Tag Archives: publishing

ADVICE FOR ASPIRING WRITERS: FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH

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By

Susan Kelly

Susan Kelly

Stop right here if you plan to go the self-publishing route. That has its own rules, and ones with which I’m not familiar. The kind of bromides I’m prepared to dispense wouldn’t be useful to you.

Otherwise, in no special order:

  1. Assume eventual success. Operate on the assumption that some book publisher, somewhere, someday, will buy your novel. Maybe not your first attempt at a novel, but your second or third. (Or fourth, which is what happened to me.) Or that a magazine editor will take your story or article. There is no point in slaving over a manuscript unless you’re convinced it will eventually appear in print. What’s worse is that if you do lose your confidence in eventually being published, you’ll lose the impetus to write, and what you do write thereafter will reflect that lack of enthusiasm and spirit.
  2. Be prepared for rejection. We sensitive artiste types are not known for having thick skin, but in this business—and it is a business—you have to develop the hide of a rhino. Otherwise, you’ll wilt and wither, because you will be rejected far, far more often than you will be accepted. Yes, it’s infuriating. Yes, it’s frustrating. And sometimes it seems to be totally arbitrary. But it’s part of the game. Everybody gets rejected.
  3. Take your work seriously, but don’t take yourself seriously. Do you want to be a writer, or do you want to be a poseur?
  4. Don’t be a prima donna. You are a writer. You are not Kim Kardashian.
  5. Get yourself a good literary agent. This is a necessity, and has been for decades. Most editors are far too busy to read manuscripts sent “over the transom,” which means mailed or emailed to them directly by the author. (Don’t email any manuscript to anyone unless specifically asked to do so; it will be automatically deleted.) Editors are also far more inclined to read work that has been sent to them by a reputable agent. As for getting an agent—it is hard, but it can be done. Do not send an agent a completed manuscript until he or she asks for one. Instead, write a literate, polite letter of inquiry introducing yourself, describing your work, and listing your credentials to write it. Three paragraphs on a single page should do that. The agent may thereafter ask for the three opening chapters and an outline of the rest, if she or he is interested in pursuing the project.
  6. Believe your editor. Should your novel be accepted—and when you learn of the acceptance, by the way, it will be somewhere in the Top Five Best Moments of Your Life—your editor will have a lot of suggestions for making it better. Pay attention. These people know of what they speak. If the editor says a scene needs to be cut, or developed, that is almost invariably the case. Don’t argue. Every single word you write is not sacred. If there’s a suggestion with which you really disagree, you can negotiate that—after you’ve followed the rest of the advice. Bonus: This will earn you a reputation for being professional, which is highly valued. Editors who have to work with temperamental celebrities (and their long-suffering ghost writers, who do all the heavy lifting) really appreciate working with sane, reasonable authors not suffering from clinical egomania.
  7. Be prepared to promote yourself. This is antithetical to most real writers, because it’s almost a contradiction in terms. This is also something at which I am really terrible, so all I can say is that you should never turn down an invitation to speak at a library, sign your work at a bookstore, or be interviewed on the radio, for a podcast, or appear on television. You should have an author website, and, when your work is published, an Amazon Author Page. Some writers—I am not one—find Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook useful.
  8. Write when you have something to say. I know that aspiring writers have been advised to write every day, for the practice of it, if nothing else. I don’t agree, because some days, you have absolutely nothing to say, and you end up churning out a useless batch of sludge. But, when the urge strikes you, you should by all means write. When the words come pouring out of you, instead of being forced through some mental extrusion process, it’s usually a good sign. Which leads me to point out that…
  9. If writing on a set schedule—say 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.—works for you, then by all means stick to it. If it doesn’t, go with what suits you best. The point is to get something good on the page, and no one cares how or when you do it, as long as you deliver it on deadline, or slightly before. (Meeting deadlines is essential.) Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to put in a nine-to-five day. Write when you write best, whether it’s four a.m. or 10 a.m.
  10. When you get discouraged, read, and re-read as necessary, Marge Piercy’s    magnificent poem “For the young who want to.” This says everything that needs to be said to aspiring writers. I’ve been re-reading this for over thirty years. It never loses its impact.

For the moment, anyway, that about wraps up what I have to say to anyone who wants to write. But if you’ve borne with me thus far, let me share with you my absolute favorite rejection letter of all time. It was actually sent to my agent, and she phoned me to read it to me because she couldn’t believe it was really real. Ready? “Susan Kelly’s book is too well-written to be commercially viable.”

I’VE COME OUT (PT.2)

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Life is strange, isn’t it? When I originally stopped writing for a living I really doubted I would ever return. Yet I find myself writing and collaborating with a publisher for the second time in my serial career after trying my hand at self-publishing. Clearly I’ve returned to a much different landscape than the one I left.

Funny how these second and third acts began. When my books originally went out of print, I retrieved all their rights because I wanted to leave them to my kids. (Why, I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea at the time.) Then, once I had ’em and learned about the world of eBooks, I thought, why not? I’ll just publish them myself.

Well, now I can tell you why not. Then, I really didn’t know what I was getting into in terms of time, money, and energy. The paper copies of each book had to be scanned, which is not a particularly precise process. Back and forth, back and forth from book to scan to make certain all the words and punctuation were correct. Then, each book had to be formatted three different ways. One for Amazon, one for Barnes & Noble, and one for a distributor called Smashwords, which feeds all the other type e-readers.

Yep, you guessed it. After the books were formatted I again had to review each book in each of the three different formats. By then I was not only hating the books, but hating myself for getting into all this. But there was something exciting about it, too. I was working with talented web designers to set up a permanent site and my artist friend Michael Paul Smith on creating new book covers. Also, there was something exhilarating about taking charge of my own work and learning about a new world of publishing.

Once the books were in the marketplace they really didn’t sell very well, but at least they were there, still assessable to those who wanted them—or could find them. It ain’t easy for an individual to cut through the Internet’s noise, especially since I really didn’t have the fever to go full-scale self-promotion. On the other hand, I had all of them with their brand new covers on my Kindle–as well as the rights for my kids.

Sometimes you really do have to be in the right place at the right time. A good friend who has worked in all aspects of the writing world told me about Jason Pinter, who was taking a leap of faith and leaving his work in traditional publishing to create a primarily internet oriented publishing house called Polis Books. Jason was looking for writers with back-lists but also new books swirling in their heads. She suggested I email him and, within a very short period of time, Jason and I agreed to work together and created a fair contract for both of us. (Which included a reversion of rights back to me after a very reasonable amount of time. You know—for the kids.)

Ah, that new book. When I began to seriously dig in on TIES THAT BLIND I realized I wasn’t in Kansas anymore and needed a way to seamlessly bring Matt and the recurring characters into the now. While I had always tried to frame Matt’s and my other characters’ ages as vaguely as possible, there was no denying our society and culture had undergone technological and cultural revolutions I simply couldn’t ignore. That even Matt, despite all his resistance, couldn’t ignore. I had to incorporate the “time gap” without losing the basics of my people—especially Matt, who had always been less future oriented than most. This was the guy who wouldn’t own an answering machine.

On the other hand, revisiting a main character created a fairly long time ago is a strange do. It almost felt as if I were being reacquainted with a long lost friend or relative. But having thoroughly reviewed the previous three books, I felt that while Matt needed to change, and I had changed as a writer, the essence of who he had been, and the writer I had been, would remain intact. Even in our brave new post 9/11 world.

Thinking about these issues created part of my excitement about TIES THAT BLIND. The other part was that Jason encouraged me to write the book I wanted to write and not to concern myself with traditional mystery conventions. So I didn’t, and was finally able to write a book that places introspection and interpersonal relationships front and center while telling what I believe to be an exciting story at the same time. Apparently Jason felt the same since he decided to publish the book as both an eBook and a trade paperback.

Many years have passed but I’ll never forget the rush of excitement when STILL AMONG THE LIVING was first published—even though Kirkus’s pre-publishing review was less than kind. (I’ll admit to a serious degree of nasty satisfaction when STILL was chosen as a New York Times Notable). Even that lousy first review, my first taste of public judgment, couldn’t quell the pride I felt holding my author’s copy for the first time. Writing, overcoming self-doubt, more writing, holidays spent in my office staring at blank screens, then writing some more, had become tangible and something in which I was proud.

Well, I’m older now and less exuberant than back in the day. Nonetheless, the re-birth of my first three books is fulfilling. For myself, not for the kids. I feel great satisfaction in producing TIES THAT BLIND, a book I believe in, without fighting my publisher every inch of the way. And yes, it’s still a thrill to open a Fed-Ex box and hold onto my author’s copy.