Writing career dreams? How to prepare while you’re writing that novel.
by Anne R. Allen
Recently fellow mystery author Carmen Amato said she’d been asked by several new writers where they should be focusing their energies as they start a writing career.
Carmen passed the question on to me and I wrote a short answer for her blog. But I realized the subject needed more attention, so I’m expanding those answers here.
There are so many skills you need to cultivate for a writing career in today’s publishing world.
The most important is to be open, flexible, and ready to embrace change.
In a few years, who knows, maybe book-length fiction will have faded, and the novella will be king. After all, novellas are best for screenplay adaptation. (Check out our popular post on how to write novellas from Paul Alan Fahey.) But maybe 2-hr films will be a thing of the past too.
Maybe everything will need to be written with virtual reality in mind.
Right now a lot of you are probably working on a book-length piece—either a novel, memoir, or other creative nonfiction. Those will probably take a year or more.
Yes, even if you “win” NaNoWriMo, there will be many months of rewrites, editing, and prep work.
- If you’re going for a traditional publishing career, there will be a painfully long period of querying agents and editors, then the submission process.
- If you’re self-publishing, most experts agree you need at least two book-length works ready to go before you launch an indie career.
So what should you be doing in the meantime?
Here are my suggestions for how today’s new writer can best use that time.
1) Write Everything Down
Don’t “talk out” your novel or story and every new idea. You won’t remember and/or they’ll get stale. (And mostly, nobody wants to hear about them, anyway. Those glazed eyes are telling you something.)
Instead, jot down all those ideas—in notebooks, on Evernote, or whatever program works for you to save those thoughts, names, settings, weird stories that you can work into plots.
Ruth Harris is a notebook maven, and has some great suggestions of notebooks you might ask for with the holidays coming up. 🙂
Carry your note-taking device with you everywhere. I know a beginning writer can’t write on the WIP every day the way the old saw tells you to. (And if you’re doing NaNoWriMo now, you’ll probably want some time off in December.)
But you can jot down a few thoughts or sentences or observations. Do it.
They will all be a goldmine once your career is on its way. Your future self will thank you.
2) Get Lots of Feedback.
Take a class, join a critique group, find beta readers or a critique partner. Don’t write in a vacuum.
I’m not saying you should take all their advice. Far from it.
Learning to listen to feedback and cherry-pick what’s useful is part of learning to be a good writer. For more on that, see my post on why to ignore advice from critique groups, but they can help you anyway.
But you do want to seek feedback from other writers early on. Otherwise you can get stuck in bad habits or cultivate unrealistic expectations.
Or you may ask a friend, co-worker or significant other to read your first draft, which can lead to dark places, like divorce court.
A non-writer can often give terrible advice, because they usually don’t understand the concept of a first draft.
Or they can happily fill your head with pretty lies so you think you’re ready for your close-up long before you are.
Agents spend their days rejecting perfectly good books that aren’t ready yet. They almost never have time to give feedback, so don’t send out a half-baked manuscript “to see what happens.” What will happen will be a form rejection. Don’t mistake that for a critique.
Learning to write well is a long, steep learning curve. Don’t stay stuck at the bottom longer than you need to.
For some great advice on finding beta readers, here’s a great post on beta readers from Jami Gold.
Meetup is a popular way of forming in person critique groups these days, so check to see if there’s one in your area.
3) Write and Submit Short Pieces
Yes, you’ve got that WIP you’re pounding away at, but I’d advise you to spend at least a third of your time (after NaNo, of course) on shorter pieces—fiction, personal essays, maybe one-act plays, short screenplays, and poetry.
When you finish a short work, it gives you a feeling of accomplishment, and you can send those out to contests and journals and anthologies.
There’s nothing more empowering than getting something in print–or on the stage!–and putting “published author” after your name.
a) Short stories, poems, and essays will keep your skills sharp.
When you’re writing long form narrative, especially if you’re writing to a word count goal, you tend to forget all the stuff you learned about avoiding wordy construction, too many adjectives, adverbs, etc.
I find flash fiction especially helps me get my skills back on track.
b) Shorts are great for submitting to contests.
A contest win when you’re feeling stuck on the query-go-round or having a case of writer’s block can remind you you’re a “real writer.”
Some contests have big money prizes. Be sure to check our “opportunity alerts” at the bottom of each post on this blog.
c) Shorts build your platform as well as your self-esteem.
Getting into journals and anthologies isn’t only good for your self-esteem. Those credits can make all the difference in a query letter.
And they give a debut indie credibility as a professional with reviewers, bloggers and readers.
I know you’ve read books and blogs that say self-publishers don’t have to do any of that. They tell you to just write a bunch of books, publish them with KDP you’ll make millions.
But that stuff only happened to a handful of writers six or seven years ago. The Kindle gold rush is over, Amazon’s algorithms have changed. They have their own trad-pub imprints now, and no need for indies to fill up Kindles. Plus the competition has grown exponentially. That means indies have to put their schnozzes to the grindstone like everybody else.
If a reader, reviewer or blogger sees that somebody has actually vetted your work and published it, you’ll stand out from the self-publishing slush pile.
Plus getting published in an anthology with authors whose names are better known than yours can be a huge boost to any career. Anthologies are what helped me resurrect my career after my first publisher went out of business in 2008.
d) Short, creative nonfiction essays are perfect for guest blogposts, anthologies, or stand-alone pieces.
Every new writer should practice writing short personal essays. They are essential for marketing, no matter how you’re planning to publish. You’re going to be doing lots of interviews once you publish, no matter how you do it.
A great place to hone your creative nonfiction skills is on your own blog or on the new blog platform, Medium.
I’ll be writing a post on the importance of Medium for authors later. It’s the new social media platform invented by SocMed superstar Evan Williams, who also invented Blogger and Twitter. It’s the the most user-friendly of all blogging platforms, and it doesn’t require the commitment of starting a blog.
Pioneering indie author Bob Mayer has been using Medium very effectively, and it’s considered one of the best ways of getting your message out, sans gatekeepers, whether you’re a newbie scribbler or the President of the United States.
Creative nonfiction essays can also be the best vehicle to build your platform, whether your main gig is fiction or nonfiction. Many writers break into print with creative nonfiction anthologies like the Chicken Soup series.
A guest piece for a well known blog is probably the best way to jumpstart an online platform. A creative nonfiction piece or how-to is the best way to get one of those gigs.
e) Short stories about your novel characters or “outtakes” from a memoir are a future gold mine.
If you write short stories about the characters in your novel, and that novel becomes a series, you’re creating a future gold mine. Consider writing short pieces about each of your main characters.
It’s a great way to get to know your characters, and they can be published later to fill in between books.
Fuse Literary is one of a number of literary agencies that encourages this. They provide self-publishing help for their clients with their own imprint, Short Fuse for releases between trad-pubbed series book launches.
NOTE: I don’t recommend self-publishing a stand-alone short story or creative essay before you launch your writing career with a full length book.
Patience pays off! Even if you’re planning a 100% indie career, publishing a singleton short story is not a good first step unless you’ve got ten more in a series you can release in quick succession the way Hugh Howey did with his Silo series.
I wrote a piece several years ago about the importance of short fiction in the digital age. Even though I included many caveats about not self-publishing stand-alone short titles if you’re not an established writer, I’m constantly getting requests from people who have skimmed the article and want me to tell them how to make millions selling a short story on Amazon.
Nobody has done this, ever! The Kindle Singles program was more open when it started 5 years ago, and now mostly takes agented, well-known authors only.
A self-published short piece by an unknown newbie author is going to disappear in the Amazon jungle. It won’t pay for its cover and formatting. Be patient. Keep those stories at the ready to use later when they’ll be useful and lucrative.
4) Read Contemporary Work in your Genre.
If you’ve only read the young adult books from your own youth or you tend to reread the regencies or mysteries you loved 30 years ago, or you haven’t picked up a memoir since Millie’s Book: as Dictated to Barbara Bush, you probably won’t be able to compete in today’s market.
What was hot then will be clichéd now.
And if you’re young and just got your BA in Comp Lit and would die of embarrassment if anybody caught you reading Dan Brown or Paula Hawkins, then put the ebooks on your phone or tablet. Nobody has to know.
But you still need to read the stuff on the bestseller lists. Yes, even if the dialogue is wooden and the plots contrived.
If they’re selling millions, they’re doing something right. That’s what you need to find out. Ignore the rest.
If you’re older, it’s easy to wail “O tempora, O mores” and complain about “these hack writers today” (forgetting there have always been popular, terrible writers.)
But if you don’t know what’s good about contemporary bestsellers, you won’t know anything about the marketplace you’re trying to enter. You can’t have a writing career without knowing about the business of writing.
This is true even if you’re planning to go indie. Knowing what’s on the NYT and USA Today bestseller lists will tell you what people are actually reading. What you think they should be reading isn’t going to help you sell books.
And if you don’t know what contemporary books are similar to what you write, Amazon’s search engine can help. Just go to one of your favorite titles and click through the “also-boughts” and explore them. You’ll find what people who like your faves are buying now.
5) Network with Other Writers.
Writing is a lonely profession. And people who aren’t writers tend to think we’re weird. 🙂 It’s awfully important to be around other writers who are traveling the same road or maybe are a little bit ahead of us and can give us some pointers and the occasional heads-up.
Fellow writers can also give us a wake-up call if we really are being weird. (You can’t be a diva in a room full of divas.)
There are lots of great online social media groups and forums for writers, too many to list here. (Some are fantastic and others not so much, so make a quick exit if you see any trollish behavior that isn’t stopped ASAP. A group is only as good as its moderator.)
Blogging is also great way to network with other writers, and there are great blog networks for new writers like the Insecure Writers Support Group and Kristen Lamb’s WANATribe forums.
Simply commenting on well-known writing blogs like Kristen’s, the IWSG, or this one gets your name into search engines and raises your profile. And Nathan Bransford seems to be back to regular blogging. He has forums where writers can gather. And his archives are full of great info!
Get to know people and get known!
Genre groups that welcome both amateurs and professionals can be especially helpful, like RWA, SCBWI, and Sisters in Crime. They usually have online and in-person meetings.
You may be lucky enough to live in a community that has in-person writers clubs that meet at local libraries or bookstores. Network anyplace you find kindred spirits.
But you want to be online too. That’s where you’re going to make your sales and establish your career.
Online networking is a great way hear about agents who are looking for work like yours and to learn from people who are self-publishing and decide if it will work for you. This is where you’re going to find out about the business and learn the latest scams to stay away from (there are always scammers looking to pounce on newbie writers.)
6) Learn about the Publishing Business.
Yeah, I know, Bo-ring. You’re a creative person. If you wanted to go to business school, you would have. You’re an artiste.
But artistes famously starve in garrets.
You want to actually make a living at this, right? Or at least pay a few bills? Have an actual writing career?
So you gotta learn how the money side of all this stuff works. You can learn an awful lot by reading some inexpensive ebooks and free blogs.
If you’re thinking of going indie, check out some of Author Marketing Experts 50 Best Blogs for Indie Authors. And do read David Gaughran’s bible of the self publishing revolution, Let’s Get Digital, which he is giving away absolutely free as a PDF or if you’d rather read it on your ereader (which I would) it’s only $2.99 at Amazon.
And for traditional publishing advice as well as indie advice Jane Friedman’s blog is fantastic. We also have a lot more listed on our Resources page.
For advice on both traditional and indie publishing, do check out the book I wrote with NYT and #1 Amazon author Catherine Ryan Hyde, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age, which we’ve got on a countdown deal until November 12 in the US and the UK. (see our BOOK OF THE WEEK below)
And do keep in mind that anybody who makes all their money from authors is less likely to have solid information than somebody who makes money for authors or has other sources of revenue.
by Anne R. Allen @annerallen November 6, 2016
What about you, scriveners? What did you do when you were planning your writing career? Did you sit around rewriting your query letter, obsessing over rejection letters the way I did? Did you refuse to read bestsellers because they were full of head-hopping and cliched, wooden prose? (yup, I did that, too.) When did you have your breakthrough moment when you realized you had to treat writing as a business? What other things can you add to the list?
BOOKS OF THE WEEK
SALE!! 3-Day 99c Countdown Starts Monday in the US
5-day 99P SALE going on RIGHT NOW in the UK
HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE
Everything you wanted to know about contemporary publishing (traditional or indie) but were afraid to ask: from your first draft to that movie deal: blogging, social media, marketing, platform building, querying, dealing with reviews and rejection and internet trolls. It’s all in there!
co-written with NYT bestseller and Amazon million-seller Catherine Ryan Hyde
From November 6-November 12 It will be only 99P at Amazon UK for 5 days!
and from November 7-10 (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday) it will be 99c at Amazon.com
I APOLOGIZE for the short US sale and the fact it starts on Monday instead of Sunday. I scheduled them to go at the same time in the US and the UK, but Amazon’s robots, in their infinite wisdom, cancelled the US one so I had to reschedule. So remember to pick it up on MONDAY, TUESDAY or WEDNESDAY in the US! )
It’s also available in paper for $12.99
OPPORTUNITY ALERTS
Payton James Freeman Contest for Creative Nonfiction. FREE $500 prize and publication in The Rumpus plus public reading at Drake University. Up to 3500 words. Theme is CHANGE AND CHANGES Deadline November 21.
Mid-American Review Story and Poetry Contests. $10 fee $1000 prize each contest. Prestigious. Story up to 6000 words. Up to 3 poems for poetry contest. Deadline November 30.
AUSTIN CHRONICLE SHORT STORY CONTEST FREE $1500 in prizes. 2500 words or less. Deadline December 11.
GEMINI MAGAZINE POETRY OPEN $5 ENTRY FEE. Grand prize $1,000. Second $100. Hon. mention $25. Publication in the March issue of Gemini. Open to any form of poetry. Poems must be unpublished, but work displayed on personal blogs is eligible. Deadline January 3, 2017
Write Vignettes? Vine Leaves Journal is looking for vignettes as well as poetry, artwork and photography. Paying Market. Publishes twice a year. Submission fee $5.
Grey Matter Press is looking for exceptional dark, speculative fiction for anthologies. Stories may be 3000-10,000 words.
MYSTERY AUTHORS! Here’s a list of 15 small presses that specialize in mysteries and do not require an agent for submissions. It’s compiled by Authors Publish Newsletter.
ROMANCE AUTHORS! And a list of 31 small presses that specialize in romance and do not require an agent for submissions. Also compiled by the Authors Publish Newsletter.
25 PUBLISHERS YOU CAN SUBMIT TO WITHOUT AN AGENT. These are respected, mostly independent publishing houses–vetted by the great people at Authors Publish. Do check out their newsletter
The Wanderer: A Paying Market for poetry, book reviews and more: The Wanderer is a new monthly literary magazine.
Great post, Anne. Here’s # 7. Develop a (very) thick skin. Your future involves rejection, one-star reviews, agent and publisher misunderstandings (known by all writers as stupidity), clueless readers, deadline-oblivious editors, formatters and cover designers, spine-out placement next to the rest rooms if trad pubbed, digital screw-ups if self-pubbed. Other than that, you’ll love it!
#8: Develop a bullet-proof sense of humor. It will save your ego and sanity.
Ruth–Great additions! Getting a lot of feedback helps develop that rhino-hide. Your fellow newbie writers will say clueless, stupid things in critique sessions, but they won’t hurt anywhere near as much as the same clueless, stupid things coming from your agent or editor. So we have to build up those soul-callouses slowly.
And yes, if you don’t have a sense of humor about it all, you’ll never make it in this business. Haha! 🙂
You missed the elephant in the room: Understand Copyright.
It’s so important, it should have had its own bullet. Go out and buy the Nolo Press book The Copyright Handbook and read it. Study it like you were in school. Most writers know very little about copyright, and that’s a fast way to get taken by someone unscrupulous. There is an insane amount of rights grabs, and you have to be alert for it in contracts, and even submission guidelines. I ran across a contest where it said in the guidelines that they were building their library of stories for underprivileged readers. Even if your story did not win the contest, it would become part of that library for their use.
Linda–Thanks for the reminder. Copyright is part of the publishing business, which brings it under #6, but you’re right that it is a very important part. Often new writers are worried about copyright in the wrong way.
They copyright an unpublished book, which usually isn’t necessary, but they don’t pay attention to what may be happening to shorter pieces in contests like the one you mention.
Always check to make sure any publication only wants “first rights”.
Plus NO contest should take rights to something it doesn’t publish! I know of another contest that did that with essays submitted to a contest, which they turned around and sold to cheating students for hundreds of dollars each.
Even more important, make sure an agent contract doesn’t include a rights grab. Some agencies try to keep rights to your books even if they don’t sell them. And sometimes even your characters. Always read the fine print!!
Thanks for mentioning the IWSG!
I didn’t do enough right in the beginning. I didn’t have any writing credits to my name. I did discover the value of articles before my first book came out and have manage to write several short stories for anthologies.
I think being a complete author helps – novels, short stories, articles, etc. – and associating with other authors.
Good stuff, Anne!
Alex–Thanks for founding the IWSG! It’s a great resource for new writers.
I didn’t do enough nonfiction writing early on, either. I was kind of phobic about it. I was a super-procrastinator with my college papers and I thought of nonfiction writing as something horrible and uncreative.
It wasn’t until I realized freelance articles were more likely to pay the bills than short stories that I got into writing nonfiction. Then I discovered it was actually fun. About a year later I landed my own column, and zoom. I was a nonfiction writer. My college self would never have believed I’d end up doing this and liking it. 🙂
If a person sells a short story in a decent market, that might dwarf the sales from independent titles in any given month.
Louis–That is so true. I’ve even had a reprint of an article bring me a nice windfall that was higher than my fiction royalties. Short pieces can keep on giving!
Hi Anne,
I think you’ve nailed what it takes to be a professional writer today. My full-time, commercial writing experience is limited to the past several years (after my “retirement”) but I’ve seen a couple trends that are working for me. I’d like to pass them on if they might help others.
One is blogging. I think it’s tremendously important to maintain a regularly scheduled blog even if, on the surface, it doesn’t appear to make money. Blogging forces a writer to continually research and produce new content then receive criticism by putting it out to a real and live audience. That commitment to regular publishing is excellent motivation to keep writing as well as practicing to make perfect. (Thank God for Grammarly 🙂 I started blogging with short-form posts at 5-900 words published once a week but recently switched to long-forms of 3-5,000 words once per month. I’m getting way more traffic, shares and comments with the less frequent, long-forms. The return on investment is far better in long-forms for the same amount writing effort and it’s opened doors for me in other commercial (yes, paid) writing opportunities.
The other trend is toward shorter novels. My genre is crime and my first go was a mammoth 115K tome which did fine but had a number of “it’s too long for me” criticisms. I did a sequel at 80K which fell flat, then switched to shorter 50K books that are doing ten times better than the other two longer novels combined. I’ve found the return on investment with shorter books is way more money for far less work.
So what I’m seeing is that readers seem to respond to an expected time frame they’re willing to invest. On the blogs, they’re willing to give a half hour in reading relevant content but on the novel end, they’re looking for a faster read of only several days. Anyhow, this is what’s working for me. The real payoff has been other paid opportunities coming my way that I never expected once I committed to writing full time. And I think it’s more than coincidental that the pay started arriving when I lengthened my blog posts and shortened my novels.
Garry–It’s great to hear that you’ve had the same experience I’ve had. For me, blogging is the #1 best marketing tool for an author. I didn’t put it as a “must do” because I know some writers simply can’t blog. But I do recommend Medium for those people. It lets you get some of the benefits of blogging without the commitment.
And I’m sure with you on the length of posts! A few people complain my posts are too long, but my longest posts always get the most traffic!
Shorter books are the ticket as well.. I’m not having as much luck with keeping my books short, but I’m working on it.
Short books, longer blogposts! Great advice. Thanks, Garry.
Amazing column today, Anne. I was happy, in a way, to see you recommending Medium for writings rather than starting your own website. When I returned to fiction writing last year after having two traditionally published novels about twenty years ago, the advice I got was : you must set up a website otherwise no literary agent will take you seriously.
Well, I did set up a website; I read a thousand blog posts about blogging; I read Jane Friedman religiously; and your blog also etc. I listen to the good advice or what makes sense, and discard the rest.
I do now post on my website on a regular basis , and I enjoy that more than locking myself away to just focus on my novel. As a former journalist, I never run out of things to write about.
In the last six months I have written serious pieces ( about Trump and the Politics of Hate) as well as humorous pieces (about overchoice in potato chips and detergent.) I am also writing a semi regular “behind the scenes” series relating to how things have changed in the publishing world since I was last published, and how I am coping with that in writing my third novel.
Anyway, just to say, I love your blog. Today’s had so much info, I ‘ll have to take the rest of the week to digest it fully. Thank you
Joanna–I’m not saying an author doesn’t need a website, but I think Medium is a great place to get your blogging “sea legs.” It’s also a great way to get a wider reach for your own blogposts. Bob Mayer reblogs his post on Medium and seems to have a lot of success with that. Medium allows you to blog without the commitment of blogging every week.
But you do need a blog or a static website before you start to query so people can find you and you can list your credits. It’s like being listed in the phone book these days.
Authors who have only written fiction can find blogging tough, but for somebody like you with a journalism background, it’s easy to put up a post or two a week. Your “behind the scenes” series sounds great.
Thanks for the kudos!
Hey Anne,
Another great bit of advice. I don’t know that I could add to the list but one thing I did before I really took the leap was read a lot. Especially blogs by well known indie writers. I figured since I wanted to be an indie it made sense to get it from the horse’s mouth, right?
Still, there was so much advice out there and no way to really determine which advice was good advice or even correct. I decided then to literally read a well known indie’s blog. Every. Single. Post. It took me about a week to read three year’s worth of posts. And that’s pretty much all I did that week.
The experience was somewhat surreal, actually, and I felt like I’d done a crash course on the guy. But the takeaway for me was that I saw the evolution of this writer’s career – from newbie to established author. I really understood the enormous commitment, dedication and sacrifices he made to reach his goal. And that calmed me down because you get so worked up thinking you have to hit it from the start, have to succeed with the first book that you lose sight of the long game. It also helped me develop my own plan (good or bad, we don’t know yet, which) in how to approach my writing career. And because of that, I don’t get flustered with the latest flavor of the month approach to fostering a writing career anymore.
So maybe that’s what I would add to the list. Find that thing that will get you thinking about and working toward the long game. Understand that though it’s possible, you probably aren’t going to become the next (fill in the blank) with your first book or maybe even your fifth. And you should plan for that and not let it stop or discourage you but continue. Persistence does in fact bring about success.
Anyway, thanks for another thoughtful and helpful post.
Annie
Hey writerchick, I really applaud your dedication. I did the same thing with a wildly succesful blog. When I was starting with my website ( see my earlier comment in this column) I went back over several years’ of blog posts of this particular blogger to see how and when she had made her breakthrough. It was illuminating.
I ‘m not sure that enough authors or bloggers put in that kind of time. I wish you the very best with your endeavours. You sound like you will have worked very hard for your success
Hey Joanna,
Thanks for the very kind comments. Yes, work hard is my answer to anything I don’t understand. It’s probably not the easiest way to go about it but it gets the job done. It’s comforting to know at least one person doesn’t think my methods are total weirdo. I’ll have to look you up. See you around the writing corral.
Annie
Annie and Joanna–You’ve both hit on something very important. When you’re reading books and blogs about the industry–especially about indie publishing–we need to keep in mind that it’s a continuum.
What was true a few years ago isn’t true now. And what catapulted one author to success 5 years ago is probably not working any more, even for that author. You can’t follow a set of rules or game plan because the playing field changes monthly.
What a great idea to study an author’s career over time! That would give you a sense of the continuum, much more than reading one or two books. Especially some of those books that were written in 2010 and tell you “how I made a million dollars with Kindle and you can too!” Right now the author probably doesn’t even have a blog. Maybe they’re not even writing and are now flipping foreclosed real estate. 🙂
Most people who are really in it for the long haul are working very hard indeed. And they play a “long game.” There’s no overnight success in this business.
Excellent as always, Anne.
Honestly, I think the most important thing that you said was: “The most important thing an author can do is be open, flexible, and ready to embrace change.” In today’s Internet world change is happening at a rapid rate. The author who isn’t flexible and really ready to embrace change will not keep up.
Another winner this week!
Barb–Thanks! I originally gave that its own subheader, but then the post got too long. 🙂
But it’s all about keeping up with the changes these days. What worked even three years ago isn’t working now. We gotta keep up.
Sometimes I feel like Alice’s Red Queen, running as fast as I can to stay in the same place.:-)
Hi, Anne, another great post that I agree with completely. Thank you for the shout out, too. Really appreciate it. There’s so much truth in what you’ve said, especially about the importance of writing the shorter pieces while you’re working on the longer ones. It makes a huge difference to win a contest, place a personal essay or short story in an anthology or lit magazine while you’re working on a larger tome. This past year I published about five or so short pieces in anthologies while I worked on longer work and it paid off handsomely. In complimentary copies and self-esteem. With one book out this past summer and one in the hopper for a Jan 16, 2017 release, I feel like I’ve really accomplished a lot, even with serious health concerns along the way. Can’t praise this article enough. You are right on the money. Thank you again for a wonderful post that I know will help other writers. Paul
Paul–I know you sit on both sides of the desk–as the former editor of a prestigious literary magazine and current editor of award winning anthologies and also a prolific novella author.
You got to know the craft from both sides as your career grew. Not all of us have such a great education in the process, so you have lots to teach us about “the Short and the Long of it.”
I’m so glad you’re going to be guest posting for us again in mid-January. We have lots to learn from you about writing at all different lengths and how to be flexible in our writing. Thanks!
Thanks so much, Anne. Looking forward to January. 🙂
As I write short stories, I was wondering about sending them out to publications before self-publishing, so you have answered that question for me which makes a lot of sense. The two pieces of advice you give that I really need to work on are getting feedback and submitting, and that only really comes with obtaining a thick skin! 😉
Thank you Anne for another helpful post.
Debbie–Absolutely! send those puppies out. And don’t hold back. Most litmag editors don’t care much if you’ve got a book published or how it’s published, so try the big name lit mags like Glimmer Train or Zoetrope and prestigious contests (as long as they don’t cost too much.) When somebody’s looking at a self published book, they’re going to notice if somebody other than yourself likes your work.
It’s a great way to build up that rhino-hide and it isn’t in public like those awful one-star reviews every author gets eventually.
Thanks again for some more helpful writing tips Anne. And thanks for resharing the link to Ruth’s post on notebooks for writers. I’m addicted to them and could probably open my own store, lol. And Evernote has been my best file cabinet for years. 🙂
Debby–I love notebooks too. I have some that are so beautiful I can’t use them. Haha. 🙂 When they have handmade paper and the covers are works of art, I hate to ruin them with my scribbles. Mostly I carry around tiny ones that will fit in my pocket. My sister always gives me a cool one for Christmas.
I know exactly what you mean Anne. I have some of those treasured notebooks too. I look for unusual ones when I travel, then like you, don’t want to ruin them by using them, lol. 🙂
Hey Anne – thanks for another fine post. I can’t endorse your “write & submit shorter work” advice. I don’t’ know how many truly promising writers stop dead with the first rejection of their first novels. Those of us who’ve grown accustomed to short stories, poems, or articles being rejected still don’t appreciate it when editors/agents reject our novel-length manuscripts, but instead of shutting us down entirely, we know it’s just another in a sea of rejections.
CS–Sending out those short pieces helps build up the callouses. This business is all about the rejections. Once you get rejected by lots of litmags, then you get to start in on rejections from agents.
Then your agent sends your novel around to get rejected by editors. And your editor tells you the setting and major characters suck and have to change. Marketing gives you a cover that makes it look like a sweet romance when it’s a literary novel because they’re going to market it as Christian YA. Then your publisher tells you it’s been rejected for front of store placement at B and N and THEN the nasty reviews start coming in.
And… you get to start all over again. Might as well start building up that rhino-hide now. 🙂
Thank you for this list, Anne. Lots of great advice. As a new author, I published a chapbook and although it would have died a quick death on Amazon I found it an excellent way to explain what I was doing to friends and relatives–and many appreciated it was a way to show their support.
A helpful tool to connect with others in the publishing industry is LinkedIn.
Leanne–LinkedIn hasn’t ever worked for me, but I know some authors find simpatico groups there. Mostly they just send me requests to “connect” with my deceased mom and lists of entry level tech jobs in my area which are not exactly what I need at this point in my life. 🙂 I somehow don’t seem to have got the hang of it.
Chapbooks can be entered in contests, so they can help get your name out there.
Always a pleasure to read your Sunday posts, Anne. And I love learning from your solid advice. The one thing I stopped doing when I started writing was “reading books”. I devoted all my time to reading blogs and writing my books. NOT a good idea. Then I read somewhere that I should be reading, a LOT. I found that to be so true. Not that I copy any author’s writing. That would be impossible – for me, at least. But I immerse myself in reading women’s fiction written by well-known women’s fiction authors. And it’s helped me greatly in my own writing. Also, after several years of rejections from agents for my manuscripts, I finally invested in a professional editor’s services. Now I don’t send any query letter out without having my books professionally critiqued and edited. Thank goodness I’m investing money in that because it is really how I discovered how to write well, or write better!
Thank you for all your advice. It’s wonderfully helpful.
Patricia–That’s one of the terrible pieces of advice that new writers give each other: “don’t read other writers in your genre because you’ll write like them.”
We should be so lucky!
Actually this is exactly how many artists used to learn their trade. Picasso learned to paint by copying the masters. I think a writer could do a whole lot worse than to write a story in the style of Vonnegut, or Faulkner or Jane Austen. It helps us see what works and find our own voice.
Copying the contemporary masters does wonders too. It was Stephen King who said we should spend half our “writing time” reading.
Not everybody can afford a professional editor before querying, so I don’t recommend that for everybody, but I’m sure it gives you an edge.
Dear Anne, I am gobsmaked, simply gobsmaked by the amount of information not just in your post, but in the comments and your responses to the comments. I feel as if I’ve cheated on a exam, the information here so much more helpful and specifically detailed, than the dribs and drabs I learned about the industry in my Creative Writing program at UIUC. I was a nurse for over 30 years and I knew that networking system like the back of my scrub pants, but I am a flopping fish out of water in this new arena. One day I’ll have more to contribute to these conversations, right now all I can do is say thanks a million.
Donna–Don’t you love the word “gobsmacked”? I just wrote in a post I’m working on for November 20th. I’m so glad you find this post so useful.
The thing about Creative Writing programs, even good ones like at the University of Illinois is that they’re really not geared to prepare you for a career in the publishing industry. Most of the professors don’t know much about the industry. What they know is academia, so that’s what they prepare you for: a teaching career.
That’s why blogs can be your best education in this fast-changing industry.
Excellent advice, Anne, as always!
I would just like to add a little something for non-fiction writers: contributing to well-known blogs as you suggest is a very good idea but another good avenue to explore is to send articles to magazines, and in particular to online magazines that are easier to contact and often have a younger audience. I can speak for Impakter, the magazine I work for (as Senior Editor), and we welcome contributions from new authors provided they have an established expertise (for example, as students in art, history, sociology, political science) AND of course, have something really interesting to say (and say it well)! We also have an editor who is a literature professor at Columbia who curates a poetry column, so poets are welcome too. The idea is to produce a really exceptional opinion magazine for Millennials and really, for anyone interested in “impacting” public opinion. Indeed, our metrics show us that is who we are actually reaching, primarily young, college-educated people.
Claude–Absolutely! Submitting short nonfiction pieces to online journals as well as anthologies and print magazines is very important.
Sometimes the line between a journal and a blog may be a little fuzzy, but both are very good venues for your work..
And yes, thanks for the reminder that we need to be thinking of our target demographic. Authors of YA and New Adult need to think about reaching a young audience. It sounds as if Impakter is an online journal to keep an eye on. Thanks for the heads-up!
Great advice.Write (gah, I spelled ‘right’, then ‘wright’ before write) everything down–so good. I tend to think, “Oh, I’ll remember that. How could I forget that.” Uh, yeah, I forget. Doh!
Southpaw–Don’t you hate that when your fingers do those ridiculous typos and seem to bypass your brain? Shows how your brain goes on funny pathways. I do that all the time. Then I think how I’d assume somebody was a total illiterate who made that mistake. So I guess our fingers are kind of illiterate. 🙂
I used to think I would remember things, because I was young and cocky. But now I’m old and it’s easier to admit I’m forgetful so I write stuff down. More notebooks, fewer forgotten ideas. 🙂
Such great tips!
Nina–Thanks a bunch. Nice to see you here. I know how busy you are. I’ve watched you build your career with columns, articles, and nonfiction essays. Seems to be working very well for you!
Great advice, Anne. New writers and even some of us older ones need to hear this on a regular basis. Thankful there are still writers and bloggers like you who will share from their heart what the rest of us need to know.
Vickie–I’m glad you find it useful. 🙂 Yes, some people say we should put this into expensive courses instead of giving this advice away free. But right now, we’re still happy to help our fellow writers.
I have only recently stumbled on your blog and I have to say I love it! I enjoy your writing style and the fact that the information you share is fresh. I don’t feel as if I have read it a thousand times on every other blog. For that, I thank you!
RM–Welcome! I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog. We try not to give the same old advice that worked five years ago. Because, yanno, it doesn’t always work now. 🙂
I love the “don’t talk everything out” advice, though I’m surprised anyone would actually do that. Different strokes! I never told anyone much about my novels unless they asked…besides, I was still in that mode of having to convince myself I was a writer.
I especially love #6: learn about the biz. It’s downright scary how many people think they can upload a book to Amazon and the checks will just come rolling in.
Michael–I have to confess to have been one of those “talking things out” wannabes in my youth. We’d sit around ingesting mind-altering substances and talking about the great books we were going to write and never write them. Not a great way to start a career. 🙂
It is scary how many people think it’s easy to make money writing books. People who don’t learn about the business first are sitting ducks for the scammers.