Finishing a rough draft is a fantastic accomplishment worthy of champagne, fireworks, and hearty congratulations. However, after the celebrations are over, many writers feel utterly overwhelmed by what still lies ahead. How much more work does their manuscript need? How do they make it attractive to a publisher? Discouraged, writers may suffer from writer’s block or fall into the trap of revising the first chapter over and over again. Many give up without ever submitting the manuscript. Those who push onward often submit a manuscript that isn’t ready and are rejected. This is a tragedy, and avoiding it is the reason behind this course. 

In this course—which is part mentoring, part traditional lectures and assignments—we will bridge the gap between a rough draft and a polished, ready to submit manuscript. 

Our focus will be on moving authors with first drafts through the process of revising, fleshing out, and polishing the manuscript for submission. Although the course will be most beneficial to authors with a finished rough draft, having a finished rough draft is not a requirement to take the course. 

The course will be broken down into units, with each unit focused on one of the common reasons manuscripts are rejected and the most common things editors have to fix before a book can be published. This information is as useful to an author who is just starting out as it is to an author who already has experience in the industry.

Click here for full course syllabus!

From sweet to intensely sensual, Laurie will help you write the romance novel of your heart...

Laurie Sanders struggled with the very knowledge gaps, feelings of uncertainty, and fear of rejection that this course is designed to overcome before she became published. Once Laurie was published in non-fiction and short fiction, she began dreaming about writing erotic romance.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many publishers looking for the type of character-driven, emotional, erotic romance she wrote. She also saw major drawbacks with the publishers’ distribution and marketing models. She wanted her books to be available beyond a publisher’s website. She wanted readers who preferred to read paperbacks to be able to buy her novels, too. Thwarted by the lack of what she considered a “perfect publisher” for her manuscript, Laurie researched the possibility of starting her own publishing company. She approached her husband, Orville, who had many years of experience as a business analyst for Fortune 500 companies. After discussing the possibilities and pitfalls, Black Velvet Seductions was born.

Since then, Laurie has read thousands of manuscripts and has written thousands of rejection letters. Rejecting authors saddens her, but she doesn’t have time to fix every manuscript she receives. She contents herself with explaining the reasons for rejection and directing authors to resources that will help them strengthen their manuscripts.

In 2007, Laurie was asked to teach a workshop for the Muse Online Conference. Thinking she could provide useful information to authors struggling toward publication, she decided to teach a workshop on deep point of view, a topic she chose because shallow point of view was, at that time,the leading reason she rejected manuscripts. The workshop was an enormous success. The following year, Laurie was asked to present the same workshop again for several different RWA chapters.