Three Tips for New Writers

A friend of mine asked if there are any tips I’d pass on to people who are new writers. Yes. And here they are.

1. Get a job.

It’s going to take six months to a year before anyone sees your submission, if you’re sending out a book (less if you’re sending stories, but that’s usually a one-time payment). Then it’s going to take upwards of a year to organize the paperwork, assuming you sell the manuscript, so we’re talking six months to a year and a half before you get an advance. If you do get an advance (and some publishers don’t advance anything at all, ever), remember, that’s not free money. That’s an advance against earnings. What that means is you don’t see another cent until the publisher has made that money back off the sales of your book. Royalty rates are usually somewhere in the area of 6-8% on trade paperbacks, so, say, you make ten cents on every copy sold. Not much, unless you sell a shedload of books.

To complicate things, you’re going to get paid half-yearly or quarterly, it’ll be less than you expect, and only half that money is yours – the rest belongs to the tax man. So stop pretending your first book is going to set you on the path to riches. It won’t. Get a job.

2. Do your homework.

Part 1. There’s lots of misinformation about how to publish a book, so keep in mind Yog’s Law: Money flows toward the author. Yes, you’ll need to shell out for a computer, a roof over your head and the postage to send your masterpiece to the slush pile, but you won’t have to shell out reading fees or photocopying fees. Don’t. Get. Scammed.

Read the Writer’s Market (it doesn’t matter what edition, really) to get a handle on how to write a submission letter, what to expect from a publisher and all that sort of stuff. Study, study, study. And never take advice that’s from someone who’s name you don’t recognize. That means me, kids. If you haven’t read my books or met me at a con or followed my blog for a long while, you don’t know that I’m really who I say I am. Verify everything through a trusted source.

Part 2. Learning to write novels is the sort of thing you just have to do. Like learning to paint, build a wall, or cook, or walk on your own feet, time and practice are the two best teachers. Do whatever it takes for you to learn the craft. And learn it you must. No one comes out of the starting gate with perfect knowledge. Ever. This means rejection. Get used to it.

Avoid rejectomancy. A rejection slip that says “not for us” means exactly that. No one is embedding secret codes in rejection slips. If something is unclear, email and ask about that, and only that.

Cultivate a combination of pigheaded stupidity (no, I do have something to say, and it’s important!) and humility (oh god, she’s right, that passage is just terrible.) Learn to use criticism, and learn when to abandon it. The worst rejection I ever got was, “I don’t even know why you wrote this”, and you know, tactless and rude though it might have been, she was right. The story was non-existent. I shelved that piece and wrote something else.

I don’t keep my rejections (I think that’s a pretty unhealthy habit), unless they include excellent criticism (your POV moves around too much) or an invitation (I can’t accept this piece, but please submit to us again when you have a new story), and then only until I’ve addressed the issue or resubmitted. Make them work for you, then get rid of them.

3. Be realistic.

Look, a huge proportion of the world is literate. If putting words in order was an easy way to make big money, get the babes and houses and cars, hell, everyone would do it. Ever heard the joke “What’s the difference between a writer and a large cheese pizza? A pizza can feed a family”. Ha ha. That’s my life.

I’ve got four books in various stages of publication (that is, a house is ponying up their money to produce my books). Two are out. One’s been out for almost a year, got great reviews from serious folks like the ALA, and is a micro-bestseller. How much money have I made? I’ll tell you. My first royalty cheque was just shy of five dollars. My second just shy of fifty. We’re not talking life-changing money. I’ve been tipped more at my day job, OK?

Writing is work that can make you go crazy. It’s Sisyphean. It’s long hours for little acknowledgment. For the majority of us, it does not and will not ever pay as much as our day jobs. Want to go have a little cry? Go ahead. I understand. I did too, when I got it.

I’m not saying no one ever makes money at writing. Obviously people do. What I’m saying is go ahead and believe you can be the next big thing, do everything in your power to get other people to believe it too. Just don’t act like you’re a Hugo-award winner until you’ve got that little statue in your hand.