Now that I’ve been home long enough to process everything, I thought I’d share some thoughts on my trip last week. I will admit that I found last year’s Nebula conference rather discouraging. I had a good time largely because I had local friends who were on the staff, and it was fun hanging out with them, but the conference part was difficult for me. I learned a lot and got some good business things out of it (that’s how I found my web designer), but I felt very alone and invisible in the crowd, and it was disappointing seeing that I was totally unknown in spite of having been published in fantasy and a member of the organization for more than a decade. There was very much an “in” crowd, and you could see the cliques.
This year was better for me. It helped that I’d met some people the year before. It also helped that I got there a day early and went on the pre-conference walk to the farmer’s market for lunch, so I met some people there. I was on a programming item the first day, so people talked to me at the opening reception and I didn’t feel quite so lost and alone there. I still feel like a nonentity in that world, but that means I have a huge opportunity of people who haven’t discovered me yet. And, at the same time, I learned from some of the panel discussions that I’m a lot more successful than I realized. There were some things I took for granted that I thought would surely apply to others who have a lot more recognition than I do if they applied to me, but it turns out that financial success and recognition don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. I’m making decent money, enough to live on without needing another job. My books from more than a decade ago are still in print and earning royalties. I’ve had a book optioned for film. My books do really well in audio. Sometimes it’s frustrating chugging along in obscurity while watching other people get the recognition, but I’d rather have the financial success than the fame any day. So, I came away feeling better about myself and about my career and able to see my lack of recognition so far as a huge opportunity of an untapped market rather than as any kind of slap in the face.
Meanwhile, I learned a lot — about social media, Facebook advertising, conflict resolution (both for career matters and using it for characters), what actual teens look for in YA fiction, fairy tales as a storytelling medium, audiobooks, finances for freelancers, dealing with discouragement, and the list goes on. Even when I was on a panel, I usually learned something new from it. I believe I attended a session during every time slot, except for the slot during which I was getting trained on using my new web site architecture.
Treating this weekend as a professional conference is relatively new. It used to be just about the awards ceremony, but has come to be a lot more like the RWA national conference, in being a professional conference that contains an awards ceremony. Membership in SFWA is still limited to those who have met certain publishing standards, but the conference is open to everyone who’s interested in writing science fiction and fantasy. I’d say it’s very worthwhile to attend if you have writing ambitions. There’s not a lot of “how to write 101” stuff, but there is a lot of good information on the business of publishing and managing a writing career. I will very likely go back next year because I think there’s a lot more bang for the writer’s buck than, say, a WorldCon. Plus, they give you a big bag of books. I was pretty ruthless about winnowing it down to the books I was sure I would read, and I even read a couple during the weekend so I could put them back on the swap table instead of hauling them home. And then I got to the airport and my bag was only 33 pounds, so I could have brought more home with me.
Showing posts with label the biz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the biz. Show all posts
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Early Career Planning
In my writing posts, I’ve been talking about writing advice that’s good or that depends on the individual. I found myself thinking once again about that convention panel on career planning for pre-published writers, and there are some things that you might be able to do to give yourself a boost besides just writing. I don’t think all of these are mandatory, but they could be helpful if you do them well. Still, though, the main thing you need to be doing is writing. If you don’t do that, none of the rest of these things will do you any good. I’ve seen a lot of writers stall their potential careers because they got caught up in being involved in writers organizations and conferences, etc., and they thought of that as being writing work, but it kept them from actually writing. They may have been a big shot in the organizations and knew lots of editors because of that, but without anything written, all those connections did no good. So, with each of these activities, you have to ask yourself if you’d be better off spending that time writing.
1) Join a writing organization
This is a good way to network with fellow writers, learn about the craft and the business, meet industry professionals, get feedback on your work, and start getting your name out there even before you’re published. Some of the national genre-specific groups allow unpublished writers to join, and many have local chapters with monthly meetings. There are local groups that meet for critiques or that have speakers. Many libraries and bookstores sponsor writing groups. Check Meet Up, your local library calendar of events, bookstore calendars, or do an Internet search for writing groups associated with your genre.
2) Attend writing conferences
Many of these writing groups sponsor annual conferences. They may be smaller local affairs, just one day with a few guest speakers, or multi-day national conventions with a number of industry professionals. At these events, you can hear expert speakers on the craft and business of writing and schedule pitch sessions with editors and agents. These can be rather expensive, so you might get more bang for your buck if you’re fairly advanced and have a manuscript ready to pitch.
3) Look for other events that include writing activities
While a lot of writing conferences may cost hundreds of dollars to attend, there are fan-oriented genre conventions that include writing activities that may only cost about $40 for the weekend. Look for science fiction or mystery conventions. Many of them include a writers’ workshop and panels on writing. The guest panelists for these events are usually published authors, so even if the convention itself doesn’t include a lot of how-to panels, it may offer you the opportunity to network with writers and talk to published authors.
For any of these in-person activities, you need to present yourself professionally. Don’t shove your manuscript at anyone, don’t corner anyone and force them to listen to a description of your book, don’t derail a panel by asking an irrelevant question that only applies to you or that is only a thinly veiled pitch for your book. Don’t be a jerk, in general. Meeting industry professionals in person can be a positive that helps your career, but it can also hurt you if you make a negative impression or come across like someone who’d be difficult to work with.
4) Study on your own
There are a number of online writing workshops and classes, some free, some at a reasonable cost. Authors, agents, and editors have blogs and write articles on writing. There are books about writing. There are online communities for writers. There’s a lot you can learn without leaving your home.
5) Establish a platform
Do you know a lot about something that might relate to your writing? You might be able to establish a platform based on that before you publish a book, and leverage that into a platform to promote your book. If you’re a lawyer who’s writing legal thrillers, you could write a blog or tweet about legal issues in fiction. Review books and movies involving lawyer characters from the perspective of a lawyer (though you might want to be careful about too much snark about books if you hope to sell a book to editors who published the books you’re tearing apart). Ditto if you’re an aerospace engineer writing science fiction, a folklorist writing fantasy, etc. You can talk about costumes in genre movies, analyze the music, create recipes for dishes mentioned in fiction, or whatever your area of expertise or interest might be.
You can also do this sort of thing if you have a strong voice and can write funny pieces about your own life, witty dissections of movies or TV series, or explorations of pop culture. There are novelists who had huge followings before they ever had a book published.
But don’t feel you have to do this. It takes a lot of time and effort and only really pays off if you have a huge impact.
6) Enter writing contests
I’m actually kind of iffy on this one. There are some manuscript contests sponsored by reputable writing organizations that can get your manuscript in front of editors or agents, skipping the slushpile. But there are also a lot of scams out there. I would be wary of any contest that promises publication as a prize because that prize comes with strict contract terms, with no negotiation. If your book is good enough to win the prize to be published, it’s good enough to be published the normal way, and you might get better terms doing so because then you’d be able to negotiate. For short stories, getting the prize of having your story published on a website means you’ve given up first publication rights and will have a harder time selling it to a real publication. So be sure of what you want out of a contest, who’s judging it, and what happens if you win.
Mostly, though, it’s about the writing. None of these things will do any good if you don’t finish a book and revise it until it’s in publishable condition.
1) Join a writing organization
This is a good way to network with fellow writers, learn about the craft and the business, meet industry professionals, get feedback on your work, and start getting your name out there even before you’re published. Some of the national genre-specific groups allow unpublished writers to join, and many have local chapters with monthly meetings. There are local groups that meet for critiques or that have speakers. Many libraries and bookstores sponsor writing groups. Check Meet Up, your local library calendar of events, bookstore calendars, or do an Internet search for writing groups associated with your genre.
2) Attend writing conferences
Many of these writing groups sponsor annual conferences. They may be smaller local affairs, just one day with a few guest speakers, or multi-day national conventions with a number of industry professionals. At these events, you can hear expert speakers on the craft and business of writing and schedule pitch sessions with editors and agents. These can be rather expensive, so you might get more bang for your buck if you’re fairly advanced and have a manuscript ready to pitch.
3) Look for other events that include writing activities
While a lot of writing conferences may cost hundreds of dollars to attend, there are fan-oriented genre conventions that include writing activities that may only cost about $40 for the weekend. Look for science fiction or mystery conventions. Many of them include a writers’ workshop and panels on writing. The guest panelists for these events are usually published authors, so even if the convention itself doesn’t include a lot of how-to panels, it may offer you the opportunity to network with writers and talk to published authors.
For any of these in-person activities, you need to present yourself professionally. Don’t shove your manuscript at anyone, don’t corner anyone and force them to listen to a description of your book, don’t derail a panel by asking an irrelevant question that only applies to you or that is only a thinly veiled pitch for your book. Don’t be a jerk, in general. Meeting industry professionals in person can be a positive that helps your career, but it can also hurt you if you make a negative impression or come across like someone who’d be difficult to work with.
4) Study on your own
There are a number of online writing workshops and classes, some free, some at a reasonable cost. Authors, agents, and editors have blogs and write articles on writing. There are books about writing. There are online communities for writers. There’s a lot you can learn without leaving your home.
5) Establish a platform
Do you know a lot about something that might relate to your writing? You might be able to establish a platform based on that before you publish a book, and leverage that into a platform to promote your book. If you’re a lawyer who’s writing legal thrillers, you could write a blog or tweet about legal issues in fiction. Review books and movies involving lawyer characters from the perspective of a lawyer (though you might want to be careful about too much snark about books if you hope to sell a book to editors who published the books you’re tearing apart). Ditto if you’re an aerospace engineer writing science fiction, a folklorist writing fantasy, etc. You can talk about costumes in genre movies, analyze the music, create recipes for dishes mentioned in fiction, or whatever your area of expertise or interest might be.
You can also do this sort of thing if you have a strong voice and can write funny pieces about your own life, witty dissections of movies or TV series, or explorations of pop culture. There are novelists who had huge followings before they ever had a book published.
But don’t feel you have to do this. It takes a lot of time and effort and only really pays off if you have a huge impact.
6) Enter writing contests
I’m actually kind of iffy on this one. There are some manuscript contests sponsored by reputable writing organizations that can get your manuscript in front of editors or agents, skipping the slushpile. But there are also a lot of scams out there. I would be wary of any contest that promises publication as a prize because that prize comes with strict contract terms, with no negotiation. If your book is good enough to win the prize to be published, it’s good enough to be published the normal way, and you might get better terms doing so because then you’d be able to negotiate. For short stories, getting the prize of having your story published on a website means you’ve given up first publication rights and will have a harder time selling it to a real publication. So be sure of what you want out of a contest, who’s judging it, and what happens if you win.
Mostly, though, it’s about the writing. None of these things will do any good if you don’t finish a book and revise it until it’s in publishable condition.
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Career Planning Before You're Published
I’m late getting to today’s post because I had to shoot a video, and it had to be done in the morning to take advantage of the natural light my house gets.
For today’s writing post, I’m picking up a topic from a recent convention panel I was on, about “Career Planning for Pre-Published Writers.” That’s kind of an odd concept, and the description was about building a platform.
But here’s my advice for how to plan your career before you’re published:
What about all that building a platform stuff and social media? Really, it will only help you if you do something huge with it. Otherwise, it’s more likely to count against you. If you’re a really clever blogger who manages to get a following in the thousands, or you somehow manage to get tens of thousands of Twitter followers who are real people and not just bots, and your posts tend to go viral, then that might count in your favor when a publishing decision is being made. Otherwise, the main thing is to not look like a total psycho. You don’t want to be ranting and raving about stupid publishers and agents who are rejecting you because they only want to publish trash. Definitely no racist or sexist rants. Mostly, focus on your writing rather than building a platform, unless you have something to build a platform on and can do it in a big way. It would be smart to buy the domain name of your name, maybe put up a placeholder site. But don’t worry about doing any kind of major publicity campaign until you have something to promote.
For today’s writing post, I’m picking up a topic from a recent convention panel I was on, about “Career Planning for Pre-Published Writers.” That’s kind of an odd concept, and the description was about building a platform.
But here’s my advice for how to plan your career before you’re published:
- Educate yourself on the craft, on the market, on the industry. Go to conferences, join writing groups, read the “how to write” books you find at the library.
- While you’re doing this, write something. Finish it. Put it aside.
- Write something else. Finish it. Put it aside.
- Go back to that first thing you wrote and take a good look at it. Make it better. Put it aside.
- Go back to that second thing you wrote. Make it better. Put it aside.
- Take yet another look at the first thing, see if you can make it better. Possibly give it to some of the people you met (other aspiring writers) while educating yourself to get their feedback. Use their feedback to make it better. Repeat with the second thing you wrote.
- Do serious market research. Who publishes the kind of thing you wrote? Read the most recent books that are closest to yours in genre, subject matter, and tone — not just the bestsellers, but books by first-time authors. Which books currently on the market might compare to yours? If you’re writing short fiction, read the various magazines to see who publishes the kind of thing you wrote. Find out what the submission guidelines are.
- Research agents (you’ll probably need one to get a novel sold to a major publisher). Look at who’s getting book deals done in your genre. This may be a good time to go to conferences and see if you can get some one-on-one appointments or pitch sessions with agents. Do some serious online searching to make sure the agents you’re targeting are legitimate and aren’t known for running a scam operation. A legitimate agent only makes money by selling books. They won’t ask for money from you, won’t send you to a book doctor that will cost you money (they might recommend you get more editing, but they shouldn’t send you to a specific person because that’s usually a sign that they’re getting some kind of referral kickback).
- Start submitting to publishers/publications/agents, following their guidelines.
- I generally recommend that people at least try to go through the traditional publishing route before diving into self publishing, if only to give you a reality check and thicken your skin. If you get a lot of rejections along the lines of “I love this but I don’t know where I’d sell it,” that might be a sign that self publishing could work because you may have a niche product. If your rejections are along the lines of “I couldn’t connect to the characters” or “the plot seems trite,” then go back to step one and write something better.
What about all that building a platform stuff and social media? Really, it will only help you if you do something huge with it. Otherwise, it’s more likely to count against you. If you’re a really clever blogger who manages to get a following in the thousands, or you somehow manage to get tens of thousands of Twitter followers who are real people and not just bots, and your posts tend to go viral, then that might count in your favor when a publishing decision is being made. Otherwise, the main thing is to not look like a total psycho. You don’t want to be ranting and raving about stupid publishers and agents who are rejecting you because they only want to publish trash. Definitely no racist or sexist rants. Mostly, focus on your writing rather than building a platform, unless you have something to build a platform on and can do it in a big way. It would be smart to buy the domain name of your name, maybe put up a placeholder site. But don’t worry about doing any kind of major publicity campaign until you have something to promote.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Getting Down to Business
I may not have been writing yesterday, but I put in a full day's work, and then some. What kind of work does a writer do when she's not writing?
I probably spend at least an hour a day on promotional stuff -- social media activity, reading social media to be able to respond and share stuff (a way to stay present and visible without spamming the world), blogging.
Yesterday, there was a lot of e-mail back and forth to set up a school visit for next month (my first! I'm a real YA author now!).
I put together some proposals for workshops I could give at writing conferences. This is something I'm going to be pursuing for next year because most of these conferences pay for the speakers to attend -- travel and hotel. Writers are also readers and are good for sharing word of mouth. So it's like getting paid to promote, plus you get to attend the conference, which is good for networking and learning.
I read a book on how to create a personal brand. I looked up some of the books this author recommended and found that one I want to read is at my neighborhood library.
I proofread a short story and sent it to my agent, then had some e-mail back and forth about how best to use this story, other possible similar stories I might do, and how we might want to approach cover art for these stories. That led to some research into artists and illustrators.
I brainstormed ideas for possible stories.
Today, I already went to the library to pick up that book and a reference book for the next Rebel Mechanics book that I had on hold. I found some other material on marketing.
I need to do more work toward finding an artist who does the kind of thing I have in mind.
I need to develop a series description for the Fairy Tale series to update the Amazon listing.
I want to do a status report of what I've done this year and what I have planned for the next year to share with my agent so we can do some strategizing.
I hope to read the books I got at the library and do some of the exercises on developing a brand identity, messaging, etc.
I really need to catch up on my bookkeeping after all my summer travel.
I hope to start reading the reference stuff for the next Rebel book, and there are some documentaries I have saved on the DVR that relate to that, but that falls into the category of being related to the actual writing part of work.
So, time to get down to business so I can get to the fun part of my job.
I probably spend at least an hour a day on promotional stuff -- social media activity, reading social media to be able to respond and share stuff (a way to stay present and visible without spamming the world), blogging.
Yesterday, there was a lot of e-mail back and forth to set up a school visit for next month (my first! I'm a real YA author now!).
I put together some proposals for workshops I could give at writing conferences. This is something I'm going to be pursuing for next year because most of these conferences pay for the speakers to attend -- travel and hotel. Writers are also readers and are good for sharing word of mouth. So it's like getting paid to promote, plus you get to attend the conference, which is good for networking and learning.
I read a book on how to create a personal brand. I looked up some of the books this author recommended and found that one I want to read is at my neighborhood library.
I proofread a short story and sent it to my agent, then had some e-mail back and forth about how best to use this story, other possible similar stories I might do, and how we might want to approach cover art for these stories. That led to some research into artists and illustrators.
I brainstormed ideas for possible stories.
Today, I already went to the library to pick up that book and a reference book for the next Rebel Mechanics book that I had on hold. I found some other material on marketing.
I need to do more work toward finding an artist who does the kind of thing I have in mind.
I need to develop a series description for the Fairy Tale series to update the Amazon listing.
I want to do a status report of what I've done this year and what I have planned for the next year to share with my agent so we can do some strategizing.
I hope to read the books I got at the library and do some of the exercises on developing a brand identity, messaging, etc.
I really need to catch up on my bookkeeping after all my summer travel.
I hope to start reading the reference stuff for the next Rebel book, and there are some documentaries I have saved on the DVR that relate to that, but that falls into the category of being related to the actual writing part of work.
So, time to get down to business so I can get to the fun part of my job.
Thursday, August 25, 2016
The Career I Want
I'm still working on all that marketing/branding stuff, in between trying to come up with a title for the book and doing edits/revisions.
I've had a few comments about how much humor might play into my author brand, but that's almost as big a minefield as the "clean" label. There will probably be some dose of humor, whimsy, or quirkiness in everything I write because I can't help myself. It may be a totally serious book with a slightly oddball premise (again, I can't help myself) or with characters who have a sense of humor. But that might not really be considered "humor." If you label something as funny and people don't laugh, then they consider the book a failure. Every time Harlequin tried to launch a romantic comedy line of books, it tanked, mostly because there are a lot of different kinds of humor, and so many of those books weren't funny at all to some people. If you don't say that something is funny and a reader laughs once, they might consider it a good book. If you say it's funny and the reader laughs once, it can lead to a much more negative reaction. So I think the "humor" aspect might fall under the "fun, feel-good" label. There will probably be something in my books to make you smile, but not everything is going to be comedy. That can be conveyed through lighter colors, the typeface, and in the way I present myself. There's usually at least some dry humor in my blog posts. I'm generally funny on convention panels. My tweets and Facebook posts present some humor.
I was reading an article on business planning for authors yesterday that suggested finding an author whose career you'd like to have and looking at what you'd need to do to have that career. I won't name the person I came up with, but in general it's someone who's pretty well respected in the genre but not necessarily famous outside the genre. Her books tend to make at least category bestseller lists and she gets award nominations. That's about where I'd like to be. I don't want to be real-world famous, but it would be nice to be famous within the genre -- to have lines at my autographings at conventions and the room packed for my panels. But because of being at the same publisher at the time this author was being launched, I know how she got to where she is, and a lot of it comes down to publisher support. She had a well-written book with a high-concept premise, and I think she already had a lot of online visibility from other activities, and the publisher had a strong launch strategy for her series. They did a lot of marketing at events like ComicCon and supported the books at the bookseller level. It's hard to build a business plan around "and then the publisher will promote the books."
So what it comes back around to is a well-written book with a high-concept hook that publishers will get excited about enough to push it. Coming from where I am, I'd probably have to boost what I'm doing now to use that as my pre-established visibility so that my existing sales don't count against me. I really want to avoid having to take a pen name to start over. I don't deal well with alter egos. I think I have a big enough following that my existing readership should be an asset rather than a liability, but when you're dealing with bookstore buyers, there's a risk that they'd look at the raw numbers and refuse to buy in a new book in greater quantities than have sold with previous books.
I should probably look more at authors who eventually broke through after a long slog rather than at those who had a big hit right out of the gate. That might give me more lessons to work with.
I've had a few comments about how much humor might play into my author brand, but that's almost as big a minefield as the "clean" label. There will probably be some dose of humor, whimsy, or quirkiness in everything I write because I can't help myself. It may be a totally serious book with a slightly oddball premise (again, I can't help myself) or with characters who have a sense of humor. But that might not really be considered "humor." If you label something as funny and people don't laugh, then they consider the book a failure. Every time Harlequin tried to launch a romantic comedy line of books, it tanked, mostly because there are a lot of different kinds of humor, and so many of those books weren't funny at all to some people. If you don't say that something is funny and a reader laughs once, they might consider it a good book. If you say it's funny and the reader laughs once, it can lead to a much more negative reaction. So I think the "humor" aspect might fall under the "fun, feel-good" label. There will probably be something in my books to make you smile, but not everything is going to be comedy. That can be conveyed through lighter colors, the typeface, and in the way I present myself. There's usually at least some dry humor in my blog posts. I'm generally funny on convention panels. My tweets and Facebook posts present some humor.
I was reading an article on business planning for authors yesterday that suggested finding an author whose career you'd like to have and looking at what you'd need to do to have that career. I won't name the person I came up with, but in general it's someone who's pretty well respected in the genre but not necessarily famous outside the genre. Her books tend to make at least category bestseller lists and she gets award nominations. That's about where I'd like to be. I don't want to be real-world famous, but it would be nice to be famous within the genre -- to have lines at my autographings at conventions and the room packed for my panels. But because of being at the same publisher at the time this author was being launched, I know how she got to where she is, and a lot of it comes down to publisher support. She had a well-written book with a high-concept premise, and I think she already had a lot of online visibility from other activities, and the publisher had a strong launch strategy for her series. They did a lot of marketing at events like ComicCon and supported the books at the bookseller level. It's hard to build a business plan around "and then the publisher will promote the books."
So what it comes back around to is a well-written book with a high-concept hook that publishers will get excited about enough to push it. Coming from where I am, I'd probably have to boost what I'm doing now to use that as my pre-established visibility so that my existing sales don't count against me. I really want to avoid having to take a pen name to start over. I don't deal well with alter egos. I think I have a big enough following that my existing readership should be an asset rather than a liability, but when you're dealing with bookstore buyers, there's a risk that they'd look at the raw numbers and refuse to buy in a new book in greater quantities than have sold with previous books.
I should probably look more at authors who eventually broke through after a long slog rather than at those who had a big hit right out of the gate. That might give me more lessons to work with.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Bad News, Good News, and a Publishing Manifesto
Now that I'm back to being more or less moderately coherent, it's time to get back to normal business mode, and that means I have something to announce, both good news and bad news.
First, the bad news: the publisher doesn't want another Rebel Mechanics book.
The good news: you'll get one anyway. I'll just go ahead and publish it myself. The good news about that is that instead of having to wait a year or two, it will probably be coming this summer, soon after the paperback release of Rebel Mechanics. The down side is that it likely won't be a pretty hardcover and won't be in bookstores. You'll have to get the e-book or order a book online. I don't yet know about an audiobook.
I will admit that I was disappointed about this. I was rather unhappy about the degree of support the publisher gave this book. They did such a wonderful job of producing a beautiful book, but they did no publicity. Every guest blog post or interview I did, every event I did, was something I set up or that came to me rather than through the publisher's publicist. The publisher presented me with a publicity plan of what they said they were going to do, but none of it got done, and I didn't know they weren't doing it until it was too late to do anything about it. That meant it didn't show up on any of the genre news sites where I've seen authors of other books like this interviewed. Even on social media, they made one tweet and didn't use any of their other in-house vehicles for promoting books. The book was generally well-reviewed and well-received, and librarians loved it. But too few people knew about it, so they didn't think it sold well enough to warrant a sequel, and they were uninterested in trying to support the paperback to see if it took off.
They were interested in looking at something else from me, but I figured why tie myself to them for another year or two (or more), only to get the same old thing? So I said this book was the only thing on the table, and if they didn't want it, that meant they'd passed on the option and I was no longer contractually linked to them.
That led me to make another career decision: I won't deal with another publisher unless I'm coming to them with enough clout to get them to support my book with a full promotional campaign. Otherwise, why should I bother with a publisher? Promotion and distribution are what they bring to the table that I can't do as well for myself. I'll admit that I have mixed feelings about independent publishing. It's saved my career. Without it, I'd have had to get another day job years ago. It's wonderful to have the option. But I really don't like doing it. I just want to write. I don't like having to make all the decisions and deal with vendors and artists and do all the marketing. But right now, I don't have a lot of faith in publishers. They make very poor business choices based on outdated models. I'm sick of having books that readers love but that no one knows about, and yet the publisher acts like the problem is with the book when it doesn't perform up to their hopes. They throw a lot of things against the wall and see what sticks while applying lots of glue to some things and nothing to others, but they still judge everything equally, as though it's all had glue. So, until and unless I have a book that's up for auction with competition between publishers, so that I can make promotional support part of the bid and get it in the contract (so that I'm the one who gets the glue), or until I'm so successful that they come begging to me (or both), I don't intend to deal with a publisher.
The trick will be to get to that point. I'm not sure that writing better is the answer, though I always try to do better. I don't think the quality of my books has been an issue. They've been favorably reviewed, and the people who read them really seem to love them. They may not quite have the same mass appeal or don't hit the right market niche, but that may not be something I can fix because I'm not exactly a mass appeal kind of person. A lot of it has to do with luck -- the right book hitting in the right way at the right time with the right people. There were bestselling books at the time the first Enchanted, Inc. book was published that have already been remaindered and that probably sold fewer total copies than Enchanted, Inc. has, but they got the push and sold those copies quickly and got the bestseller status that led to more support, while my series got dropped, only to keep plugging away.
But what I can do is dig in and deal with the things I can control, which means this is going to be the Year of My Career. I'm going to really focus on writing and getting a number of books in the pipeline because the more books there are, the greater the chance that something will hit, and publication frequency is also good for momentum, and I'm going to force myself to step out of my comfort zone and try to promote myself more, whether directly to readers or by networking more with peers. I've identified some trends of behaviors I see in the authors in my field who at least have the outward measures of success (I can't look into their bank accounts) and will see about applying those things to my own career.
So, look for news about when the next Rebel Mechanics book will be coming, as well as other books that will soon be in the works.
First, the bad news: the publisher doesn't want another Rebel Mechanics book.
The good news: you'll get one anyway. I'll just go ahead and publish it myself. The good news about that is that instead of having to wait a year or two, it will probably be coming this summer, soon after the paperback release of Rebel Mechanics. The down side is that it likely won't be a pretty hardcover and won't be in bookstores. You'll have to get the e-book or order a book online. I don't yet know about an audiobook.
I will admit that I was disappointed about this. I was rather unhappy about the degree of support the publisher gave this book. They did such a wonderful job of producing a beautiful book, but they did no publicity. Every guest blog post or interview I did, every event I did, was something I set up or that came to me rather than through the publisher's publicist. The publisher presented me with a publicity plan of what they said they were going to do, but none of it got done, and I didn't know they weren't doing it until it was too late to do anything about it. That meant it didn't show up on any of the genre news sites where I've seen authors of other books like this interviewed. Even on social media, they made one tweet and didn't use any of their other in-house vehicles for promoting books. The book was generally well-reviewed and well-received, and librarians loved it. But too few people knew about it, so they didn't think it sold well enough to warrant a sequel, and they were uninterested in trying to support the paperback to see if it took off.
They were interested in looking at something else from me, but I figured why tie myself to them for another year or two (or more), only to get the same old thing? So I said this book was the only thing on the table, and if they didn't want it, that meant they'd passed on the option and I was no longer contractually linked to them.
That led me to make another career decision: I won't deal with another publisher unless I'm coming to them with enough clout to get them to support my book with a full promotional campaign. Otherwise, why should I bother with a publisher? Promotion and distribution are what they bring to the table that I can't do as well for myself. I'll admit that I have mixed feelings about independent publishing. It's saved my career. Without it, I'd have had to get another day job years ago. It's wonderful to have the option. But I really don't like doing it. I just want to write. I don't like having to make all the decisions and deal with vendors and artists and do all the marketing. But right now, I don't have a lot of faith in publishers. They make very poor business choices based on outdated models. I'm sick of having books that readers love but that no one knows about, and yet the publisher acts like the problem is with the book when it doesn't perform up to their hopes. They throw a lot of things against the wall and see what sticks while applying lots of glue to some things and nothing to others, but they still judge everything equally, as though it's all had glue. So, until and unless I have a book that's up for auction with competition between publishers, so that I can make promotional support part of the bid and get it in the contract (so that I'm the one who gets the glue), or until I'm so successful that they come begging to me (or both), I don't intend to deal with a publisher.
The trick will be to get to that point. I'm not sure that writing better is the answer, though I always try to do better. I don't think the quality of my books has been an issue. They've been favorably reviewed, and the people who read them really seem to love them. They may not quite have the same mass appeal or don't hit the right market niche, but that may not be something I can fix because I'm not exactly a mass appeal kind of person. A lot of it has to do with luck -- the right book hitting in the right way at the right time with the right people. There were bestselling books at the time the first Enchanted, Inc. book was published that have already been remaindered and that probably sold fewer total copies than Enchanted, Inc. has, but they got the push and sold those copies quickly and got the bestseller status that led to more support, while my series got dropped, only to keep plugging away.
But what I can do is dig in and deal with the things I can control, which means this is going to be the Year of My Career. I'm going to really focus on writing and getting a number of books in the pipeline because the more books there are, the greater the chance that something will hit, and publication frequency is also good for momentum, and I'm going to force myself to step out of my comfort zone and try to promote myself more, whether directly to readers or by networking more with peers. I've identified some trends of behaviors I see in the authors in my field who at least have the outward measures of success (I can't look into their bank accounts) and will see about applying those things to my own career.
So, look for news about when the next Rebel Mechanics book will be coming, as well as other books that will soon be in the works.
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
The Second Coming of Mary Stewart
It appears that I wasn't selected for the local teen book festival (yeah, in spite of being local and having a book on the library association's list of recommended reading) because they've announced all the attendees. Not that they've notified me either way, which I believe is rather rude. I had a long bout of feeling sorry for myself yesterday because it's already being a very tough year, career-wise. My agent actually forgot about me (well, something I'd sent months ago), it's not looking good about my publisher picking up my option book, royalties are way down across the board, and now this. Oh, and an out-of-town for-profit convention that invited me out of the blue (but for which I'd have to pay my own travel expenses) is only planning to put me on three panels for the whole weekend -- basically, they're paying in "exposure" without providing the exposure, so I'm considering backing out because I can't justify the considerable time and expense for so little payoff.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
Friday, February 05, 2016
Driving Authors Crazy
I got word yesterday that I will be on programming at the next WorldCon, MidAmericaCon2, which will be in Kansas City in August. I'm pondering next year's WorldCon, which will be in Helsinki. I'm not entirely sure what business advantage I'd have of going there, as my books aren't published in that end of the world, other than my English-language e-books, but it would be a tax-deductible trip to Finland and a chance to visit some of the other Nordic countries along the way, and maybe exposure to a new audience of people who might pick up the e-books.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to learn whether or not I'll be at the regional teen book festival that was started by my local library system. Unless I missed an e-mail along the way either of the "thank you for your interest, but there were so many authors and we only have so many slots" or the "yes, we want you, but please keep this under your hat because we're doing dramatic revelations" variety, they're letting authors know they were selected at the same time they're notifying the public, a few at a time via clever social media reveals. They put together teaser pictures with just a word from a book cover and have people guess the authors. And if there was no definitive yes or no message to the authors at any time, this seems like a surefire way to drive people insane. Maybe I should have a chat with my local librarian about this. I don't know if they realize just how annoying this is for authors to have to wait and watch for the information to trickle out and not being able to make plans for that weekend one way or another until they get around to announcing all the participants who were selected. I think they're down to their last few authors, so I'm getting the impression I wasn't selected, but if they weren't notifying people and verifying that they were still interested before making the public announcement, I don't dare accept other events for that weekend, which is possibly going to shut me out of those other events. It is possible that any notification went to my publisher rather than to me (though the confirmation that they received my application went to me), and my publisher doesn't seem to remember I exist, so they may never have passed any news on to me, one way or another. If it went to the publicist, I'll never know about it. And I wasn't part of this week's revelations, so I think there's one set to go.
This is when I vow that I'm going to go out and write another book that will end up being so successful that one day they will beg me to come to their event, and I will laugh at them because I no longer need it.
As I said on Facebook yesterday, this business is like getting a public performance review on every single project, where everyone else not only watches what the "boss" says to you but also gets to chime in with their own comments and then decide how much you get paid. It's not a business for thin-skinned people or wimps. Even tough people who are good at tuning out the rest of the world get discouraged every so often.
On the up side, I have a free weekend ahead of me, a convention next weekend, and I just came up with an idea for what I think will be a cool short story.
Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to learn whether or not I'll be at the regional teen book festival that was started by my local library system. Unless I missed an e-mail along the way either of the "thank you for your interest, but there were so many authors and we only have so many slots" or the "yes, we want you, but please keep this under your hat because we're doing dramatic revelations" variety, they're letting authors know they were selected at the same time they're notifying the public, a few at a time via clever social media reveals. They put together teaser pictures with just a word from a book cover and have people guess the authors. And if there was no definitive yes or no message to the authors at any time, this seems like a surefire way to drive people insane. Maybe I should have a chat with my local librarian about this. I don't know if they realize just how annoying this is for authors to have to wait and watch for the information to trickle out and not being able to make plans for that weekend one way or another until they get around to announcing all the participants who were selected. I think they're down to their last few authors, so I'm getting the impression I wasn't selected, but if they weren't notifying people and verifying that they were still interested before making the public announcement, I don't dare accept other events for that weekend, which is possibly going to shut me out of those other events. It is possible that any notification went to my publisher rather than to me (though the confirmation that they received my application went to me), and my publisher doesn't seem to remember I exist, so they may never have passed any news on to me, one way or another. If it went to the publicist, I'll never know about it. And I wasn't part of this week's revelations, so I think there's one set to go.
This is when I vow that I'm going to go out and write another book that will end up being so successful that one day they will beg me to come to their event, and I will laugh at them because I no longer need it.
As I said on Facebook yesterday, this business is like getting a public performance review on every single project, where everyone else not only watches what the "boss" says to you but also gets to chime in with their own comments and then decide how much you get paid. It's not a business for thin-skinned people or wimps. Even tough people who are good at tuning out the rest of the world get discouraged every so often.
On the up side, I have a free weekend ahead of me, a convention next weekend, and I just came up with an idea for what I think will be a cool short story.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Write Faster!
I was very pleased with myself for getting something accomplished yesterday even though it was a choir night. I've been really bad about that lately. But so far this week, I'm on track to have produced words every day. I'm sensing that there might be a struggle today because I'm so sleepy and I finished a big scene yesterday without figuring out what happens next. However, I found myself daydreaming some potential scenes.
Meanwhile, scenes from the Fairy Tale universe are starting to play in my head. I don't know if they'll end up in a book, but the characters are starting to take action, and I know what the main plot for the next book will likely be about. However, if it goes like any of the previous books, when I get about 3/4 of the way through, I'll realize what's really going on behind what I thought was the main plot and I'll have to rewrite the whole thing.
I saw someone talking yesterday about publishing a new book (via independent publishing) every four to seven weeks, and that's blowing my mind. I thought I was a fairly quick writer. If I'm really working at it, I can do a rough draft of a full novel of around 90,000 to 100,000 words in a month, but then I need at least a month for revisions. And then there's at least another week or two of dealing with copyedits and proofing. The only way I could imagine getting a book out even every six weeks is if they were a lot shorter, and there my problem is that my books fit the length of my ideas, so I'd end up having to do a cliffhanger and put out one book as two shorter books. All of this may be why I'm not one of those self-published Amazon millionaires. I admit I don't spend as much time writing as some people, but quality of life has to count for something, and I feel like I've run out of words after a certain amount of time. I'm trying to build up my writing endurance and my time management to produce more and faster, mostly because I have so many ideas that I want to write that I'm afraid I'll never get to.
I'm probably between the two publishing worlds. I write too quickly for traditional publishing, where they only want a book a year, at most. But I'm too slow for independent publishing, where you need a new book every couple of months to gain and keep any momentum. This is why I try to do a little of both. It's also why I'm trying to work on some shorter pieces that could serve as in-between releases to maintain a presence. I'm also considering doing something more serialized -- shorter chunks of a larger story produced more frequently. The industry has changed so much since I got started that there are more ways to do things and there's room to innovate. Really, though, the serial idea isn't so much an innovation as it is a return to the Dickens era. All those doorstopper novels of his were published originally as serials in magazines and newspapers, and those individual installments were later compiled into books. If you were eager to see what happened next, you bought the magazines as they came out, but there was still the option of waiting for the whole book.
But for now, I need to finish the book I'm working on and gear up for a convention in a couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, scenes from the Fairy Tale universe are starting to play in my head. I don't know if they'll end up in a book, but the characters are starting to take action, and I know what the main plot for the next book will likely be about. However, if it goes like any of the previous books, when I get about 3/4 of the way through, I'll realize what's really going on behind what I thought was the main plot and I'll have to rewrite the whole thing.
I saw someone talking yesterday about publishing a new book (via independent publishing) every four to seven weeks, and that's blowing my mind. I thought I was a fairly quick writer. If I'm really working at it, I can do a rough draft of a full novel of around 90,000 to 100,000 words in a month, but then I need at least a month for revisions. And then there's at least another week or two of dealing with copyedits and proofing. The only way I could imagine getting a book out even every six weeks is if they were a lot shorter, and there my problem is that my books fit the length of my ideas, so I'd end up having to do a cliffhanger and put out one book as two shorter books. All of this may be why I'm not one of those self-published Amazon millionaires. I admit I don't spend as much time writing as some people, but quality of life has to count for something, and I feel like I've run out of words after a certain amount of time. I'm trying to build up my writing endurance and my time management to produce more and faster, mostly because I have so many ideas that I want to write that I'm afraid I'll never get to.
I'm probably between the two publishing worlds. I write too quickly for traditional publishing, where they only want a book a year, at most. But I'm too slow for independent publishing, where you need a new book every couple of months to gain and keep any momentum. This is why I try to do a little of both. It's also why I'm trying to work on some shorter pieces that could serve as in-between releases to maintain a presence. I'm also considering doing something more serialized -- shorter chunks of a larger story produced more frequently. The industry has changed so much since I got started that there are more ways to do things and there's room to innovate. Really, though, the serial idea isn't so much an innovation as it is a return to the Dickens era. All those doorstopper novels of his were published originally as serials in magazines and newspapers, and those individual installments were later compiled into books. If you were eager to see what happened next, you bought the magazines as they came out, but there was still the option of waiting for the whole book.
But for now, I need to finish the book I'm working on and gear up for a convention in a couple of weeks.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Getting the Word Out
At the beginning of the year, I tend to go heavy into planning mode. I make lists of projects, come up with new time management schemes, and do hypothetical business plans. I'm trying to work on some new publicity plans, since I really need to boost my visibility and have learned that even when I'm working with a major publisher, most of it's going to come down to me. But even though this was my "real job" career for twenty years, this is something I struggle with. There's a reason I don't have that career anymore. I went through several years of almost no income (though fortunately with a savings cushion) to try to get the writing career going rather than try to find another PR job. So a lot of my publicity efforts amount to me huddling in a corner and whimpering "don't make me do that." On the other hand, it's kind of essential if I don't want to have to get another real job.
Yeah, I have crazy dreams about having a book that publishers fight over so that I get a big advance and then they actually do publicity for it and push the book, and that book then raises the profile of all my other books, so I'm making more from my backlist, and the push on the new book means that book sells well enough that they're eager for my next book. The reality has been more that only one publisher is grudgingly interested in my book and it's low on the priority list for promotion, and then in spite of good reviews and strong fan support (it seems that while not that many people have heard of my books, the people who have read them love them) the books aren't selling quite as well as they'd like, so I don't get another contract and have to start all over again.
So, I need to take a stronger role in promotion, but that world has changed since I last had that job, and most of what I know how to do is only repeatedly getting the word out to my existing fans, which helps (if everyone who'd bought Enchanted, Inc. had bought Rebel Mechanics, things would be very different right now), but there does seem to be a barrier I haven't managed to break through into some of the book venues in my genre. A lot of the things I've tried have hit with a dull thud.
Out of curiosity, what works to get your attention about books? Do you subscribe to author newsletters? Do you ever learn about books via Facebook ads or other online advertising? Do you read book blogs? Do you look at and share book videos? Are blogs still viable? Does social media really matter?
Yeah, I have crazy dreams about having a book that publishers fight over so that I get a big advance and then they actually do publicity for it and push the book, and that book then raises the profile of all my other books, so I'm making more from my backlist, and the push on the new book means that book sells well enough that they're eager for my next book. The reality has been more that only one publisher is grudgingly interested in my book and it's low on the priority list for promotion, and then in spite of good reviews and strong fan support (it seems that while not that many people have heard of my books, the people who have read them love them) the books aren't selling quite as well as they'd like, so I don't get another contract and have to start all over again.
So, I need to take a stronger role in promotion, but that world has changed since I last had that job, and most of what I know how to do is only repeatedly getting the word out to my existing fans, which helps (if everyone who'd bought Enchanted, Inc. had bought Rebel Mechanics, things would be very different right now), but there does seem to be a barrier I haven't managed to break through into some of the book venues in my genre. A lot of the things I've tried have hit with a dull thud.
Out of curiosity, what works to get your attention about books? Do you subscribe to author newsletters? Do you ever learn about books via Facebook ads or other online advertising? Do you read book blogs? Do you look at and share book videos? Are blogs still viable? Does social media really matter?
Friday, September 18, 2015
Telling Stories
I had all kinds of grand plans to write yesterday, and then a high ragweed count hit with a vengeance. Ah, it's that time of year. It's not as bad since I discovered Allegra, but I've only just started taking it daily, so it's taking a while to kick in, and then I forgot to take it for a day. I've definitely felt worse during early ragweed season, but it's just enough to mess with my head. I can think, but I have a hard time translating my thoughts into language. (So be warned that there may be odd flubs in this post that I haven't caught because that was what came out of my head and it made sense to me even when I was editing.)
So instead of writing, I read some of those books on marketing I got from the library. One had a very interesting premise that marketing is essentially the story you build around something, and the story is what often adds the perceived value. The audience already has a built-in worldview, and the trick is to suggest a story that they want to tell themselves that fits their worldview. The real marketing comes from people who are telling themselves a story, and then they spread that story to other people. So, for example, when it comes to a car, they all pretty much get you from point A to point B, and when you look at reliability ratings, the more moderately priced car is actually more likely to get you to point B. So why is a car that's more likely to break down worth so much more money? It's mostly about the story we can tell ourselves about a car like that. There's luxury in the details and the experience that makes people feel better about themselves -- if they're the kind of people who feel better about that sort of thing. If they're not, it's not going to work on them. If they are, then the more expensive car may be worth it to them because it matches the story they tell themselves about success or the kind of person they want to be. So the way to sell a car to them is to weave that story around it.
I'm still trying to figure out how this might apply to marketing books or an author. Can you spin a story around a story? I think the trick might be to capitalize on the sense of "I'm the kind of person who reads this kind of book, and that makes me better/smarter/more in-the-know than people who haven't read it." But then you have to figure out what "this kind of book" really is. In my case, I'm not sure there's really an established niche because I blur a lot of lines. For the most part, maybe what makes my books different is the lack of edge -- so much else these days is dark and edgy, but here's something for those of us who are tired of it and just want to have some good, clean fun.
There's some built-in "tribe" stuff with Rebel Mechanics that probably resonates with society today -- the makers and innovators who may be a threat to the status quo. It's also a steampunk book that's actually about steampunks -- people starting a rebellion with their technology, an actual counter-cultural movement that looks a lot like the cultural group we have now.
The trick may be to find a way to communicate these stories to these groups. Once you find some people within these groups, they tend to spread the idea to others and word of mouth spreads. The down side of that is that word of mouth spreads slowly from person to person, so you don't get that huge spike that gets you noticed in the publishing world. The up side is that it does tend to be more "sticky" that way because it's not about the latest trend but rather is about something that resonates with these people, regardless of the trend, which is why Enchanted, Inc. is still selling relatively well ten years after publication, when most of the books that were published around that time are now either out of print or went out of print and are now being brought back as self-published books. The idea didn't spread fast enough for the publisher to take notice, but it's still hanging on.
But actually coming up with a plan to do something about all this is more than my ragweed-addled brain can deal with at the moment.
I did reread a short story I wrote a couple of years ago (I think), and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'm not entirely crazy about the ending, but I think it works. I'm not sure what to do with it, though. On the one hand, I think it could be fleshed out into a decent novella or novel that scraps the current ending and develops the middle a lot better before coming to a more satisfying ending (the current one seems abrupt, but I can't make it much longer and have it be a short story), but then again, in its current form it's short enough to read in a convention reading and it's easier to sell either a short story or a full-length novel. If I decide on a form, then what do I do with it? I'd probably make more money self publishing it, but then selling it to a good market would turn it into advertising, in a way, helping me reach a different group of readers who wouldn't find a self-published novella/short story.
I'm planning to use this story for my FenCon reading, and then maybe get some feedback from the audience, kind of like a focus group.
So instead of writing, I read some of those books on marketing I got from the library. One had a very interesting premise that marketing is essentially the story you build around something, and the story is what often adds the perceived value. The audience already has a built-in worldview, and the trick is to suggest a story that they want to tell themselves that fits their worldview. The real marketing comes from people who are telling themselves a story, and then they spread that story to other people. So, for example, when it comes to a car, they all pretty much get you from point A to point B, and when you look at reliability ratings, the more moderately priced car is actually more likely to get you to point B. So why is a car that's more likely to break down worth so much more money? It's mostly about the story we can tell ourselves about a car like that. There's luxury in the details and the experience that makes people feel better about themselves -- if they're the kind of people who feel better about that sort of thing. If they're not, it's not going to work on them. If they are, then the more expensive car may be worth it to them because it matches the story they tell themselves about success or the kind of person they want to be. So the way to sell a car to them is to weave that story around it.
I'm still trying to figure out how this might apply to marketing books or an author. Can you spin a story around a story? I think the trick might be to capitalize on the sense of "I'm the kind of person who reads this kind of book, and that makes me better/smarter/more in-the-know than people who haven't read it." But then you have to figure out what "this kind of book" really is. In my case, I'm not sure there's really an established niche because I blur a lot of lines. For the most part, maybe what makes my books different is the lack of edge -- so much else these days is dark and edgy, but here's something for those of us who are tired of it and just want to have some good, clean fun.
There's some built-in "tribe" stuff with Rebel Mechanics that probably resonates with society today -- the makers and innovators who may be a threat to the status quo. It's also a steampunk book that's actually about steampunks -- people starting a rebellion with their technology, an actual counter-cultural movement that looks a lot like the cultural group we have now.
The trick may be to find a way to communicate these stories to these groups. Once you find some people within these groups, they tend to spread the idea to others and word of mouth spreads. The down side of that is that word of mouth spreads slowly from person to person, so you don't get that huge spike that gets you noticed in the publishing world. The up side is that it does tend to be more "sticky" that way because it's not about the latest trend but rather is about something that resonates with these people, regardless of the trend, which is why Enchanted, Inc. is still selling relatively well ten years after publication, when most of the books that were published around that time are now either out of print or went out of print and are now being brought back as self-published books. The idea didn't spread fast enough for the publisher to take notice, but it's still hanging on.
But actually coming up with a plan to do something about all this is more than my ragweed-addled brain can deal with at the moment.
I did reread a short story I wrote a couple of years ago (I think), and I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'm not entirely crazy about the ending, but I think it works. I'm not sure what to do with it, though. On the one hand, I think it could be fleshed out into a decent novella or novel that scraps the current ending and develops the middle a lot better before coming to a more satisfying ending (the current one seems abrupt, but I can't make it much longer and have it be a short story), but then again, in its current form it's short enough to read in a convention reading and it's easier to sell either a short story or a full-length novel. If I decide on a form, then what do I do with it? I'd probably make more money self publishing it, but then selling it to a good market would turn it into advertising, in a way, helping me reach a different group of readers who wouldn't find a self-published novella/short story.
I'm planning to use this story for my FenCon reading, and then maybe get some feedback from the audience, kind of like a focus group.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
The Life Cycle of a Book
Getting a book out into the world can be a long, difficult process. To give a sense of what it can take, here's the life cycle of Rebel Mechanics, my book that was published this week:
Fall 2009: I came up with a story idea that mixed steampunk and fantasy in a technology vs. magic situation. I started reading as much in the genre as I could find and began doing research on the time period and the technology.
Late winter/early spring 2010: I'd more or less figured out my main plot and characters, inspired in part by a trip to an antique show where I bought some old photos that caught my eye.
Summer 2010: I decided I was definitely going to write this book and began researching in earnest.
Late August/early September 2010: I wrote a proposal -- about three chapters and a synopsis -- and sent it to my agent.
November 2010: My agent submitted the proposal to fantasy publishers. I kept writing the book and completed a draft.
Early 2011: The responses from the fantasy publishers weren't encouraging. Some thought there was too much romance and suggested I try romance publishers. Some wanted more magic. Some wanted less. My agent and I discussed options. I read some similar fantasy/romance series and decided that wasn't where I wanted to go with it. I suggested targeting the young adult market, since the characters were young and it's essentially a coming-of-age story. In YA, they don't really divide by genre so I wouldn't get caught in that romance vs. fantasy bind.
Spring/early summer 2011: I revised the book to emphasize the YA elements and tighten the pacing.
Summer 2011-spring 2012: I went through several rounds of revisions with my agent to fine-tune the book for the YA market (while writing another book in the meantime).
Summer 2012: My agent submitted the book to YA publishers. There were a few "almost but not quite" responses. Oddly, the more genre-oriented publishers thought it was too "literary."
Fall 2012: My agent and I decided not to give up, and my agent submitted to another round of publishers, including some of the more literary ones.
February 2013: Farrar, Straus & Giroux bought the book. (Yay!!!)
Fall 2013-Spring 2014: I went through several rounds of revisions with my editor.
Early summer 2014: I got copyedits on the book and did another round of revising based on the editor's suggestions.
August 2014: I got the cover art.
Fall 2014-Winter 2015: I went through a few rounds of page proofs, making my own corrections and responding to questions and suggestions raised by the proofreaders, then checking to make sure the corrections were made properly without introducing new errors.
Early 2015: advance copies started going out to librarians and booksellers
July 14, 2015: the book was published
Most books don't take this long between idea and publication, but it can take that long. The delays here came in reworking the book after the first round of submissions, with multiple rounds of revision (while also writing other books), and in a publisher with a small enough list that the book was scheduled for publication more than two years after it was bought. I'll admit that I came close to snapping at the fourth or so round of revisions with the editor, since I'd been working on the book for about five years at that point and was on about my tenth draft. Still, every round made the book a bit better.
The key thing to note is that publishing doesn't happen overnight, and the work isn't nearly done when you finish writing the book.
Fall 2009: I came up with a story idea that mixed steampunk and fantasy in a technology vs. magic situation. I started reading as much in the genre as I could find and began doing research on the time period and the technology.
Late winter/early spring 2010: I'd more or less figured out my main plot and characters, inspired in part by a trip to an antique show where I bought some old photos that caught my eye.
Summer 2010: I decided I was definitely going to write this book and began researching in earnest.
Late August/early September 2010: I wrote a proposal -- about three chapters and a synopsis -- and sent it to my agent.
November 2010: My agent submitted the proposal to fantasy publishers. I kept writing the book and completed a draft.
Early 2011: The responses from the fantasy publishers weren't encouraging. Some thought there was too much romance and suggested I try romance publishers. Some wanted more magic. Some wanted less. My agent and I discussed options. I read some similar fantasy/romance series and decided that wasn't where I wanted to go with it. I suggested targeting the young adult market, since the characters were young and it's essentially a coming-of-age story. In YA, they don't really divide by genre so I wouldn't get caught in that romance vs. fantasy bind.
Spring/early summer 2011: I revised the book to emphasize the YA elements and tighten the pacing.
Summer 2011-spring 2012: I went through several rounds of revisions with my agent to fine-tune the book for the YA market (while writing another book in the meantime).
Summer 2012: My agent submitted the book to YA publishers. There were a few "almost but not quite" responses. Oddly, the more genre-oriented publishers thought it was too "literary."
Fall 2012: My agent and I decided not to give up, and my agent submitted to another round of publishers, including some of the more literary ones.
February 2013: Farrar, Straus & Giroux bought the book. (Yay!!!)
Fall 2013-Spring 2014: I went through several rounds of revisions with my editor.
Early summer 2014: I got copyedits on the book and did another round of revising based on the editor's suggestions.
August 2014: I got the cover art.
Fall 2014-Winter 2015: I went through a few rounds of page proofs, making my own corrections and responding to questions and suggestions raised by the proofreaders, then checking to make sure the corrections were made properly without introducing new errors.
Early 2015: advance copies started going out to librarians and booksellers
July 14, 2015: the book was published
Most books don't take this long between idea and publication, but it can take that long. The delays here came in reworking the book after the first round of submissions, with multiple rounds of revision (while also writing other books), and in a publisher with a small enough list that the book was scheduled for publication more than two years after it was bought. I'll admit that I came close to snapping at the fourth or so round of revisions with the editor, since I'd been working on the book for about five years at that point and was on about my tenth draft. Still, every round made the book a bit better.
The key thing to note is that publishing doesn't happen overnight, and the work isn't nearly done when you finish writing the book.
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
The Changing Face of Publishing
I have another reader question for my every-other-week writing post, this one about how the publishing world has changed or is changing.
When you're talking about the major publishers, change happens very slowly. When I sold my first book in the early 90s, I submitted it by snail mail, and the letters from my editor were typed rather than printed on computers. I moved to one of the major publishers in the mid-90s, and the first letter I got from my editor there used all the fonts because she'd just got a computer and was having fun playing with it. Although I submitted on paper via snail mail, they did ask me to send a disc with the final version after revisions. Meanwhile, at my day job we had been using computers for years and had even started using e-mail and the Internet for just about everything.
It's not too terribly different today. I now send all my manuscripts by e-mail and do most of my communication with my editor and agent via e-mail, but my current editor likes to work on paper, so I get edits on paper (I have a box full of versions of the upcoming book). Communication is quicker and easier when not everything has to be sent in the mail, but a lot of the process is similar.
But the overall environment has really changed. Books used to go out of print pretty quickly because the only place to buy books was in bookstores, and there's only so much shelf space. Now, there are all the online retailers that can continue to stock paper books, and with e-books no book ever has to become unavailable. That's meant that contracts now need to be specific about the definition of "out of print" to include a certain number of copies of e-books sold so publishers can't hold on to rights forever because the book is available in electronic form. This has created some nice opportunities for authors, as having books readily available helps them continue to make sales. I'm still getting fan mail for a book that was first published ten years ago, and I continue to earn good royalties on it. I think in the pre-e-book era that book would be long out of print.
Another change that hasn't been so great for authors is the consolidation of publishers. There used to be a lot of publishers you could submit a book to, but now we're down to six (or is it five by now?). They may still have multiple imprints, but they vary on whether they consider a rejection by one at the house means a rejection by all imprints. This also means that they're very bottom-line driven, and computerized sales report systems mean they know exactly how well any book is doing. If it doesn't hit well right out of the gate, they move on to the next thing. It's getting to the point where all the big publishers want to deal with are the big stars and the newcomer potential stars. There's not a lot of room for midlist authors with steadily growing careers.
Fortunately, this is happening at the same time that self-publishing is taking off. This is no longer the vanity press of people publishing poems about their cats. A lot of very smart businesspeople are making a lot of money by publishing their own books. The ones who succeed really treat it like their own publishing company, hiring editors and designers and doing a lot of promotion. Authors are re-publishing their backlist that's gone out of print and publishing new material. Since so many books are rejected by the big publishers not because of quality but because they don't fit a niche or aren't something guaranteed to be an instant smash, this offers a way for those books to find an audience. It might not necessarily be a big enough audience to meet a major publisher's profit requirements, but it might be more than enough to earn a healthy living for an individual author who doesn't have the overhead expenses of a major publisher.
At the same time, publishers are starting to use the ranks of the self-published as a kind of slushpile. Instead of taking a risk on an untested new author, they can pick up someone who's already had some success. This can be a good opportunity for authors, but it also means authors have to shoulder the financial risk of initially getting their books out there rather than getting paid up-front the way they do when selling to a publisher from the start.
And there's the potential for more changes in store. With so many people reading on electronic devices, might we see more things like books with embedded soundtracks or video clips? Or "choose your own adventure" type stories that take advantage of the medium? Serials are currently fairly popular -- a novel published in small chunks. That's a return to the way authors like Charles Dickens wrote, so it's not a new idea, but it's happening in new ways. The new markets may change the form of stories or the way authors write.
I'm currently straddling the line between traditional and independent -- I have books from major publishers and books I'm publishing myself. It's rather liberating to know that even if a publisher doesn't want something, I can still publish it myself. One thing that's changed in the way I work is that this means I'm mostly writing complete novels instead of proposals. I think my proposals are a lot stronger when I've at least drafted the whole thing and polished the beginning with the end in mind, and if I know I'm going to be self-publishing it even if the publisher doesn't want it, there's no reason not to write the whole book and make the proposal as strong as possible. I've been able to continue a series that the US publisher didn't want and launch a new series that didn't fit a niche, even while selling a new book to a publisher. There are pluses and minuses to each side of the equation, so having a foot in each is nice.
When you're talking about the major publishers, change happens very slowly. When I sold my first book in the early 90s, I submitted it by snail mail, and the letters from my editor were typed rather than printed on computers. I moved to one of the major publishers in the mid-90s, and the first letter I got from my editor there used all the fonts because she'd just got a computer and was having fun playing with it. Although I submitted on paper via snail mail, they did ask me to send a disc with the final version after revisions. Meanwhile, at my day job we had been using computers for years and had even started using e-mail and the Internet for just about everything.
It's not too terribly different today. I now send all my manuscripts by e-mail and do most of my communication with my editor and agent via e-mail, but my current editor likes to work on paper, so I get edits on paper (I have a box full of versions of the upcoming book). Communication is quicker and easier when not everything has to be sent in the mail, but a lot of the process is similar.
But the overall environment has really changed. Books used to go out of print pretty quickly because the only place to buy books was in bookstores, and there's only so much shelf space. Now, there are all the online retailers that can continue to stock paper books, and with e-books no book ever has to become unavailable. That's meant that contracts now need to be specific about the definition of "out of print" to include a certain number of copies of e-books sold so publishers can't hold on to rights forever because the book is available in electronic form. This has created some nice opportunities for authors, as having books readily available helps them continue to make sales. I'm still getting fan mail for a book that was first published ten years ago, and I continue to earn good royalties on it. I think in the pre-e-book era that book would be long out of print.
Another change that hasn't been so great for authors is the consolidation of publishers. There used to be a lot of publishers you could submit a book to, but now we're down to six (or is it five by now?). They may still have multiple imprints, but they vary on whether they consider a rejection by one at the house means a rejection by all imprints. This also means that they're very bottom-line driven, and computerized sales report systems mean they know exactly how well any book is doing. If it doesn't hit well right out of the gate, they move on to the next thing. It's getting to the point where all the big publishers want to deal with are the big stars and the newcomer potential stars. There's not a lot of room for midlist authors with steadily growing careers.
Fortunately, this is happening at the same time that self-publishing is taking off. This is no longer the vanity press of people publishing poems about their cats. A lot of very smart businesspeople are making a lot of money by publishing their own books. The ones who succeed really treat it like their own publishing company, hiring editors and designers and doing a lot of promotion. Authors are re-publishing their backlist that's gone out of print and publishing new material. Since so many books are rejected by the big publishers not because of quality but because they don't fit a niche or aren't something guaranteed to be an instant smash, this offers a way for those books to find an audience. It might not necessarily be a big enough audience to meet a major publisher's profit requirements, but it might be more than enough to earn a healthy living for an individual author who doesn't have the overhead expenses of a major publisher.
At the same time, publishers are starting to use the ranks of the self-published as a kind of slushpile. Instead of taking a risk on an untested new author, they can pick up someone who's already had some success. This can be a good opportunity for authors, but it also means authors have to shoulder the financial risk of initially getting their books out there rather than getting paid up-front the way they do when selling to a publisher from the start.
And there's the potential for more changes in store. With so many people reading on electronic devices, might we see more things like books with embedded soundtracks or video clips? Or "choose your own adventure" type stories that take advantage of the medium? Serials are currently fairly popular -- a novel published in small chunks. That's a return to the way authors like Charles Dickens wrote, so it's not a new idea, but it's happening in new ways. The new markets may change the form of stories or the way authors write.
I'm currently straddling the line between traditional and independent -- I have books from major publishers and books I'm publishing myself. It's rather liberating to know that even if a publisher doesn't want something, I can still publish it myself. One thing that's changed in the way I work is that this means I'm mostly writing complete novels instead of proposals. I think my proposals are a lot stronger when I've at least drafted the whole thing and polished the beginning with the end in mind, and if I know I'm going to be self-publishing it even if the publisher doesn't want it, there's no reason not to write the whole book and make the proposal as strong as possible. I've been able to continue a series that the US publisher didn't want and launch a new series that didn't fit a niche, even while selling a new book to a publisher. There are pluses and minuses to each side of the equation, so having a foot in each is nice.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
The Business of Writing
It's writing post time again, and I have another question via Facebook about managing your writing as a business. I'm going to have to say up front that I am not a lawyer, I'm not an accountant, and I'm not particularly good at being businesslike. But here are some things you will want to keep in mind and learn about for yourself if you have plans to make money doing this. This is all based on the United States, so other countries may have different rules for stuff like taxes.
If you make money from your writing, that's considered a business, and the IRS will want its cut of it. You'll have to file a tax return for your business (a Schedule C, most likely) that lists the money you've made. The nice thing is, you can write off expenses related to your business, so you're only taxed on the profit. This can include stuff like office supplies, equipment, agent commissions, postage, advertising expenses, and business-related travel for things like writing conferences and research. Consult a professional or read the IRS publications for details on what you can and can't deduct. The important thing is that the government considers it a business once you earn any income from it, even if you're not making a profit yet, so you'll need to keep records like you would for a business, tracking the amount of money you make and any expenses you plan to write off. Tax time is so much easier if you do this along the way. Create a spreadsheet and add to it every time you have an expense or get paid. Get a copy of a Schedule C from the IRS web site so you can see the categories and sort your expenses into those categories. I am not a hyper organized person, especially when numbers are involved, but this one little thing of tracking income and expenses as I go has been a life saver. You can start deducting expenses before you have income while you're trying to get your business off the ground, but there are rules about how long you can get away with doing that, so you'll definitely want to research that.
The really nasty thing about writing as a business is self-employment taxes. When you work for someone else, that deduction for Social Security, etc., from your paycheck is only about half of what's paid. Your employer pays the other half. When you're self-employed, you pay the whole thing. Your taxes are a lot higher when you're working for yourself.
Then there's the fun of estimated quarterly taxes. When you have a job with a regular paycheck, part of it is withheld and sent to the IRS every month, so by the time you file your tax return, all your taxes have probably been paid for the year, and you may even get a refund. When you're working for yourself, you make a payment four times a year of a quarter of what you estimate that year's taxes will be. Since you don't know what your income will be, you have to guess based on last year's income. This means that when you get an advance or a royalty check, you need to put money aside for your taxes. If you still have a day job or file jointly with someone who has a day job, you can avoid this by increasing your withholding at work to cover your extra income. I used to do this before I went full-time freelance.
As with any business, you have to spend some money to make money, but you need to be prudent in doing so. For instance, it's easy to go crazy with promotion because you need to get your name out there and it's good for your ego to see all kinds of shiny stuff with your name on it. But rather than throw money around on stuff that seems cool, you need to come up with some kind of marketing plan and think about it. Consider how many additional copies of your book you'd need to sell to make up for the cost of the promotion. Is that likely to happen? If a promotional item for a book costs more than the royalty you'd earn on selling a copy of the book, how likely is it that the promo would really pay off? It might if that particular promotion is focused on people that might have a multiplier effect -- someone who can sell lots of copies for you, like a bookseller or popular blogger. There's also brand promotion -- your name as a writer in general -- vs. product promotion -- a particular book. I could probably write dozens of posts on promo (my day job was in marketing communications), but for now, let's leave it at the fact that you need to think about what you're doing and have a plan. That applies to other business expenses, as well. How necessary is that item or trip to your business, and how does it affect your bottom line? If writing is a side job, then go ahead and spend your writing income on writing-related activities like going to conferences. If it's the way you make your living, you'll need to earn enough profit to live on.
Another aspect of treating your writing like a business is the time you devote to it. This will vary depending on where you are in your career and what your primary sources of income are. There's nothing wrong with treating writing as a hobby that more or less pays for itself, where you write when you're inspired and don't when you aren't and it isn't a focus of your life. You probably won't build a career that way, but if that isn't your goal, that's okay. Once you have contracts and deadlines, you'll need a lot more discipline and will need to treat writing like a job. Your "boss" may let you take off in the middle of the day to go to a movie, but will that allow you to meet the "company" goals and be successful? It helps to come up with some kind of schedule or plan for your production -- a goal for amount of time spent writing or number of pages or words produced.
Continuing education is important for any career. You probably need more training in the early years and may shift the kinds of things you need to learn as you go. When you first start, your focus may be on how to write, then it may shift to learning about the business of selling your work, and then it may shift to marketing and career development. Just don't confuse learning with actual work. Going to writing organization meetings and chatting on message boards for writers isn't the same thing as writing, and it's an easy way to trick yourself into thinking you're devoting more time to your work than you really are.
Depending on your circumstances and personality, making yourself think like a business owner or entrepreneur may be more or less necessary. Creative types often find this way of thinking to be foreign, but it's important if you really want to make a career out of it.
If you make money from your writing, that's considered a business, and the IRS will want its cut of it. You'll have to file a tax return for your business (a Schedule C, most likely) that lists the money you've made. The nice thing is, you can write off expenses related to your business, so you're only taxed on the profit. This can include stuff like office supplies, equipment, agent commissions, postage, advertising expenses, and business-related travel for things like writing conferences and research. Consult a professional or read the IRS publications for details on what you can and can't deduct. The important thing is that the government considers it a business once you earn any income from it, even if you're not making a profit yet, so you'll need to keep records like you would for a business, tracking the amount of money you make and any expenses you plan to write off. Tax time is so much easier if you do this along the way. Create a spreadsheet and add to it every time you have an expense or get paid. Get a copy of a Schedule C from the IRS web site so you can see the categories and sort your expenses into those categories. I am not a hyper organized person, especially when numbers are involved, but this one little thing of tracking income and expenses as I go has been a life saver. You can start deducting expenses before you have income while you're trying to get your business off the ground, but there are rules about how long you can get away with doing that, so you'll definitely want to research that.
The really nasty thing about writing as a business is self-employment taxes. When you work for someone else, that deduction for Social Security, etc., from your paycheck is only about half of what's paid. Your employer pays the other half. When you're self-employed, you pay the whole thing. Your taxes are a lot higher when you're working for yourself.
Then there's the fun of estimated quarterly taxes. When you have a job with a regular paycheck, part of it is withheld and sent to the IRS every month, so by the time you file your tax return, all your taxes have probably been paid for the year, and you may even get a refund. When you're working for yourself, you make a payment four times a year of a quarter of what you estimate that year's taxes will be. Since you don't know what your income will be, you have to guess based on last year's income. This means that when you get an advance or a royalty check, you need to put money aside for your taxes. If you still have a day job or file jointly with someone who has a day job, you can avoid this by increasing your withholding at work to cover your extra income. I used to do this before I went full-time freelance.
As with any business, you have to spend some money to make money, but you need to be prudent in doing so. For instance, it's easy to go crazy with promotion because you need to get your name out there and it's good for your ego to see all kinds of shiny stuff with your name on it. But rather than throw money around on stuff that seems cool, you need to come up with some kind of marketing plan and think about it. Consider how many additional copies of your book you'd need to sell to make up for the cost of the promotion. Is that likely to happen? If a promotional item for a book costs more than the royalty you'd earn on selling a copy of the book, how likely is it that the promo would really pay off? It might if that particular promotion is focused on people that might have a multiplier effect -- someone who can sell lots of copies for you, like a bookseller or popular blogger. There's also brand promotion -- your name as a writer in general -- vs. product promotion -- a particular book. I could probably write dozens of posts on promo (my day job was in marketing communications), but for now, let's leave it at the fact that you need to think about what you're doing and have a plan. That applies to other business expenses, as well. How necessary is that item or trip to your business, and how does it affect your bottom line? If writing is a side job, then go ahead and spend your writing income on writing-related activities like going to conferences. If it's the way you make your living, you'll need to earn enough profit to live on.
Another aspect of treating your writing like a business is the time you devote to it. This will vary depending on where you are in your career and what your primary sources of income are. There's nothing wrong with treating writing as a hobby that more or less pays for itself, where you write when you're inspired and don't when you aren't and it isn't a focus of your life. You probably won't build a career that way, but if that isn't your goal, that's okay. Once you have contracts and deadlines, you'll need a lot more discipline and will need to treat writing like a job. Your "boss" may let you take off in the middle of the day to go to a movie, but will that allow you to meet the "company" goals and be successful? It helps to come up with some kind of schedule or plan for your production -- a goal for amount of time spent writing or number of pages or words produced.
Continuing education is important for any career. You probably need more training in the early years and may shift the kinds of things you need to learn as you go. When you first start, your focus may be on how to write, then it may shift to learning about the business of selling your work, and then it may shift to marketing and career development. Just don't confuse learning with actual work. Going to writing organization meetings and chatting on message boards for writers isn't the same thing as writing, and it's an easy way to trick yourself into thinking you're devoting more time to your work than you really are.
Depending on your circumstances and personality, making yourself think like a business owner or entrepreneur may be more or less necessary. Creative types often find this way of thinking to be foreign, but it's important if you really want to make a career out of it.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Reality Check
It finally stopped raining! We've had sun for several days in a row. But we still have flooding that's even getting worse in places because all the rivers and lakes are overflowing, and the overflow from upstream is making its way downstream into lakes and rivers that are already overflowing. There are a few roads around me that are closed because they're flooded. They had to close all the lakes to boaters because the water was so high that the wake from a boat could splash into houses. The Friday fireworks at the lake are on hold because the place where they fire them is under water, as are all the parks around the lake, and between that and the no-boats rule there's no good place to view them. They even had to close the road over the dam because water was going over the spillway. We also have a new traffic hazard: flood gawking. I was heading somewhere Sunday afternoon and thought there must be a wreck ahead because traffic came to a standstill and we inched ahead. It turned out to be everyone slowing down to look (and probably take photos) as we passed a flooded area. Yes, it's a golf course covered in water, now move along, please!
But the sun is glorious. I spent Saturday working outdoors. If I keep up my planned rate of production, I should be on pace to finish this draft this week. I'll have some revision to do, but I've been doing a lot of the structural reworking as I go, which is why it's taken me so long, so I don't anticipate having to take the book apart and put it back together again.
Meanwhile, I picked up a book at the library for starting to research the next steampunk book.
I may have sounded a little whiny and self-pitying on Friday in talking about what I have and haven't achieved in the last ten years. The thing is, even though I'd been working in the business for a while and had books published, I still had stars in my eyes and unrealistic expectations about what that book would do for me, as it was my first that wasn't a category romance. I really did feel like I had something special on my hands, and the advance reviews were overwhelmingly positive, so it was well-received. So I had visions of being the next J.K. Rowling. The book would be a huge bestseller, I'd be a literary star with the publisher offering me tons of money for the rest of the series, there would be a movie series or TV series, and my life would totally change.
The reality is that it takes a lot more than people liking a book for it to take off. If not that many copies have been printed, it can sell every copy and still not sell enough to be a bestseller (though these days e-books are changing that -- but a book can sell like crazy as an e-book and not have that translate into the major chains stocking it in large numbers). It takes a critical mass of people spreading word of mouth for the word of mouth to make a huge difference fast enough for the publisher to register the effect and capitalize on it. The market today, with instant sales figures, doesn't really give credit to the slow and steady rise. By the time a book has reached a certain sales point on the slow and steady path, the publisher has already moved on to the next release.
A more realistic expectation is just making a steady living -- not having to get a regular job in order to pay the bills, having enough books in print that the royalty payments add up. It's hard to visualize that as a measure of success when you're starting out because it's not something you hear about. You hear about the big smashes -- the authors who become celebrities, the ones whose books are being made into movies. You don't necessarily have a good mental image of the life of an author who's successful without that extra bit of oomph -- a good living, but no walking the red carpet, basically like everyone else, just with a slightly cooler job. So what we visualize when we imagine where this will take us is the extreme rather than the happy medium. Who fantasizes about making a modest living and living an ordinary life?
The thing is, even this much is actually pretty rare. There were a lot of people being published around the time I was -- some of whom got more attention at the time -- whose books are now out of print and whose careers stalled out. It's fairly rare for an author to actually make a living writing. Most still have regular jobs or at least have spouses with regular jobs. And that's of the people who manage to get a book published at all. So getting a book published and being able to live off that income for more than a decade is something to celebrate.
And, you know, I still fall victim to the pie-in-the-sky visualization, knowing what I know. I keep having to dial back my expectations of what the new book this summer will do. Just like Enchanted, Inc., it's something different for me in a new field -- hardcover and young adult -- and so it's easy to imagine that this will be the one that makes a difference, that will boost me into the higher ranks of fame and fortune. The reality is that I will be fortunate if it sells well enough that the publisher wants another book. I'm mostly hoping that it will increase my visibility enough to boost sales of everything else, while I keep writing other things and letting that slow and steady thing keep paying the bills. This is a really good life, a great way to make a living, and making a living at it is awesome.
But the sun is glorious. I spent Saturday working outdoors. If I keep up my planned rate of production, I should be on pace to finish this draft this week. I'll have some revision to do, but I've been doing a lot of the structural reworking as I go, which is why it's taken me so long, so I don't anticipate having to take the book apart and put it back together again.
Meanwhile, I picked up a book at the library for starting to research the next steampunk book.
I may have sounded a little whiny and self-pitying on Friday in talking about what I have and haven't achieved in the last ten years. The thing is, even though I'd been working in the business for a while and had books published, I still had stars in my eyes and unrealistic expectations about what that book would do for me, as it was my first that wasn't a category romance. I really did feel like I had something special on my hands, and the advance reviews were overwhelmingly positive, so it was well-received. So I had visions of being the next J.K. Rowling. The book would be a huge bestseller, I'd be a literary star with the publisher offering me tons of money for the rest of the series, there would be a movie series or TV series, and my life would totally change.
The reality is that it takes a lot more than people liking a book for it to take off. If not that many copies have been printed, it can sell every copy and still not sell enough to be a bestseller (though these days e-books are changing that -- but a book can sell like crazy as an e-book and not have that translate into the major chains stocking it in large numbers). It takes a critical mass of people spreading word of mouth for the word of mouth to make a huge difference fast enough for the publisher to register the effect and capitalize on it. The market today, with instant sales figures, doesn't really give credit to the slow and steady rise. By the time a book has reached a certain sales point on the slow and steady path, the publisher has already moved on to the next release.
A more realistic expectation is just making a steady living -- not having to get a regular job in order to pay the bills, having enough books in print that the royalty payments add up. It's hard to visualize that as a measure of success when you're starting out because it's not something you hear about. You hear about the big smashes -- the authors who become celebrities, the ones whose books are being made into movies. You don't necessarily have a good mental image of the life of an author who's successful without that extra bit of oomph -- a good living, but no walking the red carpet, basically like everyone else, just with a slightly cooler job. So what we visualize when we imagine where this will take us is the extreme rather than the happy medium. Who fantasizes about making a modest living and living an ordinary life?
The thing is, even this much is actually pretty rare. There were a lot of people being published around the time I was -- some of whom got more attention at the time -- whose books are now out of print and whose careers stalled out. It's fairly rare for an author to actually make a living writing. Most still have regular jobs or at least have spouses with regular jobs. And that's of the people who manage to get a book published at all. So getting a book published and being able to live off that income for more than a decade is something to celebrate.
And, you know, I still fall victim to the pie-in-the-sky visualization, knowing what I know. I keep having to dial back my expectations of what the new book this summer will do. Just like Enchanted, Inc., it's something different for me in a new field -- hardcover and young adult -- and so it's easy to imagine that this will be the one that makes a difference, that will boost me into the higher ranks of fame and fortune. The reality is that I will be fortunate if it sells well enough that the publisher wants another book. I'm mostly hoping that it will increase my visibility enough to boost sales of everything else, while I keep writing other things and letting that slow and steady thing keep paying the bills. This is a really good life, a great way to make a living, and making a living at it is awesome.
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Taking the Plunge
So, that 10-2 window for the plumber? He came after 5. And it was too late to do all the work I needed done. So now there's another appointment for (supposedly) first thing on Friday. This is probably not the best way to turn a new customer into a repeat customer.
Anyway, it's time for a writing post. This week, I had a question posed by a high school classmate: what do you do to get started once you've written a book? Taking the plunge into pursuing publication is probably scarier than looking at that blank page/screen to start writing a novel. The good news is that there may be more publication opportunities than ever before. That's also the bad news because it means you have to be even more knowledgable about the business than ever before in order to make good decisions.
The first thing you need to do is educate yourself about the business. There are whole categories of books at Amazon on publishing and the book business (the Writer's Market for the year is a good place to start). You can also find these books at a library. A lot of agents, editors and authors have blogs and Twitter accounts where you can get information.
Meanwhile, you need to educate yourself about the market and where your book might fit in. Are there any other books and authors out there that seem similar to yours in subject matter or tone, so that you think readers of these books might like yours? Visit a bookstore and browse to see what's out there. Do some Amazon searches and then follow the "people who bought this also bought these" rabbit trails. Take note of who the publishers are, how recently these books were published, how they're selling (the ranking ), number of reviews, etc. If you see a lot of books like yours, that could either mean this is a hot market or that it's a saturated market. If you see no books like yours, that could either mean there's no market or an untapped market. Your book could still sell, regardless, but it's good to know what's out there. Read the books you find and then take another look at yours to determine if it's really of publishable quality or if it needs more work.
Another way to educate yourself is to meet with other writers. Find a writing organization and attend meetings. Romance Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America allow unpublished members and tend to have local chapters with meetings. Many cities have writing groups. Attend a writing conference. There are some big ones sponsored by national organizations that focus on particular genres, and there are local and regional conferences that cover multiple genres. Many science fiction conventions include a writing workshop or have panels on writing and publishing. These can also be good networking opportunities, as publishing professionals often attend, and you may even be able to schedule a one-on-one session for pitching a project. An internet search will give you a lot of listings.
There are online communities, as well. Forums like the Absolute Write Water Cooler (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/) or Backspace (http://bksp.org/) give you a good place to meet online and learn about the business.
It does help to have done your research before you meet with other writers or publishing professionals. There's nothing more annoying than a new writer who just expects the more experienced people to present her with the keys to the universe when it's clear she's done absolutely no work on her own. Most of us remember the days -- years, even -- we spent reading books, going to conferences, etc., so we'd rather not spoon-feed others who expect to just be told everything they need to do. And never give a manuscript to an author, expecting feedback, unless you've been invited to do so.
Once you have some knowledge, you can make a decision about which path to publication you want to take. You can try submitting directly to a publisher, though fewer publishers these days are taking unagented submissions. This is more likely to work through smaller publishers (but research them carefully before you submit to make sure they're real publishers and not scams -- you should never have to pay money to a publisher). You can submit to agents, who will submit your work to major publishers. Or you can independently publish.
For more discussion on the differences between traditional publishing and independent publishing, look at a post I wrote last year on this topic: http://shanna-s.livejournal.com/2014/02/26/
My general recommendation is to at least try submitting traditionally first because it gives you a sense of where you fit in the market (are you being rejected for the quality of your work or because you don't fit a market niche?), it helps you build the thick skin you need to survive, and if you do sell a book this way, you can always decide to independently publish later, but you'll have that traditional publishing credential and more of an established audience that will help you stand out from the crowd. Don't think of independent publishing as any kind of shortcut. It's more like going into business, and you need to know even more about the industry than you do as an author going the traditional route.
Anyway, it's time for a writing post. This week, I had a question posed by a high school classmate: what do you do to get started once you've written a book? Taking the plunge into pursuing publication is probably scarier than looking at that blank page/screen to start writing a novel. The good news is that there may be more publication opportunities than ever before. That's also the bad news because it means you have to be even more knowledgable about the business than ever before in order to make good decisions.
The first thing you need to do is educate yourself about the business. There are whole categories of books at Amazon on publishing and the book business (the Writer's Market for the year is a good place to start). You can also find these books at a library. A lot of agents, editors and authors have blogs and Twitter accounts where you can get information.
Meanwhile, you need to educate yourself about the market and where your book might fit in. Are there any other books and authors out there that seem similar to yours in subject matter or tone, so that you think readers of these books might like yours? Visit a bookstore and browse to see what's out there. Do some Amazon searches and then follow the "people who bought this also bought these" rabbit trails. Take note of who the publishers are, how recently these books were published, how they're selling (the ranking ), number of reviews, etc. If you see a lot of books like yours, that could either mean this is a hot market or that it's a saturated market. If you see no books like yours, that could either mean there's no market or an untapped market. Your book could still sell, regardless, but it's good to know what's out there. Read the books you find and then take another look at yours to determine if it's really of publishable quality or if it needs more work.
Another way to educate yourself is to meet with other writers. Find a writing organization and attend meetings. Romance Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America allow unpublished members and tend to have local chapters with meetings. Many cities have writing groups. Attend a writing conference. There are some big ones sponsored by national organizations that focus on particular genres, and there are local and regional conferences that cover multiple genres. Many science fiction conventions include a writing workshop or have panels on writing and publishing. These can also be good networking opportunities, as publishing professionals often attend, and you may even be able to schedule a one-on-one session for pitching a project. An internet search will give you a lot of listings.
There are online communities, as well. Forums like the Absolute Write Water Cooler (http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/) or Backspace (http://bksp.org/) give you a good place to meet online and learn about the business.
It does help to have done your research before you meet with other writers or publishing professionals. There's nothing more annoying than a new writer who just expects the more experienced people to present her with the keys to the universe when it's clear she's done absolutely no work on her own. Most of us remember the days -- years, even -- we spent reading books, going to conferences, etc., so we'd rather not spoon-feed others who expect to just be told everything they need to do. And never give a manuscript to an author, expecting feedback, unless you've been invited to do so.
Once you have some knowledge, you can make a decision about which path to publication you want to take. You can try submitting directly to a publisher, though fewer publishers these days are taking unagented submissions. This is more likely to work through smaller publishers (but research them carefully before you submit to make sure they're real publishers and not scams -- you should never have to pay money to a publisher). You can submit to agents, who will submit your work to major publishers. Or you can independently publish.
For more discussion on the differences between traditional publishing and independent publishing, look at a post I wrote last year on this topic: http://shanna-s.livejournal.com/2014/02/26/
My general recommendation is to at least try submitting traditionally first because it gives you a sense of where you fit in the market (are you being rejected for the quality of your work or because you don't fit a market niche?), it helps you build the thick skin you need to survive, and if you do sell a book this way, you can always decide to independently publish later, but you'll have that traditional publishing credential and more of an established audience that will help you stand out from the crowd. Don't think of independent publishing as any kind of shortcut. It's more like going into business, and you need to know even more about the industry than you do as an author going the traditional route.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Decisions, Decisions
I'm working on cover designs, and wow, but it's hard -- and I'm not even doing the work. I'm just choosing between options and offering feedback. So many choices! And is what I like what will really look best and sell best? We've settled on a font, and now I'm trying to pick a color and style. I'm leaving the options up on my screen to look at every so often and see what strikes me.
Weirdly, I keep wanting my name printed smaller. It just looks weird in huge type. I guess that means I'd better never be a bestseller whose name gets printed bigger than the title.
And I need to come up with a name for the whole series, since it's smart to do that up front and control it and then brand all the books rather than to figure it out after the fact after people have already decided what to call it. So far, everything I've come up with has been way too "high fantasy" instead of contemporary fantasy. Though I guess this is kind of a blend of high fantasy and contemporary fantasy.
I had a good session with the choir kids last night. They were still a little crazy, and there was one kid who was just so tired he started crying, but I actually ran out of time for things I wanted to get done, which is better than running out of activities while there's still time left. I found one game they kind of liked, so we may do that one again (playing something kind of like Simon Says with the body scale -- the notes go up and down depending on whether your hands are on your knees, waist, shoulders or head). I was able to use my in-depth knowledge of Disney Princesses to get one little girl to feel better about being there. She was sulking because she didn't want to come, but then she lit up when I asked her about her Frozen pin and we started talking about our favorite princesses. That warmed her up to the point she started participating.
We also got our new choir director last night. He used to be in our choir before he got a job directing the choir at another church, so we already knew him, and I think he's going to be a lot of fun as director. We seem to have the same taste in music, which is good.
Now to go make up some cookie dough, research a book, brainstorm tag lines, start fine-tuning a plot and choose a cover design. It's a busy work day.
Weirdly, I keep wanting my name printed smaller. It just looks weird in huge type. I guess that means I'd better never be a bestseller whose name gets printed bigger than the title.
And I need to come up with a name for the whole series, since it's smart to do that up front and control it and then brand all the books rather than to figure it out after the fact after people have already decided what to call it. So far, everything I've come up with has been way too "high fantasy" instead of contemporary fantasy. Though I guess this is kind of a blend of high fantasy and contemporary fantasy.
I had a good session with the choir kids last night. They were still a little crazy, and there was one kid who was just so tired he started crying, but I actually ran out of time for things I wanted to get done, which is better than running out of activities while there's still time left. I found one game they kind of liked, so we may do that one again (playing something kind of like Simon Says with the body scale -- the notes go up and down depending on whether your hands are on your knees, waist, shoulders or head). I was able to use my in-depth knowledge of Disney Princesses to get one little girl to feel better about being there. She was sulking because she didn't want to come, but then she lit up when I asked her about her Frozen pin and we started talking about our favorite princesses. That warmed her up to the point she started participating.
We also got our new choir director last night. He used to be in our choir before he got a job directing the choir at another church, so we already knew him, and I think he's going to be a lot of fun as director. We seem to have the same taste in music, which is good.
Now to go make up some cookie dough, research a book, brainstorm tag lines, start fine-tuning a plot and choose a cover design. It's a busy work day.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
The Wacky World of Publishing
I kind of went from only the vaguest idea of a book idea to a fairly fleshed-out concept in one day yesterday, just starting from the idea of "maybe I ought to take a trip." Though I think that already having a deal in the works for the book provided a lot of incentive. It's nice to be writing a book for a "publisher" with an advance and all that, even if it's not the usual kind of deal. In this case, the audiobook deal came first.
This tells you how crazy the publishing business is these days. You practically need a chart to keep up with which of my books are traditionally published and which are self-published, and in which formats and locations.
For the Enchanted, Inc. series:
Books 1-4 in the US were traditionally published. They're also traditionally published in translation and in audio. But in overseas markets, the English version is self-published.
Books 5-7 are self-published in English worldwide but were originally written in a traditional deal for the Japanese publisher and are traditionally published in audio.
Now I've got a new contemporary fantasy series that will be launching this fall. I made a deal with Audible yesterday for the audio version of the first two books that are written and for a third book I haven't yet written (and didn't even have a solid idea for until yesterday). I will be self-publishing these books in print/e-books.
Because I've had traditionally published books, I generally count as a "real" author when it comes to stuff like conventions, and I've already got my SFWA membership. But when it comes to promo, a lot of web sites still won't review or promote self-published books. I wonder where these books would fall, since I've got a traditional audio deal, even if the print/e-books are self-published.
And then the steampunk book is entirely traditionally published, both print and audio. Though if the publisher doesn't pick up the option on subsequent books, I do plan to self-publish the rest of the series.
It's nice to have a lot of options and not have all my eggs in one basket. If one thing fails, I have other things to fall back on.
So for now, I need to get this new book written. I found out that our local Nutcracker is at the same time I'm thinking of going to New York, so that rules that out. Not that I think it would teach me that much. I've spent enough time on stage to kind of have a sense for it, even if I wasn't doing ballet at the time (aside from the infamous preschool dance recital "I see my daddy!" incident). This weekend may be a big immersion retreat to get my head into the right space. It'll be nice weather for walking and thinking or reading on the patio.
But for today, I have to finish my lesson plan for tonight and try to wake up from the allergy grogginess. And there's some housework to be done and some other business stuff to take care of.
This tells you how crazy the publishing business is these days. You practically need a chart to keep up with which of my books are traditionally published and which are self-published, and in which formats and locations.
For the Enchanted, Inc. series:
Books 1-4 in the US were traditionally published. They're also traditionally published in translation and in audio. But in overseas markets, the English version is self-published.
Books 5-7 are self-published in English worldwide but were originally written in a traditional deal for the Japanese publisher and are traditionally published in audio.
Now I've got a new contemporary fantasy series that will be launching this fall. I made a deal with Audible yesterday for the audio version of the first two books that are written and for a third book I haven't yet written (and didn't even have a solid idea for until yesterday). I will be self-publishing these books in print/e-books.
Because I've had traditionally published books, I generally count as a "real" author when it comes to stuff like conventions, and I've already got my SFWA membership. But when it comes to promo, a lot of web sites still won't review or promote self-published books. I wonder where these books would fall, since I've got a traditional audio deal, even if the print/e-books are self-published.
And then the steampunk book is entirely traditionally published, both print and audio. Though if the publisher doesn't pick up the option on subsequent books, I do plan to self-publish the rest of the series.
It's nice to have a lot of options and not have all my eggs in one basket. If one thing fails, I have other things to fall back on.
So for now, I need to get this new book written. I found out that our local Nutcracker is at the same time I'm thinking of going to New York, so that rules that out. Not that I think it would teach me that much. I've spent enough time on stage to kind of have a sense for it, even if I wasn't doing ballet at the time (aside from the infamous preschool dance recital "I see my daddy!" incident). This weekend may be a big immersion retreat to get my head into the right space. It'll be nice weather for walking and thinking or reading on the patio.
But for today, I have to finish my lesson plan for tonight and try to wake up from the allergy grogginess. And there's some housework to be done and some other business stuff to take care of.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Is Self Publishing for You?
One of the big debates going on in the publishing world involves the rise of self-publishing as a viable business and creative model. There's the traditionally published side that thinks self-publishers are amateurs and selling themselves short, and there's the self (or independent) publishing side that thinks that traditional publishing is an outdated business model. Since I have a foot in both camps, sometimes even with the same book, I thought I'd take a look at some reasons you might consider self-publishing -- and whether those are good reasons.
Red Light -- stop and reconsider
You're impatient -- why waste so much time getting an agent, then submitting and selling a book, then waiting to get it slotted in by a publisher when you could have it up for sale next week? While timing is a benefit of self-publishing, rushing into it because you just can't wait to be a published author is a bad idea.
The publishing industry just doesn't understand your genius because you are a special snowflake -- good books do get rejected, but if you're getting poor responses to your writing from publishers, there's a good chance readers will react the same way, and if you can't deal with rejections from publishers, then reader reviews could send you over the edge.
You want to call yourself a published author -- don't go into any kind of publishing to give yourself validation, and you're in for some harsh surprises if you think that posting something for sale at Amazon will send you into some elite group where you'll get the secret handshake.
You want to get rich quick -- yes, some people have made tons of money with self-published books, but you hear about them because they're unusual. Most people don't make massive amounts of money, and it takes time and effort to build a readership.
Yellow Light -- Caution -- if these things apply to you, you might need to have a lot of other stuff work in your favor, so do some research
You don't write genre fiction -- most self-publishing success has come in genres like romance, fantasy, science fiction and mystery. So far, literary fiction and non-fiction haven't done quite as well.
You don't write quickly -- self-publishing success seems to be a snowball thing, with more books available leading to more sales of all the books, and readers expect new books frequently. It would be hard to sustain a career with a one-book-a-year pace.
Green Light -- Proceed if the way is clear (but look both ways first)
You write quickly and can produce a book every few months -- this is different from impatience (under Red Light). Most traditional publishers will only deal with a book a year from an author (with some exceptions, like category romance). If you can produce more than that and maintain quality, you could possibly take advantage of setting your own publication schedule.
You mix genres -- if your books could sit on the mystery shelf or the fantasy shelf or the romance shelf, you may be more likely to find readers via online booksellers where you don't have to pick a single shelf.
Your books are in a genre that's now passe in traditional publishing -- publishers have a bad all-or-nothing tendency. If something does well, they want a lot more books just like it and glut the market, then when the existing audience can no longer support that many books the trend tanks and the publisher doesn't want anything else like that anymore. But the readers who bought books like that in the first place probably still like that kind of thing and can no longer find it. Self-publishing can target that niche with books traditional publishers wouldn't touch. Most publishers consider chick lit to be dead, for example, but I understand that books like that sell very well for those authors who've kept writing and are self-publishing.
Your books fit a niche underserved (or unserved) by publishers -- I was surprised to learn that sweet romances (no sex scenes) do really well for independent authors, but it makes sense because it's really hard to find romance novels without sex these days unless you go to the inspirational market. If you want no sex and no religion in your books, you won't find that in traditional bookstores, and it would be a hard sell to a publisher. But apparently you can find an audience if you self-publish.
The rejections you get from agents or publishers have nothing to do with the quality of your writing but are along the lines of "I'm not sure I could sell this" or "I wouldn't know what to do with this" or "There's not really a market for this." -- A big publishing company has very different business practices and profit/loss expectations than an individual, so a book that would be a big loss for a publisher could still be profitable for an individual. Big publishers tend to be risk-averse, and a rejection that's more about the market than about the writing may not mean the book isn't viable.
If the Green Lights apply to you and you're honest with yourself about any potential Red Lights, then you might have the potential for self-publishing success with the right book and with professional-quality production.
Red Light -- stop and reconsider
You're impatient -- why waste so much time getting an agent, then submitting and selling a book, then waiting to get it slotted in by a publisher when you could have it up for sale next week? While timing is a benefit of self-publishing, rushing into it because you just can't wait to be a published author is a bad idea.
The publishing industry just doesn't understand your genius because you are a special snowflake -- good books do get rejected, but if you're getting poor responses to your writing from publishers, there's a good chance readers will react the same way, and if you can't deal with rejections from publishers, then reader reviews could send you over the edge.
You want to call yourself a published author -- don't go into any kind of publishing to give yourself validation, and you're in for some harsh surprises if you think that posting something for sale at Amazon will send you into some elite group where you'll get the secret handshake.
You want to get rich quick -- yes, some people have made tons of money with self-published books, but you hear about them because they're unusual. Most people don't make massive amounts of money, and it takes time and effort to build a readership.
Yellow Light -- Caution -- if these things apply to you, you might need to have a lot of other stuff work in your favor, so do some research
You don't write genre fiction -- most self-publishing success has come in genres like romance, fantasy, science fiction and mystery. So far, literary fiction and non-fiction haven't done quite as well.
You don't write quickly -- self-publishing success seems to be a snowball thing, with more books available leading to more sales of all the books, and readers expect new books frequently. It would be hard to sustain a career with a one-book-a-year pace.
Green Light -- Proceed if the way is clear (but look both ways first)
You write quickly and can produce a book every few months -- this is different from impatience (under Red Light). Most traditional publishers will only deal with a book a year from an author (with some exceptions, like category romance). If you can produce more than that and maintain quality, you could possibly take advantage of setting your own publication schedule.
You mix genres -- if your books could sit on the mystery shelf or the fantasy shelf or the romance shelf, you may be more likely to find readers via online booksellers where you don't have to pick a single shelf.
Your books are in a genre that's now passe in traditional publishing -- publishers have a bad all-or-nothing tendency. If something does well, they want a lot more books just like it and glut the market, then when the existing audience can no longer support that many books the trend tanks and the publisher doesn't want anything else like that anymore. But the readers who bought books like that in the first place probably still like that kind of thing and can no longer find it. Self-publishing can target that niche with books traditional publishers wouldn't touch. Most publishers consider chick lit to be dead, for example, but I understand that books like that sell very well for those authors who've kept writing and are self-publishing.
Your books fit a niche underserved (or unserved) by publishers -- I was surprised to learn that sweet romances (no sex scenes) do really well for independent authors, but it makes sense because it's really hard to find romance novels without sex these days unless you go to the inspirational market. If you want no sex and no religion in your books, you won't find that in traditional bookstores, and it would be a hard sell to a publisher. But apparently you can find an audience if you self-publish.
The rejections you get from agents or publishers have nothing to do with the quality of your writing but are along the lines of "I'm not sure I could sell this" or "I wouldn't know what to do with this" or "There's not really a market for this." -- A big publishing company has very different business practices and profit/loss expectations than an individual, so a book that would be a big loss for a publisher could still be profitable for an individual. Big publishers tend to be risk-averse, and a rejection that's more about the market than about the writing may not mean the book isn't viable.
If the Green Lights apply to you and you're honest with yourself about any potential Red Lights, then you might have the potential for self-publishing success with the right book and with professional-quality production.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
More Signs of the Impending Apocalypse
We really seem to be celebrating the great holiday of Send Money to Shanna Day (or week). Just yesterday, I got my royalties on my self-published books, which really went up after the price on the first book in the series was dropped, plus the second half of the advance on my steampunk book. The audiobook royalties will be coming later this week. And I got a check from the last Worldcon, reimbursing my membership fee since I was on programming. Plus, I got a Starbucks gift card in the mail as a thank-you for leading singing in the preschool Sunday school department. My bank balance makes me grin. But quarterly taxes are due next week, and I have a lot of business expenses over the summer, so I can't go totally nuts.
I'm still making progress on the book. I'd say I'm probably in the "the road back" phase of the hero's journey. I know what the next couple of scenes will be, but then I'll hit another big scene and I need to figure out what that will look like.
Tonight's the start of summer ballet and I'm a little nervous because I'll have a different teacher than I usually do (since the regular teacher should have had a baby this morning -- I haven't yet seen the announcement on Facebook). I'm not sure why I'm so nervous, since when I first started dancing my teacher went on maternity leave after just a few months, and the sub was the rather strict teacher who normally worked with the very advanced students (I called him the Ballet Nazi). He was very tough on me, but I mostly just laughed it off and we got along great. But that was when I was a beginner. Now I'm in the intermediate/advanced class, and I'm worried that the teacher will have real intermediate/advanced expectations. Most of the other students are of the sort that danced all their lives, maybe even did a little professionally, and are getting back into it after having kids. I'll likely be the oldest in the class, and I didn't start (other than the occasional class here and there) until I was older than most of these people are now. So I'm likely to both get hyper-competitive and push myself and have my self-esteem dealt a serious blow. Or it could be fun. Who knows. I don't think I've ever met the summer teacher.
But back to publishing … I think we've had a potential Sign of the Impending Apocalypse. Apparently, there's been yet another person getting a huge book (and movie) deal for a book that was originally written and posted as fan fiction. But in this case, it wasn't fan fiction of a book, movie or TV series that's having the serial numbers filed off and the names changed. It's a work of real-person fiction involving the members of a boy band, who, of course, are all kind of in love with an author stand-in. The story apparently isn't about them being a boy band, though. It has the same people doing something else, so I guess it becomes "original" just by changing the names. Though I wonder how that fits into the "this is a work of fiction, it's purely an accident if any of these people resemble any real person" disclaimer, since the whole point of the book is that the characters are based on real people, and that's going to be a huge part of the marketing hook -- maybe not overtly, done by the publisher, but the author achieved this success by pandering to fans of the band. If it had just been a story about characters, with no relationship whatsoever to the band, it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere.
But, yeah, this is the kind of thing publishers are currently throwing millions of dollars at. It's kind of depressing. Or it would be if it hadn't been Send Money to Shanna Day. It's not millions, but I can live on it.
To cheer myself up, here's a look at what conversations might sound like if people talked to everybody like they talk to writers. I think I've had just about every one of these conversations, but they forgot a few common lines. There's "I've thought about writing a book. Maybe you can introduce me to your editor or agent." There's "Oh, you write fantasy novels. I wrote a how-to book about a technical topic. Maybe you can give me some pointers about getting it published." (Sometimes it's "I've written and illustrated a children's book.") And the ever popular "You should give me a copy and I can tell you if it's any good." But those are mostly from strangers. For people I know, my favorite is "I've been wanting to read your books, but I can't seem to find any copies in the used bookstore."
I'm still making progress on the book. I'd say I'm probably in the "the road back" phase of the hero's journey. I know what the next couple of scenes will be, but then I'll hit another big scene and I need to figure out what that will look like.
Tonight's the start of summer ballet and I'm a little nervous because I'll have a different teacher than I usually do (since the regular teacher should have had a baby this morning -- I haven't yet seen the announcement on Facebook). I'm not sure why I'm so nervous, since when I first started dancing my teacher went on maternity leave after just a few months, and the sub was the rather strict teacher who normally worked with the very advanced students (I called him the Ballet Nazi). He was very tough on me, but I mostly just laughed it off and we got along great. But that was when I was a beginner. Now I'm in the intermediate/advanced class, and I'm worried that the teacher will have real intermediate/advanced expectations. Most of the other students are of the sort that danced all their lives, maybe even did a little professionally, and are getting back into it after having kids. I'll likely be the oldest in the class, and I didn't start (other than the occasional class here and there) until I was older than most of these people are now. So I'm likely to both get hyper-competitive and push myself and have my self-esteem dealt a serious blow. Or it could be fun. Who knows. I don't think I've ever met the summer teacher.
But back to publishing … I think we've had a potential Sign of the Impending Apocalypse. Apparently, there's been yet another person getting a huge book (and movie) deal for a book that was originally written and posted as fan fiction. But in this case, it wasn't fan fiction of a book, movie or TV series that's having the serial numbers filed off and the names changed. It's a work of real-person fiction involving the members of a boy band, who, of course, are all kind of in love with an author stand-in. The story apparently isn't about them being a boy band, though. It has the same people doing something else, so I guess it becomes "original" just by changing the names. Though I wonder how that fits into the "this is a work of fiction, it's purely an accident if any of these people resemble any real person" disclaimer, since the whole point of the book is that the characters are based on real people, and that's going to be a huge part of the marketing hook -- maybe not overtly, done by the publisher, but the author achieved this success by pandering to fans of the band. If it had just been a story about characters, with no relationship whatsoever to the band, it probably wouldn't have gone anywhere.
But, yeah, this is the kind of thing publishers are currently throwing millions of dollars at. It's kind of depressing. Or it would be if it hadn't been Send Money to Shanna Day. It's not millions, but I can live on it.
To cheer myself up, here's a look at what conversations might sound like if people talked to everybody like they talk to writers. I think I've had just about every one of these conversations, but they forgot a few common lines. There's "I've thought about writing a book. Maybe you can introduce me to your editor or agent." There's "Oh, you write fantasy novels. I wrote a how-to book about a technical topic. Maybe you can give me some pointers about getting it published." (Sometimes it's "I've written and illustrated a children's book.") And the ever popular "You should give me a copy and I can tell you if it's any good." But those are mostly from strangers. For people I know, my favorite is "I've been wanting to read your books, but I can't seem to find any copies in the used bookstore."
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