Unsolicited: Some Gentle Advice for Authors – Gawker:
Don’t:
* suck up to your editor while simultaneously being a dick to her assistant, who’s doing all the real work anyway. They’ll compare notes, and you won’t like the results.
* second-guess or nag, even if you totally know what you’re talking about. Run your issues by your agent. If it’s necessary to bring them up, she will. If it’s not, she’ll protect you from yourself.
* make excuses about missing a deadline.
* make excuses about missing a deadline via a 1000 word blog post about the horrors of writer’s block.
* offer rebuttals to every one of your editor’s suggestions. Either make them, or don’t. Your editor doesn’t really care which, as long as she doesn’t have to hear about it.
* expect your editor or publicist to have an hour to spend on the phone with you every day. Want her to work harder on behalf of your book? Leave her alone, so she can get back to doing so.
* send ten emails with ten different questions in them. Wait until you have ten questions, and then send the email. Or better yet, delete it.
* imagine that your book is the only thing on your editor’s plate.
* call constantly fretting about sales in the weeks just after your book has been published.
* call constantly fretting about your Amazon ranking, which you should KNOW is almost completely meaningless.
* call constantly.
* call.
(Via P&T (or is it T&P? Better make it that, or everyone will think I’m talking about Penn & Teller.).)