Writing goals

[cjsmith]

Quote from Rob: "If this is a bit scary, it's probably the right thing for you to do."

Could my goal be "Get a novel ready for submission somewhere, and submit it, within one year?" Last night Rob and I handwaved some length constraints, pace estimates, and rewrite-time guesses. We're hindered by not knowing much about what it takes to get something submittable, but on the other hand, we do have some constraints we know about. We decided that:

1. Standalone novels are not 50 kwords. The shortest fiction book I can find on my shelf is maybe ~75 kwords, and it's a really freakin' simplistic book.
2. The pace must be maintainable (alongside a day job, square dance calling, and swimming) and must produce writing I can hand to critiquers. If I hand out stuff I should be ashamed to have my cat read with her butt, I won't have readers the second time around.
3. Double the estimate, at the very least, to add a first pass rewrite (section by section or reworking major structure) based on critiques.
4. It's reasonable to assume that if I join a writing group and get feedback, I'll spend a bunch of time reading and commenting on others' work as well. This stuff doesn't come for free.

It looks like a year just to finish the second draft, and it will likely still be shitty at that point. So in short, no. At my skill level, I can't create a submittable novel in a year.

Could my goal be "Get a short story ready for submission somewhere, and submit it?" Welllll... far fewer short story anthologies get published than novels. Yet I do enjoy working on shorter stuff. Not sure how or whom to ask about this one.

What if I hope to get good at humor? Welllll... there aren't many openings for newspaper columnists. Besides, I'd rather tell a story. Books with humor/silliness and little else are, to me, like eating a room full of candy for dinner, so I'll have to get good at the "else" (the story) either way.

So I'm still confused. I don't yet have something I'm willing to commit to.

Comments

[davidlevine]

Depends on your goal. If you want your friends and a few other people to read it, put it online. If you want thousands of people to read it, receive reviews from respected reviewers, and get money for your effort, traditional publishing is still the way to go.

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

I don't buy that.

Thousands of (unique) people read my (professional) weblog, less than 1% of them are people I know. Of course, I know we're not talking about a weblog here. I'd even venture to say the barrier to entry is *lower* if you put a book on the web, as people can access it anytime, rather than need to go to a bookstore, etc.

Many (professional) reviewers are reviewing works online, so that's kinda shot down. That said, what's more interesting, hundreds of readers giving testimonials, or one or two reviewers writing a review in some obscure publication that many will read, but fewer will bother picking up the book. I realise this question is totally subjective, but it's a good one to answer. Of course, what's wrong with both? They're not mutually exclusive!

Getting money? That's not so difficult either. I'd even say it's more difficult trying to pimp your work to a dead-tree publisher, and you'd wind up getting a lower % of the gross anyway.

I think traditional publishing is here to stay, but I also think there are more options out there for publication than there ever were. Why not examine all possibilities? Yes, I agree, it does depend on the goal.

[davidlevine]

You can't compare weblog readership to readership for an online novel. Hardly anyone is willing to either read a whole novel online or print it out and read it.

Are you really likely to get "hundreds of readers giving testimonials" on an online first novel? If Steven King posts a novel online, that's one thing. For a new novelist, it's a completely different ball game. First you have to get the readers' attention (see below about distribution and publicity). The very, very few people who've achieved notable success with online publication (and "notable success" generally means getting a traditional publishing contract) either had a large existing readership (like Cory Doctorow) or worked their tails off publicizing it.

"What's wrong with both?" Well, they really are mutually exclusive. If you post your novel or short story online, most traditional publishers will consider it prior publication and won't consider it. If you sell it to a traditional publisher, they will generally purchase the online rights as well. There are exceptions, but that's the way to bet.

The big difference between any form of self-publishing (print or online) and traditional publishing is the distribution and publicity. If you want to make money by being a writer, write a book and get a professional publisher to distribute and publicize it. If you want to make money by being a publisher, write a book and then distribute (through whatever means) and publicize it yourself. But realize that this is a very large job, and will take time away from the writing. You do get to keep a bigger percentage of the gross, but the gross will be much smaller. Whether it pencils out (i.e. makes you more money) depends on your skills at selling and promoting the book, as well as intangibles like quality, interestingness, and topicality, but it definitely will be more work.

I'm afraid I have to go offline shortly, so if you respond and you don't hear back from me, it's not because I'm ignoring you. I'll probably be offline for some days, unless I can find free wi-fi where I'm going (not likely).