Two weeks ago I went to a writer's conference in New York, and listened to 48 hours of speakers telling us how to make it as authors and journalists. I had my first novel Motherhunt published eight years ago, just as everything in the publishing industry began to change from a gentlemen's club to an industry focused on creating instant stars.
Publishers still talked about 'developing an author', taking a writer through three books to build a following, and breaking out on book three or book four. This means the author had a chance to learn what it's like to write over 80-100,000 words, how to work with editors and agents, and made a bit of money on the side (but don't quit the day job!) while they grew.
When I landed a two-book contract after networking my butt off, I received a sheet of paper which asked me to list, for publicity purposes, everyone I knew who might be influential in promoting my book. What a humbling exercise! The top editor I knew was in a woman's magazine writing a books column. I thought I had an ace in the hole.
Although the PR department of the publishing house made all the right noises about me, they wouldn't give me any information about how the publishing process worked: the role of the distributor, how the books got sold into stores, and how important it was that their sales team pitched my book to buyers. They didn't have a website, and barely knew what that meant. New PR companies sprang up to cater to authors as publishers saved PR budgets for stars. My single biggest mistake in publishing was taking the advice of my editor when she told me 'you don't need a PR company until book three' and not noticing that my agent was aghast.
Today, the PR company is a must-do for every serious author. You spend your advance on good PR. Sorry, the mortgage will have to wait if you've got ambitions to be writing for a big-name publishing conglomerate over the course of ten years. You will also need a website, a blog, and a support team which raises your profile through speaking engagements. It's best if you're an expert in a particular field (mine is holistic health) and write columns about it for national magazines and newspapers. So, in order to be a successful author, you need to already have cracked it as a writer and as a personality.
This suits people like me who live to write and like to talk to groups. But it also doesn't suit people like me who also want to spend time with a family and make a contribution to the planet, in my case through a holistic health practice. And who it really doesn't suit are those people with a day job, who slave over the Great American in the wee hours. Their best solution is to attend writer's conferences during their holidays, and get into the one-on-one sessions with the visiting junior agents who are trawling for new talent to build. Then, keep it professional with that agent. (Get a book on agents if you don't know what that means.) They are not your counsellor - get a shrink - your mother or your best friend. They do one thing - sell your book. Take their advice. Show willing. They know the business and it's tough.
However, that's traditional publishing. And it's more and more of a dinosaur. It doesn't foster great new writing over the long term. Savvy authors with business experience who come to the industry after researching their market, who provide agents and editors with forecasts of numbers of books they can sell (I have commitments from every Kiwanis club in the country) are like a box of Belgian chocolates to an agent. But we have a basic conflict in the book industry: authors are generally private people.
I know one man who has written NINE books between the hours of eleven pm and three am, and puts each one in a drawer (or on CD rom) because he doesn't want to confront the publishing juggernaut. We are not rock stars. We didn't get into this because we have big boobs, big personalities, and big hair. We were the nerdy kids at school, and we're generally nerdy adults, no matter how much the agents want us to be cool.
I love cyberspace. The click of the 'publish post' button. More and more, our really good writing is going to be found in the blogosphere, and then it will be siphoned off to agents and editors - or not. If you are not a big name already, and don't have the connections to become one in the next two years but you're sitting on a great book, why let your book be discounted on the supermarket shelves to $2.00 (assuming they get there) when you can sell it through your blog at $9, two bucks higher than the cost of per-book on your print run (try ipublish), and bank the money for yourself? It means handling stock and getting friendly with the gals at the PO, but it keeps you in connection with your readers. They comment to you, you're invested in them, everyone's excited to read the book, and your mileage to the PO gets written off against tax.
I always told my husband: if it's worth publishing, it's worth getting a publisher to do it. But I'm not so sure now. You can get a professional product by hiring your own editor and designers through a quality self-publishing company. And a relationship with readers through blog, website and podcast. This isn't the future, it's today.
Who wouldn't want to be part of that?
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