Finding a Reputable Agent or Publisher

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I recently got an excited email from an acquaintance whose book had been accepted by a "publisher" with a terrible reputation for doing very little publishing and a great deal of stealing starry-eyed writers' hard-earned dollars. I had to give her the bad news that the publisher was not only disreputable, it was a scammer.

To keep the same thing from happening to you (or your friends), it's good to understand what makes a publisher reputable or reprehensible. Read on!

How Do I Find a Reputable Agent or Publisher?

There are a lot of ways to get published these days; Jane Friedman summarized them well in her recent objective infographic, 5 Key Book Publishing Paths. With regards to financial risk and value, a summary of her paths is:

1. Traditional: Advance + royalties model; publisher takes on all financial and creative risk but is extremely selective about which books are chosen (e.g. Penguin)
2. Partnership: No fee to publish, no advance; partner selective about which books are chosen (e.g. Rogue Reader)
3. Fully Assisted: Author pays upfront free; all work is accepted (e.g. AuthorHouse). This is also sometimes referred to as vanity publishing.
4. DIY + Distributor: Author does most work, pays service for conversion of all files into e-book, POD, or print; distribution service may take a percentage of sales and is responsible for paying you (e.g. CreateSpace)
5. DIY Direct: Author does all work and provides retailers with completed books; retailer takes a percentage of sales (e.g. Amazon KDP)

Friedman's Key Publishing Paths Infographic

For a long time, the die-hard rule of the road was, never give money to an agent or a publisher, but the pond has gotten a lot muddier with so many available options. If you wish to self-publish or go through a “fully assisted” service like Author House, you will be paying some money to see your book published; however, if you produce a true quality product that people want and you are willing and able to do the work to promote it, you may do extremely well.

The most outspoken (and one of the most successful) self-publishing authors is J.A. Konrath, who could be called an entrepreneur. He's had so much success and made so much money that he had no problem turning down a $500K publishing deal from a mainstream publisher in 2011.

Of all the publishing approaches, the “fully assisted” (aka vanity) route is still seen by most as the worst since the service will publish anything, regardless of quality, and along the way they will push you to spend more and more money on things you don't need. As Friedman notes, “The self-pub success stories you hear about do not come from full-assist services.” So if you’re going to self-publish, take one of the DIY approaches.

If you want to go a more traditional route, however, you will either need to go through an agent or approach small publishers directly. The trick to this can be sorting the shysters from the reputable, so let’s look at some rules of thumb.

Agents

Not all resources, including some of the big-name publications and databases, put the legitimacy of the agent or agency first, but QueryTracker does. Though you should always keep your eyes open, administrator Patrick McDonald does his utmost to include only reputable agents. People frequently ask why this agent or that agent is not included, and now you know why. (Note: Sometimes there is nothing actually wrong with an agent, she may just be new enough that she has not yet built any reputation either way.)

You should never give money to an agent. If one tries to charge you for anything—from reading to editing to finding a home for your book—run.  Many less-than-upstanding “agents” make their money not from book sales, but from referring unwitting authors to editors who will charge them an arm and a leg without actually providing a quality service. In these cases, the agent gets a kickback from the editor. It’s fine for an agent to recommend more extensive editing than she is willing to do, but choose your own editor rather than accepting a referral. And if an agent takes you on, her editing assistance must be free.  It’s a conflict of interest for an agent who is also your editor to take your money.

When you find an agent or agency that interests you, always do some additional research—and that includes agents on QueryTracker, just to be safe. Two of the best resources (listed beside each QT agent’s entry) include Preditors and Editors for agents and agencies and SFWA’s Writer Beware. You can also ask what other people have heard on message boards like those in the QueryTracker Forum.

Finally, be sure to check out the agent and agency's website and (if available) blog. Reputable agents and agencies should have significant recent sales in the area you wish to publish.

Publishers

QueryTracker has a growing list of publisher listings, which include the same information on acceptance and rejection statistics that is provided for agents and agencies.

The rules of the road are very similar to those noted above for agents.  Traditional and partnership publishers should not charge you upfront fees of any kind, including those for editing. And again, always double-check the publisher’s reputation by looking for recent sales, and by visiting Writer Beware. (If you want to take a look at one active “publisher”—who keeps changing names to try to avoid its own bad reputation—that is notorious for bilking writers, look at the Writer Beware entry on SBPRA.)

Don't Forget!

In both cases, remember—a publisher makes its money from sales. It gets the big percentage (often around 90%), and you get the small one. Likewise, a literary agent makes money because she gets a percentage—usually 15% for domestic sales and 20% for foreign sales—of any money the author makes. If an agent is involved, any money you make goes from the publisher to your agent, who takes her 15% and then sends the rest along to you.

It is therefore in the interest of such reputable agents and publishers to only choose writers who can actually sell books, because the author has to start making money on the book for them to get paid!

Once your manuscript is as polished as you can possibly get it and your betas (and/or editor) can't find much to complain about, you're ready for the next step—querying. More on choosing an agent or publisher who really "gets" your work in a future post!*

Have you ever had a bad experience or a close call with an agent, agency, or publisher? Without naming names, tell us about what you learned from the experience in the comments.

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*I’ve gotten several questions via email recently asking me about dealing with agents, so this is the third part of a series of posts on figuring out whether you’re ready to start querying, whether you need an agent,  finding a reputable agent, and choosing someone who really “gets” your work. Of course, QueryTracker.net will help you through all of the stages, and fellow QT blogger Jane Lebak recently wrote a great post on How to Use the QueryTracker Site.

Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook! 

Giveaways & Lessons from YA Author Elana Johnson

Update: Winners for the giveaways are posted in the 7/12/13 Publishing Pulse.

Eight hundred posts ago, on December 28, 2008, the QueryTracker Blog became a team effort for five aspiring writers.  Since then, a lot has changed, both in the makeup of the QTB and in the careers of those aspiring writers. Not everyone in the original team is still writing or seeking publication, but everyone has learned from their time in the trenches. We thought it was time for a series of posts sharing where everyone started, where they are now, and what they learned along the way.

To kick things off, we asked Elana Johnson, author of the YA Possession series (Simon Pulse) to tell us about her writing and publishing journey beginning with her time with the QTB (12/2008 – 7/2010) and bringing us up to date on where she is now!

Elana has graciously agreed to do a couple of giveaways as part of her interview. There are two different prizes, which will go to two different people. 

First, one of her books. If you are new to her Possession series, she will send you the first book, Possession  If you are already a fan, she will send you the latest in the series, Abandon (published June 2013). If you are in the US, you will receive a hard copy of the book; if you are outside of the US, a digital copy.

Second, Elana is a query-letter expert! She teaches classes across the country and online on how to write a killer query, and she is going to critique one lucky winner's query.

Please see entry instructions at the end of this post.

Where I Started and How QT Helped Me

I spent so much time with QueryTracker, researching agents, critiquing query letters, obsessing and celebrating in the forums, and reading and writing for the QT Blog. I still refer people to QT every chance I get.

When I started writing for the QT Blog, I didn’t have a literary agent. I’d been writing seriously for about a year, and my first project had just met its death in the query trenches. I had another book I was gearing up for querying, and since I loved blogging, taking on the QT blog was something that was natural and enjoyable.

Being part of the QT team gave me the courage to step outside my comfort zone. The first thing I did was co-organize one of the first QT agent opportunities with Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. It was amazing corresponding with agents without trying to pitch them my work. This helped me realize that agents are people too.

Signing with My Agent

I blogged with QT for 11 months before I signed with my agent, Michelle Andelman. During that time, being a QT blogger helped me establish my credibility in the writing world. I’ve been asked to teach at professional conferences based on some of the posts I wrote for the QT blog, and I still have friendships and contacts that I met “way back when” I was blogging at QueryTracker.

Publication

Since then, I’ve released three books (my Possession series –3 full-length novels + 2 short stories— was just completed with the release of ABANDON this past June!), co-launched another group blog (The League of Extraordinary Writers, which is dedicated to science fiction and fantasy), and co-founded the biggest writing conference on the Internet, WriteOnCon.

My Approach to Writing: Then and Now

What has stayed the same? I still blog a couple days a week at my own blog. I’m still with Michelle, and we’re still selling books. I still teach elementary school, and I’m still squeezing writing into the 15 minutes I have before school, or my 30-minute lunch break.

The biggest difference is that now I write under a deadline. I don’t have as much time to get my work up to par—probably the most challenging thing I’ve had to endure in this publishing gig! For those who are unpublished as of yet, enjoy this time to get your craft polished. The possibilities for you are endless. Enjoy the time you have to learn, to grow, and to make mistakes. I still do all of that (it’s not like every word I write comes out golden), but I don’t have as much time to enjoy it as pre-published authors do.

I feel like I’ve come a long way in my personal confidence. When I first started at QT, I thought, “Why would anyone listen to what I have to say?” Now, I teach classes at a variety of conferences—I’ve become the expert! I’ve been working as a freelance query letter writer for a few years, and recently went out on my own in this venture. I’ve even taken my in-person-only query letter writing workshop and launched it on the Internet.

I’m also an independent publicist, something I really enjoy. I’ve always liked doing the marketing side of writing, setting up promotions and chats and giveaways for my own books. It seemed natural to take my contacts and skills and transfer them to another author’s book. I love working with authors and book bloggers in this capacity. (You can find out about my blog tours and blitzes, as well as cover reveals, here.)

Advice to Unpublished Writers

I don’t believe the unpublished should rush into publishing. Really take the time to perfect your craft, and when you do, the rewards will come. Publishing is not a race.

My best advice for those looking to promote their books is to be as active as you can in the online community. Recently, someone asked me how I met all the book bloggers I know. I honestly couldn’t answer. It’s not like there was one specific event where I met everyone. It was something that happened over the years as I read their blogs, clicked over to their cover reveals, followed them on Twitter, and emailed them about my own books. So if you’re looking to make contacts in the publishing world, you have to be willing to spend time where publishing people hang out—and the QT forum is a great place to do that!

When the original QTB team interviewed agents and authors, we often did something we called a Fast Five—five fun, quick questions. For a while the question of the day was “Courier or Times New Roman?” but we had to move on when it became clear that the industry standard had become TNR! So here is a fresh Fast Five for our alum:

Fast Five with Elana Johnson

1. Mac or PC? Macs rule!
2. Favorite Social Media Platform? Um, Facebook? Yeah, let’s go with Facebook.
3. Writing Pet Peeve? Grammar. I always sacrifice grammar for voice and style, baby!
4. Guilty Pleasure? Mini chewy sweet tarts
5. Can’t Live Without? Lightning-fast Internet!

Entering the Giveaways

1. Comment on this post and tell us something YOU have learned from being part of the QueryTracker community. This can be from the QueryTracker Blog, the main QueryTracker site, or the QueryTracker forums. By commenting, you give us permission to quote you any of the aforementioned QueryTracker sites.
2. We will take comment entries through Wednesday, July 10th. 
3. Winners will be chosen at random and announced on Friday, July 12th in the Publishing Pulse. Please watch for this announcement, as I (Carolyn) will need the winners to contact me. I will include instructions on how to do so in that Publishing Pulse.

Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook! 

The Heroic Journey of Every Writer: Part Two

By Martina Boone @4YALit

Today, we continue the journey from where we left off on Monday. Following the dreaded rejection.

THE REWARD

But there's a hidden treasure in every rejection, a measure of achievement. We have tried. We have succeeded at putting ourselves out there. And we are learning that being creative requires us to face rejection. We are preparing ourselves for years of rejection yet to come. Rejection by agents. Rejection by editors. Rejection by acquisitions boards. Rejection by reviewers. By readers.

Art is subjective. Not every agent is going to love our work, and when we submit our first book, or our second, or third, or sixth, we may discover that it's still meeting with rejection. But maybe, maybe, instead of a form rejection, if we keep battling, we glean a piece of knowledge that points us in the right direction. We learn what we are good at writing. Do we have a great voice? A way with description? A facility with rhythm? Plot? Characterization? And we learn what work we have yet to do, all the elements of writing where we need improvement. We discover that rejection can be energizing, and we realize that we stand on the brink of a landscape that is only just opening up before us.

THE ROAD BACK

Having come through the initial battle, we must now regroup. We pull out the craft books. We dig deeper. We seek more experienced mentors. We attend different kinds of writing conferences—conferences focused on craft instead of sales. We read more fiction than we have ever read before, and we begin to read it in a different way, critically, not to find fault, but to peer beyond the curtain of story to examine the motions and machinations of the wizard. Now we are determined to complete the journey and come home with an agent and a book deal. We can smell success… Our mentors can smell it on us. (And yes, this is often the point where we do find ourselves wearing the same pajamas the entire weekend and feeding our families cold, leftover pizza for breakfast on Sunday morning.)

THE RESURRECTION 

The faster we race toward that finish line, the more painful it is to trip and fall. And we will go splat at some point. Getting a Revise and Resubmit on a manuscript may make us believe we are almost there. Or at least that the next manuscript will surely be an easy sell. After all, this time, we've done everything right. We've plotted. We've schemed and themed. We know (and like) our characters better than our siblings and in-laws. (At least some of them.) We would like to move out of our current homes and take up residence in our storybook settings. And yet. And yet. When it comes down to it, we may be close and still not close enough.

At the climax of our writer's journey, we are going to be tested again, usually when we think we can see a champagne bottle set out on the table. That's the moment when we stumble and go down. We fail. Again.

At that moment, while we're lying curled in a fetal position on the cold cobblestones and whimpering for chocolate, the thought of picking ourselves up and trying again seems like more heartbreak than we can bear. Another round of revisions? Another unagented manuscript? Another unsold book? Or one that's published but undersells or underperforms our hopes? It's all useless anyway. What's the point? We can't DO this anymore. We can't keep spending a year or more writing a manuscript, pouring ourselves into the pages, only to fail again.

But wait. This—yes, THIS—this exact moment, is our defining moment! Our darkest moment. Our long night of the soul.

Everything we create comes from within us. By sharing it with the world, we lay ourselves naked for judgment and ridicule. That's painful. It's hard. It's our battle. Sometimes it can feel as if death would be easier. Certainly, it's easier to give up.

As Walter Smith put it, "Writing is easy. You just sit down at the typewriter, open a vein, and bleed it out drop by drop."

It is also worth remembering that writing fiction is both a selfish and selfless endeavor. We write to communicate. The human spirit aches to share experiences. There are readers out there hungry to escape or enhance their own lives. And they may be struggling with a problem they will solve through or during the reading of a book. They may be searching for just the thought, the sentence, or idea, or emotion that we have labored over within the pages of the book we've written.

The moments of communion when a reader feels a book was written just for them—we've all felt like this when reading, right?—is what lets a book live on and grow beyond us. It's the elixir we are all hoping to find and bring back. The writer's holy grail. The lucky few writers who achieve a communion like that leave behind a legacy. And doesn’t that deserve a battle? Aren't we willing to fight for it? Aren't we willing to keep learning to achieve it, fighting to achieve it—because, yes, we will have to keep fighting, fighting harder, with every new manuscript we begin.

If we want, need, that elixir, we will pick ourselves up after that long night of the soul.

We will be reborn into a world that's very much bigger even than the one that we believed we had found. We finally know how very little we actually know, and we see the breadth of what we have yet to learn. That in itself is staggering. But we are committed to a lifetime of learning, experimenting, reaching. We are strengthened by our successes and our failures, and in the act of pushing past our dark moment, we finally break through that dark veil of doubt that held us back from writing in the first place. The turmoil in which we began is finally resolved, our wound is healed at last.

RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR

We return to our families and jobs at peace with ourselves, prepared to continue the journey of the writer. Whether we have achieved the first stage of publication or finally broken through with a novel that takes us to the next step, or anything in between, we carry success within us. Because we no longer feel like we're in a hurry to get "there." We can let ourselves fall in love with the process. We can love the writing, the current book, the next book, knowing that there is an endless well of creativity inside us. Not every book will sell. Not every book will sell well. But every book will teach us something, about ourselves, about our world.

Every book is a brand new journey.

FOLLOW YOUR BLISS

"If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be." ~ Joseph Campbell

Can you relate to the writer’s journey?

ABOUT MARTINA BOONE

Martina loves reading and writing books about beautiful, vicious, magical worlds that intersect our own, and about the monsters of myth and folklore that sometimes show more humanity than we do. She's the founding member of the Adventures in YA Publishing blog and runs the monthly First Five Pages Workshop. Follow her on twitter as @4YALit [http://www.twitter.com/4YALit] or visit her website.

The Heroic Journey of Every Writer: Part One

By Martina Boone @4YALit

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.” ~ Joseph Campbell

When I decided to write a novel, I didn't stop to think where I was going or how long the journey was going to be. I simply wrote. And then I discovered that the novel needed—deserved—more than that. It needed me to have a clue about what I was doing, inconsequential things, you know, like structure and story elements.

As writers, we can try to reinvent the wheel, sure, but we will get farther faster if we start with a working wheel and then concentrate on making a different or, hopefully, better one. Maybe a few of us are lucky enough to have taken English or Literature or Creative Writing. For the rest of us, learning the basics of crafting fiction is a do-it-yourself MFA program. These days, many of us are doing that program together, making the same journey and blogging about it en route. Of course, some of us are on foot and some are in race cars. But that's okay. I honestly believe we are all going to get there at the pace we need to set.

My pace? Think turtle crawl.

One of the first books of wisdom I encountered on the road was The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell. From there, I devoured Chris Vogler's The Writer's Journey. And as I was searching for a way to tighten up the framework of my manuscript, I began to correlate all the brilliant insight from these teachers and various other sources into something I called the Complications Worksheet. I go back to that worksheet each time I start a new project, and the other day while I was on the phone with the brilliant Angela Ackerman (co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus and The Bookshelf Muse blog, I had a revelation. The journey the hero takes in our manuscripts is essentially the same journey many of us take as writers.

THE ORDINARY WORLD

Here we are, bumbling through our careers and family lives, vaguely uneasy and unfulfilled but maybe not even aware that there's a void inside us, a gaping wound. Why haven't we written yet? It could be that we tried and failed, or that we had to get on with the business of making a living, or raising kids, or maybe we have a family who has always dismissed writing as a pointless pursuit—something everyone wants to try but only a chosen few achieve. Implying, of course, that we're not good enough. So we shelve our illicit hopes, paint on a smile, and get on with our lives not realizing that something inside is tugging us in a different direction than the path we are still trudging down.

THE CALL TO ADVENTURE

But then . . . Then we have a dream, or read a book, or see a movie, or witness an event that shakes us. Something stirs inside us, an elusive wisp of an idea scented with adventure. It begins to rise and pull us with it, beckoning us to come along, to put our own spin on the wheel of inspiration.

REFUSAL OF THE CALL

Of course we refuse. We're human. We're afraid. We don't have time, we don't have money, we don’t have the knowledge to pursue something as overwhelming as writing an actual book.

Or maybe we don't refuse. Maybe we take those first tentative stops, only to hear someone else, someone who means well, who doesn't want to see us hurt or disillusioned, make the refusal for us. For our own good. Because really, the idea of writing for publication is absurd, and we shouldn't have any expectations.

MEETING WITH THE MENTOR

Still, someone, somewhere, gives us a few words of encouragement. Maybe it's something as small as a sentence in the Author's Note of a book that resonates, or something we read in an interview or on a blog, or maybe we're lucky enough to know a writer. It could even be that someone reads our first hesitant scribblings and has the kindness not to laugh. These encounters give us our first supplies for the long trek, the first guideposts to set our feet on the long and rocky road. We reach deep and dig out some hidden spring of courage and take that initial, hesitant step.

CROSSING THE THRESHOLD

At the end of Act One, we've committed to venturing beyond the Ordinary World of 8 to 5, diapers, homework, cooking dinner, cleaning house. We step into a mist-shrouded swamp, someplace new and different filled with rules we don't know and emotions we're not prepared to feel. 

TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES

We don't exist in isolation. Suddenly, we encounter all sorts of other people with feelings and opinions about us and the journey we're undertaking. Some of them help us and some make us wish we'd never even thought of writing. Some aren't actual people at all; our manuscripts themselves serve every one of the roles a hero encounters in his travels: heralds, allies, mentors, threshold guardians, villains and enemies, shapeshifters, and tricksters. They all serve a role, testing us in some way while we sort out who they are to us and how we have to deal with them. Some we're happy to leave behind; they criticize us to make themselves feel better; they hold us back. Some we have to reluctantly leave behind; they present so much drama we're worn down trying to help them instead of helping ourselves. Some we follow and some we lead. All of them teach us about ourselves, all of them help us settle into the voice that will shape our themes and writing.

APPROACH 

We approach the biggest obstacle. At the time, we probably don't even know it's going to be that hard. We've got the manuscript written. Rewritten. Edited. Refined. Polished. We think the story is solid, plenty of conflict, no plot holes, no sagging middle, no weak Peggy-Sue characters. The writing shines. We've gathered our critique partners, our beta readers, and they have trained with us, cheered for us, pushed us until we know that we are ready to battle through to submission. And make no mistake, querying the marketplace is the biggest battle we will face.

THE ORDEAL

We prepare the list agents or publishers to query, and we think that puts us almost at the end of our journey. In truth, we have barely reached the midpoint. But it is the most crucial point, the initial test. Did we do more than write a book? Did we write a saleable book, a book that's unique, a book that's the right marriage of story and writing craft? One that readers will eventually hold in their hands and make greater by bringing their own experiences and ideas into the reading? We face our greatest fear, the question of worthiness. Have we spent months, years, writing something no one will ever read? We die a little each time we obsessively check the inbox and read another rejection letter.

Not to leave you hanging about what happens after a rejection (other than drowning our sorrows with chocolate), but part two of your writing journey continues on Wednesday.

Do you relate to any of the steps on the journey so far?

ABOUT MARTINA BOONE

Martina loves reading and writing books about beautiful, vicious, magical worlds that intersect our own, and about the monsters of myth and folklore that sometimes show more humanity than we do. She's the founding member of the Adventures in YA Publishing blog and runs the monthly First Five Pages Workshop. Follow her on twitter as @4YALit or visit her website.

Goal-setting for writers

Did you make a writing resolution for the new year? Writers especially need to be careful when setting goals, moreso than in other fields.Goal-setting for a hockey player is easy: “Get the puck into the net.”

Goals are especially important for writers because writing is a "squishy" pursuit. Without goals, we lack a means to judge our performance. In setting goals, however, we must be careful to make “us-dependent” goals rather than “them-dependent” goals.

A goal that is us-dependent is a goal realized through our own effort. It does not involve anyone else’s response. For example:

• I will write one poem every week.
• I will keep a journal.
• I will attend the writer’s group and bring something to critique.

A goal that is them-dependent relies on others for its fulfillment.

• I will get my novel published this year.
• I will write a column for the newspaper.

Publication and contest wins are beyond your control. You can improve your odds of publication with market research and a sparkling query, but you cannot guarantee acceptance. The editor might not even read your query. Is that rejection truly a measure of your skill? The publisher might have just accepted a piece similar to yours. The newspaper may not have any funding. While important, this sort of goal is not an accurate gauge of progress.

A writer’s goals should combine the two types. If your ultimate goal is to be published, then use that…but add in others.

Just for example, my goals one year were:

• Get a novel published.
• Get 12 pieces accepted or get 100 rejections in the process.

The first was not dependent on me. I could submit all I liked, but if my genre wasn’t snapping, I wasn’t going to sell, and I didn’t.

For the second, though, I was guaranteed to achieve one part or the other if I submitted 111 pieces: two pieces per week, and some weeks three. Plus, every rejection letter, rather than being disheartening, carried me closer to my goal!

As it turned out, I did get 12 acceptances that year, so I made my second goal. I didn’t sell the novel until the next year.

Finally, is your goal achievable? If you’ve never written a short story before, publication in The New Yorker is less achievable than the goal of bringing one highly-polished story every month to your writing group. Also, the goal must be challenging. If it doesn’t involve enough effort, we’re more likely to let it slip, and achieving it would be meaningless.

Your take-away: Set goals, but make them reasonable, and make most of them dependent on your own effort. Then get the puck into the net.