Nano and Real Life

I spent the past four years doing Nano, the last three of them as a mentor. Hitting 50K wasn’t a problem in any of those years. Last year, I did Nano although life was a challenge due to an illness and subsequent death in the family. While I am very fond of the piece I worked on, and it will be rewritten enough to start the submission process early next year, I didn’t get out of the experience what I wanted and needed.

This year, I decided to make the sane choice and not to Nano. It was great Personal Drama for me, but I made the decision and stuck to it anyway. I’m juggling numerous deadlines and contracts, and I travelled every week in the entire month. There’s no way I could keep that kind of commitment to myself and my work without a major meltdown. Rather than setting myself up for frustration and failure from the outset, I passed.

The first few days I felt sulky and left out. I mean, thousands of people are writing in community, and here I was on the sidelines. I have very strong opinions about either you do Nano or you don’t. The parameters of Nano are that you start a new project and write 50K of new material for it in 30 days. You don’t use a current WIP and you don’t revise. There’s nothing wrong with writing in tandem with Nano and riding the energy wave of so much focused attention on the page, but unless you honor the premise of it, you’re not doing it. So, even though I wrote A LOT, I wasn’t doing Nano, and I didn’t pretend I was.

The further into the month we got, not only was I writing a lot, but I missed it less. That made me sit down and assess the pros and cons of Nano. Those who love Nano swear by it; those who hate it say you can’t write a real, publishable piece of work in 30 days.

I believe you can learn a lot during the process that, if you are serious about your writing, you can apply to your regular writing life.

Cons:
–Quantity over Quality. The point of Nano is to spit out 50K of a first draft. You’re not supposed to go back and edit or slow down or anything else. Since each novel has its own innate rhythm, this can sometimes be counterproductive. Some novels just aren’t meant to be written at breakneck pace over a concentrated period of time.

–Creative Vampires. Whether it’s a Mentee who doesn’t respect you enough to keep his/her end of the commitment, or the person on the board whining about how hard it is or making excuses, a large percentage of Nanoers are trying to find shortcuts, easy ways, or suck the energy out of those who are sitting down and doing it.

–You have to be a Time Management Pro. Nano happens in November. That means the holiday season’s already started and will continue into the New Year. Thanksgiving falls in the month, along with pageants, exams, bad weather, and a myriad of other life challenges. If you suck at time management, you have two options: Learn to manage your time better or fail. Yes, life can and will throw some curve balls, and there will be times when a massive life emergency happens and Nano has to go on the backburner. There’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s always next year. But if you don’t learn to make writing a priority for the mere 30 days, you won’t be able to achieve Nano.

–By December 1, You’re so Burned out, the very Thought of Your Manuscript Makes You Want to Puke. Very few novels can be sold at 50K. You have to finish the manuscript. Unfinished manuscripts hang like albatrosses around your neck. They weigh you down and hurt your future work. Even if you decide to put the manuscript in the drawer for years once the draft is done, make sure the draft is DONE. That’s really tough after a month of breakneck writing. You can choose to either continue the pace into December until the manuscript is done (which, with holiday madness, could land you in the rubber room), or you can cut back your daily quota back to what feels like the novel’s natural rhythm. For me, that’s usually 1000-1500 words a day, although sometimes a piece only lets me write 500 words/day on it. Whatever it is, keep going until the draft is done, even if you’re burned out. If you’re serious about being a contracted, paid writer, you will have to write and meet your contract deadlines whether you feel like it or not. This is good training.

–January, the Edit Month, is Too Soon. The biggest mistake aspiring writers make is to finish their novels and immediately go into edits. Unless you’re on a contracted deadline and are behind, put it away for AT LEAST two months. Four to six months is often even better. When you go back to rewrite, revise, and edit, you MUST be able to look at it objectively, as though someone else wrote it. Finish the draft, even if it takes you into the following calendar year. And then put it away for a few months.

–What You Write During Nano Needs More Revision/Rewriting/Editing. This goes back to quantity over quality. Everything I’ve ever done for Nano needed far more drafts than work done outside of the Nano process in order to make it submissible. Again, that’ why time and distance before revision is so important.

–Do NOT Mention It was Written During Nano During the Query Process. That’s a major turn-off to editors and agents. They don’t want something slapped together in 30 days. They wanted a well-crafted book. Once you hit bestseller lists, the demands change, and they want more from you faster, but at the outset, keep your mouth shut. Let the info drop in post-publication interviews.

–More than 50K. I realized that I regularly write more than 50K in any given month, but it’s not all on one project. If I didn’t write a lot and across a wide variety of projects, I couldn’t pay the bills. And no, I do not churn out quick articles for content mills — they can’t afford me. I write quality pieces, but I do write a lot in any given month. Definitely more than 50K. Adding a 50K novel into that sometimes simply doesn’t make sense (like this year).

Pros:
–Quantity over Quality. Huh? Wasn’t that also one of the Cons? Yup. But this is a first draft, and the point is to get words on paper. If you don’t get them on paper, you don’t have anything to revise. Those who claim they can’t finish anything because they’re perfectionists are lying to us and to themselves. It’s not about perfection, it’s about fear. Nano helps you let go of a lot of fear.

–Learning Your Novel’s Pace. Again, as I stated above, every novel has its own innate rhythm. Some of them aren’t right for Nano. You have to learn to choose a project that has a quick rhythm (which is different from a quickly-paced novel, which sometimes takes longer to write than a slower-paced-to-read novel that can be written more quickly). You learn to suit the project to the parameters, which is useful if you plan to hire out to anthologies or series or package deals or anything else.

–Riding the Energy Wave. Writing in community is often a great spur to creativity. You can tap in to the energy of thousands of other people whose goal is to write. You have built-in brainstorming groups, and you can attend write-ins and meetings if you choose. Just knowing there are a lot of other people out there going through similar experiences is often very helpful in getting you to the page each day.

–No room for Martyrs. No one cares about your excuses for not writing. You either write or you don’t write. The people who are writing are too busy writing to feel sorry for you.

–Learning about Scheduling and Personal Rhythms. Because I always go away for Thanksgiving, I like to front load Nano. If you plan an even writing rhythm every day, you only need to write 1667 words per day, about 7 pages. I commit to writing 2500 words per day, with an eye to hitting the 50K before Thanksgiving, and anything beyond that, is, pardon the pun, gravy. This way, if I have a bad day or something happens, I have words in the bank and don’t need to panic. I also learned that my best and most creative time is early in the morning, after yoga but before doing anything else. That is something I can carry over into my daily writing life, and is one of the ways I’ve applied Nano techniques successfully into my full time writing career. If someone else’s best time is late at night — go for it. There are always a few things you can rearrange in your schedule to leave you an hour or two of writing time when you’re at your best.

-Learning When to Outline and When to Fly. When I’m committed to writing 2500 words first thing every morning, it’s much easier for me to outline. I pull out my outline when I sit at the desk and I know what comes next. I don’t have to stare at a blank page. If, however, during the writing of a scene, I find a tangent, it’s the perfect opportunity to explore it. You’re upping your word count, and, if it doesn’t work, you can cut it later.

–You Learn To Treat Your Writing Time With Respect. You should already be doing this, but far too many people think if they rush around “doing for” others, it will be appreciated and, in return, the aspiring writer will be given the gift of writing time. Not going to happen. You have to set boundaries and make it clear that this is important for you. It’s often easier to do that during Nano because it’s a concentrated period of time and thousands of people around the world are doing it. If you’re with someone who doesn’t support your dreams or sabotages them, you’re with the wrong person, and you better get out now, because that kind of abuse only gets worse over time.

–You Have 50,000 More Words On a Single Project Than You Had a Month Ago. What you do with them is up to you, but you’ve got them!

Go forth and enjoy!

Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction. Keep up with her on the blog Ink in My Coffee.

Germination: Using Submission Calls as Inspiraton

Writers are constantly asked from where their ideas come. My response usually is: Everywhere. As a writer, nothing is ever wasted. Nothing you see, hear, taste, touch, observe, smell, or experience is ever wasted. It’s all material. Genuine writers are never bored, because they’re constantly transforming even the most mundane, rote experience into something interesting.

In the past few weeks, I grew aware of another source of inspiration: Calls for submission. I’m going to use a recent experience as an example, with the hope that you can find it useful.

The submission call I found particularly notable was for an anthology. I received it with about a month’s notice to create, revise, polish and submit. The call had been out there for several months, but it only came to my attention with a month of the deadline.

The premise had to do with water; the word count limit was 5000 words.

I’m a Pisces; I’m drawn to water, especially ocean. Writing about water comes fairly naturally. The 5000K word count is easy to hit. Using my first 1K of the day, I should be able to come up with the first draft in five days. Plenty of time to edit and polish.

I puttered and pondered and came up with a character who loved to swim and spend time in the water. She encounters a frightening creature under the ocean on one of her swims, but manages to evade it. When she surfaces, her foster brother tells her they have visitors, and the visitors seem extraordinarily interested in her. So was born “Be The Monster.” I knew where the piece started. I knew a couple of events that it needed to hit on the water, and the place where I wanted to stop the tale for the purposes of the anthology submission. My character was clearly defined in my head. So were the reasons for her being sent to foster care, her retrieval at this moment, her training, and the training she sought out in secret, not realizing it had something to do with her destiny. As I percolated and wrote and wrote, her circumstances came more clearly into focus, as did both her obstacles and her antagonists. Because not all of her obstacles ARE antagonists — some of the obstacles are there to prepare her for The Life-Changing Confrontation I knew an adventure on the way to The Life-Changing Confrontation, where she’d wind up with an unlikely ally in the form of a pirate who winds up having a connection to her Life-Changing Confrontation that neither of them could have suspected. The love and support developed in her foster family create a lot of her strength to face down her antagonist, even though she always felt somewhat like a misfit. It also gave me a chance to explore bonds of created families and bonds of blood families.

That’s a lot to pack into a short story. But that was this particular character’s story.

When I hit 4000 words and she hadn’t even gotten on the boat to encounter the pirate and leave for The Life-Changing Confrontation, AND one of her biggest tests took place on land, I knew I was in trouble.

Here, I was faced with several choices. Choice 1 was to cut out any scene that didn’t fit the parameters of the anthology guidelines and then make sure it was only 5K. It also meant cutting out one of the sections at sea with the pirate. Too much was lost in character and story development, in my opinion. It did not serve the piece’s innate rhythm OR my vision for the overall piece. Choice 2 was to choose an important scene or series of scenes from the bigger piece and rework them as a short story. Had I already written 12-15K, that would have made sense. With only 4K written, and still in the developmental process in tandem with the writing process, it didn’t make sense. Choice 3 was to make notes so I didn’t lose the scenes I envisioned and the ever-growing ensemble of characters that was starting to feel somewhat Shakespearean in scope (hey, if you’re going to have a mentor, it may as well be the best), put it aside and try another story. Now that I’d written my way a bit into “Be the Monster”, I could also see that I needed to do some world-building in tandem with the writing. That takes time, and can’t necessarily be stuffed into the deadline period.

I chose #3.

I put aside “Be the Monster” and wondered what else I could write. As I thought about the future of “Be the Monster”, I also started making a mental list of submission possibilities, one if it wound up as a novella, one if it wound up as a novel. But what to write now? Something involving Capt. Kit Erskine and the crew of my popular Merry’s Dalliance seemed to make sense — pirates in a fantasy world could encounter any kind of threat at sea. I started spinning ideas.

I’d driven past a lake surrounded by beautiful trees turning gorgeous colors in the autumn, with a rather lovely, spooky mist rising from it. A day or two later, I overheard a pre-teen trying to talk his aunt into chaperoning a school camping trip. We’re also in the season of ghost stories, and doesn’t one always tell ghost stories on a camping trip?

The anthology guidelines stated it could take place on a lake. It just had to be scary and have the lake as an important part of the piece.

“Lake Justice” was born. Aunt turned into godmother, the kids were a special class of gifted teenagers, no one was exactly who they seemed, toss in a serial killer. bunch of ghosts, and some humor and we’re good to go. It went along swimmingly, no pun intended.

And then I hit 4K, and, once again, realized I had too much story to fit into the 5K word count. Again, cutting did not serve the story.

That’s frustrating for me, because I LOVE to cut material. The Red Machete is my best friend.

I was still spinning the Kit Erskine story, but it seemed overly complicated. I had hoped to submit the Kit Erskine story AND a second story to the anthology. But now, I knew “Lake Justice” wasn’t going to be it. However, I found another potential market for “Lake Justice” whose deadline was the same as the anthology, AND about a half a dozen other potential markets for it. So work on “Lake Justice” continued.

At this point, I had less than a week to finish, revise, polish and submit “Lake Justice” AND draft, revise, polish and submit the Kit Erskine story, which I had yet to start. Add to that the fact we’re in one of my busiest times of the year, with Samhain coming up and I was going to be out of town for two of the five days before the deadline. AND had two grant proposals due on the same day as the story deadlines.

What’s also interesting is that “The Merry’s Dalliance” – the original story featuring Kit and her pirate crew — was inspired by an anthology call. However, the more I read material by that publisher, the more it struck me they published comic book-style fiction for boys (no matter their chronological ages) who were intimidated by strong and intelligent women. There was no way in hell that this group would accept, much less publish a story with a strong female protagonist unless she wound up raped and/or dead. I crossed them off my list and, instead, submitted the tale to NEW MYTHS, who loved it and published it. Yet another example of the submission call being the catalyst to the story.

I suddenly had an epiphany for the Kit Erskine story, a way to simplify it and maybe bring it in well UNDER the 5K word count (Okay, so after cuts, editing, and refashioning, it came in at 4999 — but it was still under 5K). I thought up a great title for it in the shower, but didn’t write it down immediately and forgot it by the time I was dressed. I should have kept repeating it to myself, and didn’t.

I managed to complete, polish, and send out the Kit Erskine story to the anthology – while still knowing, if they did not accept it, I had at least a half a dozen places that would be interested. I even managed to get it in the day before the deadline.

So I turned my attention back to “Lake Justice.” And then realized I had spent the last 1500 words or so writing myself and my characters into a corner that, had I continued in that direction, just made them look stupid. I had no idea what to do, and was hours from deadline.

I took a shower, and the solution came to mind. I jumped out of the shower, dried off (so I wouldn’t drip onto the computer), made the cut and the change. I finished the story, did a quick edit, and got it out only 40 minutes under deadline.

Not the way I prefer to work. I like to let pieces sit for a few days before I edit them. Or a few months, if it’s novel-length.

But it’s important to meet deadlines. That’s part of the job. Sometimes, you won’t produce your best work in time for a deadline. It will come back, you will revise, and it will either be accepted upon revision at the original house, or you’ll find a better home for it.

But you still have a piece of writing that’s out in the world, finding its place. Which, if you missed the deadline and let it sit partially-cooked, you wouldn’t.

If you have the urge to write, but don’t know WHAT to write, take a look at the calls for various anthologies. See if something sparks your imagination. Even if it winds up in a publication different from the anthology, that submission call will have been your catalyst. Hunt down these calls — they’re listed on legitimate posting sites such as FUNDS FOR WRITERS and WRITERS’ WEEKLY. Anthology calls are also listed on publishers’ sites under “guidelines.” In other words, if you’ve read an anthology by a particular house, you like it and think, “I could do that”, check their site every few weeks. When a call comes out — answer.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, a friend sent me a call for a steampunk anthology and these characters started talking . . .

–Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and nonfiction. Visit her blog, Ink in My Coffee, and her website. She also writes “The Literary Athlete” column for THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW.

Reading To Write

There’s no way around it. If you want to be a successful author, the best way to apprentice yourself is to write every day, without excuses and to read everything you can get your hands on, in as many genres as possible.

In order to land a contract, you need to bother to learn the craft of building a story, grammar, spelling, punctuation. You also needs to learn what works in telling a story, and learn how to apply it to the stories you want to tell.

The best way to do that is to read, read, read, read. Read in genres that you usually don’t, because you’ll start spotting universal craft principles that apply across the board.

What moves you as a reader? What distances you from the character and the story? What creates physical sensations as you read, good or bad?

You can learn just as much, or even more, from a book you don’t like as you can from one you love. Also, re-reading old favorites is useful, because a timeless book will teach you something new every time you read it.

Be careful what you read as you write. For instance, I’m currently working on fantasy and paranormal pieces. I’m reading biography and mystery. When, in a few weeks, some mysteries need my attention, I will switch to something else. That way, no one else’s style in the same genre leaks into my work, and I can stay true to my own voice.

You don’t have to set apart your “writing reading” from” pleasure reading” if you approach your pleasure reading with a heightened awareness. Be more sensitive to all the elements of the story. When you surface after losing yourself in a section of the story, think about WHY you were so immersed. What specific elements made you feel a part of the story instead of a voyeur? For me, the best books make me feel like I’m living the story, not standing outside of it, watching. Ask yourself how the author managed to do it, and, without imitating content, how can you apply those techniques to your own story, in your own voice?

Francine Prose wrote a wonderful book called Reading Like a Writer, where she breaks down different aspects of writing such as character, dialogue, narration, and even gesture, and how they are integrated into good writing. Although she offers an impressive reading list, the same ideas can be used on almost anything you read. Not every book will live up to these ideas, and that’s as interesting as the ones that do.

People who say they “don’t have time” to read often also struggle to “have time” to write, and then wonder why they can’t get published. First of all, there will never “be” time to either read or write; you have to “make” time, “steal time”, demand time. Second, you need to apprentice yourself to learn the craft of anything you want to do, whether it’s woodworking or brain surgery or writing. Third, too many people feel that “Art” is the opposite of “craft”, when in reality, successful art seamlessly melds with craft.

–Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction. She writes “The Literary Athlete” column for The Scruffy Dog Review. Visit her blog, Ink in My Coffee.

When Writers Attack

Recently on a writer’s forum I frequent, a member posted a question regarding who was planning to purchase a book recently released by a controversial best selling author.  The post was not met with much enthusiasm by many members.  

This takes me back to the beginning of 2009, when Stephen King had less than flattering things to say about Stephenie Myer’s body of work. Literary history is full of writer feuds and while it does create a buzz in the industry, what does it really accomplish? 

While I completely agree that everyone is entitled to their opinion and those opinions differ, I’m inclined to look at the concept of “writers dissing writers” from another perspective.

To apply this to other professions, the performance of Jake Delhomme of the Carolina Panthers has been less than stellar of late.  But one doesn’t see Steve Smith, DeAngelo Williams or Musa Muhammad at a press conference or sideline interview saying that “Jake just can’t throw the ball.” No instead they focus on the team – what they do well and what they didn’t get accomplished and what they must do better.  Sure it’s riddled with clichés and they probably are thinking that Jake can’t throw the ball, publicly they defend their teammate. 

You don’t read many interviews of actors (I’m referring to actors and not necessarily celebrities here) commenting negatively on another actor’s performance, heads of large corporations attacking each over their lack of business savvy and you certainly wouldn’t go around publicly criticizing your coworkers, no matter how incompetent they actually are. In most companies, that is a one-way ticket to human resources and potentially a formal reprimand in your personnel file. 

Politicians, on the other hand, frequently use negative advertisements to discredit their opponents.  Think about how you respond to such advertisements and what you think about the one making the accusations.  One that comes to mind was Elizabeth Dole’s 2008 senatorial campaign advertisement accusing her opponent of being “Godless”. Many political analysts credit this particular attack as a primary reason Senator Dole lost the election. 

What ever happened to true camaraderie to the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis or Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson? 

Just because fate gave someone a gift, an opinion and a platform doesn’t mean all three need to be combined to attack the accomplishments of another in the same line of work. No matter how justified the response seems to be, how tactfully the criticism is spoken or even if the statements are fundamentally true, it’s difficult for them not to be perceived as said with envy, pettiness and immaturity.   

Writers need to publish the best work possible and leave the public criticizing to the sports analyst, book reviewer and other critics because in the end, odds are the person doing the smear campaign will eventually lose.

Integrity

Every time you agree to write something, whether you put your name on it or not, you’re putting your integrity on the line. So think about it: Why did you accept a particular job?

If you love the organization, believe in it deeply, and want to make the world a better place, you’re supporting your integrity.

If you accept a job that you know promotes something harmful and against your beliefs, you aren’t.

That sounds like I’m supporting the fallacy of “do it for love, not money” or “if you’re paid for it, you’re not really committed to it.”

Bull-pucky.

Every single time you put pen to paper, you are putting a piece of your soul out into the world. You deserve to be paid a living wage for your time, your talent, and your creativity. You deserve to earn a good living by your pen that allows you to keep a solid roof over your head, food on the table, clothes on your family, and put away some money for whatever you choose to do with it.

Mill content sites and batch article sites who pay pennies for lots of work won’t lead you to that end, and they’re not even worth it to get clips. Any clips you get from such a site will be useless in the world of professionally paid work. More and more companies who hire freelancers pass over those who have mill content sites on their resume, because previous experience has taught them the quality of the work is not up to the company’s standards. Because, let’s face it, if these writers were good enough to earn a living wage by their pens, that’s what they’d be doing. Instead, they work for a mill content site, not even earning enough in a week to pay the phone bill.

However, just because someone waves a lot of money in your face doesn’t mean you have to accept the job. If it’s something that causes harm, you are as karmically responsible for the consequences as anyone else involved. Getting paid or the theories “I’m only doing my job”, “it’s company policy” or “if I didn’t do it, someone else would” don’t cut it. Causing harm is causing harm, whether you’re told to do so or not. If you’re going to go out to cause harm, at least have the courage to own it. Don’t hide behind “company policy.”

Any of us who have worked professionally and been paid professionally for more than a minute have had to face that dilemma, and the more strong credits you build, the more often it will come up. Sometimes, the money is very, very tempting. Money makes a lot of problems disappear. It is the way to get things done in this society — throw money at a problem,and it goes away. Because most of the people getting money thrown at them are willing to trade their integrity for the immediate cash. So you have to decide if it’s worth it to you to accept a job to promote something that you know causes harm, and then be prepared to accept the responsibility for that and the consequences for that down the line.

I have my own list of arenas in which I refuse to work. Unfortunately for me, they pay very, very well. But it goes against what I believe is my HUMAN responsibility, which has more to do with my immediate bill-paying needs on any given month. But they are based on my beliefs and on my personal experiences dealing with companies who set out to do deliberate harm in order to gain personal profits. Someone else’s list would be quite different, and that’s fine — as long as they are being true to themselves and their beliefs.

Fiction is a little trickier to maneuver, because so much is based on the reader’s frame of reference. A writer can explore a controversial topic from uncomfortable points of view, and the reader, viewing it through his/her own lens, may believe that’s the author’s point of view instead of the author trying to make a point about the issue that’s separate from the author’s beliefs, or the author’s desire to explore an opposing belief in order to understand it better.

Also, in fiction, the unpublished tend to judge the published, calling them “sell outs” if they’re paid fairly for their work. Of course, the unpublished would sell out in a second if they were able to get published. I happen to think that one can expose more truth in a more palatable way in well-crafted fiction than in non-fiction. And fiction writers deserve to earn a decent living by their pens.

Make sure, when you accept a job, that you know as much as possible about those hiring you. Factor that in as much as the time, schedule, creation needs, and fees. In addition to lessening internal conflicts, one of the most wonderful by-products of it is that the quality of your writing will improve when you factor integrity into your job choices.

–Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction. She writes the paranormal Jain Lazarus Adventures, and her work appears in publications as diverse as BOOKS FOR MONSTERS, ESPRESSO FICTION, NEW MYTHS, and THE RANFURLY REVIEW. Her blog on the writing life is Ink in My Coffee, and her main website is www.devonellingtonwork.com

It’s a Start Anyway

While sipping an early morning coffee, I ran across this little article in the BBC called Book Sellers braced for Christmas. Who knew the publishing industry has a Super Thursday and that October 1 is the magical day?

It’s a great thing – to walk into a bookstore chock full of recent released hardcovers, and 800 of them to boot.  That is a form of heaven to a person who loves to read.

There is one part of this article that is bothersome.

Carole Tomkinson, from publisher HarperCollins told the BBC: “If you get in the top five slot the retailers give you twice as much space, they push the book, they put it in their ads.” — BBC.com

So Ms. Tomkinson, what is HarperCollins doing to promote their product and their authors? Is HarperCollins doing anything to create “word of mouth” buzz, or are they just sitting back and hoping it will happen?

Carpe Diem . . . or not.

An outsider’s perspective . . .

Publisher’s sales rose in July based on Literary Agent Laurie McLean’s blog post entitled JULY ’09 RESULTS: PUBLISHER SALES RISE 2% dated 9/24/2009. It only makes sense that in these times of increased financial burden, people turn to less expensive entertainment. It is actually a good time to be publishing, as opposed to the auto industry, manufacturing or banking for instance.

 So what’s the industry doing to take advantage of this slight upswing in sales? An aggressive brand marketing strategy? An advertising blitz? A company reorganization to streamline operations? A defined vision with supporting corporate infrastructure? 

Nope . . . nothing, and while even Wal-Mart is busy redesigning their brand so that when the economy improves, they can keep people coming back and permanently expand their customer base, the publishing industry does nothing to keep shoppers heading to bookstores as disposable incomes increase. With countless media sources competing for consumer dollars, sustainability in book sales isn’t possible without the proper nudge of top rate publicity. 

There is no evidence that I could find where any publishing company announced changes to their business models to keep the sales momentum going and for the life of me I cannot understand why the industry keeps doing business the same old way, but expecting better results. 

I’m no marketing expert, but if e-book sales rose one month by 213%, I, as a potential seller, would work hard to get my share of those sales. I’d also take a look at University Press e-books gaining momentum as more coursework goes online. That’s only the beginning. Does Scholastic really have a monopoly on school book fairs? I don’t think so and most of the books I see in the promotion flyers are gimmick books based on television shows and not books of real substance. This is such a missed opportunity. 

Instead, they wait for the next J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer or Stephen King to come along, but fail to create excitement in the media or promote the talented authors already in their bullpen. What if those next explosive best-sellers are already under contract with them? 

Bookstores are full of great books, but what media exposure do they get other than a few blog reviews, a small article in the back of a local newspaper and a few book signings? The sad part is that most of that exposure is either achieved by the author alone or an author/agent collaborative. 

And finally, there is the outdated and ridiculous practice of paying large advances. I’m completely for negotiating what I would call a “hiring bonus” in initial contracts, but the statistics show few of these sometimes exorbitant advances are ever earned out. Agent Kristin Nelson writes about this bleak fact on her blog post on EARN OUT. 

Even though the industry reports a downturn, they’re still willing to pay out obscene advances for work not even started. Here is an article about one author who was paid an eight million dollar advance. Something to ponder – why not put pay the guy a one million dollar advance and invest the other seven million into marketing initiatives and see which one earns out first? 

There are many articles on the internet regarding large advances vs. royalty percentages.  Here’s one worth checking out. 

Instead, this dinosaur continues to lumber about, awkward and without direction, seeming to rely more on word of mouth than a solid marketing plan and strategic product placement. It’s backwards, unsustainable and quite surprising that an old and important industry such as publishing is so slow to change. 

These are just small ideas from an unknown writer. Just imagine what a staff of marketing experts could do if motivated, millions of dollar in their budget and with a good legal team behind them.   

Sources 

http://www.agentsavant.com/as/index.cfm 

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/2009/09/earn-out.html 

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1545542,00.html  

http://www.sparksflyup.com/2009/06/really-long-boring-post-about-book.php

More Changes

Once again, positive changes are coming to THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW. A new webmaster, more content, in-depth author interviews and the best the web has to offer.  Stay tuned.

Don’t Assume You Know My Contract

Don’t Assume You Know My Contract
by Devon Ellington

Because I speak (and write) out about the right for writers to be paid a fair fee for their work, and about the responsibility of those who call themselves professionals not to hurt everyone in the field by working for content mill sites who pay crap, publish crap, and make lots of money off YOUR work, I get a lot of nasty emails.

Some of those people challenge me based on my resume. “Well, you wrote for so-and-so, and THEY don’t pay.”

As usual, they’re not listening and they’re not gathering facts. You’d think they were pundits and politicians.

First of all, my resume and/or CV contain things I’ve done over the course of many years. I got paid less when I was starting out because I was paying my dues, because a dollar was worth more then, and because I didn’t value my work the way I do now. I didn’t have the skills I do now, either.

I still didn’t work for a mill content site. Even starting out, I had more respect for myself than that.

There’s also a huge difference between doing a freebie for a really good literary magazine or taking on a legitimate pro bono client, such as a non-profit about which you’re passionate. The difference is that you have a good clip that shows your skills placed in publication or written for an organization that is respected, not something that changes its name every fortnight, churns out content, asks you to “rewrite” the same content over and over — and continues to profit from your work without paying you fairly for it.

Also, just because the guidelines say that they don’t pay contributors — it doesn’t mean they don’t pay contributors. If they’ve never heard of you and you pitch over the transom, no, they won’t pay you. If they’ve heard of you and want you badly enough and THEY approach YOU — you can negotiate.

No matter what kind of contract crosses your desk — you can always negotiate. You don’t have to sign the first draft of whatever you’re offered. Decide what you’ll ask for and how far you’re willing to negotiate back BEFORE they send you any paperwork. Also know the point at which you’re ready to walk away from a project, and don’t be afraid so to do.

Several times, I’ve turned down potential clients who tried to haggle my rates down, only to have them come back to me, admitting they made a mistake by going with someone cheaper who couldn’t deliver the goods. I get my rate and more the next time around.

And if you CHOOSE to do a freebie –whether it’s because the editor is a friend, or you really want to break into the publication no matter what or for a reason that’s nobody else’s damned business — do it. You don’t have to justify it to anyone.

Freelancers advise each other on the generalities of the payment scale to help each other get the best rate possible, or to figure out what a fair rate is, or to figure out market rate for their particular region if they’re working with local businesses (I have a wide base of international clients. I don’t adjust based on geography, and don’t have a problem with people trying to change my rate based on where they live). But the actual details of your contract — that’s between you and the client or the publisher or the agent. No one else needs to know them, except, maybe, the IRS. I’m not going to assume I know the details of your contract. Don’t assume you know the details of mine.

–Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction. She writes “The Literary Athlete Column” for THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW. Her main blog is Ink in My Coffee, and her website is www.devonellingtonwork.com.

The Choice Not To Write Full-Time

Most of my columns have focused on ways to make the transition from whatever you currently do into being a full-time writer. But what if you don’t WANT to be a full-time writer? I’m not talking about not writing full-time because you’re AFRAID to give up the day job, or are in a position where retaining the day job NOW will give you the freedom in three to five years to make the shift.

I’m talking about not WANTING to write full-time.

I compare it to the way I feel about cooking. I love to cook. It’s how I relax. I read cookbooks the way many people read novels. I enjoy some of the shows on the Food Network. I write articles about great restaurants. But every time there’s a competition on the Food Network, I turn the channel. I don’t enjoy those shows. It invades, erases, and removes my enjoyment from the process of cooking because it’s focused on the business of cooking. I’m not interested in the business of cooking. If I went into cooking as a profession, it wouldn’t be fun anymore. Cooking is what I do to decompress from writing. The creativity in cooking supports my writing, and cooking also allows me to relax. I have friends who knit for a living, providing garments for Broadway, film,and television. I play at knitting. I pick up the needles when I feel like it. I’m not committed enough to it to learn enough to get paid for it, and if I had to face those types of deadlines, again, I wouldn’t enjoy it.

For some people, writing is how they relax and decompress from whatever profession they’re in, and if they had to worry about the business end of it all every day, the way so many of the rest of us do, it wouldn’t be fun.

For the purpose of this piece, we are going to talk about three different types of writers, and for ease of writing and reading, I will use the pronoun “he” in the universal sense to cover all genders: The part-time writer, who loves to write, but doesn’t want it to be the way he makes his living; the transitional writer, who is in a line of work but wants to write full-time; and the wanna-be, who talks a lot about wanting to write, but keeps making excuses not to write.

What’s the difference between someone who chooses to write part-time and a wanna-be writer? Focus and passion. The part-time writer loves to write but is also passionate about his current profession, whatever that may be, whether it’s medicine or cooking or accounting or whatever. The part-time writer also has a passion for a good story, not only as a recipient, but as a story teller.

The part-time writer has made that choice out of strength, not fear.

Whenever you make a choice out of fear, it eventually comes back to bite you in the butt. The wanna-be writer who keeps using a job he hates as an excuse not to write because the wanna-be doesn’t really think he is good enough to be a full-time writer will continued to wallow in misery, because choices are made out of fear, not strength. The wanna-be will continue at a hated job until there’s enough self-sabotage to be fired, or until he’s fired when the company folds, or until the person dies. Note that the first two choices are passive, something done TO the worker. The only active choice is dying, and truly, that is the definition of “last resort.”

The part-time writer is excited to sit down at the page, even though it might not be every day. The part-time writer is more dedicated and more focused at each sitting, because the part-time writer wants to be there. The part-time writer is productive, because he knows there’s a limited time and comes to the page mentally prepared to work, without making excuses NOT to write during that time. It’s as important to the schedule as the weekly golf game or the hair cut or the grocery shopping trip. It is integrated into one’s life, and there’s a freedom in not having to count on it to pay the bills. At the same time, there’s a passion for the job that pays the bills. The part-time writer looks forward to getting up in the morning and going to work. Obviously, not every day is bliss, but there’s not that constant inner struggle and self-sabotage that wanna-bes face.

The transitional writer (who will get short shrift in this piece, I’m afraid) may or may not enjoy the current day job, but knows he wants to eventually write full-time. He approaches writing in a more disciplined fashion, treating writing as a second job until he’s in a position to make it his only job. For several years, he may be working full-time at his day job, and, as the writing takes off, put in as many hours on the writing as he does at the day job. Essentially, he’s carrying two full-time careers. But he wants it enough to make it worth it. I’ve done that; you’re tired most of the time. But, in the end, it’s worth it.

Initially, the part-time writer doesn’t have to worry about deadlines. Eventually, if the writer is good enough and actually sends pieces out that get published, he’ll have to make a slight adjustment. Now, he’s on someone else’s schedule, and other people depend on him to hold up his end of the bargain (the contract), so that they can do their jobs and earn their livings. If it’s a large project, the part-time writer either uses vacation time or schedules a sabbatical. Or, he moves into “transitional writer mode” for at least some of the time, treating the writing as a second job. If it’s a smaller project, he has to rearrange his schedule to get it done. The “doing” might not be as much fun as it was before, but the end result makes it worth it.

The part-time writer still takes classes and goes to conferences and networks with writers. However, because he understands the protocols of his own profession, the protocols in the writing profession aren’t quite as foreign. When he asks for advice and receives advice from a professional in the field, he graciously says, “Thank you” and decides on his own time what is useful to him and what isn’t. He doesn’t behave like the wanna-be, who stands there arguing with the pro, wasting everyone’s time and energy. The part-time writer enjoys exploring what the writing profession has to offer, because there’s not a lot of pressure involved, and therefore, not a lot of desperation. He can approach professional writers as a fellow professional in another field. There’s already common ground. There’s not a sense of “You’re published and I’m not, so you OWE me” that’s become so prevalent on forums and in conferences the last few years.

Will the part-time writer ever become a full-time writer? It’s possible. In many cases, it’s even probable. But when that time comes, it is a CHOICE. The part-time writer approaches the needs of the business with the same professional attitude he uses in his own work, but also has freedom because of his enjoyment of his current work. And that will help make whatever CHOICE he makes the right one.

–Devon Ellington publishes under a half a dozen names in both fiction and non-fiction. Visit her blog on the writing life, Ink in My Coffee.