I’m going to be honest with you: writing a book is not the hard part. Finishing one that’s actually ready for someone else to read — that’s where most people stall out. I’ve ghostwritten over a dozen books for other people, and I’ve watched the publishing process from the inside more times than I can count. So when someone asks me how to write a book to get published, I don’t give them the inspirational pep talk. I give them the version that would’ve saved me a lot of wasted time when I was starting out.

This isn’t a fluffy “follow your dreams” post. It’s the practical, sometimes uncomfortable truth about what it takes to go from a messy first draft to a book that actually lands on shelves — or screens. Let’s get into it.

Before You Write a Single Word, Get Clear on What You’re Writing

This sounds obvious, but I’ve seen so many writers skip this step and pay for it later. Before you start drafting, you need to answer a few basic questions. What genre are you writing in? Who is your ideal reader? What books already exist in this space, and how is yours different?

When I ghostwrite for clients, the first thing we do is spend time on positioning. Not the writing itself — the thinking around it. Because a book that doesn’t have a clear place in the market is going to struggle, no matter how well it’s written.

Go to a bookstore. Browse the shelf where your book would sit. Read the back covers. Look at what’s selling and ask yourself what gap your book fills. This isn’t selling out — it’s being smart. Publishers and agents think in terms of market fit, so you should too.

Write the Rough Draft Without Overthinking It

Here’s something I tell every client and every writer friend who asks: your first draft is supposed to be bad. Not mediocre. Bad. Give yourself permission to write something messy, because that’s the only way you’ll actually finish it.

I learned this through ghostwriting. When you’re writing someone else’s book on a deadline, you don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. You sit down, you write the agreed-upon word count, and you move on. Some days the writing flows. Most days it doesn’t. You do it anyway.

Set a daily or weekly word count goal that’s realistic for your life. For most people, 500 to 1,000 words a day is plenty. At that pace, you’ll have a full draft in three to six months. That might sound slow, but it’s faster than the alternative — which is spending two years “working on” a book that never gets past chapter four.

Structure Matters More Than You Think

One of the biggest differences I see between publishable manuscripts and ones that get rejected is structure. Not the prose — the bones of the story. A beautifully written book with a sagging middle and a rushed ending will not get picked up. A decently written book with a tight, satisfying structure has a real shot.

If you’re writing fiction, study story structure. I don’t mean you need to follow a rigid formula, but you should understand the basics: how to set up a compelling opening, how to build tension through the middle, and how to deliver an ending that earns the reader’s emotional investment. Save the Cat, Story Grid, the three-act structure — pick a framework and use it as a guide, not a cage.

For nonfiction, structure is even more critical. Each chapter needs a clear purpose, and the book as a whole should take the reader on a logical journey from problem to solution, or from question to understanding. I outline every nonfiction book before I draft it, and I’ve never regretted that extra planning time.

Revision Is Where the Real Writing Happens

I mean this literally. The draft is just raw material. The revision is where you turn it into something someone would want to publish. When people ask me how to write a book to get published, this is the part I spend the most time on — because this is where most writers give up or cut corners.

After finishing a draft, I put it away for at least two weeks. A month is better. You need distance so you can come back with fresh eyes and see what’s actually on the page instead of what you think is on the page.

Then I do multiple passes, each with a different focus:

• First pass: big picture. Does the structure work? Are there plot holes or chapters that don’t pull their weight? Is the pacing off?
• Second pass: scene and chapter level. Does each scene have a purpose? Is the dialogue doing work? Are transitions smooth?
• Third pass: line editing. Tighten sentences, cut filler words, fix clunky phrasing. This is where you polish.
• Fourth pass: proofread. Typos, grammar, formatting. Boring but necessary.

If that sounds like a lot of work, it is. But this is what separates a manuscript that gets requests from agents from one that gets form rejections.

Get Outside Feedback Before You Query

You cannot objectively evaluate your own work. I’ve been writing professionally for years, and I still can’t. You need other eyes on your manuscript before it goes anywhere near an agent or publisher.

Start with beta readers — people who read in your genre and can give you honest, constructive feedback. Not your mom. Not your partner. Someone who will tell you that chapter twelve drags or that your protagonist is annoying in the first fifty pages. That feedback stings, but it’s the kind that makes your book better.

If your budget allows, hire a developmental editor. This is someone who looks at the big-picture elements: plot, character arcs, pacing, voice. A good developmental editor is worth every penny, because they catch the structural problems that beta readers might only sense but can’t articulate. I’ve worked with editors on both sides — as a ghostwriter delivering manuscripts and as a writer getting my own work reviewed — and the difference it makes is night and day.

Understand the Publishing Paths Available to You

There’s no single answer to how to write a book to get published, because “published” means different things now. You’ve got three main routes, and each one has trade-offs.

Traditional publishing means querying literary agents, getting representation, and having your agent sell your book to a publishing house. This path gives you professional editing, cover design, distribution, and (sometimes) an advance. The downside? It’s slow, competitive, and you give up a lot of creative control.

Self-publishing means you handle everything yourself — or hire people to help. You keep more royalties and full control, but you’re also responsible for editing, cover design, formatting, marketing, and distribution. It’s a real business, and treating it like a hobby usually shows in the results.

Hybrid publishing sits somewhere in between. You pay for professional services but retain more rights than traditional publishing offers. Quality varies a lot here, so do your homework before signing anything.

I’ve seen great outcomes from all three paths. The right one depends on your goals, your budget, and how much control matters to you.

If You’re Going Traditional: How to Query Agents

This is the part that intimidates most writers, and I get it. Querying feels like putting your soul in an envelope and waiting for someone to reject it. But it’s a learnable skill, and approaching it professionally makes a huge difference.

Your query package typically includes three things: a query letter, a synopsis, and sample pages (usually the first ten to fifty pages, depending on the agent’s guidelines). The query letter is a one-page pitch — think of it as the back cover copy for your book, plus a brief paragraph about you and why you’re the right person to write it.

A few things I’ve learned from watching this process up close:

• Research agents thoroughly. Only query agents who represent your genre. Check their recent sales, read their interviews, and personalize your letter.
• Follow submission guidelines exactly. If they want the first three chapters pasted in the body of the email, don’t send an attachment. Details matter.
• Expect rejection. Most published authors queried dozens of agents before getting a yes. It’s not personal — it’s a numbers game with a heavy dose of subjective taste.
• Keep querying in batches. Send out ten to fifteen queries, wait for responses, adjust your letter if you’re getting no requests, and send out more.

The writers who get published aren’t necessarily the most talented ones. They’re the ones who treat querying like a job and don’t quit after the first round of rejections.

If You’re Self-Publishing: Treat It Like a Business

I’ve ghostwritten books that went the self-publishing route, and the ones that did well had one thing in common: the author treated every step professionally. That means hiring a real editor (not just running spellcheck), investing in a professional cover (readers absolutely judge books by their covers), and learning the basics of book marketing before launch day.

Platforms like Amazon KDP, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital make the mechanics of self-publishing straightforward. The hard part is everything around it — building an audience, getting reviews, running promotions, and keeping your book visible in a crowded market.

If this route interests you, study authors who’ve done it well in your genre. Most of them are surprisingly open about their strategies, and there are great communities online where self-published authors share what’s working.

Don’t Skip the Boring Parts

I want to leave you with something that doesn’t get said enough: the writers who get published are not the ones who had the most brilliant idea or the most natural talent. They’re the ones who did the unglamorous work. They finished the draft when it was hard. They revised when they were sick of the manuscript. They wrote query letters when they’d rather do anything else. They kept going after rejections that made them question the whole thing.

Learning how to write a book to get published is really about learning how to be persistent and professional at the same time. The creative spark gets you started. The discipline and craft get you across the finish line.

I know that because I’ve been on both sides — writing books for other people’s names and working on my own. The process is the same either way. Show up, do the work, get feedback, revise, and don’t stop until it’s done.

Where are you in the process right now? Still drafting, deep in revisions, or getting ready to query? Whatever it is, hopefully this article helped!

This post How to Write a Book to Get Published first appeared on Writing Prizes and is written by Emily Campbell

Have you ever wondered how to overcome writer’s block? There’s a specific kind of dread that hits when you open your document, stare at the last sentence you wrote three days ago, and feel absolutely nothing. No ideas. No momentum. No desire to be there at all. If you’ve felt that, you don’t need me to explain what writer’s block is. You need someone to help you figure out why it’s happening and what to do about it. That’s what this post is for — a real look at how to overcome writers block, broken into the two layers where it actually lives: the emotional and the practical.

I’ve dealt with both, sometimes at the same time. And the thing I’ve learned is that they require completely different responses. Treating an emotional block with a plot outline won’t help. Trying to journal your way out of a structural problem won’t either. So let’s separate them out and deal with each one honestly.

Part One: The Emotional Block

This is the one nobody wants to talk about, and it’s the one that causes the most damage. Because emotional blocks don’t look like blocks. They look like procrastination, or perfectionism, or suddenly being very interested in reorganizing your desk. They disguise themselves as practical problems — “I just need to figure out the plot first” — when the real issue is something deeper that has nothing to do with the plot at all.

Ask Yourself the Hard Questions First

Before you try any technique or trick, sit with this for a minute. Be honest. Which of these sounds familiar?

“I’m afraid it’s going to be bad.” This is the big one. The fear that what you write won’t live up to the version in your head. That you’ll put in months of work and end up with something mediocre. I’ve been here more times than I can count, and it’s paralysing because the only way to find out if it’s going to be good is to write it — which is the exact thing the fear won’t let you do.

“I’ve put too much pressure on this.” Maybe you’ve told people about the book. Maybe you’ve set a deadline. Maybe you’ve built it up in your mind as the thing that’s going to change your career or prove you’re a real writer. That kind of pressure turns every writing session into a performance, and performance anxiety kills creativity fast.

“I don’t think I’m good enough.” Imposter syndrome. You’ve read authors you admire and you can’t imagine your work belonging on the same shelf. So you stall, because not finishing means never having to face the comparison.

“I’ve lost the spark.” You were excited about this project once. Now it feels like a chore. You’re not sure if the idea was ever as good as you thought it was, and pushing forward feels pointless.

“I don’t actually want to write right now, but I feel like I should.” Sometimes the block is your brain telling you it needs rest. Not every pause is a crisis. But it’s hard to tell the difference between genuine burnout and avoidance, and that uncertainty keeps you stuck.

If any of that resonated, you’re not broken and you’re not lazy. You’re experiencing something that virtually every writer goes through. The question is what to do with it.

Lower the Stakes — Write for Fun

This is my single best piece of advice for emotional blocks, and I mean it completely: stop writing your book for a while and write something with zero stakes.

Write fan fiction. Write a weird short story you’ll never show anyone. Write a letter to a fictional character. Write a scene from your book but from the villain’s cat’s perspective. It doesn’t matter what it is. The point is to reconnect with the part of writing that’s play — the part that got you into this in the first place, before it became tangled up with ambition and fear and self-judgment.

When I hit a wall on a ghostwriting project a couple of years ago, I spent a week writing silly flash fiction — 300-word stories about completely absurd scenarios. None of it was good. All of it was fun. And by the end of the week, the dread had loosened enough that I could sit down with the real project again without my chest tightening.

You’re not wasting time when you do this. You’re reminding your brain that writing can feel good. That’s not a small thing when the block is rooted in fear or pressure.

Separate Your Identity From the Book

This is harder, but it matters. If you’ve fused your sense of self-worth with whether this book succeeds — whether it gets published, whether people like it, whether it proves something about you — then every writing session becomes an existential test. No wonder you’re blocked.

Try to hold the book at arm’s length. It’s a project. It’s a thing you’re making. It is not you. A bad draft doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer. An unfinished manuscript doesn’t mean you’re a failure. I know that’s easy to say and hard to feel, but even just naming the pattern — “I’m treating this book like it determines my worth, and that’s not true” — can take some of the weight off.

Talk to Someone Who Gets It

Writer friends, writing groups, a therapist who understands creative work — any of these can help you untangle the emotional knot. Sometimes you just need someone to say “yeah, I felt that too, and I got through it” to break the isolation that makes the block feel permanent.

I avoided talking about my blocks for years because I thought admitting I was stuck meant admitting I wasn’t cut out for this. Turns out, every writer I respected was dealing with the same thing. The ones who kept going weren’t the ones who never got blocked. They were the ones who asked for help when they did.

Part Two: The Practical Block

Sometimes the block isn’t emotional at all. Sometimes you genuinely don’t know what happens next, or the scene you’re trying to write isn’t working, or the whole structure of your book has a problem you can sense but can’t identify. These are craft problems, and they need craft solutions.

If You’re Stuck on a Specific Scene, Skip It

This sounds like cheating. It’s not. If one chapter or scene is stopping your entire momentum, leave a placeholder — I usually write something like [FIGURE THIS OUT LATER — she needs to get from the argument to the train station] — and move on to the next part you do know how to write.

I use this constantly in ghostwriting because deadlines don’t care about my creative struggles. And here’s what usually happens: by the time I come back to the problem scene, I’ve written enough of what comes after it that the solution is obvious. The block wasn’t a lack of creativity — it was a lack of context. I needed to see where the story was going before I could figure out how to get there.

If You’re Stuck on the Whole Book, the Problem Might Be Structural

This is a different beast. If nothing feels right and every direction you try fizzles out, there might be a foundational issue — a plot that doesn’t hold together, a protagonist without a clear want, a conflict that’s not strong enough to sustain a full manuscript.

When this happens, stop drafting and go back to the bones. Pull out whatever outlining method works for you — the three-act structure, the Save the Cat beat sheet, the Story Grid, even just a simple list of “what happens and why” for each chapter. Map out what you have and look for the gaps.

Common structural problems that cause blocks:

• Your protagonist doesn’t have enough at stake. If nothing terrible happens when they fail, there’s no urgency — for them or for you.
• The middle has no engine. Acts one and three are usually easier because they have natural momentum (setup and climax). The middle needs its own source of escalating tension, and if it doesn’t have one, you’ll stall out somewhere around chapter eight.
• You’ve written yourself into a corner. A plot decision earlier in the book has made the next steps impossible or uninteresting. The fix might mean going back and revising what you’ve already written — which is painful but sometimes necessary.
• The character arc and the plot arc aren’t connected. If the external events of the story aren’t challenging your character internally, the whole thing feels aimless, even if stuff is technically happening.

If you can identify the structural problem, the block usually resolves itself — because now you’re not staring at a vague wall, you’re solving a specific puzzle.

Get Outside Feedback

When you’re too close to see the problem, someone else often spots it immediately. Share what you have with a trusted beta reader, a critique partner, or a developmental editor and tell them where you got stuck. You don’t need them to fix it for you. You need a fresh pair of eyes to say “I think the reason this isn’t working is because your main character has no reason to go to that house in chapter five” — and suddenly the fog lifts.

I resisted outside feedback for a long time because it felt like admitting defeat. Now I see it as one of the most efficient ways to get unstuck. Someone else’s perspective can save you weeks of spinning your wheels alone.

Use Writing Prompts to Loosen Up

Creative writing prompts aren’t just for beginners. When you’re practically stuck — you know you need to write but you can’t find the entry point — prompts can work like a warm-up before exercise. They get the words moving without the pressure of it needing to be part of your manuscript.

A few approaches I’ve found useful:

• Write a scene from your book that will never appear in the final version. A flashback to your character’s childhood. An argument between two side characters. A diary entry from your antagonist. It doesn’t need to be canon — it just needs to get you thinking inside the story again.
• Use a random prompt generator and give yourself twenty minutes. There are dozens of free ones online. The constraint of a random topic and a time limit takes the decision-making out of it, which is half the battle when you’re stuck.
• Rewrite a scene from a book you love, in your own style. Not to plagiarise — just as an exercise. It’s like a musician playing someone else’s song to warm up their fingers. It reconnects you with what good storytelling feels like from the inside.

Change Your Environment or Routine

This one’s simple but I’m always surprised by how well it works. If you always write at your desk, go to a coffee shop. If you always type, try handwriting for a session. If you write in the morning, try writing at night. Sometimes the block is partly habitual — your brain has associated a specific setting and routine with the feeling of being stuck, and shaking that up can reset the pattern.

I wrote three chapters of a stalled project in a pub once. Not because alcohol is a creativity tool — I was drinking tea — but because being somewhere unfamiliar made the writing feel new again. The novelty tricked my brain into engaging instead of shutting down.

The Block Isn’t Permanent — Even When It Feels Like It

Here’s the thing about learning how to overcome writers block: there’s no single fix that works every time, because the block is different every time. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s a broken plot. Sometimes it’s exhaustion. Sometimes it’s all three stacked on top of each other.

But it does pass. Every time. I’ve been writing professionally for years, and I’ve been blocked more often than I’d like to admit. I’ve stared at blank screens, scrapped entire drafts, and convinced myself I’d used up whatever ability I once had. And every single time, I eventually found my way back — usually by doing one of the things in this post.

If you’re stuck right now, here’s the short version: figure out whether the block is emotional or practical. If it’s emotional, lower the pressure and write something just for fun until the fear settles. If it’s practical, zoom out and look for the structural problem, or get someone else to look at it with you. And if it’s both — which it often is — start with the emotional side first, because you can’t solve a craft problem when your nervous system is convinced the whole thing is a referendum on your worth as a person.

You’ll get through it. You always have before, even if you don’t remember that right now.

This post How to Overcome Writer’s Block on Both a Practical and Emotional Level first appeared on Writing Prizes and is written by Emily Campbell