Publishing Lessons I Learned the HARD Way (Writing & Editing)

8 lessons from writing and editing four books under contract—protecting yourself from burnout, when to stet, getting extensions, and more!

My publishing journey so far has been a comedy of errors. On one hand, I’ve had four books traditionally published, and I’m grateful and proud to have gotten this far. On the other hand, things have gone wrong almost every step of the way—some out of anyone’s control (hello, pandemic on launch week), others fixable, preventable errors.

When it comes to writing and editing books under contract, all my stress-points would have been either (1) way less anxiety-inducing or (2) avoided entirely if I’d known how to handle them earlier.

So now I’m sharing lessons I’ve learned the hard way so you don’t have to. Today’s article is part of a series:

• 80+ ways publishing can reject you AFTER a book deal

• Writing and editing under contract 👈 you’re here!

• Book production

• Book marketing

• Life as an author

Believe it or not, this one probably has the least drama, so if you want the real tea, make sure to subscribe.

1. Protect yourself from burnout

Most debut authors sell a full manuscript, and their first experience working with an editor is on developmental edits, with 4-8 weeks to revise per round. (With exceptions. There are always exceptions.) Then, if their publisher picks up their option book, they usually sell it on proposal and write it under contract. Deadlines for a first draft vary widely, but sometimes they can be as little as 2-3 months.

Yep. Two or three months. To write an entire novel.

Some authors can write that fast, but others struggle, especially early-career authors who don’t yet have a set process. It took me two years to write my debut All Your Twisted Secrets before querying it, and when I sold These Deadly Games on proposal, suddenly I was staring in the face of a five-month deadline… on top of a full-time job.

Once I signed the contract for Lying in the Deep (with a four-month deadline), I left my day job to focus on writing. Still, when I sold Under the Surface the next year (with a similar deadline), I was incredibly burned out. I desperately wanted to ask for more time, but I powered through and nearly had a meltdown, then wound up rewriting it twice in developmental edits because of course my draft was a mess—my brain was a puddle of goo.

So why’d I let this happen?

I’m a people pleaser, sure, but publishing’s wonky power dynamics played a big role. After enduring five years of waiting and rejection before my first book deal, and after my first publisher dropped me because my debut launched March 2020 (when COVID closed bookstores) and sold “less than we hoped” (though it earned out within two months), I felt enormous pressure to say “yes” to everything afterward. I was terrified my new publishers would consider me a diva or drop me if I refused to write a book that fast. After all, plenty of speedy authors would jump at the chance for a contract with a Big-5 publisher! They could easily replace me… right?

After publishing my fourth book, I shifted to writing on spec to control my own pace and schedule, which is why I haven’t announced anything new yet. But since then, several wise authors have told me they simply asked their editor for more time—six months, even a year to turn in the first draft. And their editor agreed. No one canceled their contract. The book still came out, maybe a season or two later than expected, but everyone survived, and no one was branded a diva.

As it turns out, once you’re in the door, you’re on a team. It’s healthy to set boundaries early… as long as you stick to the deadlines you negotiate. (Respect is a two-way street!) So if you want more time, ask. A delayed season is better than a melted brain.

I’ll also add… I think publishers keep setting near-impossible deadlines because so many of us keep accepting them, and we’ve set a precedent that we’ll acquiesce to unreasonable demands. Without a union, we must collectively set new precedents to protect ourselves and each other.

2. Ask for extensions early

Boundaries are crucial, but when you set them matters. Publishers often juggle dozens of books each season, which takes a herculean effort of scheduling and coordination, and delays can have painful ripple effects or cause gaps in a release season. So it’s best to tell your editor as soon as you know you’ll need more time, not right before your deadline.

Here’s something I didn’t realize early in my career: once an author turns in the first draft and the editor finalizes the the production schedule, they usually build in some wiggle room in case of any delays along the way. So you may actually have a few more weeks than you think you do—but you can’t know for sure without asking!

Also, early and open communication makes it easier for your editor to fill in any gaps in a publishing season. One time, when I turned in a draft early, another of my editor’s authors asked for an extension, so we simply swapped publishing dates. It was a good thing the other author communicated her needs early enough to make that possible! All along, my guilt and perpetual people-pleasing made me think asking for more time was catastrophic… but it’s not.

3. Loop in your agent if edits are late

While much of my publishing journey has been rocky, I’ve been lucky in that all my editors have been timely with edits. The “worst” delay I’ve had was a week or two, and my editor always kept me updated. Compared to the horror stories I’ve heard, that’s nothing.

But I’ve seen enough friends experience the horror stories to include this point. Editors can be months late on edits… sometimes, close to a year. If this happens to you, it’ll push out your publication date, and worse, it’ll stall your advance payments because they’re tied to draft delivery—usually the one right before copyedits—and publication.

And that’s not to mention how when the edits finally do arrive, you’re usually asked to turn them around faster than usual because the schedule’s running so late, regardless of your other commitments.

Frankly, this is not okay. If more than a week or two passes after your editor’s deadline, loop in your agent. Agents have a ton of experience navigating this exact scenario. And if worse comes to worse, and your editor is completely ghosting you (yup, it happens), your agent will be able to escalate within the imprint.

But don’t be afraid to speak up. Just like you can’t read your editor’s mind to know what the holdup is, your agent can’t read your mind. They might not realize how stressed you are about the delay, or even how late your editor is unless you tell them (depending on how organized they are). Don’t assume “this is normal” or that your agent will step in automatically. The squeaky wheel really does get the grease.

4. Treat edit letters as a conversation

Developmental edits usually arrive as an edit letter. Mine have ranged from two to eight pages, and whenever I get one, I spiral for about 20 minutes as my brain goes, NOPE, IMPOSSIBLE, I HAVE TO GIVE ALL THE MONEY BACK. Once I settle down, I realize I actually agree with 90% of the feedback… and that lingering 10% caused my initial panic.

Usually, that 10% is when my editor suggests an idea I don’t like for tackling a problem. And here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: you don’t have to take all of your editor’s suggestions. Instead, identify the root cause of why they suggested it, then come up with a different solution you’re happy with.

The edit letter isn’t a mandate—it’s the start of a conversation. Sometimes your editor will suggest ideas for fixes with the best intention: to make your life easier. But 99% of the time, your editor will be perfectly happy with another solution. And it helps to talk it through together before you make the edits.

Here’s generally how I handle edit letters. To summarize, first I adapt the letter so it looks like a checklist. Each big plot point or character has a section header, and beneath, a bulleted list of what I plan to change. If I disagree with one of my editor’s notes, I add my question or alternate solution and highlight that bullet point.

Next, I send this new letter to my editor and schedule a Zoom call. (Yes, even as an introvert who hates Zoom!) On these calls, my editor always clarifies that any notes were suggestions, not requirements, which I know now, but is always reassuring to hear. Then we talk through all the highlighted bullet points in the document to brainstorm solutions we’re both happy with. I always leave these calls energized and motivated to dive back into my story. Again, communication solves most issues!

5. Don’t be afraid of full rewrites

I used to be terrified that someday an editor would ask me for a full rewrite. I thought of it as needing to write a whole other book under the same contract—what a waste of time! When it finally happened with Under the Surface, it felt like a gut punch, even though I knew that first draft was messy as hell. (And so was the second, because I had to rewrite it again. Did you know it was in the past tense up until its second developmental edit? Brutal!)

What I’ve learned is that rewrites can be painful, but so worth it. And they don’t mean you failed! Sometimes the bones of the plot are strong, but the way you fleshed out the characters misses. Sometimes your voice is stellar, but the pacing is too slow. Whatever it is, you’ve nailed some crucial aspect of the story that’s made your editor excited to keep working on it, and now you have a chance to level it up in a big way.

I learned more about craft in the time I rewrote Under the Surface (twice) than I have at any point in my career, and it’s now my most critically acclaimed book—an Indie Next Pick, Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and a Publishers Weekly starred review.

The key is to reframe how you think of rewrites. Instead of thinking you wasted time on a draft, think of it as the scaffolding you needed to build before laying the bricks, or even as a writing course you’re taking for free. No words are ever a waste, even the ones no one ever sees.

6. You can stet any edits

Line edits and copy edits arrive as track changes in the Word doc. Sometimes, editors will comment asking for tweaks, and other times they’ll edit the text directly. Authors can “stet” any of these requests or changes. (Stet is Latin for “let it stand,” and it tells your editor or copyeditor to leave your original wording as-is.)

These rounds of edits are my favorite part of the process. I love polishing the dialogue and making my prose sparkle, so I’m pretty chill about making changes. But sometimes, for example, a copyeditor will tweak the dialogue to make it grammatically correct, but it sounds too stiff for natural speech, especially if the character is a teen. In the beginning, I was afraid to stet too much and seem “difficult.”

Over time, I’ve learned that author friends stet even more aggressively than I do! And that’s okay. As the author, we get the final say in our artistic product. You don’t even need to justify your stet. I do like to include a reason, though, even if it’s as simple as “Stet for voice.” My editors have only pushed back on my stets a few times—and when they do, I’ll take a closer look, find the root issue, and address it. But most of the time, my stets stand.

Pro tip: Always carefully review your pass pages to make sure your stets were actually stetted. This has never happened to me, but friends’ editors have missed or ignored their stets, and they had to edit the pass pages to change it back.

7. Ask for authenticity reads

If you’ve written side characters outside your lived experience—especially when it comes to marginalized identities—no matter how much research you’ve done, getting authenticity reads (a.k.a. a sensitivity read) is crucial. No author is perfect, and this process can both strengthen those characters and save you from causing unintentional harm. Some publishers will arrange for a reader on their own, but others don’t unless you request it.

And you should. Don’t be afraid to ask.

At first, I worried my publishers wouldn’t want to fit in an extra round of revision in the editorial process. But every time I’ve asked for an authenticity read, across multiple publishers, they agreed with zero pushback. They did all the legwork, too—they found the right readers and covered the cost. I’m so grateful for the readers who took the time to review my books and provide input, and to my publishers for being so accommodating.

8. Request extra proofing rounds if needed

Every book goes through proofreading (called “pass pages”), but not every publisher gives you multiple rounds. After the proofread, you’ll do a final read-through of your formatted PDF, and sometimes, you’ll catch typos that’ve slipped through. Other times, it’s more than just typos—lingering continuity errors, a lack of fact-checking, or corrections that caused more mistakes than they fixed.

If you notice enough of these, it’s okay to ask for another round of proofreading. The one time I had to ask, I was nervous to seem like an overcritical diva. But when my agent made the request, my editor agreed right away, and even noted she was disappointed in the proofread as well. Once again, I worried for nothing!

I hope sharing these lessons I’ve learned the hard way helps make your journey a bit smoother. Publishing is messy and sometimes downright absurd, but it’s also full of people who care deeply about books and want to see yours (and you!) succeed. The more you know going in, the better you can protect your time and sanity and be a strong advocate for your own work. Stay tuned for my next article in this series on the book production process, in which… erm… I’ll spill some tea that’s quite a bit spicier. 🤪

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