Authors share how they navigate publishing books

Author Victoria Buitron signs books. Amy Sowder photo

By AMY SOWDER

So, you want to write a book? Or you want to get your manuscript published?

You’re not alone.

Upwards of 81% of Americans feel they have a book in them, but only 3% finish a manuscript, and not even 1% are chosen by traditional publishers, according to a 23-year-old Jenkins Group study that veteran writers use as a warning to aspiring authors and creative-career coaches tout to sell their programs.

But when it works, it’s wonderful.

“I feel really lucky to have my job. I can’t believe people are paying me to make stuff up,” Bedford-based novelist Katie Sise told a 30-member audience in Mount Kisco recently. A bestselling author of eight books, Sise’s books have been included on best-of lists by Good Morning America, The New York Post, PopSugar, Parade Magazine and PureWow. Her newest novel, “You Must Be New Here,” was published July 8 by Little A, a literary fiction and nonfiction imprint of Amazon Publishing.

Sise was one of four authors on a publishing panel presented by the Mount Kisco Arts Council on Nov. 23 at the Mount Kisco Library. The free community event brought together these authors to share their experiences, lessons and advice on how to navigate the modern publishing landscape. Writer and arts council member Michelle Guerrero Henry moderated the discussion.

Henry asked the authors about their different journeys to publication.

Hailing from Ecuador and residing in Connecticut, writer Victoria Buitron started taking writing workshops before turning to Fairfield University for a master’s degree in creative writing. Her debut memoir-in-essays, “A Body Across Two Hemispheres” was the 2021 Fairfield Book Prize winner. In 2023, she received the Artistic Excellence Award from the Connecticut Office of the Arts. Her debut poetry collection, “Unburying the Bones,” is 2025’s VersoFrontera inaugural prize winner. 

Valerie Bolling was an educator in the Greenwich, Conn., school system for 30 years before she quit to become a full-time children’s author in 2023. She’s the author of 12 books, including SCBWI Crystal Kite Award winner “Let’s Dance!”; Kirkus Prize finalist “Together We Swim”; Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection “I See Color”; and most recently, “Flea for Justice.” 

Her path began with query letters to agents and publishers and Twitter pitches. In 2018, an editor at Boyds Mills & Kane (now Astra Publishing) liked her pitch on Twitter and within two weeks, her book was accepted for publication.

You need to decide what you want for your book, whether it’s an independent publisher, contests, a traditional publisher or self publishing, Bolling said. Aspiring published authors also need to decide if they want an agent.

“Writing is a solitary act, but getting a book published is not a solitary act. You need a village,” Bolling said.

After earning her doctorate degree in education from Johns Hopkins University while working in the entertainment industry, Lisa Mitchell was inspired by her daughter and the bilingual culture of Mount Kisco Elementary School. So, she wrote a middle-grade children’s book that she self-published, with a lot of help from consultants. Mitchell hired a development editor, copywriter, proofreader, marketer, illustrator, and a few linguistics and cultural experts to help her better depict characters unlike her own background.

“Be careful when your friends read it because they’ll tell you it’s great when it’s not,” Mitchell said.

All the authors encouraged the audience to seek feedback. Sometimes it’s from family and friends, but even better is thoughtful feedback from other writers in your genre. Bolling is in three critiquing groups. Sise doesn’t always agree with the feedback, but she paid attention when her Amazon reviewers were saying the same thing.

“I love that because what I’m hearing is tapping into community, the right community at the right time,” Henry said as she led the discussion.

Ray Mak of the nearby Curio Room helped the audience members buy the panelists’ books after the discussion. “We like platforming emerging authors and self-published writers, and we ourselves are zine publishers, so we’ve been very focused on one side of the industry’s ecosystem,” said Mak, who runs Curio Room, a shop for new and used books, vinyl records, original art and gifts, with his partner, Elaine “Frog” Wing. “It helps me also to think about how to market books as they come up.”

The whole process, from writing and editing to querying and marketing, requires different parts of your brain, Buitron said. Give yourself some time to lay the foundation. Write at least 80% of the book before pitching it.

Sise started out as an actor, then a successful jewelry designer, before she realized she loved writing books. She learned the craft by ghost-writing New York Times bestselling suspense books and then got a deal with HarperCollins to write young adult novels. After a while, she broke off to write what she likes to read: novels for adults. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. She learned that publisher rejections can be constructive when the rejection letters give better reasons. And her first book, a 300-pager, never made it to publication.

“The biggest difference between published writers and unpublished writers is that they just keep going,” Sise said.

For more information, visit mountkiscoartscouncil.com.