What do you want from a Writing Career?

Last week a wonderful writer friend of mine came to town and spoke to my writers' group. She talked about writing careers and options availble to writers. Here are some of her thoughts and mine on writing in the current economy and the future of ebooks.

Most writers aspire to see their books in a bookstore and published by a big New York publishing house like Simon and Schuster or Harper-Collins. With the increased proliferaiton of small presses who focus on epublishing, there are more options than ever before. Unfortunately, there is also a snobbery toward these small presses and a prevailing attitude that if you aren't published with big house, you're not really published. Add to that a lot of confusion between being self-published and being published by a small press.

Over the past few years, I've watched fellow writers get a NY contract only to be dropped after their first couple books because they didn't make enough money for their publisher. Most of these authors were unintentionally "setup" by their publishers for failure. They were given small print runs, next to no marketing dollars, and very poor distribution. Once the publisher drops them, other big presses are reluctant to give them a chance.

If you're considering a writing career, especially writing equestrian fiction, don't discount the small press option. It's extremely difficult for debut authors to make it with bigger publishers in this economy. Also, if you're thinking of writing as a good way to quit your day job, don't quit yet. Advances are getting smaller and smaller as are print runs for debut authors. I've heard the average NY advance in romance fiction is in the $2000 to $6000 range right now. The earn out can be as little a $6000 a book, and you'll wait upwards of a year or two to get your royalty check.

It's not my intention to discourage aspiring writers, I just want you to be realistic about your goals. Most of us write because we have to give life to the stories in our heads. We can't NOT write. It's as necessary as breathing. If you're one of those people, you need to ask yourself some serious questions.

What are your writing goals?

• Do you want to make money and write full-time? This is possible but you'll need to be prolific. Most writers are midlist and the only way to make a living as a midlist author is to publish 2-4 books a year. They say it takes about ten books to build a name and a following.
• Are your readers more important than the money? Do you write because you love sharing your stories with others and the money is secondary? Are you trying to reach a niche of readers who like to read what you write?
• Do you write to convey a message or emotions to your readers? Do you write about overcoming obstacles and bettering your life? Do your characters struggle but keep their hope and eventually triumph? Do your books contain a lesson? Such as good conquers evil? Is it this lesson you wish to share with your readers and inspire them?

All of the above questions should be considered when you pursue a writing career. For me, I work a full-time job in which I make enough money I will not be quiting my day job to write full time. Realistically, I know I couldn't keep up with the NY pace and pressure to produce and market yourself. I've chosen to stay with small presses because most of my books don't appeal to mass market publishers. They appeal to a niche group of readers. I don't write about vampires of werewolves, both of which are currently hot with NY romance pubs.

All in all, when you're considering publishing don't discount small presses. Check them out carefully and make sure they're legitimate. They shouldn't ask for any money from you to publish your book. If they do, they're essentially "self-publishers." They should provide editing, cover art, and distribution free of charge to their authors. I have a a really good series on my Jami Davenport blog on writing for small presses that you might want to check out.

Whatever you decide to do, remember to hang in there and keep trying, Perserverance wins in publishing.

Next weekend, I'm participating in a equestrain pilates clinic. It should be interesting. I'll try to remember to take pictures and notes for my next post.

Getting Published--Part 2

By Laura Crum


So, I left off last post somewhere in the mid 1990’s. I have (finally) achieved my goal of becoming a published author. Not only that but my books are being published by a major New York publisher (St Martin’s Press). They are coming out in hardcover and paperback. I am getting mostly good reviews. I am invited to do book signings and go on book tours. I get inquiries about films. I make more with each contract. Sounds great doesn’t it? Why don’t we see your books on the bestseller lists, you ask. Yes, indeed. You might well ask that.

Now we get down to the difference between my fantasy vision of what its like to be a published author and real life. In my fantasy, once I’m published, its all gravy. I grow rapidly richer and more famous as my books catch on with all those folks out there who enjoy horse-oriented mysteries. Dick Francis and I are running neck and neck on the bestseller lists. Right.

What actually happened is pretty much typical. Many, many mystery series featuring female protagonists got their start just about when I did. Very few of them are still being published today. I count myself lucky to have a contract for book #11 in my series. But I am by no means rich and famous. I had a great deal to learn about the publishing biz, and not all of it was positive.

The first thing I learned was that these big publishing houses have a “revolving door” approach to employees. Very few people stay in the same position for more than two years. This is almost an axiom in the publishing world. My editor, a mainstay at that house, was there the whole time I was with St Martin’s (or I wouldn’t have lasted for eight books), but every other single person I worked with came and went with great regularity.

Why is this a big deal? Let me give you an example. My first two books came out in hardcover and paperback. (Cutter and Hoofprints). But by the time my third book (Roughstock) was released, the paperback editor had moved on and a new one came on board. He promptly ditched all the midlist (not best sellers) authors in the line and picked out some new midlist authors of his own. My editor lobbied to get my books back in the paperback line. To no avail. By the time my fourth book came out, the company had folded that paperback imprint. Never again did my books appear in paperback (from St Martin’s).

The art directors came and went. Sometimes I got a great cover, sometimes an awful cover (an English saddle on my western cutting horse, for instance). I very rarely had anything to say about it. Just about the time I would achieve a friendly relationship with the current art director and begin to feel we were on the same page regarding the look my covers ought to have, said art director would be gone and a new and often stiff necked critter would take his place. I would have to start over with the explanations of the difference between Western and English horse gear and was often reduced to begging for a cover artist I liked. Sometimes to no avail. It was frustrating.

The publicity people came and went. The assistant editors came and went. Other than my editor, I was unable to form a long standing working relationship with any one in the company, because they were always leaving. It was frustrating. Very little publicity was done for my books. They still got good reviews, but by book #5, Slickrock (which got excellent reviews), it was obvious to me that my series was dropping into the black hole called “midlist”, and that nobody at St Martin’s was going to make any effort to change this situation.

By this point I was getting a little jaded. I no longer had much interest in book tours or book signings. They hadn’t made me rich and famous and I begrudged the time they took from my real life (by which I mean my family, horses, garden…etc). The ego gratification I had imagined I would feel at having this minor version of fame hadn’t turned out quite as I’d pictured it. I was still the same person I had been pre-publication. I was not the somehow better, more glorious creature that I’d envisioned. Yes, I was now a published author. People occasionally recognized me at the grocery store (which is not all that great when you’re wearing horse manure stained jeans and sporting unbrushed hair, I might add). Yes, I could still walk into a bookstore and see my name on the spine of one of those books. I could still do a booksigning and find a crowd of people eager to hear me speak and buy my latest mystery, but somehow this wasn’t the be all and end all that I had imagined it would be.

I had never liked the endless mystery conventions, or cared for the required shmoozing with other authors, editors and agents. (I’m an introvert. I like being home with my family and critters.) Popularity in the mystery field is judged (somewhat) by winning various awards, and these awards are usually (not always) won by authors who attend the conventions and hang out with “in” people in the mystery field. (Lets face it, panels of these convention-going authors are the ones who nominate the award winners.) I was rapidly becoming an “outsider” in the mystery world, that rare author who doesn’t go on book tours or to conventions, who hopes and expects that her work stands for itself. Unfortunately, the business doesn’t operate that way. Just like showing horses, whether your work is good or lousy is not always the bottom line. Its who you know, how you play the game. I wasn’t playing.

Above and beyond my own idiosyncrasies as an author, the climate in publishing was changing as my sixth book came out. The NY publishing houses were merging and being bought out. Soon half a dozen big entities owned all of the formerly independent publishing companies. St Martin’s was bought by the German company that owned Henry Holt. But my editor was still there and she still liked my mystery series. I continued to get a contract for each new book, while many authors I knew (and who were at least as successful as I was) were dropped.

Things continued to change. The trend was for big, dark, stand-alone thrillers, not amateur sleuth series. I still got a contract, yes, but the last two books I did with St Martin’s, I was offered less money, not more. I took it. I knew good and well that it would be very unlikely that another big house would pick up my series. Such series were no longer the “happening thing”. I could see the writing on the wall.

In the end, I decided to leave while I was still on good terms with St Martin’s. I knew the editor of a small press that specialized in mysteries. She’d been my copyeditor for years and we worked well together. She had said that she’d like to publish my books if ever I wasn't with St Martin's. I decided the time was right to make the move. I thanked my editor at St Martin’s for her long time support and we wished each other well. And Perseverance Press published my ninth and tenth novels in trade paperback.

So, at this point I have been for fifteen years and ten books a published mystery author. I am now published by a small California press as opposed to a big New York house. The differences? I make less money. But I have much more control over my books. Perseverance Press makes a huge effort to turn out beautiful well crafted books. Everyone involved really cares. They are a stable group; it’s the same people from one book to the next. They let me have lots of input on my covers. They work at publicity. They are very happy with my “numbers” (how many of my books they are able to sell). I find the whole process much more enjoyable. Between foreign contracts, large print contracts and royalties, I still make almost as much as I did the last few books with St Martin’s. I'm grateful. I still consider myself lucky. As I said, I know many authors who do not have a contract right now, due to no fault of their own.

The climate in publishing is very different from the mid 90’s, when I “broke in”. Most people would say that the big New York houses are all struggling. Well known authors who have been on the best seller lists are out of a contract. A woman I know who has a very respected New York agent was told recently that there was absolutely no point in submitting a first time author’s work to any New York house right now. They just weren’t buying. Other authors on this site have pointed out that New York currently thinks horses don’t sell. So, I would say that if I were trying to break in today with my mystery series, I’d probably have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting published. At least by a big New York publisher.

What would I do? If I wanted to write a horse related mystery series and get published these days? Look at the small presses, probably. Though its not that easy to break in with some of them either, especially the more traditional ones. Perseverance Press specializes in publishing established mystery authors who are no longer with New York publishers (and there are more and more of us to choose among). Look at internet publishing options. It seems to be the way many authors are going. To be honest, I don’t know what I’d do. I offer my story just to give you an idea of some of the ins and outs of publishing. I truly don’t mean to discourage any one. And just as fashions have changed dramatically in the publishing world in the fifteen years that I’ve been involved, it is certain that they will continue to change. In time, perhaps, the climate will once again be favorable for aspiring authors of horse related fiction to “break in”.

Here’s to that change coming soon.
Cheers—Laura Crum

Road to Publication . . .

by Kit Ehrman

Nothing in my past would ever have hinted at my becoming a published author. Nothing . . .

I didn’t particularly like writing. I still remember a supposedly “spooky-scary” story that I wrote for a ninth grade creative writing class. It had a decent opening—heavy fog moving in off the ocean and a feeling of doom—and, well, that’s as far as I got. My teacher scrawled “Where’s the ending?” on the top of the page. A technical writing class in college further confirmed that writing was not fun and not for me.

When I think about it, I wasn’t even a voracious reader, but I did become a fan of mysteries, and I’m sure that’s where every writer’s journey begins. Somehow, I skipped over Nancy Drew, the Hardy boys, and Agatha Christie. My introduction to mystery came with the incomparable Sherlock Holmes followed by an obscure collection of George Bagby mysteries that I devoured, and finally my discovery of Dick Francis in 1977. Though I had no inkling of the momentous nature of this event—finding my first Francis, a Reader’s Digest edition of IN THE FRAME—I was taking my first step toward becoming an author.

After reading IN THE FRAME, I read every Francis published at the time, quit the government job I was working, and went to work on a horse farm. That job was followed by stints at the track, delivering foals on breeding farms, returning to college to become a vet assistant, and more horse jobs.

Flash forward twenty-some years. I was a stay-at-home mom with three boys, ages three, four, and five. I had two horses of my own and some borders in the barn. Reading was a pleasant release from my daily routine, and of course, I gravitated to mysteries.

On July 22, 1996, I was nearing the end of a mystery, and I was disappointed with the decisions the author made in letting her protagonist do something that I thought was so stupid in an obvious effort to push the story into an exciting climax. I decided I could do better.

So, why did I think I could do it? This sounds kind of weird, but when I would read, especially a Francis novel, I’d wake up with his voice running in my head. I know. Weird, right? But I had full confidence in myself, and when I began writing, I couldn’t turn it off. I was so thrilled. Those early months of discovering a story were the best I’ve ever had in this business. I was infatuated. Enthralled. I was God of the world I was creating, and I was having so much fun.

I completed the initial draft of AT RISK in three months. As usual, I threw myself into the project and studied tons of books on writing . . . took classes . . . joined a critique group. Because I was exploring the process and essentially teaching myself to write, the early draft was way too cumbersome. I spent the next two years tightening and revising AT RISK (I’d estimate the manuscript went through twenty complete revisions) before I decided to market it. Even so, I began marketing before the manuscript was ready, but when it was ready, it was picked up by Poisoned Pen Press, the second largest publisher of mysteries in the country. And it went on to be extremely well reviewed, including a review in The New York Times. Visit my AT RISK website page.



Like Laura said, getting published depends on both luck and perseverance . . . and skill. If I hadn’t kept revising and improving the manuscript, if I hadn’t been afraid to make changes and put substantial time and effort into the project, the manuscript never would have been picked up. Luck comes into play in finding a receptive reader, because writing and voice and subject matter and the actual execution of the work are all so subjective. Timing’s important, too. If the publisher had just released an equine mystery, they’d be unlikely to look at another so soon.

The publishing climate was different in the ‘90s, too. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to query agents or editors, so I queried both and found a publisher before I found an agent. Interestingly enough, on the whole, the rejections I received from editors were much nicer than the ones I got from agents. In today’s market, though, more and more publishers are closing their doors to submissions from writers, preferring agents to perform a vetting service first. And it’s getting harder to break in and harder to stay in the game once you are published. Despite the seemingly dire publishing climate, readers still need new books to read. Agents still need to pick up new clients. Editors still need to acquire new manuscripts, so don’t give up.

Next time, I’ll post some specific pointers and ask some hard questions for those looking to get published.

Happy reading and riding!
Kit Ehrman
www.kitehrman.com

Getting Published

By Laura Crum


Our new blogger, Janet Huntington, who writes the very popular Mugwump Chronicles blog, has suggested that it would be interesting if we wrote about the various paths we took to publication. This is also a question that comes up at virtually every booksigning and talk I’ve ever done. Many readers are interested in finding out how they can get their own writing published, and who can blame them? Before my first mystery novel was published, this was the thing that I wanted to ask any published author I met. How do I get where you are? I want to walk into my local bookstore and see my own name on the spine of one of those books. What do I have to do?

I wish there were an easy answer I could hand you. Do this and that and you have a good chance of getting published. But it isn’t that clear cut. Unfortunately it’s not the more talented writers who get published, necessarily. Though talent is certainly helpful. I would have to say that luck plays as big a part as talent. By this I mean being in the right place at the right time. To quote a line from a Jerry Jeff Walker song, “And luck is mostly attitude and timing.” Maybe, to some degree, we can make our own luck. But some factors are outside our control.

Anyway, I am happy to tell the story of my own route to publication and to give what insights I have on making your own luck. Jami has already done a good job of describing the various avenues to publication that are available today, so I’ll try not to repeat too much of what she said. Essentially there is traditional publishing, comprised of the big “New York” publishers, and the smaller presses, which are located all over the country. Then there are the various forms of internet publishing, including “print on demand” and “ebooks”..etc. Then there is self publishing, where you pay someone to publish your book. This last is not considered being “published” by anyone involved in traditional publishing. That doesn’t make it wrong. But for those of us involved in the publishing trade, being “published” means that somebody pays you for your work; you are not paying them to publish your book.

Any one can publish a book via self publishing if they have the money to pay for it. So, enough said about that. As for the various versions of internet publishing, I know these are growing in popularity, and Mary and Jami, who are published this way, have explained a lot about it. I truly know nothing about this area of publishing, but understand that more and more authors are turning in this direction, due to the current developments in traditional publishing.

So, on to traditional publishing, which is the only way in which my books have ever been published. First of all, I have to say that my knowledge here is pretty out of date. The time when I was trying to “break in” with my first novel was the early 1990’s, which was a very different climate in the publishing biz. Female protagonist mystery series were just starting to take off and become wildly popular, led by Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky. There was great demand for new series of this type. You get where I’m going with this. It was an easy time (relatively) to break in.

As a lifelong fan of Dick Francis, a wanna be author, and a trainer of cutting and team roping horses, I had the bright idea to meld these three passions into a mystery series that featured a female horse vet who operated in a world dominated by western horses, much as Dick Francis’ protagonists operated in a world dominated by the steeple chasing he knew so well. I’ll skip all the convolutions I went through to get to this concept; suffice it to say I’d completed three finished manuscripts over a three year period before I wrote the one about Gail McCarthy, the veterinarian.

In those days there was no such thing as internet publishing and very few small presses that specialized in mysteries. Virtually everyone who got published in the mystery field was published by some New York based house or other. But, in those days there were also a great many more independent New York houses to submit to. They hadn’t all been bought out. Last I heard, today there are half a dozen entities that own all the big publishing houses. But I digress.

In this era no one got published unless he/she acquired a respected literary agent. The New York houses, in general, did not accept submissions from authors. The editors were only interested in submissions from literary agents they trusted. Said agents worked only on commission (things have changed in this area, too, or so I’ve heard). In any case, acquiring a literary agent was possibly the biggest hurdle an aspiring author had to jump. Since the agents worked on commission and didn’t make a dime unless they sold the work, they didn’t take any work that they didn’t truly believe they could sell. This weeded out most of the (excuse my French) crap. Which is why editors only took submissions from literary agents.

So my career as an author really took off when, after plenty of rejections, a literary agent agreed to represent me. How did this happen, you ask, or I imagine that you do. Was I just more talented than all the other aspiring authors submitting manuscripts? I doubt it. I think I had a good and timely concept. I pitched it as a female western spin on Dick Francis. At that time, there was only one other horse oriented female protagonist series out there (as best as I can remember). There were no western horse oriented mystery series at all. The agent liked the concept. I don’t think she was crazy about my writing. She was a former editor (many literary agents are) and it showed. She had me rewrite that ms for an entire year, over and over again, before she would send it out. At one point she told me, “I don’t like the tone, I don’t like the plot, I don’t like the villain and I don’t like the protagonist.”

You can imagine my response. “Uhmmm, what do you like?”

“I like it that its about horses and its set in Santa Cruz.”

Great. Just great. You can see how much rewriting I had to do.

In the end, I managed a version of the book that she found acceptable and she started sending it out. Both she and I conceived of the book as a paperback original and she sent it to all the paperback houses. Imagine our mutual surprise when, a year later, after several rejections, the series was picked up by a woman who was one of the senior (and most respected) editors at St Martin’s Press, one of the big New York hardcover houses. I was thrilled, to say the least. Being published by a big New York house in hardcover is sort of the Holy Grail for most aspiring authors.

My first mystery novel, Cutter, was published by St Martin’s Press in 1994. I could finally walk into my local bookstore and see my name on the spine of one of those books.

Okey dokey. I was now a published author. Things looked very rosy. My books were coming out in hardcover and paperback. I got mostly positive reviews. I was asked to do book signings and book tours. I hung out with other published authors who were much bigger names than I was. Film people made inquiries. I was offered more money with each subsequent contract. Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? It was certainly my dream come true. Well…

I’ll skip the long discussion about the difference between the dream version of being an author and the reality. In fact, I really need to get back to work on my 11th novel, so I will continue this story on my next post day. But I’ll leave you with this insight. If you were to ask me why I was able to achieve my goal and become a (relatively) successful published author, when so many others fail, I would have to say that I was lucky. And that my luck was indeed, mostly “attitude and timing”. I pitched a workable concept at the right time. I persevered with my writing through many years of rejections. I would not have succeeded had I not done so. But if I were trying to break in with my mystery series in today’s publishing climate, I wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. At least of being picked up by a big NY publishing house. Why? See Part Two of this post in a couple of weeks. (And feel free to ask any questions you want in the comments.)

Here’s to all aspiring authors: May you all be as lucky as I was!
Cheers—Laura Crum