I’m teaching a workshop tonight on Getting Your Writing Published and I wanted to share a little bit of what we’re going to cover.

It’s always going to be hard to find the perfect home for your work, but there are some things you can do to help improve your chances.

1- Do your homework – my editor suggests this, and goes on to say, Be very sure of what the company publishes.  Lots of writers send out to publishers who would never be a good fit, or to publishers who aren’t even considering new work.  A little research can save you a lot of heartbreak.

2- Make sure the text is perfect.  Rewriting, re-reading, rewriting again…  The better your words on the page, the better your chances.  And you only get one chance to impress that editor.

3- Don’t make the mistake of sending out a substandard cover letter or half-hearted synopsis.  And be careful with your email to any agent or publisher – spelling mistakes and sloppy grammar can leave a lingering bad impression.

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Adair Lara’s new book, Naked, Drunk and Writing is full of advice on how to write a personal essay or memoir. Two paragraphs in the opening of her essay What’s Your Angle? give a taste of her writing style and make me want to stop what I’m doing and craft an essay of my own:

Adair Lara: You can’t just come out and say what you have to say. That’s what people do on airplanes, when a man plops down next to you in the aisle seat of your flight to New York, spills peanuts all over the place (back when the cheapskate airlines at least gave you peanuts), and tells you about what his boss did to him the day before. You know how your eyes glaze over when you hear a story like that? That’s because of the way he’s telling his story. You need a good way to tell your story.

An angle is a way to tell a story. It is to the essay what a premise is to a book, or a handle is to advertising, or a high concept is to a movie (dinosaurs brought back to life for a theme park!). It’s a gimmick or twist or conceit that grabs the reader’s attention long enough for you to say what you want to say. Think of the angle as the Christmas tree. Once you have that six-foot pine standing up next to the piano, it’s pretty easy to see where the decorations go. Without the tree, what have you got? A lot of pretty balls on the floor.

You can read the rest here.