When it comes to publishing, many writers will think about big publishers first. However, there are a lot of different publishing options out there to explore. NaNo participant and author, Clara Ward, talks about their experience publishing with a small press and gives you questions to consider while you think through your publishing options!

NaNoWriMo inspired me to write. Signing with a small press gave me the support I needed to publish a book I love. 

I’d published books before—starting with NaNoWriMo sponsor deals in the early days of online publishing—but I never had the right skill set to promote those books. As a result, they never truly found their audience. 

In November of 2020, I poured my heart into a genre-blurring near-future tale of sailing across the Pacific and building a neurodiverse, queer, and possibly magical chosen family. In 2021, I titled it Be the Sea and asked myself: What am I going to do with that?

NaNo participant Demi Michelle Schwartz shares her story on how NaNoWriMo helped her sign on with a literary agent! She also offers some lessons she learned from taking on the challenge — and maybe it’ll inspire you too!

Are you an author with dreams of being represented by a literary agent? If so, I’m here to tell you that NaNoWriMo played a key role in my journey to signing with my agent, Michelle Jackson at LCS Literary.

I received an offer on the manuscript I drafted during my first NaNoWriMo in 2022. Fun fact, I signed my contract during November in 2023, exactly a year after writing the book. Reflecting back, there were choices I made that I hope will give you insight into how your NaNoWriMo project could lead to securing representation.

ALT

Dear NaNoWriMo Community Members,

Thank you for reaching out to us with your inquiries about the forums, your support, offers to volunteer, and your legitimate concerns.

Our inbox has been flooded, and we appreciate all of the thoughtful responses from participants and volunteers who genuinely care about NaNoWriMo, our fellow writers, and the community as we do. It is impossible to respond to each message individually, but we wanted to let you all know we are working with purpose and sincerity.

Please see below the breakdown of the work that has been done since we last shared an update with the community. Our intention is to keep you abreast of all we are doing to make NaNoWriMo a better, safer, place:

ALT

Hi, Wrimos! From Friday, December 15, until Tuesday, January 9, NaNoWriMo HQ will be in hibernation mode. However, you’ll still be able to use all our free resources and set independent writing goals on nanowrimo.org. We look forward to writing with you again next year!

And that’s a wrap! If you want to see any of the individual posts, feel free to look through the 30C30D tag.

This year, we included community features for the first time, and I’m very glad we did! It’s amazing to see what talent we have in our community. 30C30D continues to be a celebration of stories and art, no matter how long you’ve been creating. I’m grateful to be a part of that experience!

Thank you again for participating!
— Josie

Due to external circumstances, one of our chosen covers was unable to be completed by the original designer. So our Programs Associate, Josie Gepulle, took up the task by doodling some chickens!

Let’s wrap things up with Children’s Fiction novel Silkie Society by YWP Participant Bailly Collins!

Silkie Society

Connie, Natalie, Sylvia, and Skye are silkie chickens who work as models for Chicken Inc., a company selling all things chickens, secretly run by chickens. Since silkies are smaller than most chickens, the sisters are not always treated like the others. But when the company threatens to close down, the silkies have yet another chance to prove themselves. With the help of some friends and family, they’re sure  they can do it. Will they be able to save the company in time? And can they, more importantly, show the other chickens that they are more than meets the eye? Silkie Society is an inspirational story about four chickens, and how there’s no such thing as “too little.”

About the Author

Bailly Collins is an aspiring author who resides on a picturesque mini-farm in Minnesota. With a passion for storytelling, she has ventured into various genres, including dystopian, children’s fiction, and science fiction. With her creative imagination and unique voice, Bailly’s writing is both captivating and thought-provoking. When she’s not writing, she can be found tending to her animals or exploring the beauty of nature. Bailly is committed to honing her craft and sharing her stories with the world, and she looks forward to bringing her unique perspective to the literary world.

About the Designer

Josie Gepulle is a longtime NaNoWriMo participant! Lately, she’s been really into writing food scenes. Maybe it’s the unending marathon of baking shows. Outside of fiction, she’ll gladly hand you a media analysis essay. When not writing, she’s a digital artist, stop motion animator, and hamster aficionado.

Cover Design Process:

This year, we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Josie’s:

Children’s Fiction is often accompanied by crayon-like drawings, so I immediately knew how I wanted to draw the chickens! The accessories were added to make them more stylish, it seemed like it would go with their jobs! Maybe I should’ve gone with something a bit more modern, but I went with the chalkboard backdrop because I can imagine the chickens scratching out their plans on one. Anyway, the overall goal was to draw something whimsical and fun. Hopefully, it comes off as that!

Let’s step back and explore a thrilling supernatural adventure! Day 19 is represented by LGBTQ+ novel Hollow Bonds by Rowan York! This cover was designed by the amazing returning designer, Sean Childers-Gray!

Hollow Bonds

When recently-turned vampire Remi Moreau is attacked by an unknown force he can’t see, only the timely intervention of a stranger—Malcolm Blackburn, ‘spare’ heir to the most powerful witches’ coven in the U.S.—saves his life… and when the pair learn that the spirit that attacked Remi marked him and will likely return, and that it may also have killed the missing friend Mal came to town to find, they must work together to stop it.

About the Author

The author has chosen to keep their identity a secret!

About the Designer

Sean Childers-Gray (he/they) Designer | Educator | Transgender Advocate

Sean has spent almost two decades working in the field of graphic design. He earned his MFA in Media Design from Full Sail University. He works as the BlendEd Learning Coordinator for Davis Technical College in Kaysville, Utah. He and his wife spend their free time volunteering for the LGBTQ+ community and he serves as the President and Marketing Director for Ogden Pride, creating festival materials, branding, environmental graphics, and more. He has been featured in PRINT Magazine’s Creative Voices series. You can read and subscribe to his work, The Shape of Our Dignity, on his Substack. Follow on Insta @s_childersgray

For Day 29, we’re featuring a cover designed and written by YWP author Oliver V. Álvarez titled Occams Razor, a Horror/Supernatural novel.

Occams Razor

One thousand beings, trapped in an underground bunker, created by scientists to be as powerful as possible. One thousand years, where they are all trapped in slumber. One thousand years since everything on Earth was annihilated, destroyed by some planetwide disaster only remembered by those now long dead. One thousand people, donating their minds to ‘live on’ through these creatures before that terrible disaster hit.

One date, where those beings will all awaken. One goal, for them to reclaim the desolate world. One rule, do whatever it takes to survive. One person out of a thousand, whom is neither strong nor fast nor cunning.

And one survivor, who will find that the true way to escape that bunker is not by physical strength or speed or intelligence, but the strength of the mind to persevere no matter what happens.

About the Author

Ollie is a 17-year-old disabled and queer artist whom, asides from drawing, likes to write out analogies of its past experiences in the form of fictional stories that are often sci-fi, thriller, and occasionally horror or fantasy. It completed its first full-length novel, Gasoline, in 2022, and is starting on its next, Occams Razor, for NaNoWriMo 2023. Besides noveling, schoolwork, and working on art, it also enjoys listening to obscure genres of music, surfing the web, and daydreaming about exploring the world.

For Day 28, we’re featuring a cover designed and written by author Erica Manwaring titled Reassembling Kate, a Mainstream novel.

Reassembling Kate

Kate Monroe is a successful businesswoman with a fractured past. Her little brother died when she was 5 and she has never been the same. One day she finds herself having an out-of-body experience but she can’t get back. She is forced to stand on the sidelines and watch her body carrying on, and doing a better job of it, without her. Her life, and the people in it, were not what she thought.

Just as she starts to lose hope and resign herself to being a ghost in her own lifetime her colleague, David, in the middle of a boring meeting, looks her straight in the eyes. She manages to find a way to communicate with him and together they hatch a plan to save her.
Progress is slow until she discovers more disembodied voices like her and follows them to a hidden place where she finds their owners, lost like her. Isobel, the well-meaning matron; Richard, bookish and kind; Fi, the woman with a tragic past; Morwena, full of anger and fire; Mary, dangerously fun; and Cathy, the brat.

Initially these people are bafflingly ok with their circumstance. Then David arrives and helps her realise she is inside her own head talking to parts of her psyche. She is furious at their influence in her life but her only way back is to try to become friends. As she does so Kate comes to understand just how damaged she had become and why.

But not all the parts of herself want to come quietly. Mary, the angry teenager, kidnaps Cathy, Kate’s inner child, and makes a run for it, invited in by a mysterious woman into her own mental world. There is no choice but to go after them. They find Cathy held hostage. The Woman lives only inside her head and has no qualms about stealing other people’s minds for the company. It is only by all working together that Kate succeeds where she would once have failed.

Back home she finds out David is actually a mind walker too and had been borrowing David’s body. He leaves her heartbroken until she is sitting in a café and meets a man she has never met but who she instantly recognises.

About the Author

Writer of things a little bit weird, a little bit true. Author of three books exploring how people cope with and thrive in our challenging world through the lens of contemporary fantasy. You can find me at www.dean-park.com or on Facebook or Instagram @ EricaManwaring

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Erica’s thoughts:

I wanted something striking but that conveyed the fantasy elements of the novel. This image, found on shutter stock, was a great find and also reminded me of Magritte’s Son of Man which had a lot of great parallels. I then adapted the font to suit with the help of a graphic designer friend.

For Day 26, we’re featuring a cover designed by Emma for Young Adult novel Kleine Streuner by Rose Witt!

Kleine Streuner

A frustrated law student decides to move to Brighton, UK to kickstart her career as a streamer. There she makes the acquaintance of two established streamers who agree to support her in her endeavor to reach her subscriber goal milestone. However, unbeknownst to her, these two streamers pursue their own goals in agreeing to put a certified nobody on the map.

About the Artist

Emma has always had a keen interest in the visual arts but it hasn’t been until taking up a harrowing university degree that painting and graphic design has become her sorely needed outlet. 

Her socials can be found here: instagram.com/elmovert 

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Emma’s thoughts:

The main motive of the cover shows the house in which one of the streamers resides, which becomes the central setting for the story. In the background, you can see the ocean and architecture mainly found in the South of England where the story is set. The cover is set during night time, which is more or less the time when streamers work. The five people on the cover are the most important characters, and the boy in the bottom left corner hints at the conflict of the story (him leaving the others).

For Day 26, we’re featuring a cover designed and written by YWP author Clover called The Elevator, a Young Adult novel.

The Elevator

The Elevator is a brand new TV show made by the United States government. The premise is simple, a thousand kids drafted and locked in a tower filled with deadly challenges, streamed worldwide. Despite the estimated 0% chance of survival, will any of these kids survive?

About the Author

Hello! I’m Clover and I go by any pronouns. I’ve liked writing and drawing since I was little and being an author or illustrator when I grow up is something I wouldn’t mind. I love creating different worlds and scenarios in my head, and that’s where the majority of my ideas, including for this book, come from. The Elevator is the book I’m writing for NaNoWriMo this year and I’m feeling very inspired, so I can’t wait for November to start!

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Clover’s thoughts:

I came up with about 5 different compositions for my cover but i ended up liking this one the most. I wanted to make the cover include both the main character, Sono, and the actual elevator (because of the name of the book). For the colors, I was stuck between green and red but I chose green in the end because I felt like it would be better for this particular scene. I don’t really draw backgrounds or full pieces too much so this was a fun challenge! The text was also really hard to include.

ALT

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. ProWritingAid, a 2023 NaNo sponsor, helps you turn your rough first draft into a clean, clear, publish-ready manuscript. Today, author Krystal N. Craiker shares some tips on how to make sure your first draft has some good bones to start with:

One question I often hear about National Novel Writing Month is, “Won’t my novel be of terrible quality?”

It’s true that writing 50,000 words in 30 days won’t give you a polished manuscript. And it’s always great to embrace the creative mess of the first draft.

However, there are some tricks to ensure that your first draft has plenty of usable content. These tips are also a great way to move your story along when you get stuck.

For Day 25, we’re featuring a cover designed and written by YWP author Sylvie Witherspoon called The Ups and Downs of a Baby-Sitter Witch, a Fantasy novel.

The Ups and Downs of a Baby-Sitter Witch

On the verge of being kicked out her coven, Moria, a teen witch who dabbles in reanimation, is sent to a collect supplies for a very important potion…at Fairyland Theme Park.

Completely out of her element, Moria grudgingly sets out to find ingredients like “tears of a spoiled child” and “teenage lust” while under the guise of a toy store employee. To complicate things further, four year old Lucy falls into her care.

Lucy’s everything Moria isn't—hyper, friendly, a pink-loving wanna-be-princess—but Moria finds herself beginning to care for her spunky ward. Then, as a serious plot deep within the workings of Fairyland begins to reveal itself, a terrible accident befalls Lucy. Caught between feelings and worlds, Moria must learn how to be strong AND kind, or she may not be able to fulfill a baby-sitter’s core purpose: to keep their charge alive.

About the Author

Sylvie Witherspoon is a 16-year-old writer/illustrator and nerd who loves brainstorming story ideas and filling up stacks of sketchbooks. She drafted her first full-length novel at age 13, her second at 14, and has been writing (and drawing) with the goal of being published ever since. She hopes The Ups and Downs of the Babysitter Witch will be her first true graphic novel, combining three of her favorite things: an unconventional heroine, quirky humor, and spooky magic! You can find her drooling over the best middle-grade/YA books at her local library, where she hopes her own creations will someday populate the shelves.

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Sylvie’s thoughts:

The goal was to create a situation of contrasts (eg, Princess pink versus Edward Gorey goth black-&-white) and instability (roller coaster). Moria, in a rare moment of cheer, is caught in the thrill of a rapid descent which only she and Lucy are fearless enough to enjoy.

For Day 24, we’re featuring a cover designed and written by YWP author Percy Keeran called To Live or To Burn, a Fantasy novel.

To Live Or To Burn

A young boy, Vivian, is forced into the throne after the death of his father. He, overwhelmed by the large amount of power in his hands, decides now is the time for revenge until he is stopped by a girl from another world. This girl, Orla, is nothing like he’s ever seen before. She’s snappy and blunt yet somehow… kind?

About the Author

My name is Percy (Perseus for long) Keeran. I’ve been drawing since 3rd grade, and I am currently a sophomore in high school. I have plans to attend Rhode Island School of Design when I graduate and major in illustration. The 2023 NaNoWriMo will be the second I am participating in, but this cover was from my first project. It was my first large, “serious” project, and I enjoy looking back on the previous year’s work.

Cover Design Process:

This year. we gave designers the optional prompt to explain their design process for the cover! Here’s Percy’s thoughts:

The first set of designing my cover was picking out a color palette. I used red for power, orange for excitement, as well as gold and purple for luxury. Vivian, the main character’s, design has always been clear in my head as well as his story. The puppet strings attached to him are just subtle enough that you have to look for them, but tell a lot about his character.

For Day 23, we have Adventure novel Seek Thy Truth by R.S. Knight! This cover was designed by the amazing returning designer, Marc English!

Seek Thy Truth

A retake on the classic story, the Pied Piper but with an adventurous twist… The story follows Godfrey, an exuberant historical con-artist during the 1700’s who’s hellbent on trying to rewrite fables to his liking throughout different parts of the world just to gain popularity and money. He hears about the chilling story of a mysterious female figure in Hameln, Germania who showed up and took not only children away, but the adults as well. He decides to try his luck in rewriting their tale by finding out what he can to spin, only to realize there must be a more sinister force at hand than a mere fairytale.

About the Author

This author has chosen to keep their identity a secret!

About the Designer

Marc English (marcenglih.design) has been making art since he was a kid. He became a designer as a young adult, then went to MassArt for the same. Within four years of graduating he was teaching there, and has since taught design in grad and undergraduate programs in the U.S., Mexico, and Guatemala. An author of a book on identity, Marc has served clients across the U.S., from Vietnam to Tel Aviv, and places in between, focusing on his version of identity. President of AIGA/Boston, he founded, served as president for the Austin chapter, created their Design Ranch retreat, and served on the AIGA national board of directors. He spends his time watching films, reading books; banging on a variety of musical instruments; roaming on four wheels, 2 wheels, under sail, on foot; and listening to strangers tell their stories. He has a few of his own.