To Be a Writer

Here are two posts, made independently, that both speak to the tasks that a writer faces in becoming successful. First, Jennifer Pelland gives a five-point list of "How to Build a Writing Career." Snipped from her website:

1. Be good
2. Be persistent
3. Be knowledgeable
4. Be professional
5. Be social

Then Jennifer goes on to elaborate on each point. She has a lot of good insight here. Number 4 has become a bane of my existence lately for two reasons.

First, I've gotten a number of submissions where the person either e-mails the story in the body of the e-mail, but no introductory note, no name, just the e-mail and the story text. Explain to me why I should bother to read this?

Second, I get the story as an attachment, but the attachment has no name, address, e-mail, etc. by way of contact information for the author. Now, let's say--thinking crazy and out of the box, not pointing at a real example or anything--my laptop gets stolen, but I had printed the story out. Now I have your story, but I don't know who wrote it. Brilliant. Should I bother to read it? I don't know who to try and contact should I like the story (and I suspect if you don't know enough to put, oh, YOUR NAME, on the story you've sent to me, it's probably not very good, but who knows?). That story goes in the trash.

Point number 5 from Jennifer is also a good one. I'm posting a snippet here that I want people to read and think about when you see me at a convention and I ask you what your story is about:

this is when you launch into a very short pitch. Do not offer to hand them the manuscript on the spot (I've been assured this is a very bad thing), do not go into a 10-minute speech, do not stutter and blush and freeze up (although this is the best option of the three). Keep it short and sweet. You might get lucky and they might ask to see it (again, don't pull it out of your backpack on the spot), but if they don't, that means they're not interested, and you should stop your pitch. Crazy authors don't attract editors. Remember, if they sign you, they have to work with you. Editors would much rather work with someone who understands and respects boundaries.

When in doubt, send the story in. Don't ask if you should send it, just send it.

And put your name on it for God's sake.

Then, the lovely Justine Larbalestier has a post that sprung Athena-like from a previous post about authors and self-promotion. She posts a short comment from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Manager of SF at Tor and former boss of mine, who says:

My only quibble is with this: “Promoting your books is part of a writer’s job.” No it’s not.

Writing is a writer’s job. The rest of it is optional and depends on your personality, aptitude, and energy.

Like Justine, I have to take umbrage with that statement.

True, there are writers who are more introverted and the thought of promoting their work scares them to death. But, these are not writers you've ever heard of. These are typically writers who fail. I'm sure there are very shy people who are famously wealthy and/or successful authors.

And true, if you write some sort of Dan Brown/Tom Clancy/John Grisham/Danielle Steel popular trite material, you may succeed without doing much work yourself. Not to make this blog the Dan Brown show, but Mr. Brown works very hard promoting his books. It doesn't happen by magic.

And also true, any successful publisher has a publicity and/or marketing department who are better than most writers in promotion (and who most likely have contacts into arenas that writers do not have). But, the author also knows the work better and more passionately than the marketing person does. And, if you happen to write something that's not in an already existing market (let's say you're Jeff VanderMeer or Lucius Shepard) it can be tough for the existing departments at a publisher to know how to get the word out on your work. Yes, the editor should be working with these departments, but sometimes the author is the best source for information.

It would be great if all the writer had to do was to work on their craft. Just like it would be great if all an editor had to do was work on their editorial accumen. However, these days editors have to know about marketing and promotion (and design doesn't hurt either) to be successful.

Justine gives a great list of things an author may do in the course of his/her writing career:

research
writing
rewriting
more rewriting
checking copy edits, proofs, final copies (of hardcover, paperback, and various other editions)
negotiating deals (though, thank Elvis, you can get your agent to do this)
checking contracts (again all praise to your agent)
checking royalties (agent)
publicising your books (if you can afford it—and seriously how many writers can?—you can hire a PR person, but tragically they tend to just come up with more stuff that you have to do, you could hire an actor to do said stuff, but sadly actors are notorious for not reading, and not being that bright)
answering fan mail and etc.
blurbing other writers

This list, while lengthy, may not cover everything you need to do. And, I also agree with Justine that the primary duty of the author is to write, but there is much, much more to it than that.