You can’t write in a vaccuum

I think the most difficult thing for me over my years of trying to become a writer has been having to deal with people. If I could only just write what’s in my heart and then give it away to all those who need it, life would be so much easier…

My very first meeting with a “real” editor was in a 15-minute appointment at a writing conference in 1979. It was so devastating that if I hadn’t previously booked another appointment with a second editor immediately after, I doubt if I’d have ever found the courage to talk to an editor again.

That first editor ripped into me for not knowing what I was doing, not having a concrete proposal ready, and not making good use of my time with her. I was clueless, true, but it was my first time at a conference, and I don’t think she had any reason to treat me the way she did. Fortunately, the second editor I talked to was Leslie Keylock, and he was wonderful. Restored my faith that there are some nice people out there - some even disguised as editors.

Time went by and I got a book contract. I was sailing. Until I began having problems with my editor over the sequel. I went to a conference where the editor was teaching a workshop on how to write fiction, thinking it would help me understand where he was coming from. In the course of the workshop, someone asked him if a woman could write from a male viewpoint. He said no. (Yes, that’s what I was doing - and doing very well, I might add. And I know many other women who do the same thing.) It was pretty clear to me there was a problem.

Then, in the middle of the workshop, he used an example of something a stupid beginner might do that you should never do. And guess what? It came from a proposal for an adult book that I had sent him. No, he didn’t use my name, so no one else knew it was mine. And he did apologize to me at lunch time after it dawned on him that it was my proposal.

You may be asking what terrible thing I had done? I had written a prologue in first person and then switched to 3rd person for the book. Yeah, I know. It’s done all the time now. I also used overture, first movement, etc. instead of prologue, first part. He implied that that was dumb. I’ve since seen that in several books.

What am I trying to say here? I’m not asking you to feel sorry for me. All this happened quite a few years ago. I’ve been over it for a good long time. I’m telling you about it to make the point that sometimes - okay, often - life isn’t fair. There will be people - editors, other writers, press agents, even family members - who will put you down or belittle you or become road blocks in your path. But that’s no reason to give up.

Writing isn’t a solitary occupation. You need people - to support you, teach you, and read what you write.

If you dream of being a writer, don’t let a few negative people stop you.

Do you have an agent?

I was at a bookstore the other day, doing a bit of a Q and A about my newest book, Glitter of Diamonds, with a group of readers and aspiring authors, when, as the other people asked me about writing and books in general, the lady seated next to me asked me for the name of my agent. I tried to give her some general advice (I do teach workshops for aspiring writers), but she wasn’t interested. She wanted a name, and she wanted it now. Of course, her pushiness made me even more determined not to give her any names.

The problem is that, while asking an author for the name of his/her agent may not be quite as personal as asking if someone uses a wig or toupee, it’s in the same range.

Why, you may ask?

1. Getting an agent is as hard as, if not harder than, getting a publisher.
Agents have actually become the first line for publishing. In other words, because many publishing house now won’t look at unagented manuscripts, the agents are the ones being flooded by queries and proposals from new authors.

Often, you have to have at least one book published or been offered a contract before an agent will look at you. Of course, agents will take a look at anyone an editor or client refers to them.

If you ask for the name of my agent, I assume you plan to contact the agent and perhaps indicate that I gave you his/her name. If I start giving out my agent’s name to just anyone, without a clue about whether or not that person can write well, what is my agent going to say to me? Hmm. I may be looking for a new agent myself soon.

The bottom line is that I would never give out an agent’s name to anyone - not even a close friend - without first asking the agent if he/she would be interested.

2. One agent does not equal any other agent
In real estate, one agent is just the same as any other agent, right? Or maybe not. Some agents do specialize in certain areas, or with a specific clientele.

Well, agents who specialize in books normally have very specific preferences. One agent may specialize in nonfiction while another specializes in fiction; one may only do literary fiction and poetry while another prefers cozy mysteries and romance. So it won’t do for you to just have the agent’s name. You need to know what genres that agent works with.

Part of the reason for specializing is the need for an agent to have great contacts in those areas. What a writer actually depends on an agent for is to know what publishers and editors are currently looking for. Since there are a lot of publishing houses and a lot of editors, no agent can know them all. By focusing on a specific kind of writing, they limit the number of people they need to keep in touch with, and they can stay current.

But, perhaps even more important, everyone has specific preferences in their own reading. And an agent is first and foremost a sales person. Most of them do better when they’re selling something they really like and can put their heart into.

So you may be a very good writer, but that doesn’t mean you’d be a perfect fit for every agent out there. You’ll do much better if you have an agent who can get excited about what you’re writing and already has contacts with editors in that genre.

3. Agents are people, too
Signing up with an agent is more than simply signing a business contract. You’re committing to let this person represent you and your precious manuscript. You need to feel comfortable with each other. You need to agree upfront about details such as how much the agent will tell you about rejections, whether or not the agent will want you to write detailed proposals, if he or she will help you with career planning, etc. etc.

Every agent is different. And it’s quite likely that, like most of us, no agent is perfect. Some are new and just learning the ropes. They may not have the contacts, but they may have all kinds of enthusiasm. Others may know all the editors but seem tired and matter-of-fact about your book. Some agents decide to switch or add genres and therefore might be using your book as a test piece for their new area.

Every writer needs a great photo

Part of putting together a business look is having a great photo you can use on your website, your one-sheet, and even on the cover of a book. You’re much better to have one taken ahead of time than to have to rush to do it in a day or two when it’s desperately need it.

I would strongly advise every writer or aspiring writer to:

1. Have several good photos taken by a pro so that you have a great background, good lighting, etc.

2. Make sure you tell the photographer exactly what you want the photo for and make sure he/she understands and doesn’t just take different poses for the sake of it.

3. Take different outfits along and use at least three-four of them. One dressy or glitzy; one business-like; one casual, one mysterious, and so forth.

4. If you don’t know what to wear to make you look good, watch TLC’s What Not to Wear or buy their book (Dress Your Best with Clinton and Stacey). It’s amazing how much a different set of clothes or a different background can alter the message the photo sends.

5. Get said photos on a cd in different formats if you don’t know how to scan and work with them yourself. I’m forever having pictures sent to me that are low-res jpg when I need a high res tif or 8 x 10 studio shots when I need a 2 inch head shot, etc. If you have a variety in size and density, you can send what’s needed to whoever needs it – or use them yourself on your promotional materials.

More advice on self-publishing

Jan Burke, who is a very well-known American mystery writer, has some excellent posts on her blog about getting an agent and self-publishing. I would urge anyone who is self-publishing or considering self-publishing to read them.

http://janburke.com/blog.html

Look for:

Saturday, March 31, 2007 - The Business Side of Writing: the Agent Hunt

Monday, April 02, 2007 - A Few Things to Think About If You Are Thinking About Self-Publishing

Wednesday, April 04, 2007 - Is there a time for everything, including self-publishing

Thursday, April 05, 2007 - The Economics

I will make the caveat that we have some different problems in Canada. I’ll try and address them here later this week.

Judging books by the cover

You’ve heard the statement, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Well, maybe we shouldn’t, but the reality is we do! All the time!

Because of my work with writers, I see a lot of covers. And I have to say that while some of them are good, far too many of them are not. In fact, one of the two biggest problems I see with self-published books is that they look self-published. By that, I mean that if you put a self-published book on a shelf beside a book published by a large royalty-paying publisher, chances are very high that the self-published book will look duller, less interesting, less exciting, and well, less professional.

Very simply, some of the common problems with covers.

• Not having a professional graphic artist design it
• Not paying for the top quality, full-colour, glossy printing
  
• Not paying someone to write top-notch cover copy
• Not studying the genre you are publishing in well enough to know how to make the book look as though it fits.
• Cutting corners so the costs aren’t too high

How can you get around these problems?

• Spend a day in a bookstore or get catalogues from publishers and study the latest books - especially those in the genre you’re writing in - romance books look a lot different from mysteries; memoirs look very different from self-help books.
• Don’t get a friend to design the artwork unless that friend is a professional who does this all the time (even someone who does graphics but not books will likely not have the expertise you need).
• Hire someone who understands marketing and promotion to help with the words that go on the cover (especially the back cover). Titles need a blog of their own!
  
• If you insist on going to a vanity publisher (place you pay to publish your book) take control of every aspect and bring in your own design, etc. if you need to. One vanity publisher I know has only done a few covers I consider excellent, and in every case the author brought in their own cover design.

Without an attractive cover that fits in with the other covers on the shelves, no store except maybe the one in your home town will want to carry your book. Why should they? They know their customers are going to judge the book by the cover.

Before you self-publish your book…

One of the workshops I teach is “So You Want to Write a Book.” In it, I strongly urge and implore people not to self-publish, especially a novel, at least until they’ve considered all ramifications so they can go into it knowing the facts.

My reasons are as follows.

1. Distribution

Even if you can get a distributor (and that’s very iffy, for very good reasons), most self-publishers can’t afford to pay 60-70% of what they make to a distributor. The smaller the press run, the higher the costs of the books. The more books you print, the more you’ll have sitting in your garage. If your dream is to be in bookstores, it’s very unlikely that you’ll make it. So what will you do?

2. Promotion

Most self-publishers, esp. those who do it through vanity presses, tend to start thinking about selling the books when they are arriving from the publisher. At that point, it’s about six months too late. You need a plan for selling the books before you send the book to the printer. You also need a promotion budget. If you’re a speaker or someone with connections to organizations that are a good fit, or if you’re innovative and have lots of time to put in, you can sell books. But speaking and getting bulk sales work best for non-fiction. Fiction is a much tougher sell.

3. Branding

What a good royalty publisher offers that a vanity publisher usually doesn’t (and most self-publishers can’t get) is the ability to get a new author’s book into stores or on websites or wherever books go. Well-known publishers have spent time and money developing conduits of good will. Part of that is having a good distributor, but just having a distributor is absolutely no guarantee that the book will ever get into a store or be sold on the internet. What really gets the bookstore to carry the book is having a respected publisher’s name on the book. Not yours, at least not in the beginning, but the publisher’s. The bookstore buyer sees RandomHouse or Dundurn on the cover, and says, “Ah, yes, I can trust them.” And eventually the customer buying the book will say the same thing.

When you publish through a vanity press, their name usually goes on the cover, and the bookbuyer goes, “Hmm. Let me think. Oh yes, tried one of their books, but it was bad. Nope.” They have a brand all right, but the brand is “self-published!” Sometimes you don’t even have to look past the cover. It has the self-published look! There are a number of publishers whose books I won’t even bother to open because of the publisher’s reputation. By the way, Mystery Writers of America has a list of publishers whose books they won’t consider for credit as an author, and most are vanity presses. (And while I’m on this subject, have you ever wondered why vanity publishers seem to be everywhere you look? Can it be that they’re all anxious to help struggling writers get their books in print and fulfill their dreams, or might they be the ones making money at this?)

When you publish independently (my term for when you become the publisher and hire a substantive editor and a copy editor and a proof reader and a graphic artist, and then you get your own ISBN and bar code and CIP info and deal with a printer and hire a publicist – all the things a normal publisher does - you’ll have your own publishing name on the book. And then you have the problem of being an unknown quantity. Personally, I’d rather be unknown that recognized as a vanity press. That way I can create my own brand.Given that all publishing houses have to start from scratch, maybe in 10 years of so, you’ll have built up your publishing house so that you have a recognizable and accepted brand of your own. Yes, you can have some vanity presses use your publishing name on them. And if you make sure all the other things are done well, the book can look good, but if you have to do all that, why do it through them in the first place?

My five cents! (I heard they’re planning to retire the penny.

You’ve written a book: now what?

Most of the time when new writers tell me they’ve written a book, what they actually mean is that they’ve completed a first draft of a book. And if you know what you’re doing, you don’t rush off to find a publisher for a first draft.

What you do next is let it sit for a week or so while you work on something totally different, and then sit down to read your book in editor mode. Basically, you try to pretend you’ve never seen it before, and you do an objective critique of it.

If your book is fiction, and you haven’t read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King; The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack M Bickham: Revision by David Michael Kaplan; Making Shapely Fiction by Jerome Stern; or most of the books in the Writers Digest Elements of Fiction series, I’d suggest you go to your local store or join Writers’ Digest book club and buy as many as you can afford and read them first.

If your book is non-fiction, look for On Writing Well by William Zinsser, A Writer’s Time by Kenneth Atchity; The 28 Biggest Writing Blunders (And How to Avoid Them) by William Noble, or one of the many books on specific kinds of nonfiction from Writer’s Digest or other publishers. Since each chapter of many non-fiction books may be viewed as a single entity, books on writing articles could also be helpful. Eg. Writing from the Heart by Marjorie Holmes; the Elements of Article Writing Series from Writer’s Digest.

At this time, you also need to refine your target audience so you know exactly who you’re writing the book for.

Next, you write a second draft. How you do that is up to you. Some people just start writing again from scratch. It depends on how much it needs to be changed. What I do is save everything I have as a new file and then start taking it apart and moving things around and rewriting sections, and do forth. I like to think of that first draft as the clay I need to work with in order to create a masterpiece.

I look first for big problems or issues, and ignore most of the little things like spelling and grammar and so forth. Focus on the plot - does it work - and the characters - do they feel real? Or in non-fiction, are the chapters in the right sequence? Does it flow? Have I missed any key areas? What research still needs to be done to make sure everything is accurate?

And when you have that done, you do it all over again and again, as needed. You likely want to get a critique from another writer or two, or a really knowledgeable reader. At some point, you may want to pay for a really good editor to do a substantive edit (more about that next time.)

When you’re satisfied with the plot and the characters in your novel, then you look at the description, the dialogue, the accuracy of the details, and the time sequences.

In your non-fiction, check out the flow of your ideas, make sure all the relevant points are there, look at the illustrations you’ve used, refine your transitions, check that there is something for the reader to take way, and make sure every aspect is good.

Keep refining until you get down to the last bit - the spelling and punctuation, and so forth.

I revised Shaded Light 17 times. True, it’s a very complex book with multiple plot-lines and 14 points of view. My other books have been revised more like 7 or 8 times. Well, Friends Like These took maybe 10 times. My non-fiction books took probably 5 or 6 times.

The bottom-line is that you aren’t just “writing a book” in the sense that once all your thoughts on paper you’re finished. Even if you have done some editing as you wrote (something I don’t encourage), you still need to work with the end product. What you’re actually doing is crafting and molding and shaping it it so it says exactly what you want it to say and so that every single word you leave in has a function.

Yeah, I know. Sounds like work. But, actually, writing a book IS work. As the old saying goes, the idea - the “inspiration” is only a small part of the entire process. The other 90% involves “perspiration”.

The nasty practice of ghost-writing

I just read Linda Hall’ s post at TWGauthors.blogspot.com and dug out this message I’d sent to a listserve I’m on last June. Thought it was relevant.

As a reader, I think work-for-hire or ghosted books or articles that don’t give appropriate credit to the actual writer are morally and ethically wrong. It is lying and when I find out the truth, I feel cheated. I absolutely hate it. As a writer, I feel even more strongly about it.

I’ve mentioned to a few nonwriters that certain well-known people don’t write their own books, and every single one of them has been horrified. They don’t want to know - it really bothers them - as it does me. What would have been the problem in saying “with X”? I just don’t get it.

Ideas are a dime a dozen - everybody has an idea. In one of my writing workshops, I give them all the same idea and they each come up with something totally unique. It’s the writing that matters - that fleshes out the idea and illustrated it and sets the work apart.

I’m not saying it’s wrong for the writer to do it, and I’m certainly hot trying to put down anyone who has done it. And I know how tough the industry is - if you don’t do it someone else will. But just because something has been accepted in the past doesn’t make it right. Or maybe times change.

I think it’s wrong for the publisher to want to take credit away from the worker - and I think it’s wrong for the celebrity to take credit for something he or she didn’t do. I just don’t get it. I won’t lose respect for the well-known person if his book says with so and so. But I will lose respect for him when I find out that someone else wrote the book with his name on the cover. In fact, I have stopped buying a number of people’s books because of this issue.

If they don’t want it on the cover or on the heading, at least put it inside or at the bottom. How hard is it to say “edited by … ” or “with…”?

To me, making it appear that a person wrote something he or she didn’t actually write is simply dishonest. I used to teach high school. I know that having someone else write your essay is not considered a good thing. In fact, it’s quite frowned on. So why is it okay just because you’re an adult and you’ve become famous?

I just wish the Christian publishing industry would take the lead in correcting what I see as an industry problem. I have several books from years ago that say “with John and Elizabeth Sherrill,” and magazines whose bylines say “as told to….” Those work just fine for me. Why can’t they all do it?

I am also saddened by the lack of respect for the newer person who comes eagerly in wanting to use his or her talents to make a difference and is asked to ghost-write. When writing well is no longer the prerequisites for publication, what is left?

Frankly, I think we’ve dug ourselves into a corner and we need to figure a way to tunnel out. I anticipate radical changes in the not-too-distant future, helped by new technology. Words are precious to God. We need to use them with passion, diligence, transparency, and love.

On business plans and self-publishing books

I’ve been thinking some more about business plans and writers.

You know, I really think most writers (and maybe this is also true of other artistic people) hope that if we have something important to say, that’s really all that matters.

And for writers whose overall desire is to help others rather than to get rich and famous, we assume God will take our good intentions and see that it all comes out right.

I wish that was true. But it rarely is.

One prime example is in the area of publishing books. Over the years, I’ve talked to lot of people who have written and self-published a book without any idea of how the publishing business works. And many of them are offended when you ask them if they’ve studied the business of writing and been published elsewhere and so forth. Some of them have told me they didn’t even want to have an editor touch their words because the words are precious - either it’s their story and can’t be changed, or the words/thoughts came from God and should not be altered.

The problem is, this attitude is both unrealistic and self-defeating.

There are three problems with 90% of the books I’ve seen from these authors.

1. Although the work may be okay in the sense of having few spelling or grammatical errors, the writing is usually of poor quality, often lacking in direction.
2. The product itself is not usually comparable to what is on bookstore shelves. In other words, it “looks” self-published to the objective eye.
3. Usually, there is no marketing plan, and little work has been done towards actually selling the book before it is in print.

What’s that saying, “Three strikes and you’re out?”

I do understand. In their minds, what really matters is the idea they are trying to pass on to others.

I wish it was easier to get that idea across.

But the reality is that most people will never read past the first few pages.

The packaging has to be there. Every day, people judge books by their cover and by the words on the first page.

From my experience, those writers who succeed are generally the ones who are able to balance the art, craft, business, and ministry of their work and not get bogged down too heavily into any one of the areas.

A business plan template for writers

I’ve always been good at coming up with goals and steps to take to achieve those goals. Okay, the truth is, I’m one of those people who can easily go overboard and come up a million intricate little steps - 1, 2, 3… a,b,c… - and then get busy and forget all about half of them. In other words, the planning is more fun for me than the doing.

 

 

But when Linda Wegner posted a blog about how writers and editors need to have a business plan, I had to sit up. I’m a freelance writer; but because I’ve never had to support myself by my writing, I had never really thought of it in quite that way. Plan? Yes. Business? Not really.

 

 

And yet… it made sense. Most of us would like to at least break even, if not earn some income doing this.

 

 

Since I did have goals for 2007, and since I do think of writing as my career path, I decided to do the business plan thing. There were a few difficulties. It was hard to find a template that gave me the categories I needed to use. And it’s hard to say what will happen in something as tentative as writing. You can do all the right things and not make a sale. Or you can do one little thing and come up big.

 

 

But anyway, I forged ahead. And because I have this inborn need to share whatever I learn, I came up with some basic questions a writer could use to begin putting together a business plan.

 

 

1. What is my overall long-term goal (strategic plan)? (Write a book, become a full-time journalist, earn x amount of money per year through writing, develop a ministry using my writing skills…)

 

 

2. What do I need to do this year to move closer to achieving my long-term goals (tactical plan)?

 

 

3. What resources do I already have that will help me learn the skills I need and keep me motivated? (books I’ve bought but need to read; yahoo groups I’m on; organizations I belong to; friendships with other writers, etc.) What can I do to make better use of these resources? (read the books, get more involved with the organization, start/join a critique group, etc.)

 

 

4. How much money can I invest in buying books, getting the equipment I need, taking classes, membership in writers’ organizations, attending conferences, doing research, etc.?

 

 

5. How much time can I invest in writing? (an hour a day, one day a week, two months out of the year?

 

 

 

6. When will I write? (first thing in the morning, from 9 to 12 PM, Saturdays…

 

7. When do I need to begin earning money, and how much do I need to earn to make this viable for me?

 

 

8. Are there any writing-related ways I can earn money that are less open to chance (editing, critiquing, speaking, etc.)

 

I think answering these questions will give you a good start. Please leave a comment or suggestion if I’ve missed something!

 

 

Some suggestions for people just starting out:

 

 

1. Think in terms of five years. Where do I want to be in five years? What do I need to do this year to get myself closer to where I want to be?

 

 

2. Think in terms of building a resume. Start with small tasks, local or denominational markets, and then when you have learned the basics, look for bigger challenges.

 

 

3. Look for things you are good at and leverage the skills you already have before worrying about learning new skills. (eg. if you are a nurse, consider starting by writing articles about nursing and related things rather than jumping into a whole new area you don’t know much about.)

 

 

4. The kinds of writing more likely to earn you income: technical writing, journalism, fillers, business writing

 

 

5. The kinds of writing least likely to earn you income: poetry, fiction, memoir, personal opinion