It’s a cliché that so-called overnight successes are many years in the making, but it’s also true. As you plug away at your day job and your manuscripts, year in and out, it’s easy to get discouraged. It’s hard not to feel nothing’s ever going to happen for you. And when you read about some hot new author du jour you’ve never heard of who got a six or seven figure offer, landed a spot on Oprah and got a full-page profile in The New York Times, it can seem impossible to be happy for her. In that moment of—let’s be honest—bitter resentment, it is impossible to imagine your dreams coming true. But if they ever do, it will be due in large part to all the time you spent waiting for it to happen, and how you spent that time.
I queried agents on a novel of mine for the first time about thirteen years ago. I was fortunate to land a great agent in that first round of queries, and I thought my writing career was well on its way. Thought is the operative word there. The novel didn’t sell. I wrote and submitted a second novel, which also didn’t sell. Most frustrating of all, the reasons for the rejections had nothing to do with the quality of my writing, which New York editors said was very strong. It came down to what those editors thought they could or could not sell up the chain. So I back-burnered my writing dreams for a while and got on with life: marriage, kids and jobs. It was just a few years ago that I became an advocate for the indie author movement, and I won’t have a book out from a trade publisher until next year. But looking back on it, I can honestly say all the time I had to wait, and how I spent it, were instrumental to my eventual success.
Marriage and becoming a parent have informed my work in authorship to an extent that can’t be overstated. This isn’t to say I think you’ll be a poor writer unless you get married and have kids, I’m just saying that the experiences I’ve had in those two areas have changed the person I am, caused me to abandon many of my formerly-cherished views, and caused me to look at people and the world differently. Others can get the same benefits from relationships with family and friends, romantic partners, travel, or any sort of life-changing experience.
My day jobs have all had their part to play as well. Working as a technical writer made ‘writing tight’ a reflex for me. Being a software engineer ingrained discipline and attention to detail, both of which are critical skills for any writer. Managing software projects taught me the value of organization, working to a plan, and prioritizing my time and effort. If I hadn’t learned those lessons, there’s no way I could’ve found the time, energy and will to pursue my goals in authorship with everything else I had going on in my life. Working as a web developer and database administrator paid huge dividends when it came to launching and growing my author platform. And continuing to work those day jobs exposed me to all manner of personalities and experiences I could draw upon later, whether in terms of creating a composite character for a story or working with peers and industry people on the business side of things.
What if that first novel had sold? I would’ve been thrilled at the time, but once the initial fanfare died down I think disappointment and failure would’ve settled in pretty quickly. The publisher wouldn’t have lavished a big offer and promotional budget on me, and I wouldn’t have had the money, skills, discipline or maturity to tackle promoting myself and my book on my own. I wouldn’t have had the first idea how to map out a project plan, assemble the necessary talents I lacked (if I even recognized that I lacked them in the first place), or network effectively. My novel most likely would’ve faded from store shelves pretty quickly, and I’d be damaged goods as far as publishers were concerned. Even if the story had been much brighter, if the book had been a surprise hit, I doubt I would’ve sustained a writing career for any length of time. How could I cope with this new, ubiquitous thing called the internet if I’d spent all my time holed up in my comfort zone with a word processor? Given my naiveté, relatively sheltered life to date and ordinary, suburban upbringing, what more could I draw from the well that would inform, entertain or inspire readers enough to keep them buying my books? How could I write about loss, the brow-beating yoke of responsibility, or the push and pull of adult relationships with any authority?
Some of you may already be protesting that there have been plenty of young, breakout writers. But ask yourself this: how many of them have had solid careers that spanned decades, and how many had a hit book or a single hit series, then never struck gold again? There are probably so few exceptions to this that you could count them on one hand, and in every one of those cases the author in question was most likely a true prodigy. For the rest of us, being made to wait till we’ve lived a little longer and experienced a little more of what life has to offer isn’t a bad thing.
Having to work a day job while you’re doing all this living and experiencing isn’t a bad thing, either. If you’re a cashier, bar tender, waitress, salesman or customer service rep, you’re learning how to comfortably interact with strangers and that will serve you well when you’ve got a book to promote. If you’re a worker bee in a tech field, author platform is going to be a walk in the park for you. If your job is the type that isn’t terribly interesting or intellectually demanding, such as assembly line work, driving a bus or working a fast food grill, be glad you have all that mental freedom to ruminate over your ideas and characters for hours a day; just keep a notebook and pen close at hand so you’ll be ready when inspiration strikes. If you’re a teacher or a caregiver of some sort, your daily interactions with the people you serve will enrich your characters and strengthen your dialog in a way no amount of creative writing seminars ever could. No matter what your day job is, it’s keeping you solvent and improving your writing. It, and the wait, are helping to ensure you’ll be ready when opportunity comes knocking.
So don’t hate the wait, and don’t resent your day job. Embrace them, and welcome all they have to offer.
Showing posts with label aspiring author. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aspiring author. Show all posts
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The Publisher Has No Clothes
Bottom Line It For Me, Baby Version (200 Words Or Less)
Selling a book used to mean four things: a respectable advance, a respectable promotion budget and effort, your book would appear on store shelves, and your publisher would gladly publish anything new you had to offer. Thanks to industry consolidations, just 6 media megaconglomerates now dominate American publishing, and they are bottom-line focused with a vengeance. In an industry that has historically, consistently seen profit margins ranging from 4-8%, media megas are determined to squeeze out 15% or more. They don't want books they predict will bring in typical 'midlist' sales (5-40,000 copies), so they don't buy so-called 'small' books from new authors, nor from authors who've been raking in steady, reliable sales for years. Now, for all but celebrity, bestselling and prestige clients, advances are paltry, promotional budgets and efforts are nonexistent, there's no guarantee your book will appear in brick-and-mortar stores, and your publisher won't want your next manuscript unless the one they just bought sells more than 40K copies. This deal could only be more unattractive if authors also had to deliver coffee to the publisher each morning, yet aspiring authors everywhere continue to grovel at the feet of the media megas. WHY?!
Go On An' Run Yo Mouth, I Got Nuthin' But Time Version (Can't Promise It Won't Go On Forever)
From where I sit, there are far more reasons not to sign with a mainstream publisher than reasons to sign with one. They've killed the midlist, they've adopted Hollywood's blockbuster marketing model, they've chipped away at advances and promo budgets for all but their prestige and bestseller clients, and now that Borders is reducing its in-store stock by 20% to display more titles face out (a move they've reported has led to a sales spike, so you can bet it'll be rolling out to B&N too), big publishers can't even guarantee a new author's book will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores anymore.
What's astonishing is the fact that so many aspiring authors still see mainstream publishers as the gold standard in authorship and are willing to give up so much---even risking their entire future careers by putting all their literary eggs in one basket with that first manuscript sale, betting their future prospects on the slim chance their book hits big in spite of DIY marketing and poor exposure---in exchange for some kind of perceived status. The emperor clearly has no clothes, so why don't more of my peers see it too? To be sure, bestselling authors have their publishers to thank, in large part, for their careers. But given that bestselling authors make up maybe 1-2% of all published fiction writers at any given time, we've all got as good a chance of hitting the lottery as entering that rarified group. And if we don't enter that rarified group, we would've done better if we never published anything with a big house to begin with. Lemme break it down for you:
First off, it's widely accepted that only about 5% of all manuscripts submitted to publishers get contracts, and marketability/screenplay-likelihood is as large (or larger) a factor in rejection as quality of the work nowadays. Maybe 25% of that 5% is made up of manuscripts from famous, prestige, or previous-bestseller authors, and these will get the lion's share of attention, advances and promotional budget. The rest will get paltry advances of a few thousand dollars, which sounds all right until you realize that's your payday for the past months or even years of work you put into writing the manuscript. It's less attractive still when you realize the publisher's sole contribution to marketing your book will be promo copies, and you'll have to spend most or all of your advance on marketing. Have fun trying to sell your book, because the publisher can't guarantee it will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores, and doesn't even want to broach the subject of audiobook or ebook editions until or unless some worthwhile sales figures come in. "Worthwhile" to these folks are sales on the order of more than 40K copies, and if your book doesn't cross that threshold the publisher (and all its imprints) won't want to publish you again. Talk about a vicious circle. Compounding your misery, you're facing an uphill battle in trying to sell future manuscripts to any of the other 5 major publishing conglomerates because you'll be viewed as damaged goods.
Some of us will make it, and the risk will have been worthwhile for those few, but all the other authors who get a contract will find their celebrations short-lived. I'm truly baffled by the 90% of aspiring authors who stay in the hunt for a prize they've only got a 5% chance of getting in the first place, which more often than not turns out to hurt the author more than help him or her. What up with that?!
Selling a book used to mean four things: a respectable advance, a respectable promotion budget and effort, your book would appear on store shelves, and your publisher would gladly publish anything new you had to offer. Thanks to industry consolidations, just 6 media megaconglomerates now dominate American publishing, and they are bottom-line focused with a vengeance. In an industry that has historically, consistently seen profit margins ranging from 4-8%, media megas are determined to squeeze out 15% or more. They don't want books they predict will bring in typical 'midlist' sales (5-40,000 copies), so they don't buy so-called 'small' books from new authors, nor from authors who've been raking in steady, reliable sales for years. Now, for all but celebrity, bestselling and prestige clients, advances are paltry, promotional budgets and efforts are nonexistent, there's no guarantee your book will appear in brick-and-mortar stores, and your publisher won't want your next manuscript unless the one they just bought sells more than 40K copies. This deal could only be more unattractive if authors also had to deliver coffee to the publisher each morning, yet aspiring authors everywhere continue to grovel at the feet of the media megas. WHY?!
Go On An' Run Yo Mouth, I Got Nuthin' But Time Version (Can't Promise It Won't Go On Forever)
From where I sit, there are far more reasons not to sign with a mainstream publisher than reasons to sign with one. They've killed the midlist, they've adopted Hollywood's blockbuster marketing model, they've chipped away at advances and promo budgets for all but their prestige and bestseller clients, and now that Borders is reducing its in-store stock by 20% to display more titles face out (a move they've reported has led to a sales spike, so you can bet it'll be rolling out to B&N too), big publishers can't even guarantee a new author's book will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores anymore.
What's astonishing is the fact that so many aspiring authors still see mainstream publishers as the gold standard in authorship and are willing to give up so much---even risking their entire future careers by putting all their literary eggs in one basket with that first manuscript sale, betting their future prospects on the slim chance their book hits big in spite of DIY marketing and poor exposure---in exchange for some kind of perceived status. The emperor clearly has no clothes, so why don't more of my peers see it too? To be sure, bestselling authors have their publishers to thank, in large part, for their careers. But given that bestselling authors make up maybe 1-2% of all published fiction writers at any given time, we've all got as good a chance of hitting the lottery as entering that rarified group. And if we don't enter that rarified group, we would've done better if we never published anything with a big house to begin with. Lemme break it down for you:
First off, it's widely accepted that only about 5% of all manuscripts submitted to publishers get contracts, and marketability/screenplay-likelihood is as large (or larger) a factor in rejection as quality of the work nowadays. Maybe 25% of that 5% is made up of manuscripts from famous, prestige, or previous-bestseller authors, and these will get the lion's share of attention, advances and promotional budget. The rest will get paltry advances of a few thousand dollars, which sounds all right until you realize that's your payday for the past months or even years of work you put into writing the manuscript. It's less attractive still when you realize the publisher's sole contribution to marketing your book will be promo copies, and you'll have to spend most or all of your advance on marketing. Have fun trying to sell your book, because the publisher can't guarantee it will be shelved in brick-and-mortar stores, and doesn't even want to broach the subject of audiobook or ebook editions until or unless some worthwhile sales figures come in. "Worthwhile" to these folks are sales on the order of more than 40K copies, and if your book doesn't cross that threshold the publisher (and all its imprints) won't want to publish you again. Talk about a vicious circle. Compounding your misery, you're facing an uphill battle in trying to sell future manuscripts to any of the other 5 major publishing conglomerates because you'll be viewed as damaged goods.
Some of us will make it, and the risk will have been worthwhile for those few, but all the other authors who get a contract will find their celebrations short-lived. I'm truly baffled by the 90% of aspiring authors who stay in the hunt for a prize they've only got a 5% chance of getting in the first place, which more often than not turns out to hurt the author more than help him or her. What up with that?!
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