It is week thirty-nine of 2026. How’s the writing treating you right now? It’s officially fall in the northern hemisphere, but it also seems to be harvest time in the creative lives of many of my friends and clients. I have so many book birthdays to celebrate that I’ve had to delay some of them for future newsletters!
Harvest time is the fun time, of course—when you finally get to see the result of all of your labors and turn the pages of your finished book. The words and stories and ideas are fixed now, preserved in the ultimate shelf-stable form. Your job as an author shifts too. Instead of creating and polishing, your job now is to introduce your book to readers—to promote it, market it, sell it. Your book is no longer a private creative playground but instead a public creative declaration, available for anyone to buy, to read, to review. The transition can be jarring for authors, as I’m learning again myself through the Kickstarter campaign for the newest Novel Study book.
One thing that’s helping me is to begin planting the seeds for the next book, playing around in the dirt and burying some words whose only job right now is to germinate in the quiet ground. But I’m also trying to be brave about the selling and promotion, watching and learning what other indie authors and Kickstarter creators are doing. I’ve got some excellent hard-won tips about in-person selling below from Mark Leslie Lefebvre, whose latest Kickstarter campaign—for A Book In Hand: Optimizing Print Book Sales—wraps up on Wednesday. Check it out: he’s offering bundles of his many practical books for indie authors.
I’ll give you the behind-the-scenes scoop on my own Kickstarter after it wraps up on October 13, but if you’d like to hear some of my thoughts about crowdfunding just before the launch, check out this Q&A interview I did with book coach Bailey Lang.
Here at the garret, after the successful Kickstarter launch, I treated myself to a quick trip down to LA, where I rode the bright shiny new Metro, soaked in the stunning new galleries at LACMA, and met up with Joanna Penn for an afternoon of food and shop talk.
I’ve also been working on a memoir set in part in the ’70s and ’80s. Fellow Gen Xers, raise your hands if you remember Z. Cavaricci acid-wash jeans and AAA TripTik maps! Details like these in memoirs or novels allow us to overlay our own memories and stories over those in the book. For me, that meant time traveling back to the Volusia Mall Burdines where I bought my own pair of Cavariccis (which I wore pegged, of course) and then to the strip-mall AAA where I got the bulky TripTik that would guide me from Daytona Beach, Florida, to my sophomore year in college in St. Paul, Minnesota. Before I did the drive the first time, my Papaw checked to make sure I had my TripTik and also gave me an ice pick to keep in the glove box “for protection.” Luckily, the only thing I ever needed the ice pick for was removing actual ice from the windshield after a particularly brutal Minnesota ice storm.
Are you interested in writing your own memoir, or do you want more tools for guiding authors through the process? Check out Natalie Silver’s memoir workbook:
Kristen Recommends
Are you interested in writing a life story or memoir but have no idea how to get started? Natalie L. Silver’s Write and Self-Publish Your Memoir is a fifty-five page primer on how to get moving on this endeavor. This workbook will help you define the scope of your project as well as learn the nuts and bolts of self-publishing. It also includes publishing resources, a list of great memoirs, and a calendar to help you implement deadlines to achieve your goal of getting your story out into the world.
Natalie Silver owns Silver Scribe Editorial Services and has helped many people achieve their dream of writing a book about their life.
◉ Ask the Blue Garret
MJ asks:
Are writers dispensing with chapters as an organizing structure for novels? What might be acceptable ways to organize scenes into chapters? When writers use a conceptual plotting structure (like 3-Act structure, 5Cs, Save the Cat, or Hero's/Heroine's Journey) those parts are expected to flow sequentially – I'm assuming? – so do they solve the problem of organizing around chapters?
I think this set of questions is collapsing two different topics—plot structure and chapter breaks—so let’s start by pulling them apart. The key to a good plot is organizing the events of your novel so they create a logical cause-and-effect chain: Character A takes an action; therefore, Character B responds; then Character A changes course as a result. Spend some time thinking about the logical links and make sure you know what they are. Character A changing course shouldn’t feel coincidental; it should feel like a direct result of Character B’s response.
Chapter or scene breaks are simply a way of portioning out your plot. The white space of a part or chapter or scene break is a way to silently communicate to readers, Something is shifting! One thing is ending and a new thing is beginning. Here are a few common shifts:
A point-of-view change from one character to another
A shift in location and/or time
A thematic or structural shift from one section of your plot to another—use part breaks rather than chapter breaks to signal these shifts
Often these shifts will line up with your plot elements. For example, your inciting incident might occur entirely within your first chapter. However, you can also play around with using chapter breaks to increase the tension and pacing by adding a break in the middle of a plot element. For example, maybe your high-stakes all-is-lost moment stretches across two chapters with a cliff-hanger at a particularly tense moment in the middle.
In literary fiction, we can find many examples of authors using chapters as much looser containers, often containing a group of short, thematically linked scenes, but that’s not a trend I’ve seen in genre or commercial fiction.
Keep learning
Read more about the cause-and-effect chain in my review of Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story
Read more about plot structure and formulas or templates in my piece on Tana French’s The Searcher
Read more about chapter endings in my analysis of The Favorites by Layne Fargo
Have any burning craft or editing questions? You can ask your questions on this form, or simply reply to or comment on this newsletter.
◉ Five Lessons from Behind the Author Table
A guest post from Mark Leslie Lefebvre, author of A Book in Hand
A book in hand is worth two on the shelf. Long-time booksellers know that once a reader is actually holding a book, the odds of a sale go way up. The longer they hold it, the higher those odds get. If someone keeps drifting back to a title, pick up a copy and offer it to them, back cover facing up, while you share your one-line hook.
A hook is not a synopsis. The fastest way to lose a browser is to answer "What's it about?" with three minutes of plot. Have a single sharp line ready before the event, either a vivid image or an irresistible question. It's the same skill you use writing a great opening line, just said out loud.
Ask what they read before you pitch. "What do you like to read?" tells you right away whether your book is a fit. If it isn't, recommend a fellow author whose book is. Better no sale than the wrong sale. The reader you helped find the right book will remember you.
Let silence do some of the work. Once the book is in their hands, stop talking. Nervous authors fill every pause and end up talking readers out of a decision they were quietly making on their own.
Ask for the sale by asking about the inscription. "Can I sign a personalized copy for you?" assumes the yes. It also turns a transaction into a keepsake, which is something no online retailer can offer.
Bonus display tip: Think vertically, and keep covers facing out. Six face-out covers will outsell twenty spines almost every single time.
A Book in Hand covers everything from pricing and packing to cons, craft fairs, bookstore signings, and special editions. The Kickstarter ends Sept 30, 2026, but a link to the Kickstarter and other helpful resources related to the content of the book can be found at: www.markleslie.ca/abookinhand
◉ Book Birthdays
Ready to Trust by Shefali Prem
Eight years after she vanished from his life, fashion designer Andi comes face to face with Niko—now a billionaire with the power to take everything from her, including the son she’s been hiding—in this steamy second-chance romance, book 4 of the Ready for Love series.
A few favorite things about the book
⭐️ Second-chance romances aren’t usually my jam as a reader, but the backstory in this one is compelling and dramatic—you’ll end up really rooting for these characters to make it work
⭐️ The very swoony, very steamy sex scenes
⭐️ The extended cast of supporting characters, many of whose own love stories have been featured earlier in the series
Congrats, Shefali! Learn more and buy Ready to Trust on Amazon.
Buddy AI by Otto Schafer
Buried in gambling debt, Doug Wells turns to an experimental AI assistant that seems to have an answer for everything—including how to rob a bank—while Detective Naomi Watson chases a string of crimes that don’t fit the man she’s hunting.
A few favorite things about the book
⭐️ The timely commentary on the allure and perils of AI systems and the brave new world we are hurtling into
⭐️ I always love a smart, driven female protagonist, and Otto has added another one to his canon! (I think readers of the Wrack & Ruin series will agree with me that Zoe and Naomi would be good friends.)
⭐️ A down-on-his-luck criminal we almost can’t help rooting for, just a little bit
Congrats, Otto! Learn more and buy Buddy AI on Amazon.
◉ Upcoming Appearances
Sonoma County Writers Conference, October 17, Santa Rosa, CA: What’s in a Scene? A Sentence-by-Sentence Look at How Bestselling Authors Build Scenes
Author Nation, November 10–13, Las Vegas, NV: Stop Dumping, Start Layering: Adding Backstory and Setting Without Killing Momentum
I love speaking to writers and editors—check out my Speaking page and get in touch if you are interested in having me speak to your group.
◉ Novel Study Book 2
I’m thrilled to report that the Kickstarter funded less than an hour after launch, thanks in large part to support from y’all! I’ve got a couple fun stretch rewards in mind that will go to all backers—stay tuned for campaign updates via Kickstarter this week for more.
◉ Thing of Joy
A romp of otters (yes, that’s the collective noun!) helping to tidy their pool at the Toba Aquarium in Japan, then being rewarded with ice cubes. Need more otters? Of course you do! I sometimes put the Monterey Bay Aquarium live otter cam on my second monitor to keep me company while I work. And did you know about otter pockets? I didn’t but now I do, and so can you.
Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.
Kristen