I published my first book on April 26, 2016—ten years ago.
In those ten years, I’ve learned a lot about writing and publishing, and I want to share some of those lessons with you. And if you’re anything like me, you’re probably going to hear this advice… and still make the same mistakes anyway. Because that’s exactly what I did.
Who am I?
I’m Beatrice B. Morgan—BB Morgan on my earlier books—and I write fantasy. Mostly romantic fantasy, sometimes dark fantasy, usually high fantasy with swords, magic, romantic subplots, and all of that. That’s my jam.
I have self-published, and I have worked with a small press since 2019. I have published multiple books and series. I also have a background in English and creative writing, and I teach college composition.
All that said—I don’t consider myself an expert.
In fact, when I first started, I thought I was an expert. I had just published my first book, I’d read all the craft advice, all the books about writing I could get my hands on, and I was very confident in my opinions. Looking back, it’s…embarrassing. It’s very cringe-worthy.
Now when I see newer writers doing the same thing, it’s like, “That was me ten years ago.”
So—lesson one:
Finish the Draft
The first book is the hardest, because you don’t have a process yet.
You don’t actually know what you’re doing—not in a real, practical sense. It takes time to figure out what you need in order to tell a story, and how to tell a story.
It’s like a musical instrument. The first time you play a trumpet, or whatever instrument, you understand the concept of how it works. You blow into the mouth piece and sound comes out. When you push the buttons, the sound changes. But you aren’t going to sound good. You are not going to be playing in any orchestras anytime soon.
Because you have to learn how to play, how to alter the sound, how to do all the little things that no one tells you about, the things that you don’t understand because you have never done them before.
I struggled to write my first novel. I didn’t know how to end a scene, the nuances of show vs. tell, how to weave foreshadowing, how to craft characters so that their arcs “write themselves.” Every scene was a struggle. Every chapter was a struggle. I can’t tell you how many times I started, stopped, started again, and stopped. It took the better part of a year to finish the draft.
And that first draft sucked.
With the help of kind beta readers, I drafted, drafted again, and revised. I went through multiple rewrites and beta readers. I read craft books.
I published that book when I thought it was good enough, and…it wasn’t.
But I finished the draft. I wanted to be a writer, so I learned how to write better. I finished another book, despite the lack of sales for the first book, and then another one, and another one.
With every book I wrote, my writing improved. My storytelling skill improved. My ability to weave foreshadowing, to end a scene, to know when a scene isn’t doing anything. It’s like each finished book gives me +1 to my Writing skill. (I’ve been reading Dungeon Crawler Carl).
When I decided to break away from high fantasy and write a contemporary horror, I had to relearn how to write a novel. I thought switching to a new genre would be easy, because I had finished 15+ novels. Turns out, it wasn’t. I struggled with some of the same things I struggled with in my first novel.
I struggled because I didn’t have a process down for writing a horror novel. I had a process for fantasy. I had to relearn my writing process, which was weird and frustrating.
But I did it.
It took several years to finish that novel, but I did it.
Now, here in the Lord’s year of 2026, I know what I need to start writing a novel. First, I need a strong understanding of my protagonist—what drives them, what their flaws are, and what choices they’re going to have to make. I need the love interest and how they are going to butt heads with the protagonist. I need to know the general story beats. I need the premise, the setting, and the vibe.
And more than anything, I need that spark—that strange, intangible feeling that makes me want to write the story. I don’t know where it comes from or where to find it. It finds me.
But none of that matters if I don’t finish the draft.
That’s the priority. Not publishing. Not marketing. Not any of the extra things that come later.
Finish the book first.
Don’t worry about querying agents. Don’t worry about editing, or beta readers, or your cover, or your author website, or your newsletter, or how you’re going to spend that big advance.
You can think about those things—but they are not the work.
The work is finishing the draft.
I think this is where some people get stuck, because it’s very easy to fall in love with the idea of being an author.
The aesthetic. The branding. The social media presence.
The content.
But being an author, at its core, is writing.
Everyone has an idea for a book. Ideas are easy. Ideas are everywhere. Ideas are like opinions: everyone has one, and they’re not always good. Executing that idea into an entertaining story is the hard part. It’s hard to take that idea and turn it into a well-written story.
I’ve had so many ideas over the past ten years, if I could turn them into bricks, I could build a castle. Not all of those ideas were good ones. Not all of those ideas were complete. It’s the ideas that stuck around, that I kept coming back to, that I kept subconsciously building on that turned into stories.
How do you know if an idea is good or bad? I don’t know. I let them cook for a while until I entertain the idea of writing it out.
I know the things I need to start writing a novel, so until I have all of those things, the idea stays just that—an idea.
Writing a novel is a skill, and like any skill, it takes time to develop. You’re not going to sit down one afternoon and produce something incredible on your first try. It doesn’t work like that.
You have to learn how to do it by doing it.
And that means finishing the book—even when it’s messy, even when it’s flawed, even when you’re not sure if it’s good enough.
Your book is the foundation for everything else you do.
If the book doesn’t work, nothing else will.
You can have a beautiful cover, a great marketing plan, a strong online presence—but if the book isn’t good, readers won’t stick with it.
I heard once, in some marketing seminar or vlog or something: if you have an ad for your book, and you’re not getting clicks, then the problem is the ad. If you are getting clicks on the ad but no sales, then the problem is the cover or the blurb. If you are getting clicks and sales but no reviews or follow through sales (if you have more books), then the book is the problem.
The book has to hold up.
Think of it like a cake. You know those designer cakes with all the piping and the layers and flowers—they’re pretty, but if they tasted like stale bread, no one is going to eat it. You want the outside to match the inside.
So your focus—especially in the beginning—should be on learning how to make a good cake.
And that takes time.
Writing is slow. Publishing is slow. Reading is slow.
I know some people can read a book in a day. I’ve done it once. Other readers take weeks or months. Readers have endless options, and your book is just one of many.
So there’s no benefit to rushing. Take time to write a good book.
I know there’s a pressure to publish quickly—to get something out there, to call yourself an author, to move on to the next thing. I did that with my first book. I rushed because I wanted to be an author so badly. It’s all I wanted.
When I published Devil’s Blood in 2016, I thought it was well-written. Looking back, it was the best I could have written with the skills I had at the time. It still wasn’t a very good book, because my skills weren’t where they needed to be.
It had other flaws, like my worldbuilding being lackluster, my characters were flat, I tried too hard to make my characters cool and my bad guys cynical and mysterious. I ended up revising Devil’s Blood at least 5 times since its release. I’ve completely rewritten it, so that the edition that you can read now, is not the same one that I published ten years ago. You’re welcome.
I rushed that book to publication because I wanted to be an author, and traditional publishing ignored me. However many regrets I have with that first book and however many mistakes I made with it, I wouldn’t be the writer I am today had I not stuck with it. Had I given into the frustrating lack of agent interest, had I given into the feeling of not being good enough, had I given in to the spiraling depression that told me to give up. I wouldn’t have an entire bookshelf dedicated to my books.
Had I given up on Devil’s Blood, I might not have written Stars and Bones, or Hard as Stone, or The Blood Enchantress. I might not be working on my contemporary horror, or my next high fantasy series.
There’s no telling where I’d be.
I have grown tremendously as an author since 2016. I took the first step and started that book, and I finished that book. I kept with it. I didn’t give in or give up when it got hard.
Finish the draft. Learn from it. Revise it.
And then move forward.
Because you will get better—but only if you keep writing.
That’s lesson one: finish the draft. You’re not a writer unless you write.
Beatrice B. Morgan 