by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Tonight I’m speaking with the creative writing students at my alma mater, Presbyterian College in SC. It’s a great liberal arts school with a strong English department.
I’ll be giving a reading (a short one, since I have little faith in my ability to be entertaining) and then talking a little about the writing business before taking questions.
And I’m planning on spreading the exciting news about being a 21st century writer—that it’s the best time ever to be a writer.
I’m never sure if that message is getting out to writers, unless they’re plugged into the online writing community. The talk of bankrupt book chains, struggling independent bookstores, and decreasing advances from traditional publishers might be eclipsing that message.
Ultimately, writers have got a new gateway—directly from us to our reader.
Why this is exciting:
We have choices. We can choose to follow the traditional publishing route of finding an agent and then a publisher. Or we can hone our work, get our manuscript professionally edited, formatted, and designed and self-publish our books. Or we can do both (I’m taking the hybrid approach, myself.)
We can develop a niche readership. Let’s say that you are completely engulfed in working on projects that feature your favorite things—horror and marine biology. Before, if your idea wasn’t commercial enough to get the strong sales needed for a slot on the bookstore shelves, then there was no hope for you. You could either publish the book yourself (with a great deal of expense and poor distribution) or else you could just share the story among your friends and family.
Now you can self-publish it…but for very little expense, compared to the old days. And your distribution is online—it has the potential of reaching millions, worldwide. In that group of millions is your niche reader…the ones who are also obsessed with horror and marine biology. The challenge for you is to get the word out to these readers, in an un-obnoxious way, that your book exists.
We can explore different genres. In the pre-ebook days, if you’d made a good name for yourself in one genre, it was pretty difficult to make the leap to another one. Some agents only represent one type of book. So, if you were a fantasy writer who wanted to write thrillers, your agent might not represent thrillers. You’d have to find another agent….by again going through the query process. And then you’d have to basically start from scratch to find a publisher.
Now, if you can write it, you can publish it. (It still might be wise to use a pen name if your name is particularly associated with a particular genre…that way you’re not confusing your readers. You can still always give them the chance to read your other books by telling them you’re writing another genre under a pseudonym.)
We can explore formats. Do we feel like experimenting with short stories or poetry? Previously, if we wanted to reach readers with those formats…well, it was going to be a long-shot. We’d be trying to get inclusion in anthologies, or literary magazines or publishers who put out chapbooks. There was a strong possibility that the stories or poetry would never find an audience, never get reviewed, never inspire, never receive feedback.
Now we can sell short stories or serials or poetry, ourselves. We can price them as a collection or price them as singles. We can even sell them at a low price as a loss leader to gain visibility for our other, full-priced work. We can experiment.
We can have complete creative control. Now, admittedly, this is a scary area sometimes. And I’m one who previously just wanted to write the stories and promote them and not have to think about formatting or covers or design.
Now, though, we can expand our thinking into other channels. We can envision what we’d like our cover to look like and the kinds of readers that we’d like to appeal to with them. We can set a tone. And, importantly, we can outsource these tasks to experts and have them complete our vision of our book. If that vision proves not to connect with the readers…well, we can change it. That’s amazing, in itself.
We can put our books in readers’ hands faster—keeping series continuity and making our connection with readers stronger. Traditional publishing takes a while. When I hand in a manuscript, it’s a full 12 months before that book gets to the reader. Now, after I write a book and edit it, I send it to professional editors and cover designers and then to my reader. It takes about 1-2 months after I turn over my manuscript.
What do you look forward to most as a writer these days? How are you enjoying our new freedom? Does it still seem scary, or is it becoming exhilarating?
You make the world of the modern writer an exciting new frontier. I think I’m a hybrid, too.
Elizabeth – There certainly are more choices for today’s writer than ever before, especially with the advent of new technology. I think one of the things that is most exciting for me is that with the various social networks, it’s easier than it ever was to reach readers. For instance, one Tweet and everyone can know (and hopefully help spread the word) when a book is released or one’s doing a reading, etc… I like that easy contact with readers.
Hi Elizabeth – have fun .. it will be so interesting to read your feedback – I’m sure this will be the first of many visits .. enjoy – you have such a wealth of information .. cheers Hilary
Wish I could be there. What a great topic! Have fun!
Nancy–I have a feeling that the changes are very disturbing for everyone *but* writers and readers! We’re in the lucky group. And you’ve pegged it right–a frontier for us to explore.
Hilary–I’ll be interested in reading it, too! The nice thing is that we all can choose what we’re most comfortable with. Or can choose a little of both (like me.)
I used to hear the comment, “Freedom of the press belongs to those who own the press.” With the Internet, more common people own the press. There will be more books with fewer sales. A very few will strike it rich, but a few will. A lot of those books might be like the erotic one at the top of the NY Times fiction list now, called something like “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
It’s so wide open for writers now. And they are taking advantage of it – 185,000 books published in 2004 and over a million published last year. That is a huge jump and all made possible via the Internet.
Margot–The internet has made it easy for us to connect with readers, hasn’t it? I’ve really enjoyed that change.
Diane–I think it’s not only encouraging new writers to actually finish and publish, but it’s encouraging experienced writers to write faster and more.
Teresa–Wish you could be there, too! Hope you have a great day. :)
You’re right, a lot of “good” stuff you mention here is overshadowed these days by bankruptcies and price-fixing and shouts that the sky is falling. Writers need to be in this for the long haul and learn to take comfort in the freedoms they do have along the way. Thanks!
Well, as I am 99 % sure I would have achieved absolutely nothing yet without this fair new world, I am quite happy though exhilarated is perhaps too strong a word. But I hope Myrtle will be exhilarated and thrive in her new e-book environment :)
Bluestocking–I think the sky *is* falling…it’s just not falling on writers and readers. :)
Joe–Interesting! Who’d have thought that erotica could be at the top of the charts? Definitely a new age we’re in.
Still a little scary, but change is coming and faster than most expected.
Excellent post! I love this attitude and I think you’re very, very right. THese are exciting times :)
It’s definitely a brand new world and a great time to be a writer. I’m so grateful for the changes and the small press approach that’s allowing my novel to get out there much sooner than it would have if I’d chosen the traditional route. And I do like the idea of the hybrid approach, because while my novels are suspense with some romance thrown in, I have some ideas for paranormal suspense as well. In the “old” world, I’m not sure I could have done both.
Great post, Elizabeth!
Alex–I agree…I think it’s all moving really fast.
Dorte–Myrtle is planning on getting an ereader!
Jemi–It’s pretty exciting stuff!
Stacy–It sounds like these are some good changes for you! It’s tough to cross genre boundaries with trad. publishing, for sure.
FREEDOM!
Yes, good list of what’s happening for writers right now — especially YOUNG writers, who haven’t tied themselves down yet.
Have fun at your presentation!
I would like to get my picture books traditionally published, but I am seriously considering self-publishing for my children’s poetry book I’m working on. Ever so slowly with each post like this my confidence that I can do it goes up. Thanks!