So, say, just for conversations' sake, I like to write and would like to be a published author. Would I best serve myself by giving up because I am not well connected, because I am not rich and able to buy meself into the market, because I am not lucky enough to get a publisher to read what I write, or because I am not dead? After all, using van Gough as an example of someone who created his own works, not that he was a writer, people did not, apparently, like his works till he was dead. Then, collectors, museums, dealers, and the generally art minded public couldn't get enough and were willing to pay so that two of his works make the top ten list of most expensive pieces of art sold at auction. Not that I'm van Gough, but I've read the likes of Henry James, Willa Cather, Balzac, The Bronte sisters, Terry Brooks, and ... well, some of the stuff I've read (disclaimer: not that the afore mentioned are necessarily included hereafter but) makes me wonder how they got published and, if they can do it, why can't I?
There's a song in there somewhere.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
You don't need to die to become famous as a writer unless you write prophecies or poetry.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
From what I've been told just start submitting to reputable agents.
Posted by Gosu (Member # 5783) on :
Check out the Uncle Orson's Writing Class link above.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Your best bet is to write SF&F; most of the magazines accept submissions, and it's my understanding that they pay pretty well too.
Posted by Avery Good Schreibner (Member # 8772) on :
I didn't mean for this to be about death, but there is something about death that makes an artist's (prose or paint) work come to life. I believe Emily Dickenson published a few poems during her life in local newspapers and people just didn't get it. But let her die ... well. There is hardly a literate American who doesn't know of her.
But, no, seriously. I don't believe people just submit a work and have a publisher read it let alone accept it. I think it was Ursula LeGuin who said she submitted a work under an assumed name and it was rejected. She resubmitted the same work to the same publisher under the name Ursula LeGuin and, of course, it was accepted. In my mind, they bought her name, not the work.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:I don't believe people just submit a work and have a publisher read it let alone accept it.
Depends on where you submit. Several Hatrackers have had submissions published.
Posted by Avery Good Schreibner (Member # 8772) on :
quote:Originally posted by Gosu: Check out the Uncle Orson's Writing Class link above.
I found this posted by OSC:
So if you're thinking of a career in writing, there are several things to think of before deciding whether you can do it with one particular form of writing or another. The first question, however, trumps all the others: Do you have another source of income? That makes everything much easier -- a spouse with a steady income stream; a nice inheritance large enough you can live off the interest; indulgent parents or other relatives willing to fund years of writing with no guarantee of return on investment -- any of these will do.
Posted by JaimeBenlevy (Member # 6222) on :
"I think it was Ursula LeGuin who said she submitted a work under an assumed name and it was rejected. She resubmitted the same work to the same publisher under the name Ursula LeGuin and, of course, it was accepted. In my mind, they bought her name, not the work."
She wasn't born with the name though. Well she was of course...You know what I mean. The reason they accept works from her now is because she wrote very well before she was famous and became a popular name by writing good stuff. Publishers can't accept only published authors to publish, because if they did there wouldn't be any published authors to begin with. Does that make any sense?
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
quote:she wrote very well before she was famous and became a popular name by writing good stuff.
Yes. Thinking of this actually makes me kind of sad, because she used to be one of my favorite authors. I find her later stuff to be unreadable. Tehanu was annoying, and Always Coming Home was one of the few books I have ever actually thrown away.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
>>>thrown away.
Recycled, right? Or gave to a library? Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
No. Composted, along with soiled cage bedding from my chinchilla.
Posted by Princess Leah (Member # 6026) on :
Owch. Guess I won't try that one then.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Avery-- you don't need to be connected or dead to make a living as a writer.
You do need to be prolific.
Here's a really helpful hand out from the amazing Jay Lake:
quote:Writing a story a week also helps improve craft. Just like going to the gym or practicing a foreign language, you get better with repetition. Consider this -- many newer writers write a story a month, as that is often the frequency at which writers' groups meet. In a year, you'd write twelve stories. At a story a week, you'd write fifty-two stories. (In my case the number seems to run into the high sixties for a variety of reasons.) If you consider twelve stories a year to be a reasonable annual output, a story a week will put you four to five years down your developmental path in one year.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Heavens, that's a good read. Seriously, I can't recommend it enough.
Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 5108) on :
That was a good read, thanks for the link.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
Avery - it is hard to get published, but is by no means impossible.
My husband is a writer (and makes enough to be a full time writer). He has 6 books published and 3 more contracted for - he also has a really nifty file of all the rejection letters he got before a publisher finally took him on board. The book that was published first was actually the second he wrote - the first was rejected all over the place.
The secret is keep writing, keep editing, keep improving your craft and keep submitting manuscripts. And don't get discouraged by rejection!
There are also some tricks in submitting manuscripts - keep them neat, typed (seriously, some people do submit handwritten stuff) and professional.
Remember that editors will get hundreds if not thousands (or more) of manuscripts a month. They will not read them all. Most publishing houses operate a "slush pile" where unsolicited manuscripts are put. It's then the job of a junior to go through the pile, read the first sentence/paragraph of each manuscript and pull any that grab the reader's attention up front. These ones will then get read a little more (two paragraphs!) and more will be rejected.
So if your work is boring/doesn't draw the reader in from the start, it probably won't get a look in.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
Oh, and also - do your homework about publishing houses.
If your work is primarily SciFi/Fantasy, submit to a publisher that actually publishes that genre.
If you're writing The Next Great American Novel (TM), don't submit it to a children's literature publisher.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
One more thing - if you do get published, it doesn't mean you will make enough to write full time.
Many, many people have a full time job and are also published authors. My husband does book tours to schools which are the real basis of his income - so while he makes his money off being an author, only part of that is from the actual royalties.
Only the very lucky and very successful can write full-time and do nothing else. But that shouldn't be an impediment to trying to get published.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
There's a difference between FIRST publication and publication when you are an established name. If you're Frederik Pohl and you write an OK story, it will get published, because they can put FREDERIK POHL on the cover and sell more copies.
First-timers bring no name value. So the ONLY value they have is the value of the story itself. Plus, editors don't know their style yet, and so will be more suspicious. It's a tougher sell. Can't be helped. Thus I tell my writing students that your first sale has to be markedly above average; but after you've sold a few, especially if they get favorable attention, then all your other stories look better - because editors approach with a friendlier attitude.
However, it is not "who you know" that gets you that first sale, except in very very rare cases - which ended up leading nowhere for the writers involved. Now and then I've put cover letters on stories by friends or students, and not only doesn't it guarantee them publication (of stories I thought were good!), it doesn't even get them faster responses. Editors want to be the discoverer - they don't want somebody else to be able to claim they discovered you <grin>. So a voucher from an established author may actually be a negative - I just don't know.
But it's not a great secret - it's about writing very, very good stories that YOU care about and believe in, and then persistently sending them out until you find the editor who "gets it" and then you're on your way. Whatever that way is.
It helps if you also write very, very quickly. If you only write one short story a year, there's going to be no career there.
Posted by KidB (Member # 8821) on :
I've sold a few stories and a number of articles. This does not require an agent - only a piece of writing that you've really worked over and polished and that grabs the reader (the editor) from the beginning. If it's good, someone will publish it.
You will not make serious money publishing short stories. Four stories and eight articles in the last few years has netted me maybe $800. But it is wonderful thing to do just the same, and you can build up a resume.
Very important: when submitting to magazines and journals, start with the biggest names and work down. Do not start at the bottom!
Do not put a "copyright" on a manuscript - no one will look at it, and it doesn't protect you anyway.
Buy the writer's market, and follow the cover-letter format exactly. It works!
Books, you need an agent or a connection.
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
quote: Do not put a "copyright" on a manuscript - no one will look at it, and it doesn't protect you anyway.
You have intrinsic copyright in what you write, with or without a copyright sign.
Posted by Orson Scott Card (Member # 209) on :
I always put the notice on my novels, never on my short stories, makes no difference. The fact that it's copyrighted doesn't change anything - the publisher is going to LICENSE the copyright FROM you, so if you didn't have it, they couldn't license it, could they? <grin>. The only reason not to put the notice on a manuscript is so that they don't realize that you've been sending this sucker around for five years.
imogen is right - copyright is there the second the words hit the paper, with or without the notice.
Posted by Avery Good Schreibner (Member # 8772) on :
Well, thanks for all your responses. Very interesting thoughts.
By the way, Scott R. do or did you write at Hatrack River - 1830's?
I have been reading from practically all genre's for many years. One of my favorite authors currently, right after Mr. Card, is Salman Rushdie.
I have also been writing for several years. I have been averaging about 15 short stories and a few poems a year. I also have two jobs and a full time family. So, that's about all the story writing I can muster without having people come search for me to do some dad or husband things. (I hate dry walling by the way.)
I have managed one novel I'd love to get back to to edit, and I like writing on the Hatrack River 1830's web site. It's just so much fun. I have had some poems published at poetry.com and in those anthologies of "the best emerging new writers" blah blah blah. I have also published stories in the Taj Mahal Review and at web magazines. None of them pay, though.
I originally posted "Would I best serve myself by giving up because I am not well connected, because I am not rich and able to buy myself into the market, because I am not lucky enough to get a publisher to read what I write, or because I am not dead?" It sounds like those who have responded would say, generally speaking, yes in answer.
I did, I believe, forget one other excuse. Maybe, I don't submit enough.
It's may also be true, my writing could just su** - er - stink. But have you read Balzac or Henry James lately?
Posted by imogen (Member # 5485) on :
quote: Would I best serve myself by giving up because I am not well connected, because I am not rich and able to buy myself into the market, because I am not lucky enough to get a publisher to read what I write, or because I am not dead?"
No. Not if you really want to be a writer.
Don't give up. But make sure your expectations are realistic. Most writers don't end up as successful as say, our host. Let alone the poster-child for making money by writing, JK Rowling.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
>>do or did you write at Hatrack River - 1830's?
DID. I was Joshua, the Beekeeper.
Now I waste my writing time by writing in PBEM RPGs.
Posted by Avery Good Schreibner (Member # 8772) on :
I feel like singing.
Ahem.
"Dead in the water, dead in the water All my writing's dead in the water
Like a passage from the pen of a water nymph All my good thoughts tend to sail away, sail away Just icy chunks I martyred by my careless pen All good thoughts shot dead with bad prose words, bad prose words
Oh! dead in the water dead in the wa-a-a-ater. Flush!"
PBEM RPGs? Sounds like something kids squish between slices of bread.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
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I have had some poems published at poetry.com and in those anthologies of "the best emerging new writers" blah blah blah. I have also published stories in the Taj Mahal Review and at web magazines. None of them pay, though.![[Hat]](graemlins/hat.gif)