Do you want to write a book?

Agent: God, the bouillabaisse here is to die for....so anyway, this novel, and I'm only showing it to you, because you're you, and you know that means something to me....it's a little girl, an orphan, very sad, raised on a farm, some crazy bitch trying to steal her dog....and there's a devastating tornado, just blows the place to bits, and she's just flung into this exotic land, house falls on a witch, blah blah blah, so she finds out about this Wizard, or at least he says he's Wizard, you don't really know yet, and she meets up with all kinds of crazy characters, think Garp, with poppies....and the witch is trying to get these wild ruby slippers, and...

Editor: Do you have anything else? We really haven't done well with farming books.

 

Bye'd into the season-ending SJ Quote of the Year tourney . . .

 

Did someone say something about wanting to write a book?

I've started four. The shit is hard. Most I got on any of them was 27 pages. Which says either that my ideas are crappy or my motivation is crappy. Either way, you've got to want it bad to just finish the damn thing. Every time I think about it I think about Stephen King living in a trailer tapping away on his typewriter in the laundry room. And I seriously question whether I'm that motivated. Selling it? Sales in other industries is a cesspool. No reason to think it wouldn't be in book publishing, as well.

 

Writing a book - fiction, non-fiction, instructional, inspirational, pornographic or devotional - is almost entirely an act of faith. And will. There is a point beyond which the agent and the editor and the proposal and the idea and the money and the burning ambition for fame or respect or success cannot carry you. Those all fall away.

Until there's just you. In a chair. Every day. Typing.

My first book took three years and nine months from proposal to publication. The finished manuscript was over 800 pages.

Of those 1365 days, not one passed that the book wasn't my first thought when I awakened; and my last before I fell asleep.

To write a book is an utterly humbling act of will and faith and passion and obsession. You will, and must, reach a point where you can no longer imagine yourself doing anything else.

To write a really good book is much harder.

 

Jgmacg, here's the sad part and I think anyone who's published a book will attest to this.

The realisation that your book, which you have spent months or years on, is ONE book out of maybe a couple of hundred that your publisher is releasing at about the same time, can be a humbling experience.

Like in every industry, editors are stretched, publicists are stretched, salespeople have maybe a minute to pitch your book and advertising dollars are being either cut or being spent on the Big Books of the season.

If you're fortunate enough to have one of the Big Books then you are the cock of the walk in the publishing house. If not, you have to fight tooth and nail not just for dollars but for your share of the publicists' time and attention.

And in the end, who knows why a book sells or doesn't sell? Nobody knows nothing.

 

Count me as one of the "done that, still have more ideas" crowd. Used to be in TV sports but now lurk about, happy that I don't have to cover HS volleyball anymore.

Written three, all novels topping 140,000 words. First one, three years ago, did very well in the state I live in but flopped outside. It's on the cheap racks in hardback but I myself thought it was a tough sell for $23.95, for a non-celeb first-time novelist. I was lucky in that I landed a publisher on my second query -- a small one that's located in my state.

This year, tired of trying to convince Madison Avenue pub houses that my midwestern sports fiction novels are worth their time, I formed my own publishing house, with complete control over content, design, the whole deal (I did work with a professional editor but took advantage of other areas -- my father is a graphic designer (cover) and my brother is a computer guy (website)). I'm selling the second one, myself, outside of my work and am actually close to breaking even on the first run, after just six weeks. We've gotten good pub, statewide, but it's hard work to get noticed.

What kind of work does it take to sell a novel if you are not one of the NYC "chosen ones"? First, you need to re-coup that investment, which means, instead of calling trendy bookstores with $4 lattes that take 40% just to stock your fine work...it means going somewhere else, where you get to keep 100% of whatever you sell.

For me, it means calling 30 libraries a day in my state.

Today...I called about 25, reached 11 people who actually had the power to buy the book. 8 said yes, 1 said no, 2 asked for another e-mail. Sold 9 today (One bought two copies). That's $140 of sales...with about $95 as profit. Took about 1 hour of my time this morning. I have my "pitch" down to about 40-45 seconds, from introducing the work to telling them why it's relevant and what the price is.

At least, after doing this for weeks, I'm getting e-mails and calls back from librarians I had written off weeks ago, as they're coming back from vacation or reading some of the reviews/articles about it.

I don't expect to get rich, at all. Last month, I would have been happier to break even by December, although I may hit that point next week. It's not to "get rich" but to keep evolving in my work. I love writing novels (yes, part of it is an ego trip) but it helps me work out the demons of my past!

My thoughts on telling people you want to write a book: Treat it like training for a marathon or trying to lose 30 pounds...KEEP IT TO YOURSELF until you have some actual results. Once you've got 55,000 words and have written through the first "wall" of your plot/character development, then start making noise. Writing fiction means that you write it first, edit and trim 20% (all unnecessary words, plot turns, etc). Repeat about 4 times...THEN you go to the publisher.

Seriously. Good luck with this. Join the club of "being an author". It can lead to other things -- I was able to get out of TV sports and into another line of work, largely because being able to be a "published author" at 29 opened doors for me that I probably wouldn't have gotten.

It's a lot of work -- but I love writing so it's not a job. Also, I "hate" selling but I love "selling" my product, not just to make the thousands of dollars I poured into having the second novel printed -- rather, I believe in the work and I've found hundreds of librarians here that appreciate what I'm trying to do.

Following your literary dreams -- just keep them quiet until you have an actual body of work.

 

That's terrific, 'Hack. Good luck.

And to JR's earlier point, yes, selling the book is a misery and a mystery and no one knows what they're doing. So you try your hardest to do the things that might help - the book tour, the radio interviews, the readings, etc. But the commercial and critical success of any book is largely out of the writer's hands.

So all I really worry about are the sentences.

 

who's done a coffeetable "book?"

 

Here's what I love about the business.

When someone in the house find a ms in the slush pile, a ms that is crude and rude and about 40% too long but everyone knows after reading about 50 of the 900 pages that you have discovered a writer.

And every so often that book clicks with the reading public and you get to say, "I helped bring that book to life".

It happens so seldom that those moments are never forgotten.

 

I know this one guy who wrote a coffee table book about coffee tables.

 

solid.

 

I have been involved in about 30 or so illustrated books. I worked for a book packager for about 6 years.

Very complicated--assuming they're more than cut and paste jobs.