Question: I’m pretty nervous about writing my book and getting it published. I guess I don’t have much confidence when it comes to this. Do you have any advice?

Answer: I didn’t have a lot of self-confidence when it came to writing, and my fears sabotaged my goals. My motto eventually became “big dreams, small steps”. Start with developing a writing schedule and then give yourself a pat on the back when it becomes habit. Write the book, but break down the goals. Focus on the first chapter, and think about how many pages you can write that week. Recognize each accomplishment and don’t dwell on the negative stuff, like missing your word count quota or thinking the story isn’t good enough. Don’t worry about that now. Each chapter is an achievement and it will help build up your self-confidence.

The quickest shortcut is recycling unsold manuscripts. However, not all manuscripts are suited for novella length. It works best if the hero and heroine are rarely apart in the original version of the story. When making the story novella-sized:

• Decide the key scenes in the manuscript. Make sure that every previous scene is working towards the key scenes. If they aren’t find a way to remove or shorten the scene.
• Look at what happens at every chapter. Track the characters’ journeys and the story arc. Are there any scenes that can be taken out, or referred to off-stage? If it takes the heroine three events to come to a conclusion, can she do it believably in two?
• Pull back on the secondary character’s motivations.
• Tighten the dialogue. Cut out dialogue tags (he said, she said) when possible.
• Make every word count. If you are still over the page count, go through every sentence and cut unnecessary words. Revise sentences to make them shorter.

Novella collections, also known as single author anthologies, are especially popular in the trade size paperback. If you want to pitch a single-author anthology, keep the following in mind:

Think of the big picture. Consider the whole book as a smaller scaled trilogy. While each novella must have an intriguing plot and memorable characters, you are selling the high concept of the anthology.

Let’s say you want to write medical romances. I suggest having all the novellas about search-and-rescues instead of one search and rescue, one ER, and one maternity unit. I would go one further and say have each story about the members of the search-and-rescue team. Then give the idea a twist.

Use your subgenre as a guide. A romantic erotica single-author anthology can be linked by a sex act that is found in all three novellas, but this is not the case in erotic romance.

Maintain the tone. If one novella is light and funny, all of the novellas need to be light and funny. But be inventive with the structure of the story. Many readers will read the stories back-to-back, so you don’t want to be repetitive. In other words, if your stories are about a Regency matchmaker and her clients, there are only so many ballroom scenes and elopements to Gretna Green that a reader can take.

Do not connect the novellas by plot. The publishers are not looking for serials, but complete, stand alone stories. I don’t know why this is, but I have noticed that these novellas are commonly published separately in foreign markets and reprints.

Highlight your strengths. In my first novella collection,  “Wicked” Women 101, my heroines were all going through a sensual awakening, but that wasn’t enough to connect the stories. So after a lot of brainstorming and guidance with my editor, we decided to make the heroines sorority sisters.

In Pink Ice, the heroines are sisters, but that isn’t what connects the stories. This time I have them share pink diamond earrings and the stories are about their sensual awakening while they wear the jewelry.

Notice that both titles deal with sensual awakenings (the theme that is found in almost all of my stories) and sisters (I write heroine-focused stories), but I tailored the ideas with the publisher in mind. If you compare the single author anthologies, you will notice that each publishing house has their own approach. Do your research before you pitch the single-author anthology.