There are no short-cuts to mushrooms...

I have been hanging around in this book business for quite some time now. More than 15 years of writing, submitting, up-skilling, network building, and thinking about process, books, publishing and how everything works and fits together. The playing field refuses to stay the same so I know I will never be at a point where I can stop learning.  But I keep meeting or hearing of people who ask nothing about the industry before jumping in with boots on - they are the 'I want to invent this really cool thing called a wheel' or 'I don't need to know about your wheel: my wheel will be much rounder' brigade. Or I meet or hear of people who want to take short cuts. Who want an easier route. Who know there is some sure fire formula for success. The 'What's the secret to writing a great book?', 'If I (or my publisher) say I'm the next big thing', 'I just need to use these sure fire methods for increasing my readership/ word-count/ book sales/insert desired outcome here' group.

There is an astounding amount of information available online, and in books on writing and publishing. If you are thinking of trying to get a book published don't wait until it is finished before you find out the requirements of the category/genre you are writing in: how to present and submit your work: who to submit it to: what is expected of you as an author and/or illustrator: how to go it alone if self-publishing is your preference, and the help you will need to do this: anything else at all about the book industry. Reading a best-selling and/or award winning novel/picture book does not qualify you as an expert in what is involved. It really pays to check out how that book got to end up in your hands. And there are screeds of information available. I spent years accumulating a boat load of knowledge about this industry, but it is all at my fingertips these days if I have any questions. It is at your fingertips too. There is no excuse for not knowing. Do your homework peeps.

And I have never met a real short-cut. I believe having success is likely to be because of good luck and good management. That whizz-bang technique you applied at the same time is very possibly a red herring unrelated to your outcome.

I reckon lasting success is the result of:
1) Hard work - writing is hard work. Nothing is perfect first time and must be sharpened and polished into the diamond that people will want to buy and read. It takes months and years. 'Instant success' is often the result of years of work behind the scenes, or a one-off.
2) Practice - all my writing over the years has made me a better writer. And I think more writing will make me a better writer in the future.
3) Persistence - this is what I want to do. So I will keep working at it, keep trying, keep challenging myself, within the vagaries of the publishing world
4) Patience - I don't have much and it has been hard work to be patient when things have taken a long time or expectations have had to be shifted or re-imagined. But there is no way around having to use it.
5) Becoming an active, participating member of the writing community. Give where you can and appreciate when people give back to you. My book friends have kept me from being a 'Jack' and helped me to be 'Rose'. I would do the same for them.

The random road to success...

If you are in the vicinity of the Polish Heritage Museum on Sunday march 24th around 4pm don't forget to pop in for my book launch of A Winter's Day in 1939. The book will be at the super special launch price of $18 (which is rather super special). The museum is a great place with lots of interesting Polish artefacts, traditional costumes and art. I hope I see you there.

People have been talking about the book and reviewing it which has been most exciting and I am trying to keep it all in perspective. I would love for the book to do well but as blogger Lexi Revellian says nobody really knows why a book becomes a howling success.  You can check out her blog here. She links to Wool author, Hugh Howey's, own article on what he attributes Wool's bestsellerdom to, and the J.E.Fishman article 'Hugh Howey and the Bestseller Myth' is also worth a look.

There are no sure-fire, guaranteed roads to the kind of success Howey has enjoyed. He's a little bewildered by it himself. But I liked what he said about 'gambling like he was drunk'. He did what felt right at the time when it came to making decisions and making plans. I don't know if I could be as brave and bold as he has been but I do do two things he recommends - I put my work out there. I'm happy and keen to try different routes to make work available. And I write all sorts of things. Whatever comes into my head that's desperate to get out again onto the page. I write widely and I think I've got an even bigger range of stuff still in me. I just have to be a writer, and I hope the harder I work, the luckier I get.  

Whip it good ...

I have been head down, posterior up recently slaving over a hot rewrite and must give thanks to Maureen Crisp (yet again) for alerting me to this fab blog post by Kristine Katherine Rusch on the approach that writing is a profession. I haven't spent as much time wittering around the intramawebb as I would like and I have been missing some good advice and fascinating insights. I am still working on the ms, in a seemingly never ending loop of rewritery. But this post resonates for me particularly at the moment. I am a lazy individual, but I have been racking up the hours on this book. And the bottom line is, if you are serious about being a writer you have to do the work. Good workers work hard at their jobs. I have had moments when I have told myself it is too hard and I can't do it, but then I have to slap myself and tell myself to buck up my ideas and work a little harder. If you don't whip that talent into shape and drive it with a cattle prod you are less likely to survive long term.

What interested me most about Ms Rusch's post though was the belief writers are indoctrinated with (and yes, I am guilty of perpetuating this) that we are unlikely to make a living as a writer. We believe we are unlikely to succeed. Whether we succeed/make money or not, telling ourselves we won't is not a smart attitude. There are other beliefs about my writing and the writing business as a whole that I have and I continue to hold these to be true. Most centre on what it is I want to write and what it is I think I can write. But I need to remind myself this isn't a hobby, its my job and if I'm smart about it maybe I can do better at it and reap some more benefits.

Writing success is like the desert, with wind...

Success for an author is like the desert (pick a desert, any desert, but you will need a windy one for my analogy to work), or maybe an artist's perspective. Success is not a fixed point, either in time or space. Neither is perspective or a grain of sand in a windy desert (a windy dessert is a different thing, trust me). What I quantified as success when I started writing looks nothing like what I think success is now. And should I be successful according to my current standards, then I will shift my view of success again. If we achieve our dreams we don't stop dreaming, we find a new dream.

My level of success also changes depending on who is looking at it. If you are another writer your opinion of my success will depend on whether you are new to writing or much published. It will be different if you write for children, or if you write for adults and will differ again if you write adult romance, adult thrillers or literary fiction etc... Your view will change if you are a publisher or agent. And probably change again if you are either of those things in a country other than New Zealand. It will be different if you are a reader. And if you work in an industry that promotes literacy, directly through education (waving at schools and school libraries here), or public libraries, or books (Storylines, NZ Book Council) or writers (NZ Society Of Authors) or funding (Creative New Zealand) your views on my career and the success or lack thereof will vary again. Some people might think it is exciting to be me, others will be quite happy they aren't. See how confusing this can be?

The further on you go the more confusing it gets. I feel amazed, dazed and happy about the successes I have had so far. But then when I consider what I would still like very much to achieve, and what seems at times to be out of reach, I feel nervous and uncertain like a beginner. You never stand on top of the mountain, there is always one more peak to climb. I have to remember to pat myself on the back for the peaks I've reached and turn and admire the view as often as I can, but if you catch me on a day when the climb was particularly hard and I have been staring at the rock face for a while my view of success and your view of success might appear to be two very different things.

Instant success, just add water and stir...

It was, I thought, a good idea. A company wanting to provide some free children's story downloads to customers for long car trips. Authors would receive a free audio file professionally produced to use as they saw fit. They would retain all rights and get some free promotion through folk being able to listen to their stories (a huge bonus when promotion can be such a hard slog). But the company hadn't planned to 'pay' for the stories they chose to record. Fair enough, I thought, they are not selling them. I thought about the stories I had written that might fit the bill and sent them in. But I was somewhat surprised to hear some folk thought this was a terrible idea. As far as I can tell its not a scam. I always think of a scam as the situation where things are nothing like you think they are. Or where you have to pay them to accept your story. Neither of these things was true in this instance. If my stories made the cut I would be getting a return on them but not one instantly quantifiable in dollar terms.

I believe I should be paid for the creative work I produce, but it is hard to know what I am worth. Who decides? The market? The market is saturated with books; many very, very good ones. Plenty of great writers get ignored by the market and it has nothing to do with the quality of their work. Publishers? They want to reward writers but must do so at the behest of the market. They are, after all, commercial operations. Award judges? Sure! They select stories they believe are of a high quality and it can only help to be talked about in this way. But ultimately it is the everyday purchasing reader I have to impress. In my opinion I have to earn the reputation I want to be rewarded for. This doesn't happen overnight. I can't wash it in Pantene and have instant success. Sometimes it does happen overnight to people (I want the shampoo they're using) and good on them but it hasn't happened to me. I have to write the best stories I can and send them out into the world. And then I have to keep doing it. Because if someone does find one of my books among the many, many others and then discovers they like it, I want them to like my next book even more. They might remember my name. Next time they venture out to the bookshop or the library or onto Amazon they might ask if there are any other books by me. When a new one comes out they might get that too. Building a readership can be a slow painstaking process. I have to win people over with my writing cos most of the time that's all they see of me. I can't make them love me. And with children it can be extra challenging as our target readers are always growing up and moving on. "Hey, I just won you over, stay 8 a few years longer!" And then we have to do it all over again with a whole new group and who knows what they will like. If having a story on audio helps win people over to my writing then that sounds pretty good to me. And having that recording to help sell my other stories sounds even better. I like the idea of expanding the formats my stories are available in. That's part of the reason I signed up for The Half Life of Ryan Davis to be published by Pear Jam Books. It's already in 2 formats and a third is in the pipelines. Four formats is the goal for all Pear Jam Books.

So I am willing to give my story to that company to help build my name. So its building their name as well? Good for them. I know how important that is. And if I get no financial return on a short story today its not the end of the world. If one kid likes my story on a car trip who knows where it might lead.

Swimming through the troughs...

Ok, should I be worried I just bettered my score on Solitaire (3 card draw) to 19,000 points plus, with a time of 38 seconds. I think I should. Is there money in this like there is in poker - maybe I should change careers (or just hang my head in shame). I blame microsoft. I wonder if anyone has sued them over the time-wasting, distracting games they provide as part of their standard software. Yes I know i had to hunt the game down when we bought the new computer and loaded the latest software and yes I know I make a choice whenever I click on the games. It helps me think - like white noise - I tell myself. And look at my great score. Maybe its a good thing my writing deadlines are all still self imposed. Or maybe I'd play less and write more if my deadlines were more strict. We may never know. How often do writers wonder if they have peaked and may never write a decent thing ever again. I can't remember where I read it but i recently came across a comment responding to the theory that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become really proficient at something (writing, painting, golf, tennis etc..). The commentor suggested it wasn't so much that it took 10,000 hours practice but more likely that it was about hanging in there that long. 10,000 is alot of hours and most people would have dropped out because they decided it wasn't really for them, they were bored or found something else they would rather do. Of course all this means is that I can't blame anyone else if i drop out of this business. Yes, you've peaked if you then walk away and do something else. Only by hanging in there do we give ourselves the chance to climb the next peak or find that there is one even higher or better or on a completely different continent. Perhaps success in any business isn't measured by the number of peaks we reach but the fact that we survive through the troughs. I'd better go and write a few more words then I guess...