Category: Publishing

Author/Reader Interaction and Dumbledore’s Sexuality

Much ink has been spilled over J.K. Rowling’s revelation that Dumbledore was gay. I’m personally glad she said it for a number of reasons, one of which is a writing reason.

She showed respect for her readers. Giving an honest answer to an honest reader question is a matter of simple authorial courtesy. As an author, my default response to reader questions is to answer them to the best of my ability, unless answering them will create spoilers for later books.

Quite a number of people seem to disagree for various reasons political and literary. On the former I will simply say that I disagree vigorously. On the latter however, I am going to go into a little more detail as it is relevant to the core reasons for this blog’s existence.

The essentials of the literary argument are that the text is everything, and that authors should simply shut up about anything beyond what is on the pages in black and white because many readers don’t want the author messing around with their version of the empty pages that lie beyond the borders of the text.

My biggest problem with this it that it gives more weight to the readers who don’t want to know the author’s thoughts on something than it does to those who do, and it does so at a disproportionate cost to the curious.

J.K.Rowling was asked a direct question by a reader who really wanted to know Rowling’s answer. If Rowling had the answer in her head, should she really deprive those who are interested just so that those who aren’t don’t have to hear about it?

It seems to me that if an author doesn’t answer questions, it penalizes those who want to know the answers far more than answering penalizes those who don’t want to know. With the exception of a few very big names it is astronomically easier to avoid author answers to reader questions than it is to divine those same answers if they’re never given. If they stay in the author’s head, no one will ever know the author’s opinion but the author.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog October 25 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Difficult Things

The most difficult things I’ve attempted as a writer are to write funny and to write poetically well—i.e. in a way that doesn’t look overwrought or overwritten.

I’m not actually sure which is harder, but I know which I’m better at. The books where I’ve written poetically are none of them in print yet, though I’ve had more than one editor say very nice things about them. Mostly that they like them but don’t think they’re commercial enough. I’ve even had editors try to put deals together for them, but as yet they have all gone boom at some point.

Funny on the other hand. Well, even my more serious books get reviewers saying nice things about the elements of humor. I’m good at funny. I have the checks to demonstrate it. Poetic…well, I think I’ve done it well when I’ve tried, and the lurkers* support me in email—I have the very kind rejection letters to demonstrate it.

The thing that I occasionally find frustrating about this is that if you’re doing comedy right, it looks effortless. The reason this is frustrating is that when it gets really hard, as it does sometimes, you feel a bit of a jerk for saying “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.” Whereas, no one thinks twice if you’re known for writing beautiful, poetic prose, and you say “Hey, this is hard, and I’m stressed about it.”

This is because, when you’re reading along and you come across a long beautiful poetic passage, you generally think something like “wow, that’s gorgeous, I wish I could write like that,” or “wow, that’s gorgeous, they sure can write.” It’s obvious that what the poetic writer is doing is hard, and people acknowledge it without even thinking about it.

OTOH, when you’re reading along and you come across something really funny,** you laugh and keep right on moving, because that’s what a good joke does. It makes you laugh and it makes you feel a little lighter and more ready to go on. It acts as a lubricant for life, and lubricant is something you generally notice most in its absences.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather have the book contracts and the money that comes with them and make people smile when they read than be able to get more sympathy when I’m feeling whiny. But it was something I was thinking about, and when I’m feeling thinky I generally end up writing about it, because, hey, writer—that’s what we do.

One final note here and I shall go back to attempting to make the very difficult look like slipping on a banana peal. Neil Gaiman. Among the things that make Neil one of the best writers in our field is his ability to simultaneously do both. He writes things that are beautiful and poetic and funny, which makes people say “Wow, that’s gorgeous, how does he make it look so easy,” and then laugh about it, which is amazing.

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*In this case lurker = editor.

**There are exceptions, of course, mostly in the realm of socially relevant humor, where you laugh because it hurts, or because it’s uncomfortable. But the kind of humor I write is mostly there to make you feel like your day just got a little better.

Dinosaur Moment(s)

When I first started breaking into the business of writing F&SF I was fortunate enough to meet and by mentored by a number of Big Name Authors. I am eternally grateful to those folks and that’s part of why I’m here with the other Wyrdsmiths doing this writing blog thing. There’s not a whole lot I can do for the BNAs who helped me out, but I can pass on that help to the folks who are climbing the mountain behind me.

Those BNAs gave me a huge amount of good advice on the craft of writing, and a great deal of good advice on the business of writing post-first novel offer. The one place where I had to carefully filter the advice I was getting was in the area of landing that first sale. This is because the world of publishing has been changing at astonishing speed over the last thirty years or so, and advice that was stellar then (whenever then may be) is sometimes simply invalid for the newbie unpublished writer of today. I will occasionally (and entirely goodheartedly) call this stuff dinosaur advice-magnificent in its time, but not such a great idea now that all these nimble little mammals have started cluttering up the scene.

In my class last night someone asked me a question about getting a start in writing by publishing with small presses. In that instant I knew that I had just had my first dinosaur moment–I’m sure I’ll have more. I know that small press is changing the face of the industry and I’m pretty certain that it’s going to change it much more radically in the very near future. There are quite a number of small presses that are doing great work, getting books in distribution channels, winning awards, and giving their authors exposure they just couldn’t get elsewhere. So far so good. But in terms of submitting to small presses, their relationships with agents, and even where to find that kind of information I am totally clueless. In short those darn whipper-snapper mammals are changing the face of publishing and me–big old dinosaur that I am–I don’t understand the rules of the new game.

Update 2013: I’ve had a lot more of these in the six years since I wrote this post. I basically no longer give advice about short story markets. I still don’t know much about the small press scene. And self-publishing, which used to be mostly vanity press and anathema to a career, has blossomed into the indie-publishing movement where a ton of fascinating new models for making a living writing are springing up. Given the rate of change in the publishing industry, I’m starting to think that break-in advice has a finite life cycle of 1-3 years at this point in terms of the business side. On the other hand, the writing side doesn’t change much: Write something really good. Find a way to get reader eyeballs and transfer reader dollars to your bank account. Rinse. Repeat.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog October 19 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Thoughts on Interviews

One of the best things about going to the Writers of the Future workshop a few years back was when they brought in one of the country’s leading PR guys. He taught us how to write a press release (see notes here).
He also taught us how to manage interviews. The single most important thing is, know what you want the interviewer to take back to their readers. Now, it may just be that you want to add to your public persona by just being the professional you and answering the questions in a straightforward manner. But in general, if you’re having an interview it’s probably because you have a book coming out or something of that nature.

If that’s the case, you want to make sure that early in the interview, and preferably more than once, you get those details into play. This is called steering the question. So an answer to a question like “How about those Dodgers?” you might say “Well, in my new book, Cybermancy, I have a scene with Tisiphone and Cerice arguing their favorite baseball teams.” The problem with that example is that it’s: A. not true. B. heavy handed. C. not terribly funny. Still, it illustrates the point. There are things that you want to get into the transcript early and it’s important to have them in your head from the get-go so that you can slide them in as appropriate and mostly more than once.

Beyond that, you should always remember that as an author you are public figure (possibly only semi-public but the difference is one of degree). What do you want your public persona to look like? Are you funny? Modest? Shy? Bombastic? Do you start fires or put them out? Unless you’re a very good actor you want to keep these as close to the core you as you’re comfortable with, but you do want to think about them and reinforce the face you want the world to see.

It’s really just another type of storytelling and if you know that going in and keep it somewhere in your head, it’ll make things easier.

Personally, I’m genuinely snarky and sarcastic and also utterly in love with writing. Fortunately, this is a good persona for a writer and I work to reinforce it in appearances. Lots of jokes, mostly at my own expense, but real intensity and love when I talk about writing.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog October 2 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Press Releases, A Primer

Yesterday a writing friend sent me a request for help in formulating a press release for a reading for her hometown paper. As I was writing the response I realized the topic might make a good post here. Hopefully Lyda will chime in on the topic to correct or expand on my points since she has more experience with these than I do.

First, a general note on writing press releases.

The main thing to remember is the goals of the press release in descending order:
1. Getting your name and its association with publishing in front of the maximum number of eyeballs.
2. Getting the name of the current publication in front of same along with purchasing information.
3. Promoting the specific event if there is one associated with the press release.
4. Including details that will help the people attached to the eyeballs remember the first three goals in the same order.
5. Everything else.

Now, on to the specifics of the reading release.

Do it in standard journalism reverse pyramid style. Start with the important stuff in the first paragraph, who, what, where, when, why. Something like:

Para 1, Hometown writer, your name here will be signing copies of the title[s] at bookstore x at date and time. If it’s a collection–the anthologies include name’s story title as well as stories by big name authors here. Publisher and purchasing information here with the more prestigious and easily available publications first. Make sure to note that the books will be available at the signing. Updated 2013: Per Lyda’s comments on the original post, it’s always better if you have an event of some kind attached to the press release as that makes it more newsworthy for most journalists.

Para 2, Any other professional awards or credits if you’ve got them. Otherwise go to paragraph 3.

Para 3, this paragraph should be optimized for the specific paper, in the case of the release I mentioned above it’s a hometown paper: Biographical information about your links to the area and how you got your start in writing there–this can be reading stuff, or writing stories for school or whatever. The key is to make the links between this town and your writing. If you’ve got some tie to the bookstore, mention it here. That will remind the readers of the where and make the store remember your name fondly.

Next paragraph on what you write and why.

Further paragraphs expanding on the above.

The key with these is to get the information that the reader needs to go to the event up front and to follow up with why its important in this particular venue and after that a half dozen or so paragraphs of filler and biographical info. When a paper takes a press release that’s the order they want to see things in. Also, finish each paragraph such that the article could end right there. Smaller newspapers are likely to run the whole thing, but big ones will only run as many column inches as they have space for and will stop when they run out whether the press release has ended or not.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog July 17 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

More on Self-Promotion, Some Numbers

I’m unconvinced that anything besides writing more and better books has much of significant impact on career/sales, and the more I learn about the business, the more that I feel that way.

Self-promotion can have a sales spike effect. Of that I have no doubt. But how big a spike? And how important is that spike in relation to the kinds of numbers involved in a successful book or, more importantly, a successful career? Take my first book. In the first six months I sold an average of 75 copies* a day every day. That earned out my advance plus ten percent.

This is fabulous and I’m delighted. But in order to have any real impact on sales (the kind of impact that would really change advances or earnings) I’d need to find something that would improve that by a minimum of something like ten books per day every day for a similar period. To have a career that will allow me to survive without a second job (which most writers have) or a spouse who is the primary source of income and insurance (my case) I would need to sell at least 150 books a day every day for the rest of my life +inflation. To make a decent living I’d need to make that something more like 300 books a day. To crack six figures it’d have to be ~800 books a day.

I would love to believe that I could come up with a self-promotional effort that would have a several hundred books per day kind of impact on my sales and that wouldn’t eat up so much time that it would counterproductive in terms of producing the next book (or preferably the next several books).

However, I’m pretty sure that if I take the same amount of effort that kind of promotion-driven sales bump would require and apply it to writing, I can produce a complete extra book (or even two). Given that the best promotion that I know of is to have another book come out, one that’s as good or better than the last one, that seems like a simple bet. Especially when you consider that in addition to a new book’s impact on backlist a new book generates its own sales to add to that per day number, and it will hopefully help me build a personal brand as a fast reliable author (both with publishers and readers).

So currently that’s where I’m focusing my main effort–writing spec books in the gaps between contract books. Will it work better than all the other self-promo stuff? I don’t know for sure, but I personally find writing more books both more rewarding and more quantifiable than any other promotional effort I could engage in–I love writing, that’s why I do this.

Of course, that’s not going to be everybody’s answer and I completely respect people who’ve chosen to do more self-promotion than I have, but it’s just not my thing.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 15 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Admitting to Writing

A few weeks ago Miss Snark had this to say Don’t ever talk about your novel socially until it’s published. Ever. here. She followed it up with this post in which she expanded upon her thesis.

In general I’m in complete agreement with Miss Snark, but I just don’t buy this one for a number of reasons, some of which may be genre specific. 2013 update: Exactly six years on I find this even more ridiculous than I did at the time.

1. I’m an F&SF author, and making the rounds of cons and talking about your work in progress is a big part of career development.

2. I wrote full time for a while before selling a novel. If I hadn’t talked about the novels I was writing I’d have had an awfully hard time explaining what I did during those years, since most people you meet will at some point ask you what you do.

3. Much of my social circle is now made up of professional and aspiring novelists and English professors. Talking about unpublished novels is a huge part of the normal conversation. It was not always this way, but developed in part because of a willingness on my part to both talk about my work and to welcome other writers into my life.

My life wouldn’t be nearly as rich if I hadn’t always been willing to talk about my writing. Further, those aspiring novelist connections really helped me get through some rough times on the way to publication.

On the other hand, I don’t think I talked about my first novel socially before it was finished, and that I would highly recommend.

It’s an interesting topic, and one made more so by the massive amounts of support her pronouncement generated in the comments thread. I’m wondering whether that’s about her audience, genre, or what.

2013 update: I’m going to pull out and edit some of my comments from the thread that followed as well, since they expand and clarify my thinking.

Comment 1) If you read the whole comment thread and the surrounding context it becomes pretty clear that Miss Snark’s not just talking about pitches to agents in inappropriate places (which is not just rude, but stupid and actively counterproductive to boot). She’s pretty clearly talking about discussing your writing to anyone anywhere outside of a business setting. Later she says this:

“It’s rude. It’s rude to talk about something no one else knows about or can read. Like showing your vacation slides…the only person really interested in how good a time you had is …that’s right: you.”

and this:

“I don’t care if you think it’s ok to do this. It’s not. Not ever. If you think you’re the exception, you’re not.”

I will concede that my first point falls into one of her exceptions. However, 2 and 3 are very clearly outside her acceptable window.

The comparison to asking for legal advice or medical advice only holds for the instance of the inappropriate pitch, which I won’t defend. A more appropriate comparison would be to say that a doctor may never talk about medicine at that bar or barbeque or whatever. Likewise the lawyer may never talk about the law.

I find this simply silly as I have discussed medicine, med-school and medical issues with doctor friends at any number of social settings. Likewise, I regularly talk about writing and works in progress at social events. The idea that one would exclude the possibility of talking about one’s work at any social setting is frankly ridiculous.

Oh, and though I’ll concede the point on cons as business events, they’re also social events and its the social side that is much more likely to see me talking about my writing–as opposed to panels where I’m mostly talking about the specifics of the panel topic.

Comment 2) If for example she said: “You should never pitch an editor or agent that you happen upon in a purely social setting. Never.” I’d mostly be right there with her. As I said above, it’s not just rude, it’s also stupid and may well close a door forever.

But she very specifically says don’t tell anyone, not just don’t pitch agents at dinner parties. Four of six points are pretty clearly addressed to the idea of telling no one, not just not telling publishing professionals. This is made clear by the fact that she explicitly names publishing professionals in points 5 and 6.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog May 1 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

 

Patience is a Virtue…Arghh!

A comment by CJD in one of my Wyrdsmiths posts back in 2007 included this: “the struggle is with embracing that kind of strange patience (embracing uncertainty and ‘no applause,’ as the Buddhists say).” It got me thinking about writing and patience and the fact that it’s one place I am quite Zen.

One of the first things I learned back when I started down the writing road was how to be genuinely patient about things I had no control over and the corollary skill of figuring out which things I do and don’t have control over. It’s an important skill for a writer to try to develop.

I don’t have control over how fast editors will respond to my stories. I do have control over how many stories I have in the mail, and who gets what when. I don’t have control over whether or not a given market will buy a book of mine. I do have control over how good the book is.

At one point this led my father-in-law to comment on my being a type z* personality. The specific incident that made him say that had to do with a waitress having forgotten to get my order in with the cook so that my food failed to come at the same time as everyone else’s. My response was just to smile and tell her to get it to me when she could. I don’t have control over when my food comes. I do have control over whether or not to let it raise my blood pressure.

I get a lot of questions from friends and family about when will I see covers, copyedits, royalties, etc. I can usually answer these questions with educated guesses based on contract language, past experience, etc. and if asked I will dredge up the information, but I don’t think about it much otherwise. I’m not sure, but I think this drives some of them crazy—that I have to work to give them such important information and that it doesn’t seem to interest me.

But those are all whens that I can’t control, so there’s very little point in worrying about them or even thinking about them. Things I can control are how I react to the cover when it comes, when I turn in my copyedits relative to my deadline, and what I’ll do with any royalties.

This is not to say that I don’t get impatient, just that I try very hard not to. In my case that means learning not to think about the things I can’t control, and to focus intensely on the ones that I can. It’s something midway between denial and low grade meditation. I’m sure there are other ways of handling the issue of writer’s patience, but that’s what works for me.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog April 25 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

*subsequent events have caused my father-in-law to rethink that one, as it’s not that I’m type z it’s just that the hyperfocused version of me mostly comes out when I’m sitting at my laptop with no witnesses.

R E S P E C T and R E L I E F

2013 update:  One of the fundamental social problems for the beginning writer in America is the resistance of friends, family, and even total strangers to the idea that writing is a legitimate pursuit.  At least, until you’re making money at it. My experiences abroad have been very different, but here in the USA there is a major cultural bias against work that doesn’t bring in a paycheck. Without that monetary stamp of approval, strangers will say things like “no, I meant what do you do for a living.” Family will ignore your boundaries and ask you to do all sorts of things during your writing time because you’re not really working. Even friends will often fret about your chances and worry that you’re wasting time you’ll never get back. It is because of this that eight years on my primary feeling about getting my first novel published is still relief despite the unusual levels of support that I personally experienced on my road to publication. Now, on to the reblogging. 

As part of a longer post over at her personal blog my friend and fellow author Lyda Morehouse wrote: Writers, in particular those who haven’t got book or short story credits to their name yet, have a hard time convincing their friends and family that what they do is real and important. Getting a paycheck is something you can wave in people’s faces to say, “Yes, actually, I got paid to write, thank you very much.”

This brought me back to trying to explain to people how I felt when I sold WebMage (the novel-when I sold the short story I was unambiguously delighted). Now, let me first note how fortunate I am in my friends, family, and writing community. Pretty much from the get go, I’ve had incredible support from people who really believed in me and what I wanted to do. In particular, my wife, Laura, has never wavered in the slightest in her belief in my writing, not even at those times I myself was wavering.

When I sold the novel I had quite a few friends who were not upset exactly, but certainly concerned about my apparent lack of wild excitement. Part of this was because I was going through a particularly difficult family trauma and there was fear on the part of my friends that the strain of that was devouring my joy. There may even be some truth to that hypothesis. But it wasn’t the whole or even the majority truth, because I was intensely engaged in the experience of having sold a book. It’s just that what I was feeling was mainly relief.

Relief from my own occasional conviction that I was never going to make it.

Relief that I would never again have to say “yes, I’m a writer of novels but…”

Relief that I had not let down all the people who had supported me on my way here.

Relief that the long trial of apprenticeship was over.

I have had a hard time explaining this to most people, though there are two major categorical exceptions: 1) Other writers-who have been there. 2) Ph.D.s-who have also been there. With the latter, all I had to say was “Do you remember how you felt when you passed your defense? Like that.” And the response was a knowing nod or a wry smile.

Selling the book or passing the defense means you have passed through the fire. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to have a career or be a success. It just means that you have survived the ordeal of getting to the place where those things are now genuinely possible. That may sound pessimistic, but it’s not. It’s the voice of relief, and it’s everything.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog April 19 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)

Rejects and Rejectomancy

Rejectomancy is the art of reject divination, or trying to figure out what the editor or agent really meant from the few short sentences of the rejection letter. By and large it is a fruitless and frustrating pursuit, especially with form letters. And even with personal rejections it’s not a great idea, though some of those can be quite clear. That’s because what a reject means is very simple:

This story did not work for this editor on this day. That’s it.

The best illustration I’ve ever had of this principle comes from a mistake I made, emphasis on the word “mistake,” as in do not do this.

I have something like 400 rejections to date. One of them is for a story later sold to that same editor at that same magazine with no rewrite—FimbulDinner to George Scithers at Weird Tales. At the time I had something like 25 stories out making the rounds. When you have dozens of stories going to dozens of magazines and anthologies with wildly different response times, careful bookkeeping becomes very important.

I’m pretty good at these things and keep a spreadsheet with pages arranged by story, by market, and by editor. Unfortunately, I somehow failed to log the particular rejection in question (a personal). As mentioned above, George had bought other stories of mine and he was actively looking for me to submit more.

At the World Fantasy Convention a few weeks later he asked me what I was sending him next. Having failed to log this particular story, and having forgotten he’d rejected it, I mentioned the title, gave him a two sentence pitch and promised to drop it in the mail ASAP.

So, I did that. Then about two weeks later, I stumbled on the rejection in my to-file stack and realized what had happened. Aiee! I thought. This was and is a significant faux pas. So, I quickly banged up a note admitting to and apologizing for my mistake and offering to pull the story. It crossed with the acceptance and contract in the mail.

Same story, same editor, different day, different result.

I am not suggesting that anyone should resubmit a story to an editor who has already seen and rejected it, far from it. I screwed up. I also got lucky.

So, the moral of the story is: reject = not for this editor on this day, send it on to the next one. Nothing more. Nothing less.

(Originally published on the Wyrdsmiths blog April 2 2007, and original comments may be found there. Reposted and reedited as part of the reblogging project)