by Ruth Harris
No two ways about it, writers: you ARE going to suffer. How do I know? Because I’m a writer and all of these things—or variations of them—have happened to me.
- You will get one-star reviews.
- Your book will be rejected by the editor who “loves” you and your work.
- The hotshot agent who told you how wonderful you are will ignore you, your book, your phone calls and emails.
- Your agent—the one who made you boat loads of money—will retire.
- Your editor will leave for a new job at another publisher/to have a baby/to go into rehab.
- Your book will be pirated.
- Your perfectly formatted epub or mobi will get stuck in “processing”even as your BookBob promo comes—and goes.
- If you find a publisher, you will be asked to sign a crappy contract.
- If you have a publisher, he, she or it will go out of business and your book will never see the light of day or be tied up in bankruptcy proceedings for years.
- Your best book, the one with great characters and a fab plot, with a spectacular cover and super wonderful blurb plus a dazzling marketing strategy won’t sell.
- To make it worse, an incredible, sub-literate POS will sell.
- BookBub will turn you down—and so will ENT.
- Your cover designer/free lance editor/formatter will pull a disappearing act.
If you haven’t guessed by now, being a writer is no career for divas, narcissists, whiners, blamers or cry babies. It’s a grown-up activity for adults and, if you decide to indulge, you will need a thick skin and a good sense of humor. You will also need to know how to fight.
Defeat the enemy within
The Perfectionist:
What’s the worse thing that can happen if you upload a less-than-”perfect” book? You’re gonna break Kindle which has already survived the onslaught of a tsunami of crap? Really? Your book is gonna be the straw that breaks the internet? Puh-leeze, get your ego in check.
But, you say, it’s a POS. Maybe you’re right—but what if you’re wrong? Maybe readers aren’t as picky as you are. Maybe no one will notice or even care about whatever it is that’s worrying you. Maybe whatever’s bothering you is only the monster under the bed anyway. If people like your book and buy it, what’s the problem?
If they don’t like it, if they actually hate it, and your reviews absolutely, positively stink, take the book down. That’s what the “unpublish” button is for. Use it.
The People Pleaser:
Your critique group thinks your characters are stereotypes? Doesn’t that mean readers will be able to recognize themselves and relate?Your beta readers complain there’s too much sex, too little sex, the wrong kind of sex? Who are they? Kinsey? Kraft-Ebbing? Dr. Ruth? Too much certainly didn’t hurt E. L. James. Too little is just perfect for sweet romance. The wrong kind lies in the eye of the beholder although you should definitely forget about sex with children and animals.
Your bff tells you your plots are creaky? There are only 6 plots anyway so it’s what you do with the plot that counts. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl? What if the boy is Clark Kent and the girl is Lois Lane? What if the boy is a scruffy junkyard mongrel and the girl is a snooty Park Avenue poodle?
Heed the comments from the bleachers but put them in perspective. Anne’s post on when to heed your crit group—and when not to—is a reliable guide to keeping your sanity when too many voices and too many conflicting opinions feel paralyzing.
The Also Ran:
10K words a day! A book a week! Blog! Tweet! Pinterest! LinkedIn! Google Play! Newsletter! Podcast! Sell a million books! Write four series—all at the same time!
What’s wrong with you? Other writers do, why can’t you?
Or do they? Do they have assistants, virtual or physical? Hired services that wrangle their social media presence? Pro formatters, cover designers, blurb writers, uploaders? Family members who carry some of the load? Have you actually seen them write 10K words a day, day in, day out?
#1: Why are you comparing yourself to other writers? Why aren’t you good enough being yourself?
Paranormal romance writer, Debbie A. McClure, proposes a solid approach to finding the true you in Don’t Let Anybody Should on You her fantastic guest post for Molly Greene. (I agree this post is a must read! Anne.)
#2. What you leave out is as important/more important as what you leave in. Sometimes deleting 10K words packs more punch than writing 10K new words: proof that new doesn’t necessarily mean improved.
Anne’s post on why short fiction is hot and the trend to “snackable content” will help you avoid the 10K-words-a-day trap.
The Procrastinator:
You know who you are. You’re putting the spices in alphabetical order when you should be writing. You’re rearranging the linen closet when you should be writing. You’re cleaning out the garage when you should be doing-you-know-what.You also know that procrastinating will stand between you and the book you want to finish, the story you want to write, the success you’re dreaming of.
So stop! Here’s how:
- The two minute rule.
- 11 Ways to stop procrastinating.
- 3 minutes to get your butt in gear.
- 6 scientific steps to help you stop procrastinating.
- Why it’s never to late to stop procrastinating.
EXCEPT when procrastinating is an important warning from you to you. As a member-in-good-standing of the Church of Do It Now, I have learned that when I dilly and dither instead of going to work, I have made a mistake somewhere in my manuscript. For me, it’s almost always somewhere in the beginning where I have either told too much or not enough.
If you usually look forward to going to work, procrastination is a friendly warning. Do some detective work, find out where you went off track, make the fix and move forward again.
Develop a reliable defense.
Substitutes, Stand-Ins and Networks: Don’t get left in the lurch.
- Publishing isn’t like romance. You might be rejected but you don’t have to be jilted. Even though you lovelovelove your cover designer/formatter/editor, whenever you see a cover you like or come across a rec for an editor or formatter, make a note of the name, website link and contact info.
- Evernote, OneNote and Workflowy (among others) are all FREE and will do the job.
- Whether your network is cyber or a local writers’ group, only other writers will really understand what you’re going through. They will provide a shoulder to cry on, valuable introductions, helpful tips and tricks.
- Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Group is a platinum-grade resource for writers, neurotic and otherwise (if any).
DIY formatting and covers: Learn to do your own formatting and basic covers.
- High quality apps like Scrivener and Jutoh ($39 plus FREE 30-day try-before-you-buy trials) will guide you through the process of creating your own files in epub, mobi and Create Space formats. Both offer lots of in-app and online help and FREE manuals to walk you through the process.
- Sigil and Calibre are FREE on-line epub editors.
- Vellum (Mac only), elegant and easy to use, takes the pain out of formatting epub and mobi files for upload.
- Word processors like MSWord, Atlantis (for PC), Pages (for Mac) will create uploadable epub and mobi files.
DIY covers:
- Declan O’Flaherty’s cover ninja step-by-step video.
- Make a cover in MSWord.
- Create a cover (or import one) in Jutoh.
- Amazon’s KDP has a cover creator.
DIY editing tips:
- Jodie Renner, editor and award-winning author, shares Tricks & Tips for Catching All Those Little Typos in Your Own Work.
- Margaret Moore at Harlequin discusses the heavy lifting aka DIY editing.
- How to edit your own book from blind spots to crutch words.
- From wrecking ball to scalpel, more tips on DIY editing.
Rights grabs, contract gotchas, rate schedules: protect yourself, your work and your money.
- Helen Sedwick, a Contributing Writer for The Book Designer, is also an author and a California attorney with thirty years of experience. Helen cites the danger words to watch out for.
- Seller beware! NY Times and USA Today bestseller Roxanne St. Claire spells out the dire consequences of signing away rights.
- Not all agents are good agents and not all deals are good deals (for the author).Karen Dionne spells out the details.
- A guide to editorial rates—regardless of whether a project is flat rate or hourly.
Candy:
Got a book on a bestseller list? A cover you love? A line you or someone else wrote that you absolutely love? Take a screenshot and use it as your screensaver!Don’t forget: When the going gets tough, the tough reach for candy.
By Ruth Harris (@RuthHarrisBooks) May 31, 2015
What about you, Scriveners? Do you have these “martial arts” in your skill set? Do you have an “enemy within”? How do you fight back? Do you take the time to give yourself “candy” and remind yourself of your successes?
BOOK OF THE WEEK
With a plot that hurtles forward at electric speed, BRAINWASHED takes place on the beautiful islands of the Caribbean, in Damascus and Ireland, the Philippines, Canada, Washington, DC–and in an underground torture chamber located on Victor Ressid’s secluded private estate.
“BRAINWASHED delivers the goods: thrills, gut-churning suspense, nightmarish terror. Ruth and Michael Harris have delivered another great read and sure bestseller. I dare you to put it down!” –Bob Mayer, former Green Beret and million-copy bestselling author of AREA 51
Thanks for mentioning the IWSG!
Some great links – I'm sure we'll be adding some to the IWSG site.
I can't put out a book a year, let alone one a week. And that's all right. We all have our own pace. Plus our own strengths. We have to play to those.
Great stuff, Ruth!
Alex—Thank *you*! You're soooo right about the importance of playing to your strengths. Not always easy, especially for beginners, but essential for finding a unique style.
Ruth, I was nodding to every line in your opening list! Once again, I will be pointing my Crafting a Novel college students to your wise words. Thanks again for posting a blog that is worth reading over and over again.
Melody—Thanks for your kind words. 🙂 Anne and I do our best to keep it real so others won't make the same mistakes and trip over the same pitfalls we did.
Well, on covers, it's not enough to learn to use the software. You have to have a good eye for images and what's going to work. I've been doing graphics for 25 years or so, and I'm amazed at the capability of people to gravitate straight to the ugliest images they could possibly find and not be able to tell they were inappropriate.
Plus a surprising number of DIY covers seem to ignore genre entirely, which seems kind of important in attracting readers. Others botch basic elements. I purchased an image I liked for a cover, but when I tried to sample the colors for the title, I couldn't get a color that would contrast enough for a reader to see my name and the titles. So I got a different image instead. Yet, that same week, I saw another author who had done a photo against a multi-color background, and half her title and name vanished into the background. Another used an image too small for the cover and put a big border around it. In thumbnail, all you saw was the border. There's lots of easy ways to screw up the covers if you don't at least have an eye for what works.
BTW, you left off some software: Photoshop Elements. It's about $100, and is a home user version of Photoshop.
Linda—Thanks for your pro input and for the Photoshop Elements rec. Appreciated!
Ruth, I really loved the clench-fist pugnacity of this one: defend yourself, a perfect metaphor. Who else is going to do the job?
Your point about when TO procrastinate rang like a bell with me. I only feel I'm really wasting the hours maybe 10% of the time: all the rest there is definitely something buzzing in the plot, some thread in another part of the tapestry I need to link to. I've become comfortable with taking as much time as I need to find it.
Of course, I'm not on a professional schedule or budget! But even if I won the Powerball I wouldn't commit myself to four books a year.
Wm. L.—Thanks for your kind words! Procrastination gets such a bad rap I figured it was time to say a few words in its behalf. *Procrastination* is the writer's best friend—once we learn to interpret its messages and warnings!
Great stuff in here, thank you!
Jay—Thanks! Hope you found something useful here.
As expected, this is a great post, filled with incredibly helpful links & fine advice. I regularly find myself wondering why we writers seem to lust after abuse. Like many things, this seems to be unsearchable.
CS—I appreciate your kind words and I'm glad you found the links helpful. I don't think we writers lust after abuse. I think it's the opposite. Abusers hunt us down because we can do what they can't: we can create magic. All they can do is bitch and complain and criticize (never in a useful way, either). Let em eat nails. 😉
Love your answer, Ruth! (Smiling.)
Jacqueline—Thanks! About time writer-bashers got called out!
I'm afraid I'm the perfectionist. It's never good ENOUGH. "I can do better" — four words I need to wipe from my vocabulary, or at least put into perspective. Thank you for this post. I was just having another "you can do better" moment.
Sue—Hope the post will help you stop beating up on yourself. Let someone else do it. 😉
Paul–hope you've figured out where you went wrong! It's crucial for us to learn to interpret the messages our unconscious is sending us.ad to hear the good news about your antho. Enjoy your martini. It's lobster roll time for us here inNYC!
SB–many thanks for the kind words. What writers are you talking about? Which ones say it's easy? Never heard one! 😉
Thanks for this great post. It's a reminder that no writer really has it easy, even though they'll try to tell you it is.
I've gotten a thicker skin since I first published a year ago. As for applying to ENT or Book Bub and getting rejected, it happens to the best books, so don't take that personally.
I had to laugh about asking why the “worst" books sell sometimes. Someone on the kboards this week was lamenting about her own book, how she could not understand why that one book sold so much better than the ones she considered her “more important" books! Ain't that always the way? 🙂
Good points made, but there is one that should always be on the list: never be afraid to admit defeat.
There is no shame in admitting defeat if you can't, in spite of all the great advice/pointers/websites, do a good job creating a cover or formatting a manuscript.
Personally, I read the guidelines for formatting a manuscript for CreateSpace, thrice, and for me, it was not user friendly. Now, I can make any sense out any kind of instructions (it's part and parcel to my day job as a guv'ment employee), and even succeeded in formatting a manuscript for Smashwords (once), but trying to properly decipher those guidelines, IMO, was like me trying to properly eavesdrop on coworkers speaking in Spanish.
So I have no shame in biting the bullet and hiring a pro to do both formatting and graphic design.
G.B.—You're absolutely right! I can format a simple epub/mobi but am lost with CreateSpace & bundles. Definitely don't hesitate to hire a pro. It's not defeat, it's just that having a grounded sense of what you can—and cannot—do is invaluable.
Excellent post here, Ruth! Like so many others, I'm a procrastinator by nature, so I've learned to stick to a fairly strict daily writing schedule that works for me. The hard part can be in training family and friends to respect the "writing cave". Sure it's easy to get sidelined and pulled in other directions, but I figure it's all a matter of balance. Falling down isn't the problem; it's how quickly you get back up that counts. In my experience writers fall down, get up, rinse, and repeat, more than just about anyone I know. A rite of passage? Hmm, maybe. Like life, we tend to learn the most from our mistakes. Thanks for the terrific information, on-point reminders, and of course the kind mention of my recent guest post over at Molly Greene's blog (Molly gave me the heads up to yours). What goes around, comes around. Well done!
Debbie—Thank *you* for your excellent post! 🙂 Your right that fending off distractions/interruptions is the hard part. One of the reasons is that non-writers have NO idea what we do. NONE!
Ruth:
This was the exact post I needed today, because I'm a procrastinator and had an important thing to accomplish.. So I used the first idea and actually did the chore I'd been dodging. Now I'll use the second tip for the next item. Can I finish all three? Thanks to you, I think I will.
Phyllis–Yay! Way to go! 🙂
Thanks for sharing and thanks for a good few laughs!
I painted up a storm today, so as not to think about anything, but mostly so I didn't have to tackle my editing or anything with words. Well, I painted five pictures and now that I got that out of my system, it' time to sit down and write.
Jacqueline—You used your time creatively. sometimes the right kind of break is exactly what we need!
Ruth, this is so good and so timely for me. I'm hopelessly mired in a romantic comedy that's neither. Today I wrote 2K and hated every word. Ding, ding! Something is wrong somewhere as I usually look forward to my writing time. Thank you. Thank you for this post right when I needed it. I'm sharing. Good news came today so it wasn't all misery. The playwright who is turning my anthology, The Other Man, into a one act play is plugging right along. Hugs your way. And now it's martini time. What time is it your way? Paul
Good blog full of very helpful information. I heard about it from C. Hope Clark on Facebook, but I'm now a definite follower. Great job!
Michele — Thank you for stopping by and thank you, too, for your kind comment. Anne and I are delighted to see you here! Please thank C. Hope Clark for her recommendation as well.
Good link to the Don't Let Anybody Should on You article. BTW: Do you have a list of acronyms on the site?
POS?
bff?
Mark–Thank you. POS is the great and classic Piece Of Doo Doo. BFF = best friend forever. HTH. 🙂
Thanks, Ruth. I didn't know what POS was either.
Michele—Enlightenment feels good, doesn't it? 😉
Ruth – loved the post, as always… had to laugh though when I got the procrastination part. Considering that I had squirmed away from writing to read your post! 😀
Then, I decided to check out the free trial of Scriveners, follow that link, then come back, check out your new book (which I'll get for my brother), then check out the new contests…
heh
I need procrast-anon!
Maria—LOL Sounds like you're on a procrast-athon. 😉 Hope your brother enjoys Brainwashed!
Oh Ruth, I loved this post so much that… if you ever decide to set up a 'New Age Post-Jungian Mixed Martial Arts Crisis Therapy Centre for Writers', I'll be your first patient!! The thing is, each of the group you mentioned and the sympoms that come along with them sound familiar to me! Now how serious is that?
Katrina—Love the idea of your Therapy Centre. Problem is, who knows enough to run it so they can help writers with their quirks, symptoms, and glitches? Nominations, please! 🙂
I needed this today. I've finished an intense short project and I"m back at my novel. And while I'm a Perfectionist, you've just shown me I'm an Also-Ran. I don't think I would have considered that, but it hits all my buttons. And acknowledgement is the first step to recovery, right? Thanks for a great post!
Jennifer—Thank you & glad to see you're on the road to recovery! Congratulations and good luck with your novel!
You share some valuable information here. I hope you're writing despite the negative moments.
http://www.writeradvice.com
Lynn–thank you for your comment. Negative moments come with the job. So do the joyful ones!
Wonderful tough-love post, Ruth! We all need a kick in the butt from time to time and fat reality check along with it. Your checklist? Almost every one of those worst-case scenarios happened to me at one point in my career. So what? Yell & scream, stick pins in a vodoo doll, and move on. I only stumble when I lose sight of what's most important: the writing. Like you, I don't listen to the "shoulds." Whenever I tune in to the yammering about social media and all the things I should be doing that I'm not, I think of the line from Jerry Maguire: "Show me the money." A lot of those writers preaching the gospel of social media don't have the sales to back up it. Bottom line is the bottom line.
Eileen—Thank you from one battle-scarred NYT bestseller to another. High five!
Dreamers with their sugarplum fantasies of bestsellerdom need to know what's in store because what happened to us can (and will) happen to them. As you say: bottom line is the bottom line and I couldn’t agree more about social media. IME socmed doesn’t sell books. Period. In fact, no one knows what sells books, so there! 😉
Hi, Ruth. Hi, Anne,
This was incredibly helpful and informative. So many of us DREAM about having that best seller, but we don't realize the various pitfalls. I have heard about several of these scenarios, but never fully grasped how hard an author's life can be.
Thanks for the punch in the arm about WRITING. And the reality of not having to write 10K a day.
Many of us go into slumps (I'm currently in one), but this post certainly is pushing me to get to WORK….
Thanks ladies!
Michael—So pleased to learn the post was helpful. If we deal from a reality-oriented basis, we can accomplish so much. If we are locked in fantasy, we are doomed to fall short.
Sometimes we need time to catch up with ourselves and a slump is one way we give ourselves that time. It might feel bad for a while, but when the slump is over, we are ready to go back to work with renewed energy. Thanks again for your kind words!
Great post. Very encouraging and lots of helpful information! Thanks, Ruth!
Christa—So glad you found the post helpful! Thanks for taking the time to comment. Anne and I love and appreciate our readers. 🙂
I can't tell you how timely this post is for me. I have been feeling like crap about what I'm doing (and not doing), and your post, especially the first part, kicked my keister back into a good place. I feel much less like a loser right now. I'm so grateful.
Fragrant—Sorry to hear you've been in a downer. Happens to us all but the good news is that it's almost always temporary. Glad the post helped with perspective. Writing/publishing is not for wimps and definitely not for losers so just keep on keeping on!