Monthly Mini-Mentorships

Publishing is an extremely opaque industry and it can be very hard to know, well, anything about it really. Now that I’ve been in the industry for over a decade, I feel like I’m in a position to offer some kind of help to people who’ve written a book and are pursuing a path to traditional publication. 

The specific kind of help I’m offering are discrete one-month mini-mentorships (or mintorships, if you want to go there), in which I’ll answer any questions you might have about querying or the industry in general (insofar as I can), and provide feedback on a query package (query, synopsis, first 3 chapters or first 50 pages). I’m not pitching this as your magic pathway to being a successful author—sadly, I don’t think such pathways exist, and I wouldn’t particularly trust anyone who claimed they do—but sometimes a little bit of support can be helpful.

Given my tendencies towards the verbose, here’s some bullet points:

What I’m especially interested in

• Commercial fiction in general from writers of all traditionally underrepresented backgrounds (absolutely not limited to my own). 
• Especially the genres I write in (romance and SFF)
• I’m also kinda into horror but be aware I don’t have direct experience writing and publishing it.

I’m not the right person to advise you if you want to write outside the commercial fiction sphere because litfic is its own thing, as is non-fiction. For similar reasons, YA, MG, and children’s are not a good fit for me. At the moment, my sense is that trad publishing isn’t very excited about either romcom or histrom, so I’m concerned about my ability to help with those (irrespective of how much I personally like them as subgenres).

What I need from you

• If—and only if—your application is successful, a minimum donation of £10 in your own currency to Literary Agents of Change, though you may of course choose to donate more. I have complex feelings about the secondary industry about writing that surrounds writing. Traditional mentorship programmes can be expensive and I want this opportunity to be more accessible than that. On the other hand, I’m also uncomfortable doing this kind of thing completely for free as that could imply I see it as having no value. Therefore I’m asking for a token donation to a good cause in exchange for my time, attention, and experience.
• To have written a book. It doesn’t matter if it is still in a rough stage of development, but it needs to exist.
• Openness to my input. I don’t expect (or, indeed, want) you to take on board everything I say. But if you’re seeking input, please at least be ready to consider the input you receive.
• Honesty about what you need, including if I ever say anything that feels hurtful or unhelpful, or destructive instead of constructive.
• Willingness to vouch for the originality of your own work. That is, please do not approach me with anything that has been written with any help from any version of generative AI (ChatGPT, etc).

How this works

• Fill out this form (if you still see the old version of the form, clear your cache). It will be open for the last week of the month and close on the last day of the month.
• I’ll pick up to two people from the respondent pool to work with, based on what interests me and what I think I can help with, and depending on what my professional and personal obligations allow. If you’re picked and you still want in, pay your donation to LAC, and send me a screenshot.
• I’ll give you feedback on your query package, and look at your sample chapters. If you have specific questions about the industry or querying, I will do my best to answer them.
• End of the month approaches. My schedule permitting, cycle begins again.

Bear in mind

• I can’t directly connect you with industry people or other writers
• I can’t offer any promises or guarantees of success, no matter how brilliant your project, or how hard we work on it
• I can’t speak for the industry. I’m just one person. This is a complicated business and, as authors, we only see a tiny part of it. My experiences are subjective, my knowledge is limited, my judgement is fallible. I cannot emphasise this enough.
• I reserve the right to step away from any interaction for any reason. You too have this right.