Siri, Alexa and A.I. Cannot Help - Use Your Brain

I really felt like I had to address this after several author interactions this weekend. Most came from a conference I attended (which BTW was AWESOME!!!!) and the others came from my UCLA Extension class. I do feel like I have talked about this before here on the blog, but sometimes, repeating things is worth the time and effort.

In all of these cases, the individuals were looking for a single website, book, resource or anything that would give them the ultimate answer in everything they were looking for. These included questions such as:

• Is there a single source I can find with the exact formula for writing a query letter.
• Is there a book I can go to so I can learn how to be an editor or agent.
• I am looking for a complete resource to explain how to edit my manuscript.
• Can I find one site that will give me a list with all of the essential information I need to submit to an editor or agent. 

And the answer is no...

On a positive side, technology has really made things so much easier for us. I am not going to deny this. I love the fact that I can one stop shop at my local grocery store, hit Amazon and get dinner, a movie and a book all at the same time (woops, forgot the K-T tape for my dancer). However, when it come to doing anything in the real world with a lot of variables, it does require us to have to us our brains. A little bit of critical thinking skills are needed. 

Let's think about this for second. 

If you want to write a query letter, there are a ton of us out there who post things about query letters. There are websites (note the plural here) that talk about query letters. Use you brain. Each one works. Use those as models and create something that works for you. 

If you want to edit your manuscript, there is not a program out there that will do that for you. Read your story like a reader. What do you need to do to make the story better. It is not as if you have only one way of doing things. 

I bring all of this up because frankly, if you are getting a ton of rejections, if your self-published book is not selling at least 5 figures of unit sales, then the odds are, there is something not working. It might be time to figure that out.