Guest post: THIS is the necessary ingredient for finishing a project

Nina Haines, founder of Sapph-Lit, on publishing others' books but struggling to write her own

Jun 24, 2026

Welcome to today’s guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This heartfelt one is from Nina Haines, founder of the Sapph-Lit book club and Bindery imprint. Happy Pride!

Five years ago, I posted a TikTok with the hook “queer books that aren’t YA.” Having majored in gender & sexuality studies several years before, seeing the same five books recycled through BookTok video after BookTok video became increasingly frustrating for my 23 year old bisexual self, who at the time believed the fact that I was reading Eileen Myles and Cookie Mueller was the most interesting things about me.

After scouring my shelves for a few titles (Detransition, Baby and The Argonauts being among the select seven), the video took less than ten minutes to film, edit, and post. I didn’t know it would change my life.

That video got picked up by the then-non-Larry-Ellison-owned version of TikTok’s algorithm, with hundreds of comments sharing their own recommendations. One comment asked “can we start a book club?” My background in building out community ambassador programs for beauty brands told me I could, so I tried.

Today, I run a sapphic book club and publishing imprint called Sapph-Lit, and while we’ve proudly read a few YA books over the years, we mostly read adult queer literary fiction with a brain-shifting memoir thrown in here or there. We have thousands of members from over 60 countries, I’ve interviewed nearly 100 authors online and in person, and our first book Saturn Returning by Kim Narby was published last month with Bindery Books.

While building my book club, and eventually transforming into a publishing imprint that has one book on the shelves and another coming out in February 2027, I attempted to start writing my own novel, and I’ve never felt more lost.

At the same time I was accepting new members into our book club and creating social media content promoting this new venture, I was outlining the beginnings of a sapphic summer romance novel. I felt like my brain was on fire. The entire story unfolded before my eyes, and I wrote it all down. But when I opened a Google Doc, I wrote around what I actually wanted to say. I saw it as 13,000 words of fluffy setup and useless details that went nowhere, and I hated myself for it.

So I shelved it. For over two years. Focused solely on Sapph-Lit instead. But I never forgot those characters or their story.

My writing mentor and now dear friend Haley Jakobson teaches a class called Writing With Confidence. Sapph-Lit read her book Old Enough when it first came out, and I was lucky enough to interview her on one of her book tour stops at The Strand in Union Square. I confessed to her that I had an idea for a novel, and she encouraged me to take her class.

The Google form to sign up fills up in mere minutes, so I sat (not so patiently) refreshing my Gmail for her newsletter to drop on the hour like I was in the Ticketmaster war for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. I think I even texted her when one minute had passed, anxious that I would miss my opportunity. It felt like my only chance to try again.

As my fellow former gifted kids who measured their worth to academic success can relate, I thrive in classroom-like structures. I craved something to push me, to give me deadlines, to make me finally write this fucking book.

I got a spot in that class, and in 8 weeks I wrote 50,000 (now somewhat usable) words of a first draft. I shared my writing on social media for the first time, and I had members of my book club anxious to read more. My brain was finally on fire again.

And then I got laid off.

And I didn’t write again for months.

During this period of no writing, I started freelancing full time. After being laid off three times in a three year period, I finally realized having a corporate job doesn’t necessarily guarantee stability. While I still do marketing and social media work, all of my energy went towards Sapph-Lit and our new venture: building a community on Bindery.

Bindery is Sapph-Lit’s publisher and a new social media platform for bookish content creators that also handpicks select “tastemakers” to publish the stories they want to see out in the world. After the Sapph-Lit community was onboarded to their platform and I was approved as a new publishing imprint, I began searching for our first story.

Every so often, Bindery hosts something called Pitchfest: a period of time where authors without literary agents (but finished manuscripts ready to be devoured) can directly submit their books to Bindery’s tastemakers for publishing consideration. After the Sapph-Lit community overwhelmingly voted in favor of one of the pitches we received, I read Saturn Returning by Kim Narby for the first time in one sitting and immediately made an offer.

Working with Kim and Bindery on this book was a dream I didn’t even know I could have. I had a hand in every stage of this novel: developmental editing, event production, cover design, influencer mailers – I joke that my job title should actually be “book doula.” The first time I saw Saturn Returning on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, the Sapph-Lit logo at the bottom of the spine, I burst into tears. I am so grateful that Kim trusted me enough to help bring her story into the world.

While all of this excitement with Saturn Returning was happening, I was still attempting to finish the first draft of my own book. My own book that I told everyone on the internet last year I was writing. My own book that people still asked me about at events, in the comments section, over DM. All these years later, I felt I had nothing to show them except my shame for not having finished writing it sooner.

How could I put all of this energy into Sapph-Lit’s books and not with my own? Carving out time to work on Sapph-Lit came naturally, while setting aside time to write for myself was like pulling teeth. Logically, I know that Sapph-Lit and writing activate different parts of my brain. Sapph-Lit, while once a solo endeavor and true passion project, is now a business with support and resources. My writing process was stuck in that solo endeavor phase, and the more people asked about it the more the shame prevented me from sharing my messy work in progress.

But that sharing is what gets writing over the finish line. I learned that the first time I took Haley’s class, the class that got me to share my writing on social media the first time. So when Haley said she was doing her first in person class in New York, I signed up. While being in community with other writers, my novel took shape into something I was finally proud of.

I finally finished that first draft and hired a developmental editor to help me craft the second draft into something I can start querying to literary agents in the fall (an ever shifting timeline, but this is what I’m holding myself to currently). The revising process I’ve learned can also feel endless, and it’s hard not to compare myself to those who have reached the end, especially when you’ve had a small part in helping others do so. The difference is now I have others who check in on me, hold me accountable to my goals, and encourage me to keep going.

Through the community I denied myself for so long, I am able to remind myself that this novel will take the time it needs to take. That I shouldn’t let my busy freelance day today deny me the possibility of tomorrow being different. That my story still deserves to be heard, even if it is happening much later than I hoped.

The Sapph-Lit people see today was created by community. My novel will be finished the same way.