The Magic Bullet

As a growing writer, I find myself doing more and more stuff related to writing. This means reading more stuff about writing. Blogs, both from pros and those yet to be published. Podcasts, also from pros and amateurs. And especially books. Writing books from all stripes of writers, even from writers I don’t normally read. And one thing I’ve noticed in all of these forums is that new writers such as myself often ask questions where we’re looking for a quick path to success, that short route that will get us into the shoes of J. K. Rowling or Stephanie Meyers. Sometimes, we even phrase our questions in the form of complaints, and I've even heard many say that these two authors achieved their success through luck.

Well, I’m here to say that all of these sources of writerly information also have the same answer to these questions of “how to I get my book published? How do I write a successful novel?”

Hard work.

And that’s it. That’s the answer. I’ve come to see that it’s the only truth out there. When hundreds of published writers all give this answer to those questions, it’s not because they all belong to some secret published writers club that is inventation only, and they don’t want to invite you. It’s because it’s the simple truth.

I know that many of us, myself included, don’t want to see this answer. Or, more often, we nod in agreement, while inside still not believing it, still hoping that there’s some magic bullet out there that will bring us success.

But let’s look at things. Yes, on the surface it appears that Ms. Meyers had some incredible luck in getting her series published and then turned into a series of successful movies. But even with all that, she still had to sit down in front of her computer and write. She had to write and write until the story was finished. Then, she had to go back through it and edit it and re-write it, and do that until it was finished. Then, she had to seek an agent, which meant doing that thing many writers seem to hate: submitting query letters. And I have no doubt in my mind that many agents passed over her book, for one reason or another. Yes, even Stephanie Meyers got rejection letters. But, she kept working, she kept submitting, she maybe even revised her novel more. And then she got an agent, and you know what happened then?

That’s right, she worked more.

There were no doubt more rounds of edits, more drafts that had to be done with the help of her new Agent in order to get the book to a state that the agent felt could be sold. And then the agent did her job, and started finding a buyer.

But even there, I’m sure that Ms. Meyers kept working. She went back to the computer and started on her next book. Maybe she even started on this before she got the agent. In fact, I’d put money down on that. It’s what we writers do.

Then, when she got a publisher who bought her book, the work still didn’t stop. She went through more edits and rounds of drafts, before the editor felt the book could be published. After it was published, no doubt Stephanie had to market her book. She had to do book signings and show up at book stores.

I’m not sure how it works when Hollywood buys your book (hopefully, some day I will), but I imagine that it involved even more work for Ms. Meyers. Maybe not in terms of the script itself, but I’m sure there was still work for her. Negotiations, meetings, reviews, help in making the movie look more like her book. Whatever it was, it was work.

Did she have fun doing all this work? I certainly hope so. Otherwise, it wasn’t really worth it, millions of dollars or not.

So, even though her success seemed quick to us, that’s only because we say the end product, and not all the backend work that went into it.

Hard work.

It’s what we need to do. It’s what I need to do, it’s what all writers need to do. It doesn’t matter your genre, your word count, your style. It doesn’t matter if it’s novels, short stories or poetry.

Hard work is the only thing that will get you there.

So when you hear authors or your favorite blogger say that there is no magic bullet, listen to them. Don’t just nod your head to be polite, think about what they are saying. Because they may just have some insight into this.

On the Road of Research

Little did I realize what path I was setting myself down when I wrote my blog post last Friday.

This weekend, I took the plunge, and started researching self-publishing, specifically in terms of ePublishing. I asked fellow writers, presented the idea to friends, and got feedback from my wife.

That last one is a big deal. Normally, my wife doesn’t read this blog. So, I was surprised and a little afraid when she told me she read it. Then, she surprised me again when she said she supported me self-publishing, specifically my novel The Windsmith. She thinks its that good, and it needs to be out there.

I can’t really say why I was surprised, in retrospect. Fear, I guess. I was living in fear that she would think I was giving up if I self-published, or that she would have the same feelings about it that I mentioned on Friday. Instead, she informed me that it made sense to her, because that’s how poets do it.

She’s a poet, by the way. One of my favorites. But I’m baised.

Still, her support gives me hope. Maybe this IS something I can do. If nothing else, self-publishing can give me something to put in my portfolio when I send in queries to agents and publishers.

I’m starting to see a light in the dark tunnel of self-publishing, a light that is shed by knowledge that I have gained from the little research I have done into it.

And man, is there ever a lot of material out there to go through on the subject. Still, I am determine to learn all that I can, so I can answer truly if this is for me.

I’ll be sure to keep everyone here posted as I take this journey. I just want to end this post with a big thanks to everyone that has provided me with links, feedback, support and books to go to for more information. It is well and truly appreciated to know that I am not walking this path before, and that, in fact, this is a well paved road.

Fears Of Self Publishing

I suspect that this blog post will be unpopular. But, I also hope that it will spark conversation, because that’s why I am writing it. This is something I need to get off my chest.

Here’s the deal. I’ve been thinking about self publishing (specifically, publishing e-books) for some time now. I’ve weighed it vs. traditional publishing and seeing where I want to go with my writing carrer. I see writers I follow both on Twitter and Facebookk discuss the release of their latest book, and they’re referring to eBooks they self published. And what occurs to me is that they are getting their books out there. People are actually reading their stuff. And no one is reading mine. Because I’m still trying to get published the traditional way.

And let me first start off by stating why I want to be published the traditional way.

It’s pure go.

See, I want to be able to walk into a Barns and Noble and see my name on the spine of a paperback on that book shelf. And as far as I know of, no one that is self published get’s there. It’s been a dream of mine to get there for years now (true, it took me years to actually start doing something about it, but that’s a different blog post), and I not only find it hard to let go of, I don’t think I want to. I like the idea of being published traditionally.

And here’s where I start to get into some of my fears about eBooks.

Self published books, in my opinion, are, for lack of a better word, professional. These are professional writers. eBooks that have been self published are written by amitures.

Cue the hissing and throwing of things at this blog.

Listen, I know there are a lot of very talented self-published authors out there. Hell, I’m a Kindle owner, and am reading an eBook right now by Scott Siggler, who self-publishes all his stuff. I’ve also got a book written by someone I follow on Kindle, a free book that he’s putting out there as a gateway to his other stuff that cost money. I’m hoping it’s good enough to warrant spending said money on his stuff.

But the truth is, there’s a perception of amitureness in self-published eBooks. I’ve tried several books before finding Scott, and they were bad. Badly edited, badly formatted, no covers, etc. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I’m discovering more and more that I’m not the only one with this perception.

So, a big fear here is that if I self publish, I have a huge perception image to overcome in order to convince everyone that my books are worth spending money.

Maybe this isn’t true. Maybe there’s a big enough eBook readership that knows there are plenty of good books out there that they are willing to risk a few bucks on an unknown, but for now, it feels like a huge mountain to climb.

Another fear I have is related to money.

If I want to climb that mountain and rise above the chaff, I need to make my book so polished that it shines like a new car. Or better still, a diamond. And that means making it look as professional as a traditionally published book. I would have to hire an editor and pay them to make my book look pretty. I would have to hire an artist to give my book a cover, preferably one that doesn’t only do the painting, but also one that does that cover design. I say this because I’ve tried my hand at cover art before, and let’s just say that I am not a graphic designer. And then there’s promotion.

That’s all a pretty significant outlay of my own cash before my book is even up for sale. What happens if the book doesn’t sell? I’m out some cash.

And that’s a real fear I have, to be out of cash.

And a final fear I have is that self-publishing will somehow prevent me from getting published the traditional way. I mean, can I pub self-published books in my bio? Should I? Will the perception I mentioned above leave the publisher/agent afraid to touch me with a 10 foot pole? I don’t know.

This is not to say that I don’t have fears about traditional publishing. I do, but they just don’t seem as insurmountable as these fears are.

All that said, I realize that these ARE fears, and as such, I shouldn’t let them blind me to the possibility of eBooks. I need to figure out how real these fears are, and are they truly as insurmountable as I believe them to be.

I’ve been thinking of taking a book that I wrote that I had no intention of getting published the traditional way, and putting it out there as an eBook to see how well it does and if this is a viable market. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s not good enough to get published traditionally. It is. It just wasn’t written for that purpose.

I am also taking an eBook plunge in another way. Some friends and I are working on an anthology that we plan to put up on the Kindle store. Maybe THAT’s a better test that self-publishing my other novel.

The point here is that there’s just a lot of stuff about eBook publishing that I just don’t know. And I guess until I do, these fears will continue to get in my way.

And so, I guess my next step is to do some serious research into self publishing eBooks, try to get some of my questions answered, and maybe find a way to test the waters.

Because the real truth is, I don’t want to let fear, any fear, from ruling my life.

My Opinion on eBooks and the Future of Publishing

So, this seems to be a hot button topic around the camp fires of Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers and writers all over the place are throwing in their two cents, both professional and unpublished. Publishers, editors and agents have also said their piece regarding the matter. But, still, I see people running around the internet like chickens with their heads cut off, crying that the sky of publishing is falling, and eBooks are going to tear down book stores brick by brick.

So, given all that, I figured why not throw in my two cents as well? Likely, they’ll just get lost amidst the rest of the change out there, but hey, this is my blog, so what the hell.

If this all sounds a little skewed in the direction that I don’t buy the hype that traditional publishing is going away, that would be essentially the truth. But not all of it. Let me start with something simple.

Traditional publishing IS going to go away. The same way that horse and buggies were driven out of business by the automobile. But, it’s not going to happen tomorrow. Or even in the next few years. And the publishing industry is not just going to fold up and die, not all of it anyway. They’re going to adapt to new technology, and switch their model of business to accept it. Those houses that don’t, those are the ones that will die.

But, here’s something that I think a lot of people look over. The real reason that traditional, paper books are not going to disappear the way of the 8-track. People like books. A lot of people like books. Different kinds of people like books, for different reasons. And here’s one that I think a lot of us that are on the internet regularly forget.

eBook Readers are expensive.

That’s right. That Kindle I have sitting next to me as I write this? $130. That’s a lot of money, when you consider that a book is around $10. Sure, I know the argument, it’s a one time payment and then all your books are only $4. But, most people can’t put up that $130 investment. They won’t. It’s a lot of money. $10 isn’t so bad, so they’ll spend that on the book they want. Plus, books can be traded at a used book store for more books. An eReader can’t.

Now, that said, I do believe that eReaders are the eventual future of this industry. And yes, there were be new avenues for up and coming authors to publish in. But, the publishing industry will continue to be what they are now. Protectors of good books. They are the ones that filter through all the crap to find the good stuff and then put it out there for our consumption. They will continue to do that in the eBook era.

Yes, I have no doubt that there will be lots of self publishing options available, but at some point, most people will realize that if they don’t want to spend the time to filter through crap to find the good stuff, here’s a publishing house that does it for them.

And this, my friends, is why the book and the publishing industry are not going to go away.

At least, in my opinion.