The changing face of publishing
Here is quite a long and thorough article on how publishing is changing. I picked the bits I found most interesting about the present. . .
Indeed, the problem for readers is that regardless of which side you agree with in theory, in practice you probably love the idea of buying books for under $5.00 but hate the idea of having to sort through quite so much junk to find good books at that price.
. . . the pricing. . .
Books deliver three sorts of value: good writing, good stories (true or fictional) and social connection. By the last, I mean that reading is a social activity and we like to read what others are reading. So popular books are worth more to us than less popular books.
. . . and the future. . .
Publishers also need to manage their backlists more effectively. Hugh Howey points out that in fiction many of the top-sellers are not recently published novels. Publishers are used to pulling titles out of physical circulation after a few months and focusing their promotional efforts on new authors. However a rich back catalog, all made available in electronic format will allow publishers to respond more quickly to emerging market trends.
Read the article here.
The long, long road
I know better than most how long it takes for publishers to make a decision on a book that is reasonably well-written and therefore difficult to reject. Right now I have books at two of Australia’s big publishers. One has been there for almost a year; the other has been there for literally years. Even when a book is accepted for publication, there is a lot of editing, proofing, and maybe even illustrating to do.
This is an article about how long it takes to go from acceptance to publication.
Making your book look like a book
In order to get published, some people get their book made up all pretty-like, with binding and cover and all. According to Lyn Price’s article here, those people are just dumb. Well, dumb and annoying. (Okay, I might be making it slightly clearer than she does – she is more well-mannered than I, but her frustration comes across nonetheless.)
And if you think self-publishing will get a reputable publisher to take you seriously, you couldn’t be more wrong.
If this is actually news to you, please read the article. Join the battle against epic stupidity!
Should I work for free?
Writing is something that looks super easy from the outside, so a LOT of people give it a try. Many of them get to a certain point and realise they need outside help. That is when they approach professionals in the biz and ask, “Would you mind just. . . . looking at my first chapter/writing me a foreword/telling me how to spell occasionally/giving me an awesome quote for my self-published book “Ocelots and why I love them”?”
Most people who’ve been around a while say a rapid no and back away quickly, overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers. If your mouth is the kind that reverts to a yes answer, this handy diagram may help you retrain yourself back into a sanity-inducing lifestyle. Also, it’s just funny to read. Also, if you think I’ll read your novel, maybe see where you fit into this flowchart first and then you can work out the answer for yourself.
Warning: There is some swearing. As in life, so in this flow chart.
http://www.shouldiworkforfree.com/
Handy International Resource
This site has a LOT of publishers, and is searchable by genre. It’s somewhat skewed towards the USA and UK, but us antipodeans often publish overseas (for the moolah) anyway.
Don’t be an idiot (warning: some swearing)
The real title here is: Don’t be a shit.
If you want to be a professional writer, be polite. No matter what. This article by Chuck Wendig (who has a potty mouth with occasional vivid sexual references – but he sure is worth listening to) is worth reading and obeying.
Here’s a bit:
Editors and agents have it tough. They get a lot of shit for being gatekeepers, but here’s what happens at the gate: they stand there, arms and mouths open while a garbage truck backs up (beep beep beep) and unloads a mountain of submissions upon them daily. And, spoiler warning, ninety percent of those submissions won’t cut it. Hell, a not unreasonable percentage are toxic enough that I’m surprised Homeland Security doesn’t show up with hazmat suits and flamethrowers. So, when you annoy them with constant emails, unedited manuscripts, work that’s already been self-published or with crazily presumptive tweets, well, it just puts them one step closer to a water tower with a rifle. I’m not saying every editor and agent is a shining example, but they don’t deserve you acting like a grit of sand in the elastic of one’s underoos.
—————————————
Self-Publishing
I’m toying with the idea of self-publishing one of my books online, and I’d welcome your thoughts. It needs to be one that is good, but has been rejected by at least six publishers (sadly, that still gives me a choice of book). Realistically, self-publishing is just a new kind of slushpile, with an even smaller statistical chance of success. Still, I may as well try something new – it’s not like I don’t have an online presence!
This is why it will cost readers more than ninety-nine cents.
Making money as a writer
Someone on a writing forum said they “need” to finish their novel, both because the story won’t let them go and because they need the money.
This is some of what I said, which clearly not enough people are saying:
First rule of writing is never ever write for money. Here’s some reasons, as briefly and coldly stated as possible:
1. Publishers lose money on most of the books they produce (it’s the few bestsellers that keep them from going bankrupt). The market is just not big enough (think, for example, of how many books YOU have bought in the last year – and as a writer you’re a much more avid reader than 99% of the population). This means the advance is usually all the author gets. Which means (a) small publisher = small advance, so that won’t work for you (nor with print on demand or self-publishing, which despite the much-repeated success stories are MUCH less likely to get any money at all), and (b) your total profit for your book will be between $3000 and $10,000. Keep in mind that most writers tend to average a book a year IF they write full time.
2. You are not special. Major publishers receive literally hundreds of manuscripts each week. I recently went to a conference where there was a higher-up from a major publishing house (I don’t want to name them, but I guarantee you’d recognise the name). She mentioned that they’d just had a five year period where they did not publish a single book from the slush pile. She was excited because they’d changed their slushpile system and had published three whole slushpile books in two years. She was super pleased about that. . . . which works out to a one in 10,000 chance of publication….in a good year.
3. I personally have done okay as a writer. I’ve won or placed in more contests than I can remember without referring to notes (including three or four longer-manuscript contests). Five of my books have been recommended for publication by five different manuscript assessors. Publishers have requested the full manuscript after seeing sample chapters (this happens to about 5% of manuscripts in the slush pile – the rest just aren’t very good) more than twenty times.
Altogether I’ve written thirteen novels over thirteen years. At least one of them has been to an acquisitions meeting at a world famous publisher (ie when the head publishers sit down with books that deserve publication, and decide which ones to publish). Not a single one is published.
So don’t write for money. Third world sweatshops pay better – literally.
You will probably never be published.
If you are, you probably won’t get a career (a publisher probably won’t make money on you, therefore will not publish you again – even though it’s a series).
If you are extremely successful, you’ll probably earn around $5000/year.
I’ve probably given you a pretty bad day – but wouldn’t you rather know now than after thirteen years of trying?
By all means, write. But write for love.
Are you almost there?
A lot of writers laugh indulgently at the pile of rambling grammatical errors that is their first book, and try hard not to think too hard about whether or not their current work in progress will be just as eye-rollingly embarrassing a little while down the track. For those who’ve been around the traps for a while, here is an article on some signs that actually you HAVE made progress. The Intern (who knows her stuff) reckons these are strong indicators that you’re close to success (“close” being a somewhat relative term). Here’s one I think is particularly pertinent (given my plaintive cries to the world of, “If you don’t enjoy writing, DON’T WRITE”):
That First Chapter
Chuck Wendig at his blog says:
. . . the first chapter serves as an emblem of the whole. It’s got to have a bit of everything. It needs to be representative of the story you’re telling — other chapters deeper in the fat layers and muscle tissue of the story may stray from this, but the first chapter can’t. It’s got to have all the key stuff: the main character, the motive, the conflict, the mood, the theme, the setting, the timeframe, mystery, movement, dialogue, pie. That’s why it’s so important — and so difficult — to get right. Because the first chapter, like the last chapter, must have it all.
—————————————————–
I read the above just after writing this myself:
The best opening gives you an immediate and normal-life-of-your-protagonist goal that showcases the active agency of the protagonist, something of their character, something interesting (hopefully) about their normal life (eg the minor incident is harnessing a dragon). . . while simultaneously being so simple that no exposition is needed to follow what is happening. Oh, and something goes wrong in the minor incident that will lead you into the major goal of the book.
This is, of course, why novelists go mad.
Felicity Banks 