Risky Business
And, do you ever throw books away?
Writing a book involves obvious risks. You might
waste years and not finish
write a terrible book
lose money producing or marketing it
embarrass yourself online trying to sell it
A risk that haunts me is that people whose opinion I value will read the unfinished draft of my book (because they offer, or I ask them to), but they will never see the massively rewritten, polished, and published book.
I’m not talking about agents and editors. They understand the process, the potential, how much revision goes into the finished product. They’re used to reading and rereading. Think, rather, about giving your draft to your sister, your best friend, or other writers in your circle who offer or agree to read it. Are you cringing?
Of course they’ll find things wrong with it. It’s a draft! Even if you completely rewrite the book before it comes out, even if you tell them you threw out twelve chapters, wrote eight new ones, added new characters, and spiced it up with humor, they still aren’t going to read your book again. Why would they? It wasn’t that great the first time.
If someone has read drafts of all your books over the years, and only drafts, face it: They might not think you’re a very good writer. They read better books all the time. They might not take into account that those books have been put through the wringer and ironed out by experts. Writers aiming for traditional publication are forced to share their work with an agent or editor, sometimes with many, and they normally go through a number of revisions.
I suspect that most self-published writers don’t share their work at all before publication, for a variety of reasons.
They’re afraid it’s not good.
Their friends and family aren’t available for that kind of favor. It’s a big ask.
They aren’t plugged into circles where members volunteer to beta-read or trade critiques.
They can’t afford to hire editorial help.
This is why, without the benefit of many eyes and revisions, indie books are often published before they’re the best they can be. (To put it kindly.)
I read online that many writers don’t share their work out of fear it will be stolen. Two things keep me from laughing out loud at this highly unlikely scenario: (1) A writer’s work is one of their most precious possessions, and fear of losing it is natural, and (2) people see how easily pirated material spreads online, so it might seem feasible that someone could steal a novel, post it in the right place, and claim the glory and riches that result.1 I suppose it has happened once or twice. In movies.
A work pirated and posted online is far more likely to languish in obscurity. Take Ernest Hemingway’s famously stolen suitcase as an antidote. As Hemingway tells it in his memoir The Moveable Feast, the suitcase contained the only copies of most of his unpublished works. And yet, as far as we know, none of it later turned up anywhere in publication.2
Is there a point to this post? Only that I’m halfway through writing the first draft of book 3 of The Time-Jinx Twins, and I’m beginning to think about beta readers. Since there’s quite a lot of pseudoscience in this one (electromagnetism, nuclear physics, alchemy, all of which are more or less the same to me), I’m wondering if my nephew - a nuclear engineer and a great reader all his life - would be willing to read it.
Actually, I’m almost certain he would. Think how great it would be to have his critical eye on my attempts to sound plausible in a world I’ve never inhabited. If there are gaffes and stupidities, I’d have a chance to correct them. If at least parts of it passed inspection, it would boost my confidence. On the other hand . . . well, I’ve already described the risk. I won’t be able to hide my ignorance.3
I think it will be worth it.
Throwing out books
Does the thought of putting books in the trash make you queasy? Why would anyone do such a thing? There are so many alternatives! Give them to a local school or library. Put them in those “Little Libraries” that sprouted all over the neighborhood during the pandemic. Make purses out of them.
I recently trashed 40-some copies of my children’s books. It went so strongly against the grain to put them in the garbage, I put them in a box by the door and looked at them for about three months before I actually carried through.
The problem was, they were old editions of two books I had since updated to reflect changes in societal norms. In my young adult novel Eddie’s War, in resolving the thread about Jozef, the Roma man falsely accused of arson, I hadn’t given him sufficient agency. Young Eddie is the book’s hero, but I didn’t mean him to be a “white savior.” With minor tweaking I was able to make it more clear that Jozef had choices, and that Eddie’s own power was limited.
In addition, my WWII characters’ use of the word “gypsies” was historically accurate. But in revising for the 2023 edition, I was able to reduce the number of mentions and introduce the word “Roma” in any context that made sense.
In the case of my picture book The Bridge Dancers, the ending had seemed fine in 1991. Callie’s rash behavior results in an injury and a “fearsome scar” on her leg, but she shrugs it off with characteristic brio: “Callie says that when she goes to live in the city she’ll wear long pants like the men and no one will ever know.”
In 2023, when I decided to bring the book back in print, the idea of having to hide a scar was repugnant to me. In the new edition, “Callie doesn’t mind one bit. ‘I’m glad of it,’ she says. ‘It gives me an air of mystery.’”
Maybe clever crafters could have upcycled those old copies. I’ve heard there’s a way to fold book pages into Christmas trees. But I didn’t want to risk someone “rescuing” what looked like perfectly good books. I feel better knowing they’re landfill.
Trilogy News
Book 2 of the Time-Jinx Twins series, The Missing Magician, will release on October 13, 2026, if all goes well. Here are some ways to support its publication in advance:
Click this “Want to Read” button at Goodreads.
Post a rating or short review of The Time-Jinx Twins (book 1) at Goodreads or Amazon.
Request The Time-Jinx Twins and/or The Missing Magician at your local library or in your online library app (Libby, Overdrive, etc.).
Pre-order at your favorite online retailer.
Recommend me to your local elementary, middle school, or junior high for a classroom visit or assembly presentation.
Buy a book!
Pre-order at Bookshop
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble
Pre-order for Kindle
(Amazon doesn’t do pre-orders for print.)
Thank you!
New writers who fear their writing is bad commonly expect to earn a living from it nonetheless.
Like Hemingway, I once lost the only copy of a manuscript in a stolen suitcase, my master’s thesis. Unlike Hemingway, I never recovered from the loss, which is one reason I don’t have a PhD in Classics. (I did manage to collect the MA.) I literally did not talk about it for years.
Did you know thermal energy makes its surroundings warm not because it throws off heat, but because it absorbs cold? Did you ever in your life give that a single thought? Me neither.
I am agape at footnote number two. Though it seems you've recovered in some measure, I still send my sincere condolences.