One
of the standard rejection letters from agents reminds the unlucky recipient
that writing is a highly subjective thing and just because one agent doesn’t
like your novel does not mean that it’s crap.
Although after forty rejections I
begin to wonder. Recently, though, I got a lesson in this thing called subjectivity.
I
have a neighbor, a non-writer, who is nonetheless well-read. Each weekday she
commutes via public transportation into Los Angeles—an hour each way—so she has
lots of time to read. I encountered her a few days ago on my way back from the
pool and she saw, from the book I was carrying, that I had just start reading Cold
Mountain by Charles Frazier.
“Good
luck,” she said. “It took me a year to get through that book. I kept asking
myself, ‘Why do care about these people?’”
Funny,
because that was my thought about the last novel she gave me—by another
bestselling author. I dragged my way through it. It was so boring I even can’t
tell you how it ended
The
truth about Cold Mountain, though, is that I can’t put it down. Perhaps it is because
I read Team
of Rivals and Gone
With the Wind earlier this year and I am familiar enough with the Civil War
to know what is going on. I find it riveting. Added to that, I know there is a
story about the marketing of Cold Mountain. I have heard snippets of it and I
want to find out more.
But
the experience is a lesson in subjectivity. Different folks like different
books. The thing is we are not that different, my neighbor and I. Both about
the same age, raised in Southern California. We have different tastes, though.
Maybe
there is something to that agent rejection letter that cites subjectivity.
I came across a guest blog post today by
John Yeoman
on Write It Sideways. It was mostly about how to use a conference to get an
agent, but in the process Yeoman made an interesting observation:
Today, only a handful of
mainstream publishers will accept an unsolicited ms directly from an author.
Agents guard the doors. And they’re overwhelmed by newbies. In fact, a whole
new industry is about to emerge – the agent’s agent. First, you’ll have to
impress a literary ‘scout’ who knows an agent, who might recommend you to their
friend.
The
agent's agent. I saw this earlier this week with a firm that called themselves
a "publishing accelerator." They will publish your book
electronically, get it on Amazon, and sell copies. The goal, however, is to get
it noticed by an agent. They were a little spotty on exactly how they would do
that and make a profit, but that is their model. I know writers that are more
knowledgeable than I am with lots of contacts in the industry and they are
pursuing this option. I confess, I am looking at it.
My
point is that the traditional route of publishing is becoming increasingly
complex with more and more levels.
Is
it no wonder that self-publishing and selling direct to the reader and other
distribution sources is becoming more and more of a viable option?
A
good friend points out that traditional publishing offers editors and readers
that eliminate everything from the embarrassing typo to the gaping hole in your
plot. It is hard to find an equivalent in self-publishing.
I
agree. The cleanest self-published novel I read--free of typos and grammatical
errors--had a weak plot and mechanical problems. The most riveting
self-published novel I read was rife with typos and errors (the gun went from
an automatic to a revolver in the same scene), but the plot was tight and
well-paced and the style was crisp and contemporary. I read it in a day, which
is not something my distraction-filled life allows for very often.
I've
been to agent seminars where they warn against the evils of self-publishing.
"It will ruin your career," they say. "It's the mark of an
amateur." I have to think, however, that when these folks go home at night
they pull the blanket over their heads, less they have visions of Amanda
Hocking or David Mamet or J.A. Konrath.
I
am not looking at self-publishing right now, but I have not ruled it out. I’m
not sure my novel has a home in the current self-published market. I see a lot
of folks opting with this do-it-yourself path. Many will sell a few books and
get discouraged and quit. There will also be more and more success stories. Anyone with a cell phone and a basic knowledge
of social media can become a news station. There are lots of frustrated, good
writers. Someone will come up with a model that works and the rest of us can steal
it, add to it and make it better and more successful. We have already seen a
few.
Do
not misunderstand me. I don't think that the various levels of the publishing
industry are filled with snooty people who feel it is their job to keep the
masses out. I don't think their goal was to build a moat. It just happened that
way and no one paid attention. It is the system they know and they resist the
change. Sooner or later, though, those at the bottom look for short cuts. Many
of those shortcuts lead to disasters and cautionary tales. Some, however, lead
to wild success.
Does
this scare the traditional publishing industry?
They say no, but I think it does. This story is a long way from being
finished.
“I don't wait for moods. You
accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down
to work.”
“All things are possible
until they are proven impossible.”
“Let woman out of the home,
let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the
world outside needs woman.”
“The truly creative mind in
any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly
sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a
tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and
failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering
necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or
poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut
off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown,
inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.”
I have not yet read anything by Pearl S. Buck, an embarassing hole in my literary experience. The Good Earth is in one of many stacks of books I plan to someday consume. There is also this article in the Los Angeles Times about a new novel discovered among her papers. It is coming out in October. Sounds interesting.
Check out Kristen
Lamb's Blog today over at Warrior Writers. I recommend this post for a few
reasons.
1. It is a
guest post by Amy Shojai
who blogs over at BLING, BITCHES & BLOOD,
and I just wanted to see the name printed in my blog. Great name.
2. Kristen
uses this great photo (see above) to promote Amy's blog, which discusses the preponderance
of get-published-quick schemes that are
out there to take advantage of writers who are willing to sell their soul to
see their words in print.
3. Amy also
talks about "the reinvented writer," which is what we all have to be
today. No more can you be the hermit scribe working in the solitude of your
writer's garret. You need to go out there and push your work like one of those
people with the little microphone selling stick-free pans or the Shaw-WOW at
the county fair (okay, it's not that bad, but I sort of like the idea).
Yesterday I sent in my entry for a writing contest. It was short—fifty
words (that was the limit), but like every writer, I worried over those fifty
words for a week. Writing, rewriting, tweaking, examining
words, examining
phrases, running it past my critique group, then ignoring half of what they ignoring
half of what they said. Then I pulled the critique group notes out of the trash
and re-evaluating what they said.
If you are a writer, you feel my pain.
Then
yesterday I was surfing the web and ran across this piece by Nick
Kolakowski on writing and rewriting
in the Huffington Post. I especially like the passage:
An emotional
attachment to your creation can drive you to work on it for weeks or months or
years -- but for all the good it does as motivation, emotion also blinds you to
the flaws …. Time away from your project allows those emotions to cool, and for
the details to become so unfamiliar you can revise with a cold and analytical
eye. One thing you notice when reading biographies of famous intellectuals is
how they keep circling back to the same ideas, probing for new angles,
sometimes until the executor of their estate pries the work from their cold,
dead fingers.
I am discovering, especially in the last few short stories I have
written, that if I leave them alone for a few weeks and then come back to them,
I see possibilities I didn’t see before. My perspective is refreshed.
Twelve-step programs have this theory about giving a problem up to
God. If the dilemma is insurmountably, appears to have to answer, or you find
yourself powerless to affect it, turn it over to God, or as God is often
referred to in twelve-step parlance, your higher power.
Giving the problem up to God is more an issue of taking the problem—in
this case a manuscript that needs work—and putting it on the back burner of the
stove, or a high shelf in a closet. It is the equivalent of turning it over in
your self-conscious, which we know handles things so much better than your
conscious self. Three days later a solution comes to you in the shower, or when
you do look at that draft a week later, having not thought about it in the
intervening time, you see possibilities you had not seen before.
Sometimes all a manuscript needs is some time—a little perspective.
Bell uses the example of a pulp novel from the ‘50s for how
to develop a great story. Check out the whole blog post, but here are some
comments on his points.
The hero is a decent
guy just trying to find his place. Someone once told me that a hero is a
guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, who does the right thing. Take an
ordinary Joe and throw him into an extraordinary situation. He doesn’t have to
be perfect—maybe he drinks or chases women—but he should have a good heart.
The trouble starts on
page 1. Another way to look at this is that on the first page the hero
should have the inkling that nothing will ever be the same.
Unpredictability.
One of the great mystery writers—I can’t remember who—once observed that if you
get to a place in the story and you are stalled then it is time to have a man
come through the door which a gun. Keep the reader guessing.
Sympathy for the bad
guy. Diana Wagman told me that her villains were people in over their head.
They had a scheme, but things got crazy. The goal is a villain you love to
hate. Think Richard Nixon.
A spiral of trouble.
Things go from bad to worse. In Rules
for Giving my protagonist gets beat up twice in a week and narrowly escapes
a third ass kicking, his former partner has stolen his largest client, and his
wife has moved out. Then I start to add the unpredictable stuff.
A love triangle.
Sex is always good. I was reading L.A.
Outlaws by T. Jefferson Parker over the weekend. One of his lines about a
sexual encounter: “They were like two tornadoes vying for the same trailer
park.” Great line, although considering the current devastation in Oklahoma,
maybe not appropriate.
Honor. Yeah,
someone has to have some values. Even if your hero has some flaws, he needs to
have one area where he or she stands firm. Maybe he likes dogs, but something.
A resonant ending.
Even if your second plot point was 75 pages ago, the last page needs to have
you saying, “Wow.” Remember The Deer Hunter. Mike
goes back to get Nick in Vietnam, he finds him, only to watch him blow his
brains out. The final twist comes at the end, though, when everyone else in
this small Pennslyvania steel town sits down after the funeral, their lives
forever altered by a vicious way, and they spontaneously sing “God
Bless America.” By the way, if you watch the final scene, yes, that is
Meryl Streep.
I can across
this piece yesterday from Writers Digest on Fifteen Things A writer Should Never Do.
Interesting list. I have some further comments on the observations others have
already made.
Don’t assume there is any
single path or playbook writers need to follow. This goes all the way down to work
habits. Some writers like to write in the middle of the night. I am an
efficient napper. I fall into the camp of those who like get up at the asscrack
of dawn—I set my alarm clock for 4:00 a.m.—and catch a few Zs later in the day.
Don’t get too swept up in
debates about outlining/not outlining, whether or not you shouldwrite what you know, whether or not you should edit as you go along
or at the end. I have my
opinion about these issues, and so do bunches of others. Bottom line, though,
do what works best for you. You will figure it out as you do along.
Don’t be unnecessarily
dishonest, rude, hostile. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got
was to resist the urge to tell anyone, “Fuck you,” regardless of how much they
deserve it or how good it will feel. You never know who you will be behind a
door five years from now. It could either be the same person, or someone else
who heard about how you held your head up high even though you were getting a
dirty deal. Word gets around and it tends to follow you.
Don’t ever hate someone for
the feedback they give you. Easy to do,
especially when the advice is coming from the mouth of an incompetent. Some of
the best editing I ever got came from someone who couldn’t write a lick, but
they thought they could. Another bottom line: Learn to draw the best from folks
and leave everything else.
Don’t ever write something in
an attempt to satisfy a market trend and make a quick buck. Stay
true to yourself. If you don’t, it shows.
Don’t ever assume it’s easy. If it
was, everyone would do it.
Don’t ever discount the sheer
teaching power (and therapeutic goodness) of a great read. Reading
a true masterpiece is inspiring. Also, reading an author who writes crap again
and again can be inspiring. “If this bozo can get published,” I have thought on
one or two occasions, “then for God’s sake so can I.”
But, don’t everreallygive up—Remember
the words of Winston Churchill: “Never give in--never, never, never, never.”
Also remember the joke about writers. What do you can a persistent writer?
Published.
A while back I wrote a blog
post about how debut author Kathleen Grissom used book bloggers to
propel sales of her novel The Kitchen
House. Grissom must been on to something because as of this past
August her novel had sold 254,000 copies.
This concept
has stayed with me. Reaching out to books and book club bloggers is a must-have
part of your marketing plan. Author Jenna Blum is someone who has done
this very well. Blum, like Grissom, found that book clubs have their own
grapevine of information. Many are members of more than one club and often have
family members, parents, children, siblings, who are members of other clubs.
Get a book club to choose your book and you sell don’t sell just one book, but
eight, ten or twelve books.
Blum spoke
to one book club, quickly got invitations to two more, and it mushroomed from
there. She talks to several a week, often as many as one a day and sometimes
two or three a day. She does many in person, but others are conducted over the
phone or using Skype. From reading her blogs, it sounds as if not every meeting
includes a reading. Most are Q and A sessions that last as long as three hours.
Most book clubs meet in someone’s home, so the environment is always welcoming
and typically involves drinking a lot of coffee.
And it sells
books! These book club members are the influential, people who can promote the
buzz about your book, and since seven out of ten retail purchases are made
based on a personal recommendation, buzz goes a long way.
For debut
authors, or the midlisters out there, book clubs are important. Our publicity
needs come after the big guys, which means it might not get done, and there
will be little budget. Having a plan, and having book clubs as part of it, is
important.
Want to know
where to start. Put on a pot of coffee (you have to practice), and Google, “How
writers reach the book clubs.”
“War is hell, but that's not the half of
it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery
and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is
fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you
dead.”
“That's what fiction is for.
It's for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”
“And sometimes remembering
will lead to a story, which makes it forever. That's what stories are for.
Stories are for joining the past to the future. Stories are for those late
hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to
where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is
nothing to remember except the story.”
“Everything was such a damned
nice idea when it was an idea.”
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