Ten Basic But Important Rules For Authors

Tom Cox

16 Jan 2026 — 3 min read

It's only on seeing this photo that it hits me just how young I was when I got my first publishing deal.

Never expect anyone to read your book, even if you sent it to them for free.
Do all you can to keep yourself in a non-presumptive state that will lead to a feeling of pleasant surprise if a fellow human reads your book.
Don’t let people whose job it is to think about the numbers that books sell influence your artistic decisions. If making artistic decisions was their strong point they’d probably not have a job centred around sales figures.
DO listen to good, harsh editors. And if they make you cry, go for a long walk, then come back and look at their suggestions with fresh wind-dried eyes.
If you are struggling with motivation, train your brain with treats, as you might train a puppy. (“Just one more paragraph without barking and you are permitted to eat this attractive cocktail onion on top of a small wedge of cheddar!”)
Get a good chair. Books are worth sacrificing nearly everything for, but the successful functioning of your body is hugely dependent on the health of your spine, which holds everything together, and nothing - not even books - is worth sacrificing that for.
Keep notebooks - real, physical notebooks - and never shy away from jotting down the weirdest thought that pops into your head. Prioritise physical notes over digital ones, always. Take your notebook everywhere and treat it like a valuable that is more important than your wallet or phone, because it is.
Research can be whatever the fuck you decide it needs to be. If it’s contributing positively to your book, it’s research. Don’t read books that sound, on the surface of things, like they’re going to be a bit like yours.
Do read books that sound, on the surface of things, like they’re going to be an entire planet away from yours.
Never pay any attention to ‘10 BASIC BUT IMPORTANT RULES FOR BEING AN AUTHOR’ lists on the internet.

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My latest book is Everything Will Swallow You. You can read extracts from it here and here. My other recent ones (all available from Blackwell's with free international delivery) are - in reverse order - 1983, Villager, Notebook (republished in April!), Ring The Hill, Help The Witch, 21st-Century Yokel, Close Encounters Of The Furred Kind and The Good, The Bad And The Furry.