Do we really need articles like this any more? I mean, besides the stupidly easy process of getting your work into print these days, do we really want to encourage people to be clogging up the system with more slush? Mind you, this piece seems relatively reality-driven and does encourage people to give their heads a shake before they start whipping that novel at every mailbox in the biz. (Of course, anecdotal evidence historically sides with the chance that no one who actually needs to read those parts will.)

But here’s the toughest part, harder than any other step, but easily the most essential. It’s the thing you want — no, need — to think about most before even opening that basement door and facing the daylight. Is your book actually any good? Will anyone out there really want to read it? Just who do you think you are, anyway?

According to Pepper, if there’s one universal rule of thumb for the first time author, “It’s being honest with yourself.”

“There’s two ways of looking at it,” he explains. “There’s like 18 billion books published. Why does the world need another book, whether it’s by me or not by me? How am I going to move the meter here? Be honest. Writing should not be a self-indulgent thing, that I’m doing it because I like to do it. If you’re going to ask a publisher to pay money for it, or an agent to spend their time shopping it, then you really do have to believe you can find an audience for it. That audience doesn’t consist of your Aunt May. That audience is people who don’t know you that you have turned on by your writing. I think the biggest mistake always is just thinking you’re better than you are.”