can I commemorate the past year of work I’ve put into this project without focusing excessively on myself, my goals, my reflections? What if my frustration with the publishing industry is at such high tide right now that I don’t have anything cheerful or practical or optimistic to say?
Last time I hit the wall with this Substack, some very kind readers chimed in with ideas for future posts. So I’m going to ask for help again. What do you want to know about the publishing process? What keeps eluding you in your craft? What do you try to research online, only to discover that no one has written about it? What do you feel intuitively to be true that no one else ever seems to acknowledge? What would help you move forward? What would help you make the next decision? What do you want to know about me? What do you want me to know about you?
You can answer these questions or ask better ones in the comments below. You can also email me directly via the contact form on my website.
Thank you for reading, thank you for subscribing, and please do check out the comments on this post—I will be reading and answering all of them.
Onward!
Combined word count of newsletters thus far: 127,971 words.
Devon--re your comment that you don't aim to be merely as good as the books that are out there, but better--my bottle of tea today was in a flavor that was yecchh (I needed the buzz) but the inside of the cap said "Sailors navigate by the stars, not by the ships who've gone before them," or something like that. So, yes.
I think what makes your Substack stand out for me, what makes it so compelling, is the rare combination of your multiple perspectives as a former agent, editor, MFA graduate, and now author. As someone whose debut novel has been on submission for over a year, everything you post— from the close readings, to tips about craft, querying and dealing with agents, your insights on how editors choose books and assessments of current day publishing, is so intelligent, always interesting and very helpful! Thank you so much Devon, you are amazing!