Expert Advice - Who to Believe?

Advice for Writers

Everywhere we writers turn, we find agents, other writers, publishers, even people who are not associated with writing at all, giving us advice on how to write, how to find an agent, and how to get published. On one recent day, I collected the following tidbits of advice from agents, writers, promoters, editors, et al. on Twitter:

• 20 Strategies to Defeat the Urge to Do Useless Tasks
• The Anatomy of a SHORT Synopsis – Pt 1
• Top 10 Worst Self-Publishing Mistakes
• Tips on promoting your book on Facebook
• 16 Tips for Being Productive While Working From Home
• How to display your average feed readers
• It's not what your character does. It's why.
• How to Use Mind Maps to Build a Story
• Getting the most out of your time and money at a writing conference
• [D]on’t have your assistant write your query letter on your behalf
• 13 Of The Most Ridiculous Things Overheard In Bookstores
• Promote your book like a pro - excellent advice - and very simply expressed
• 20 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Submitting Your Work

As you can see, there is advice for nearly every situation and for every writer out there. There are sometimes conflicting viewpoints just to muddy the situation further. With so many people offering advice, who do you believe? Do you believe any of them? Why believe any of them? How do we choose who to believe as opposed to those who may be blowing smoke up our pants leg? To tell the truth, I haven’t a clue.

Advice from Authors

When I ran across a recent article full of authors, some well known and some unknown (to me) offering up the best advice they’d received when they were starting out, I tarried long enough to read the entire article. I’ll share the two that resonated most with me.

Bestselling suspense writer Elizabeth George, author of 23 books, remembers that the best advice she ever got was from mystery writer P. D. James after George received a rejection of her first novel. “My dear,” P. D. James said, “you have done something many people only dream of. You have written a novel You must never give up.” How could George possibly give up after receiving advice from P.D. James? Luckily for her readers, she didn’t.

Probably the most succinct advice was received by another bestselling author, Sue Grafton. She passes on the advice she received, “Park your butt at your desk and get on with it.” Advice that is short and to the point, and, for the most part, easy to implement.

Self Publish?

Famous Authors Who Self Published

What do Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Beatrix Potter, Pat Conroy, Nikki Giovanni, and Marcel Proust have in common? They all published one or more of their manuscripts themselves. Proust, for example, paid to publish the 1500 pages of Rembrance of Things Past. Conroy, who in my opinion, is one of the best writers currently writing and who wrote the immensely popular The Prince of Tides self-published his first novel, The Boo.

At one time, being a self-published author meant that you were less than. Less than a “real” writer. You were a second-class author. You were an author who couldn’t find a New York publisher for your book.

Control over Content

These days, though, many authors are choosing to go the self-publication route. One author told me that she prefers having control over her work. Another writer told me that since he would have to do as much publicity and promoting his book if he had a New York publisher, he might as well do it and make more money doing it.

Of course, being self-published means that no one is giving you an advance of any amount. But then, as my friend pointed out, no one is telling him to change the gender of his protagonist or delete three chapters in the middle of the book or change the title to something that makes no sense considering what the book is about.

Cost of Self Publishing

Self publishing is not free, either. If you want to be successful, you need to hire someone to design a cover for your book, you might even hire a freelance editor to ensure that the typos are gone, the grammar is correct, and the book flows. One self-published author estimated that he spent $3000 to self-publish his book. In these days of economic hardship, who has $3000 not already earmarked for something else?

Then there is the time-consuming promotion of your book. While you’re promoting your current book, you’ve got no time to write the next book. Should you wait until you have a small library of books written before you self-publish your first one?

Self Promotion

In The Writer magazine (June 2010), Judy Gruen, author of Women’s Daily Irony Supplement (2007), said, “Today, all authors must self-promote vigorously, but self-published authors must do it like they’re on steroids.”

Crossing the Bridge Called Rejection

Handling Rejection

How do you handle rejection? There are so many forms that rejection can take, and regardless of the kind of rejection you face, it is always hard, very hard, to get over the hurt.

As writers, we’re told that we need to get used to being rejected. First, there are our beta readers who may - or may not - like the books we’ve worked so hard on for so many long months. We know we shouldn’t it take personally because we’re told that every time we turn around. So we’re gracious, we thank our beta readers, and we send the manuscript to someone else to read.

No Judgmental Agents

When we’ve made our way through our beta readers, then it’s time for the critique groups who can, and should, be critical of our efforts. After that, perhaps you hire a freelance editor to read the book. Then, we think we’re ready to send out a query letter to the agent of our choice. So we write a letter to the agent asking her to represent our book to publishers. What we get back is a rejection letter, if we’re lucky - there are times when we may not even hear from the agent - ever. The agent assures us that she’s not passing judgement on our work, it’s just not right for her. She tells us to keep sending out letters to other agents.

Post Rejection Blues

It was one thing for our critique group and/or our beta readers to say they didn’t care for our book, it’s quite another, after months of revising and rewriting the manuscript, for an agent to say that she’s just not that interested.

It’s hard not to wonder if we’ve wasted our time. If an agent doesn’t like our manuscript, and she’s only seen, at best, five or ten pages of the whole, why continue? All that time trying to find the wherewithal to continue, all that time working alone, all the revisions and it’s been rejected by a professional.

Cross the Bridge, and Get over Yourself

Somehow, though, after a few days of wondering if, or whether, we can continue writing, we decide that the agent is only one of many agents in the world. So we decide to put into action the advice we’d read somewhere. Cross the bridge, and get over yourself.

So we cross the bridge, we get over ourselves, and we send the manuscript out to a few more agents and while we’re waiting on them, we start a new book because writing is as much a part of us as breathing. And, after all, hope springs eternal, doesn’t it?

What Are the Odds?

Raise Your Hand if You Want to Write a Book

I read a throw-away line somewhere that said a poll taken in the US showed that 80% of Americans want to write a book. Somewhere else I read that only 2% of writers get published. If those two statistics alone don’t depress you, read on and let’s take a harder look at the numbers.

What Are the Odds?

There were 309,453,592 people in the US as of June 8, 2010 (when I wrote this). However, that number includes every man, woman, and child. The most current number of adults in the US, according to the US Census Bureau, is 281,421,906. Eighty percent of them is 225,137,520 - that’s how many people want to write a book. Of those people only 2% or 4,502,750 people will be published.

The odds of my being published are 1 in 4,592,750. Not great odds, are they? In fact, the odds in favor of winning the Power Ball jackpot are far greater, something like 1 in a 195,249,054. I’m beginning to feel better already.

But Will They Put Pen to Paper?

That being said, how many of those 225+ million people will ever put pen to paper (so to speak)? Of those who do, how many have what it takes to get 100,000 or even 50,000 words down on paper? Of those, how many can then spend the next several months rewriting and revising? Of those, how many can write a decent query letter? Of those who do, how many can handle the first, second, or tenth rejection letter? Of those who can, how many can handle the 20th or 30th rejection letter?

I figure after all that, my odds of getting published are far greater than winning the lottery. And I don’t have to spend any money to win the getting-published lottery.

Why Not You or Me?

What choice do we have? We must tell our stories no matter that the odds are against us. Some one has to be published. Why not me? Or you?

Long Live the $10 Word or Dumbing Down Authors

All over the media, be it in hard copy or on the Internet, you see stories about the eminent demise of traditional publishing. With the ever-growing popularity of e-book readers like the Nook and even the iPad (yes, I, too, lust after one), people are saying that the print media is dying if not already dead. I don’t know about that, I do know that publishing is changing. What I lament is the dumbing down of books regardless of how they’re put into my hands.

I long for the days when writers were not only allowed to, but were expected to use the English language to its full potential. I read a blog the other day that speaks to this very issue. The blogger was saying that authors “should always” use a short word rather than a long word. He also asked why use a $10.00 word when a .05 cent word will do? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because not all of us want to write to the lowest common denominator. Maybe because most of us still believe that readers aren’t dumb.

When I was a youngster, I was told that if I use “big” words, no one would understand them. Why not? I asked. I was told that no one wanted to have to look words up in a dictionary. Why not? I again asked.

I thought everyone kept a list (mine is on my iPhone) of words that we have come across that we didn’t know the meaning of and have to look them up. Words like “crepuscular” (an adjective meaning relating to or resembling twilight) or “refulgence” (a noun meaning a radiant or resplendent quality or state, i.e., brilliance).

Granted, we probably might not want to use either crepuscular or refulgence, but the author of the blog post mentioned above suggested we not use the words, “accommodations” for rooms,“purchase” for buy, or “utilize” for use. The author went so far as to say these “big” words constituted “bad” writing and that they “muddled” prose. Oh my.

I’ve always thought that authors whether they’re writing fiction, non-fiction, blogs, tweets, or Facebook entries should strive to use the English language to its, and our readers, fullest potential. Apparently, I’m wrong. The blogger says that we authors should prefer the familiar word to the “fancy” word. What if the fancy word is the familiar word to us? His advice to dumb down is one I’ve heard before. I for one reject his advice. Long live $10 words!

If I believed that the blogger was speaking for the publishing world, I’d be lamenting its death with all the other naysayers.

Forgiving Myself and My Writing

Elizabeth Gilbert’s birthday was the other day (July 18th). She wrote Eat Pray Love, the bestselling book about the author going to Italy, India, and Indonesia on a soul-searching journey after her divorce. The Writer’s Almanac had an interesting quote by Ms. Gilbert that I found thought-provoking.

She said that discipline, for writers, is “important, but sort of overrated.” She believes that the “more important virtue for a writer . . . is self-forgiveness.” She says that a writer’s “writing will always disappoint." She added, “Continuing to write after that heartache of disappointment doesn’t take only discipline, but also self-forgiveness.”

A while back I began sending out my futuristic mystery to agents. I was confident. When the first rejection came in minutes after I had emailed the query, I told myself the agent hadn’t even bothered to read the first pages of the novel and, equally important, she was but one agent.

While I was waiting for the other agents to respond, I continued researching query letters, agents, etc. I reworked my query letter (see my blog “Query Advice that Makes Sense” http://kaybigelow1.blogspot.com/2010/06/query-advice-that-makes-sense.html). As each rejection arrived in my email inbox, I dutifully noted the date of rejection, added it to my spreadsheet tracking the rejections, and continued to send out queries.

Still the rejections kept coming. I blogged about “Rejections Limits & Moving On” (http://kaybigelow1.blogspot.com/2010/07/rejection-limits-moving-on.html). I emailed more queries.

After about the 15th rejection, I blogged about “Abandoning Writing” (http://kaybigelow1.blogspot.com/2010/07/rejection-limits-moving-on.html). Things were getting serious. I was contemplating laying down my pen so to speak.

In the midst of all this angst about being rejected, I started a new novel - a historical set in 1900 - that had been spinning around in my head for a couple of years. It wasn’t writing itself though. I felt like I was slogging through a dense patch of mud. I stopped writing for a week, but the main character kept whispering in my ear.

Then I read Ms. Gilbert’s quote. I had to think about self-forgiveness. I thought, “I’m not sure what she means.” What do I have to forgive myself for? I wasn’t the one doing the rejection. I had done my best and my best was obviously not good enough.

Then I asked myself, “Was that mystery the best you could do?” I answered, “I don’t know.” I do know that my writing improved with each book I worked on. So maybe it wasn’t my best. Maybe my historical would be my best. So I went back to writing. It is going slowly, but that’s more, I think, because it’s set in a foreign country in 1900 than my reluctance to write. I can’t afford to throw in a random piece of modern slang or put a modern convenience, like a toilet, into a house when those conveniences were unavailable. The research was, and continues to be, time consuming because the information I need about the time and city in which the book is set is practically non-existent.

In the meantime, I gave Ms. Gilbert’s words about forgiving yourself some more thought. Then, like the proverbial cartoon light bulb being turned on, I finally got it. My writing disappointed me because it was being rejected by agents (who weren’t necessarily commenting on my writing in the first place) but were saying that my book wasn’t what they were looking for. So I forgave myself for writing a book that no agent wanted to represent. I’m still waiting for a few agents to respond, but I’m being realistic and not holding my breath.

While I wait for the last few agents to respond, I’m moving forward with my historical. Will it be the best I've ever written. I don't know, but I hope so.

A Bit of Luck

As I sit writing, my mind occasionally wanders. Most of the time, I catch it before it can go too far off course. There are times, however, when I find myself wondering what I’m doing spending my time writing books that I can’t get an agent for much less get a publisher for it.

It has occurred to me to wonder how much luck has do with a writing career. An author is in the right place at the right time, an author meets a friend of a friend who just happens to be an agent/editor, or an author is selling his self-published book out of the trunk of his car and a passerby buys one, loves it, and sends it to friend in NYC who happens to be looking for just that kind of book, or the lucky writer who found an agent who saw some spark in his writing and took a chance by representing him and finding a publisher who also saw that spark.

Meanwhile, the majority of writers toil away perfecting their craft and diligently keeping their hopes alive with the occasional success stories being told around a virtual camp fire about some unknown writer hitting it big. I was thinking the other day that nearly every profession has stories of someone become an “overnight” success after being discovered. I think that’s why we continue to write with little real hope of reaching the top of the best seller lists. That’s not the reason we write, to hit the top of the best sellers list, but it is part of the dream, isn’t it?

Today, we writers read about how fast publishing is changing, from e-books to Amazon becoming a publisher to how the iPad is going to change the book world. How are we to know whether our writing will find a place in the new world of publishing? It’s a scary place out there for writers today. I have to hope that the new modality will be a boon to the writer who hasn’t yet written her best seller and who only needs a bit of luck to go from toiling writer to best selling author.

Rejection is Not Fatal

There are many kinds of rejection, some more painful than others. Some say it is the measure of the person in how we respond to rejection.

As authors, most, if not all of us, must deal with rejection. Even the most successful authors have suffered the slings and arrows of being rejected by agents and/or publishers. Look at the following:

• J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter suffered 12 rejections before finding a publisher willing to take a chance on the boy wizard.
• Gertrude Stein submitted her poems to publishers for 22 years before finally having one published - talk about perseverance.
• Madeline L’Engle submitted her manuscript entitled A Wrinkle in Time 26 times before getting it published and then won the Newbery Medal for it.
• Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind was rejected 38 times before being accepted for publication.

All these authors were once aspiring authors. They all continued to submit even after being rejected time and time again. I might add that Stephen King, too, received a rejection and put the manuscript on the shelf.

Being the inveterate list maker that I am, I am keeping track of my rejections. When I first created the list, one thing stood out. One of my favorite books that I’ve written was rejected only once. I never submitted it again possibly because I love that story and those characters. Recently, I put it on my to do list - I’m going to revisit that book, do a hard-copy edit, and start resubmitting it again.

I’ve gotten over taking the rejections of my work personally. Now when I receive a rejection email, I simply add it to my spreadsheet. I look at the statistics and, if I feel myself about to spiral into the rejection black hole, I remind myself of two things. First, getting published is a business and rejections are a part of that business. Then I remind myself that Margaret Mitchell suffered through 38 rejections before getting GWTW published.

Finally, Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

Whisperings in My Ear

I find myself wondering what keeps myself and my fellow unpublished writers motivated to continue writing in the face of editors telling us that only the likes of another Stephen King is likely to get published these days or agents who email rejections almost immediately upon receiving our queries.

I read the tweets of writers who rejoice at getting 250 words written the day before while another has a goal of writing 1200 words that day and still another laments a sick child and still another is depressed about having to go to work rather than being able to stay home and write. What motivates these people?

Is it the sheer joy of being able to create a world? To see that world taking shape every time we open that document? Or perhaps it is the ability to create a character, a person really, perhaps one we’d like to be. Maybe it’s the relationship we’ve created that allows us to escape a loveless marriage or partnership for an hour or two each day as our fingers fly across the computer’s keyboard and the idealized man or woman says all the things we wish we could hear in our “real” lives.

Is it the joy of having our characters “talk” to us every day telling us what to say and how they feel? Is it listening to conversations in our heads whilst we are in the shower and hoping we can remember them after we get out of the shower and dressed? Or is it finally knowing how to end the book because our character whispered it in our ear while we were supposed to be listening to someone else while sitting in a classroom or meeting room?

Perhaps it is noticing for the first time how a friend cocks his head to one side as he listens to you telling him your woes of yet another rejection from an agent and knowing your protagonist would do the exact same thing. Or is it hearing for the first time the train whistle in the far distance as it makes it way to its destination as it does every day at the same time?

Maybe it’s how your best friend raises one eyebrow as she listens to you update your story for her. And then laughing when you ask her to teach you how to raise an eyebrow so you know how your character feels when he or she does it in your book.

It may be sitting in a coffee house listening to the couple at a nearby table quietly argue and you pull out the ever-present notebook that you carry for just such times so you can write down what they’re saying. Or those two women in the booth talking about how a friend is suffering in the hospital from terminal cancer.

There are many things, I think, that motivate us to keep writing. Some large, like a kind word or two from an agent, some not so large. It doesn’t take much to keep us writing. Perhaps like myself, my fellow writers are amazed that we can write, that we have these voices whispering inside our heads, and that some day we’ll all be published.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

In learning about the publishing business, I’ve spent way too much time on Twitter. That being said, Twitter has a wealth of information about the business from writing query letters to expanding your list of subject matter experts on writing and getting published. With an expanding list of SMEs, however, comes a conundrum - who to listen to? For instance, one SME says that putting the title, genre, and word count at the beginning of your query letter is required. Then, you go to another SME, and this one tells you no, having that information at the top of your query letter only distracts from what is really important - your book. So who does a poor querier believe? Especially when you’re being told by so many SMEs that if an agent doesn’t like your query letter, you’re going to get a form-letter rejection.

All the SMEs seem to believe that you need to increase your online presence by twittering and blogging. The reasons given make sense. If you twitter and only have two followers, you’re essentially twittering to yourself. Back to the SMEs to learn how to increase your followers so you’re no longer twittering to yourself. Lots of advice there - play nice, respond to others’ tweets, and followers will begin arriving in droves. But wait. You’re following the SMEs. How do you respond to topics that you’re trying to learn about? A polite thanks for posting that? Or wow that was really informative. Sounds good? Agents aren’t likely to follow you because you’re not an industry insider and they’re busy doing their job. No one has heard of you. No one is following you. Do you see where this is going? The proverbial Catch-22.

The SMEs also tell you to not get discouraged, that a rejection isn’t personal, and your book just isn’t right for that particular agency. Some encourage you to send out multiple query letters at the same time for a particular book. Someone, they seem to be saying, is going to like your book some day.

Fifteen years ago, The Writer magazine was writing that authors shouldn’t get discouraged “too easily.” Their point was that the publishing world is a “cold and hard one for the aspiring author.” They tell us that not every author can be a Stephen King. They encourage authors to continue submitting because there are “countless authors who get accepted after thirty or forty rejections.” Some things never seem to change no matter how much things seem to change.