Wednesday, 16 June 2010

• Tips for Aspiring Authors

  In 2008, I was invited to give a talk at Princeton University, as part of a program on career opportunities in Communications.  There were speakers focusing on journalism, on book and magazine publishing, on public relations and on advertising as well as other opportunities in the field of communications.  I was invited to speak about my experiences as a writer of fiction.  In light of some of the blogs that I've been reading this past week, I thought it might be worth re-posting this -
  
  

  Tips for Aspiring Authors
  from a presentation at Princeton University
  Career Opportunities in Communications, October 17, 2008
  
  

  
  

  I’m here today because some of you have expressed an interest in learning about career opportunities for writers.  I’m a local mystery writer, with two books published and a third coming out next year.  The Princeton University library has a copy of my current book, A Minor Case of Murder.  As does the Princeton Borough library.  And yet, the chances are good that none of you have ever heard of me.  So let’s start with some sobering statistics.  According to a report issued by Nielsen Bookscan, there were 1.2 million books published during a recent survey year.  97% of the titles sold fewer than 1,000 copies.  In fact, 80% (950,000 titles) sold fewer that 99 copies.

   

  So, a very small number of authors comprise a very large percentage of all book sales.  The rest of us comprise what is known in the publishing industry as the long tail.  What are the lessons to be learned here?

   

  1. Most authors have day jobs.
  2. Smart authors have day jobs in the book industry.
  3. Pay attention to the rest of today’s speakers if you want to find one of those industry jobs.
     
     

  Apparently, I’m not one of the smart authors because my own day job has nothing to do with the book industry.  I received my bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1974, with a major in psychology.  I hold graduate degrees in Education and Human Services.  I have spent thirty-three years developing community-based services in New Jersey for children and adults with autism.  I’ve probably met some of you in past years at Careers in the Public Good.

   

  Over the span of three decades, as part of my non-profit work, I’ve written a variety of staff training programs, journal articles, grant proposals and position papers.  I’ve also written fiction during that time.  And that’s what I’m here to talk about today, my second career as a mystery writer.

   

  I started working on my first fiction manuscript in 1975.  It took me thirteen years to finish the first draft.  It took me another fourteen years of intermittent rejections, followed by intermittent edits, before I finally set it aside in 2002.  That manuscript wasn’t a mystery.  It was a modern Buddhist parable about the nature of enlightenment and though sections of the manuscript were wonderful, in truth, it was not a publishable book. 

   

  Then I had an idea for a mystery set in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.  Five months later, I’d finished my first murder mystery.  And five years later, I’m working on my fourth.    So I guess I was supposed to be a mystery writer.  My first mystery, Who is Killing Doah's Deer, was released in 2004 as a print-on-demand paperback.    On the strength of that experience, I sold the next two mysteries in the series to Five Star, who published A Minor Case of Murder in a library-edition hardcover in 2006 and will publish It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Murder in 2009.  I’m currently writing a stand-alone mystery and I’ve begun planning a second mystery series.  I’ll probably be looking for a new publisher when that happens.  Mystery writing is my second career, but, for now, I still have the first.  I do most of my writing at 5:30 in the morning before I leave for work.

   

  It has been my experience that many successful authors are generous with their time and their talent.  But you have to go find them.  They won’t come looking for you.  So, if you’re an aspiring author, I would recommend that you identify the professional writers’ association that represents the kind of books you want to write and the kind of authors you want to meet and you contact that association.  In the mystery community, that would be the Mystery Writers of America.  MWA has a membership category for aspiring authors and runs a variety of programs to assist unpublished authors to achieve their career goals.

   

  One of the questions that I was asked to consider in preparing for today’s panel was, “What qualities, skills, or personal attributes are most critical to success in a career in book writing?”  In an essay that he wrote for the 1988 edition of the Writer’s Handbook, Stephen King offered the following advice to aspiring authors.  “Be talented,” he suggested.  It’s hard to quibble with that advice, but here are a few additional tips. 

   

  1. The first step in nearly every submission is the query letter.  It’s your opportunity to introduce yourself and your story to the publisher, the editor, or the agent.  If it’s poorly written, no one is going to read your manuscript.  In retrospect, I’m not at all surprised by some of my early rejections.  The truth is I wrote a lousy query.  Aspiring authors, who take months and years to polish a manuscript until it shines, often don’t bother to take the time to proofread their query.
  2. Every publisher has his own guidelines for submissions.  And many aspiring writers are lazy with respect to those guidelines.  If the publisher says he wants manuscripts in 12 point, Times New Roman font, he means it.  If he says he wants you to indicate a new paragraph by skipping a line (rather than indenting), he means that too.  Editors want to know that you’re a professional writer.  They want to know whether you’re going to be easy to work with.  Just a few weeks ago, my editor made me re-send an email about today's appearance because the subject line on the email wasn't formatted according to the publisher's guidelines.  So the ability to follow instructions is an essential skill.
  3. If you want to be a published author, you are going to collect a lot of rejections along the way.  So a thick skin is essential to a career in book writing.  My favorite rejection came from a regional publisher who turned down my first mystery, Who is Killing Doah’s Deer.  He liked the book, he told me, but it didn’t have enough Jersey Devil in the story.  You see, he was looking for books to add to his Jersey Devil catalogue.  It’s important that your publisher like what you write, but it’s even more important that your book fit his business plan.
     
     

  If I’ve made a career writing books seem perhaps a little discouraging, I should probably point out that there are always opportunities for good writers to earn a living.  Take a look for example at Funds for Writers (www.fundsforwriters.com) or Writers Notes (www.writersnotes.com) for resources that you may find helpful.    

   

  Although the odds of writing a best-seller, let alone a whole string of best-sellers, is small, it does happen.  And you’re all familiar with beating the odds because you’ve all been admitted to Princeton.  So let me tell you a quick story, not from the book industry, but from the music industry.

   

  My cousin is a songwriter.  For more than a decade, he took every crappy job in the music business in order to pay the bills.  Then, one day, he got a phone call from another songwriter he knew.  It seems that the other songwriter had a contract to write one song for a movie, and he was stuck.  Would my cousin like to collaborate?  Well, my cousin, the other songwriter and a third songwriter sat down together and came up with a little song.  And my cousin’s life changed forever.  The song?  The Time of My Life, from Dirty Dancing.

   

  So it does happen.  And maybe it’ll happen to you.   

   

  But until it does, my best advice, is –

   

  Find a day job that you can be passionate about, whether or not it’s in the industry.   Don’t quit your day job.  And don’t stop writing. 

   

  Good luck. 

    
  

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