There has been a controversy, or should I say, just a big heaping hunk of drama that leaked from BookTok into the bookish and writerly realms of the world. Now, it’s my policy not to name and shame, so I’m going to avoid calling this person out. It’s more important to me to focus on some of the weirdness I’ve heard and analyze it.

The background: an author, who had been working on worldbuilding and writing a book series since age 12, recently sold 6,000-7,000 copies of that book on preorder, an incredible feat. But when readers got the books in hand, it turns out…the writing wasn’t up to par. As of today, the Goodreads rating is 1.61. I’ve never seen anything like it. Anyway, I became kind of obsessed over this because I wanted to know how something like this could happen. I felt bad for the author but also thought some decisions they made were really out there. I’ve watched several deep dives on the author and the book they wrote, and I have a lot of questions. But I thought I’d narrow it down to one:

Do you need a team to write a book?

The reason why this has my attention is because the author has made several TikTok videos describing the editing process the book will undergo based on its poor reception. One of the things they keep mentioning repeatedly is a team–an editor who will do developmental, line, and copyediting, plus a slew of artists who will create scenes from the book to inspire the author to write them, along with giving feedback. The team will have regular meetings to discuss the book and make edits and go over said feedback, which will help the author write the book. I can’t remember if these were weekly or daily meetings, but it seemed excessive to me, and a bad decision.

While my experience does not apply to everyone, I can tell you that while writing Son of the Siren, I had too many hands in it. 5 beta readers. 1 family member critiquing it. 2 writer friends critiquing it. 1 contest judge critiquing it. That would be a total of 9 people giving me advice on how to write or fix my book.

What was frustrating about this was how contradictory every person’s feedback was. Pacing was too fast or too slow. The romance was spot-on or lackluster. Scenes were exciting or pointless. Instead of helping me out, this confused me, because I didn’t know who to listen to.

Ultimately, I listened to myself. I did take some advice into account, but in the end, I was the writer, and the decisions were mine on how to serve the story.

Which brings me to the answer to my earlier question: I do not think you need a team of people to write a book. Writing is a solitary act (unless you are co-writing with someone). The ideas are yours. The prose is yours. You are responsible for your words on the page, the characters that live in them, and the story they tell.

However, I do believe that you need a team in order to be published.

My goal with Son of the Siren was publication. Originally I wanted to self-publish it, so I knew I had to foot the bill for several different kinds of editing. I’m going to talk about the professionals I worked with, though, and leave off the people I personally knew who wanted to help me.

The first professional I hired was the developmental editor. They got the first draft of the completed book. I got high praise from them and they thought the book was in good shape.

As a precaution, though, I also hired beta readers. I did an initial batch of three readers, all professionals who dealt with YA fantasy. And their response to the book was lukewarm. While they found things they liked, they had a lot of issues with the book.

I decided to rewrite it. After one or two rewritten drafts, I hired on two more beta readers to see if my changes were good or not. I admitted to them I wasn’t comfortable with how I rewrote it, and to give me specific feedback in that area. I got it, but also, the reception for the book on the whole was once again “meh.”

After all of this hiring of editors and beta readers, I ran out of money. So I decided to try traditional publishing. I couldn’t afford to have more eyes on my work, though. I rewrote it one more time, and thought to myself, “This is the best you’re going to make it, 900 opinions be damned!” and I queried it. I got my agent Rick Lewis to represent it. He had me rewrite passages one more time along with some smaller edits, and then the editor and proofreader from Oliver Heber Books gave it more attention, and more changes were made.

From book to publication, a total of 12 people (not including myself) assisted in the creation and cleanup of the book. While most of the people helped me individually, I certainly had a team (the Oliver Heber Books staff) on my side once I nabbed a publisher.

I think this is what the TikTok author needs. Editors and proofreaders. I don’t understand why art is needed to compose the story. I hired an artist to do my characters, which, although inspiring, were made to look like the images I already had inside my head. And the art was meant for marketing, too. But did I need an artist to render a “fae fox” in order for me to understand what it was to write about it? I could’ve sworn I invented it. Oops.

Anyway, I feel like there’s a big cautionary tale here. What good is having a team when you’re the one responsible for the writing? What good is securing feedback from a team when feedback from that many people will often be contradictory? Write the story first. Then, if you seek publication, work with a team to clean up your writing. Then, upon signing a contract, work with a team to get your book ready for the shelves. But do you need a team to write? Nope.