If I had a dollar for every author who reached out to me agonizing over the bio section of their query letter I would have enough money to personally buy Amazon dot com.
In particular, authors agonize over whether they have sufficient publishing credits and whether said publishing credits are properly framed. (Here’s how to list publishing credits, for what it’s worth).
But here’s the thing, folks: you probably don’t need publishing credits. Agents don’t tend to care all that much, particularly for fiction.
If you’re writing fiction, publishing credits can definitely help attract an agent if you’ve been published in major publications. But if you have the type of publishing credits that would impress an agent your inbox is already full of inquiries from agents wondering if you have representation.
And if you don’t have publishing credits, it doesn’t really matter that much if you have a novel that an agent will love. I didn’t have a publication credit to my name before I got a book deal for Jacob Wonderbar.
For nonfiction, your platform really matters and publishing credits may well be a part of that platform. But they don’t have to be publishing credits. If you have a good book idea and a wildly popular YouTube channel and you’ve never written an article in your life, publishers will not likely care.
Don’t get me wrong. Publishing credits can help. But you probably don’t need them. I’d focus much more of your energy on writing a great book.
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!
Art: The Governors of the Guild of St Luke, Haarlem by Jan de Bray
That’s a relief! Thanks. (Love that painting. So much going on there.)
Hey Nathan! What about a social media following?
Helpful but also not mandatory!
Ha, even in the nonfiction area, publishing credits may not help. I first self-published in 1989 and my books (mainly self-published) have now sold over 1,000,000 copies. My books are published in 22 languages in 29 countries (book deals arranged through me and not through a North American agent). I have three true international best-sellers (each that have sold at least 100,000 copies in print). In the last ten years I still have not been able to get an American or Canadian publisher to publish any of my new books. I’m all not that worried, though. I will still create at least two more true international best-sellers through self-publishing.
Thanks for this information, Nathan. It is encouraging 🙂
Lol. As an editor, I too have tried my best to comfort writers over their bio section—making a similar point as you here, Nathan. I agree about the publishing platform for nonfiction, and I encourage those of you with a story to tell to be engaged in your online community (in your area of focus) in ways you are comfortable with. For me, it’s Instagram and Facebook—I’ve pretty much given Twitter the bird…
For poets, I would argue it’s a different story (unless you are Amanda Lovelace or Rupi Kaur). For the rest of us, it means journal and magazine publication before someone like Copper Canyon Press will take a genuine look at ya. But I’ve learned submitting to literary journals is good practice. It really hones the craft, and I would suggest that practice to short story writers, too. 🙂
“If I had a dollar for every author who reached out to me agonizing over the bio section of their query letter I would have enough money to personally buy Amazon dot com.”
So, a TRILLION authors have reached out to you over this, Nathan? Mostly alien obviously, in the sense of extraterrestial, since there are only seven billion people on earth. In fact, there may not be enough habitable planets in our local Galaxy to acommodate them. Intergalactic publishing indeed! But that does explain where your Jacob Wonderbar stories come from. They’re TRUE!
But, seriously Nathan, thanks for this article!