Since new writers, whether young or older, find it extremely difficult to get a literary agent and a big publisher these days, they are often in a quandary: What to do? Shall I cave in and promote the darned thing (which is what, you’re now calling your masterpiece) on the internet, hoping someone will notice it, or what? Some keep writing and submitting doggedly, year after year, hoping to break through, and a few of the most vocal or most brilliant do get the attention of agents and publishers. Others give up entirely. But the rest of us can’t stop writing and still want to get published. Like me, they are impatient to get started. After a couple of books were accepted by Mom and Pop small presses with mixed results, my own irrepressible urge to get started led me down a different, if just as tortuous, path to publication.
What you do depends on why you want to write. Are you full of valuable memories and just want to preserve them for the benefit of your family? Are you driven by ideas that you feel are new and perhaps targeting an even a wider audience, so others can benefit from them in the future? Do you just love storytelling in vivid words for the enjoyment of others and want a wider audience? Or do you want to use your writing skills to earn your living, either partially or completely? Sorting out these issues will help you select a goal to strive for. Each requires a different approach.
I was already doing many of the right things: I took courses in creative writing, blogged, sent e-mail newsletters, kept on writing and continued submitting to agents on on my first few books. But,equally important, I joined local writing groups: St. Louis Writers Guild, Sisters in Crime and St. Louis Publishers Association. Each literary society, in its own way, filled in my ignorance of a huge and growing publishing industry. I learned it is no longer located,only in the great publishing houses of New York, London, Toronto and Sydney, but in newspaper offices. homes, internet companies and tiny studios worldwide, like my remodeled cave in our house. Total results from almost two decades’ efforts include a Certificate in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis, a fat file containing over a hundred rejection letters and six published or re-published books, with plans for three more. The wider the audience you seek, the more you need a literary agent and a traditional publisher. The self publishing route either requires that you hire the editing, graphic design and marketing skills that a publishing house would employ, or that you possess some the needed technology, book design. promotional, social networking and publicity skills yourself. In either case, you will be entering a new business, which is likely to consume a large portion of your time.
I was already doing many of the right things: I took courses in creative writing, blogged, sent e-mail newsletters, kept on writing and continued submitting to agents on on my first few books. But, equally important, I joined local writing groups: St. Louis Writers Guild, Sisters in Crime and St. Louis Publishers Association. Each literary society, in its own way, filled in my ignorance of a huge and growing publishing industry. I learned it is no longer located,only in the great publishing houses of New York, London, Toronto and Sydney, but in newspaper offices. homes, internet companies and tiny studios worldwide, like my remodeled basement of our house. Total results from my first fifteen years’ efforts: a Certificate in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis, a fat file containing over a hundred rejection letters and six published or re-published books, with plans for three more.
As an architectural and engineering businessman with a successful track record, keeping work flowing into the firm for our architectural-engineering teams to perform, I knew something had to be done. With all this time expended, prolific output and the constant “drip-drip-drip” of trickle-out expenses . Despite limiting my expenditures, the absence of income from my so-called “new business” meant something had to change. Luckily, through a longtime friend and business associate, I obtained a consulting assignment related to my former field to stave off the financial drain for the first five years. But as my time was increasingly devoted to writing, promoting and seeking publication, the central problem remained: how do I convert all of this imagination, effort and output into positive cash flow? I’m still working on improving that aspect of my writing career. While I got started after establishing myself in retirement, the lesson from this experience suggests: Don’t quit your day job! It may take years to convert a writing talent into cash–and there’s always a chance that this may never happen.
So here goes! It will take more writing, planning and integrating many years of experience. Join me, subscribe today free, so you don’t miss an issue of Writer Insider News, and let us venture together into this fascinating, ever-changing topic together. In the next chapter, I begin my agenda of topics, including the craft of writing, the broad variety of consultants available for writers,the role of writers’ groups, types of publishers. Then, once you are published, how to get noticed (discoverability), the art of traditional publicity, the new wave of social networking, marketing, both traditional and online, and promotion. All the while, we need to keep our eyes on the prize: sales and distribution, or just the satisfaction of having your works on the shelf for your grandchildren and posterity.
I’ll see you back here next time. In between, as an Irish relative of mine used to say, bash on, regardless!
Peter
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