Publishing Push

From manuscript feedback to a publishing deal 🎉

Patrick Walsh — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:43:38 GMT

One of the things I love most about this work is hearing what happens next.

A little while ago, Gen Ponce came to Publishing Push for feedback on his manuscript.

We did what we always do. Gave honest, detailed, actionable input and then Gen went away and got back to his search for a publishing contract.

Yesterday, I got this:

The book is called The Chronic…

The Gut-Punch Is Never a Speech

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 14:47:01 GMT

(Details below have been changed to protect an unpublished manuscript.)

This week a client sent me a scene sketch that stopped me cold at my desk, and I want to talk about why, because the why is one of the most useful things I know about writing emotion, and he did it by instinct.

I won’t give you his scene. I’ll give you its skeleton, wearing different …

The Book Stephen King Threw in the Bin

Patrick Walsh — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:22:08 GMT

It was 1972. King was working out of a cramped trailer, writing in the laundry room, chain-smoking, exhausted, broke. He managed three pages of a story about a bullied teenage girl called Carrie and decided they were rubbish. He couldn’t connect with the character. The premise felt unrelatable. Unsellable. Not worth finishing.

So he crumpled the pages an…

Every Sentence Should Create a Question

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 14:25:08 GMT

Someone watched my video about Lee Child’s writing process, then picked up the first Jack Reacher novel and started doing something fascinating.

Instead of analysing the plot...they analysed the questions and here’s what they found.

“I was arrested in Eno’s diner.”

Immediately they asked:

Why was he arrested?
Why in a diner?

Then the next sentence.

“At twelve …

Your Action Scene Isn't Too Long. It's Repeating Itself.

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 14:37:08 GMT

This week I’ve been working with an author on a big, ambitious fantasy manuscript, and this week we tackled a note that comes up in almost every edit I do: “the opening battle runs long.”

When a writer hears that, they usually reach for the scissors and start trimming lines. A shorter sword-swing here, a tighter sentence there. And the scene barely impro…

The launch that went quiet

Patrick Walsh — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:55:17 GMT

Most authors I speak to describe the same thing.

The book comes out. There is a flurry for about a week. A few friends buy it, a handful of reviews trickle in, your mum posts about it on Facebook. And then it goes quiet. The book that took three years to write ends up sitting there, doing very little, and you are left with the sinking feeling that you mi…

I Ghostwrote 3 Books This Year. They All Had the Same Problem.

Patrick Walsh — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:31:12 GMT

Hi writers,

You may have noticed it’s been a couple of weeks since the last video on the YouTube channel. Two reasons for that.

First, I lost my voice last week right when I was due to record!

Second, I wanted to take my time with this one. I’ve ghostwritten three books so far this year: music memoir, a literary project for an established American author, …

Readers Spent $14.6 Billion on Books Last Year

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 14:41:30 GMT

The industry data for 2025 has landed on both sides of the Atlantic, and if you’re writing a book right now, there’s plenty here to feel good about.

Americans spent $14.6 billion on books last year. That’s the total US publishing revenue reported by the Association of American Publishers up on 2024, with consumer books alone accounting for $9.8 billion. …

when the box arrives

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:06:05 GMT

I’m a writer.

Words are my weapon of choice.

But this week, I don’t want to say too much.

I just want to share this short private video with you.

It’s from an author we recently helped publish. He spent eight years writing his book. He never thought he’d become an author.

Then the box arrived.

And he opened it.

Sometimes, seeing the finished book means more t…

I asked 839 of you how long your book has taken.

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 14:40:28 GMT

Hey Writers,

Last week I ran a poll. One question: how long have you been working on your current manuscript?

839 of you voted. Here’s roughly how it landed:

Under a year — 38%
A year to three — 31%
Longer than that — a smaller group
Five-plus years (”I don’t want to talk about it”) — a full quarter of you

So the biggest single group is under a year. But add u…

Why most first drafts are summaries

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 14:35:21 GMT

A few months ago I started ghostwriting a memoir for a man in his fifties. He’d been in a band on the Wirral in the early nineties. The band hadn’t quite made it, but they had a story worth telling.

His draft was 4,000 words.

The finished manuscript is 25,000.

I want to walk you through what happened in between, because the same problem that made his first…

I've just finished three books

Patrick Walsh — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:16:06 GMT

Over the past year I’ve been ghostwriting three books. A music memoir for a man in his fifties looking back at his time in a band on the Wirral. A literary project and a survival memoir for a woman in Ireland who was given six months to live and is now in her eighth year.

Three completely different projects. Three completely different voices. Three of th…

Why readers quit (and where they stop)

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 15:19:26 GMT

Happy Sunday fellow writers,

Another update from the Pages community, then a craft piece on something I’ve been thinking about all week.

Inside Pages this week

Ben shared a question about pacing in his summer camp thriller: specifically how to handle the slow build of unease without losing readers in the middle. The conversation that followed was the kind…

The 45,000 words he cut

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 31 May 2026 15:03:38 GMT

Hello 👋

Quick update on a few things this week, then a craft piece I want to share.

A note from the Pages community

Pages, the community I launched a few weeks ago, has its first members in. Ben is a startup founder in Berlin writing his first novel: a summer camp thriller about a group of kids who realise something is feeding beneath the island. Judith i…

The nerves never leave

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 24 May 2026 15:11:59 GMT

Almost every writer I get on the phone asks me the same two questions.

Is it good enough?

Will people actually like it?

They’re nervous about submitting. They’ve been holding their manuscript close for months, sometimes years, and the thought of letting someone else read it makes their chest tighten. They’ve convinced themselves that maybe it’s not ready. …

A note that made my week

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 17 May 2026 15:07:49 GMT

Every now and then, a piece of feedback comes through that reminds me why we do this work.

Last week, one of our authors, sent his editor a message after they’d finished editing Part 2 of his memoir. I read it three times.

Antonis is writing the story of his life. It started as one manuscript and is becoming three books. The work spans his childhood in a…

Introducing PAGES

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 10 May 2026 15:08:35 GMT

Last week I mentioned I’d been thinking about opening up a small group of writers to work with directly. Today I’m opening the doors.

It’s called PAGES, and here’s what it is.

Each month, you send me up to 1,500 words of your work-in-progress. I read it properly, not a quick glance, an actual editorial read and send you back developmental feedback within …

Something I've been thinking about

Patrick Walsh — Wed, 06 May 2026 15:48:08 GMT

A quick one for you this week.

For the last 12 years I’ve been editing manuscripts professionally. Fiction, memoir, indie books, the lot. And every week, when I sit down to write this newsletter, I think about how strange it is that you only ever get the polished output: the published book, the finished essay, the writing advice distilled into tidy bull…

Why Dialogue Goes Wrong Even When the Line Itself Isn’t the Problem

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 15:18:09 GMT

A lot of writers try to fix dialogue at the sentence level.

They tweak wording. Cut adverbs. Make it sharper. Make it sound more natural.

But in most manuscripts, the real problem isn’t the line itself.

It’s the weight the line is carrying.

That’s where dialogue starts to break.

A line of dialogue is often being asked to do far too much at once. It’s trying …

When Writing Advice Feels Wrong, It’s Usually Because You’re Solving the Wrong Problem

Patrick Walsh — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 15:14:40 GMT

One of the most interesting things about the comments on my recent video wasn’t which mistake people agreed with most.

It was the pushback.

Some writers said the midpoint advice clicked immediately. Others said POV and action scenes were their weak points. But a different group raised a more interesting objection:

What about books that don’t follow the usu…