Harold Underdown: 7 quick tips for beginning writers
We’d like to thank Harold Underdown for this blog post! Harold is faculty for the Crash Course in Children’s Publishing.

- Work on your manuscript: Writing the perfect query letter and targeting just the right publisher or agent is useless if the story isn’t ready.
- Follow the rules and don’t be “clever”–and that means read submissions guidelines and standard practices.
- Do your research: look beyond the names you already know.
- Ignore the odds: persistence is no guarantee of success, but giving up too soon IS a guarantee that you won’t get published.
- There is no one sure-fire path to publication. Find your own. Everyone’s path is different.
- You don’t need an agent, except in particular circumstances.
- Think outside of the/your box: what about magazines, nonfiction, and other paths?
- Bonus tip: Conferences and workshops like Crash Course in Children’s Publishing give you a leg up.

Posted on: August 28, 2015
Tags: crash course, faculty guest post, getting started, Underdown, writing tips