The biggest surprises you'll encounter on your book publishing journey

From when and how you get money to who's really gonna buy your book, here's a list of the things that make authors most commonly go "WTF." Most of these surprises are bad.

Sixteen years ago, I heard a drunk man give a toast that a. still haunts me and b. contains some applicable wisdom for book publishing.

The man was toasting his goddaughter at her 21st birthday party. “Life—is like—life is like a bubble in a glass of champagne,” he said, looking back and forth from the birthday girl to the sloshing metaphor in his hand.…