Category Archives: Self-Awareness

A business plan for writers – what an absurd idea! That may be your first reaction, but chances are that you already know how you want to your writing career to evolve. A business plan is the road map to launching and growing your career in a strategic, efficient manner. Everything you’re doing now – networking, writing, learning craft, blogging – it’s all part of a plan but let’s face it, we’re writers first and the less time we spend floundering or making mistakes with the business part of our career, the more time we’ll have for writing.

Here are the key elements for a writer’s business plan:

1. Company Description
Yup, you’re a company with accompanying tax write offs but let’s be more specific than that. Does your business include writing, editing, holding workshops, attending trade fairs, or other activities related to writing and promotion? As a writer, do you write short stories, novellas, novels, magazine articles, or some combination? What is your genre? Who is the target audience?

2. Operations Plan
This is a one person company, right? Wrong. For tax purposes you may be a sole proprietor or an incorporated entity but your company is bigger than one person. For example, who are your support groups – writers’ groups, critique groups, book clubs, blog group? Do you belong to interest groups locally or on-line such as science, knitting, bird watching, Sherlock Holmes fan club? These are important to note because they not only inspire you and provide valuable input they may also be part of your readership. Who are your mentors, critiquers and editors?

Bestselling authors have an organization. Take a look at the Acknowledgements page of their books. Most Acknowledgement pages list editors, research contacts, readers – anyone who helped them. For ease of organization, you can divide your support network into four categories: craft, business (contracts, taxes, editors, finances, etc), networking (conferences, on-line, writers groups, readers groups), and market access. Note any deficiencies you have in these areas and develop a strategic plan to deal with that aspect. For example, I need to know more about marketing strategies and so I’ve chosen to attend a seminar on marketing rather than a critique workshop to fill this gap. Finding the experts I need fills a gap in my organization and allows me to use my use my limited budget wisely.

Remember – it takes one person to have the idea and write the story, but it takes a community to support a writer and make the work available to the reader. Who is in your community?

3. Products and Services
We touched briefly on this in the Company Description, but now we need to get specific. You may be writing in one genre or several writing poetry, short stories or novels and writing for the children’s, young adult or adult markets. In the market you’re writing for, who exactly is the audience? For example, not all people who read mysteries love the same type of mystery or the same degree of graphic language. Those loving cozy mysteries (think Stephanie Plum series) may not like Ian Rankin’s gritty detective or James Patterson’s thrillers. What type of mystery/fantasy/romance do you write? Who will it appeal to? What are the sensibilities of the genre and does your writing reflect that? Where will your work be placed on the bookshelf?

If you’re editing or involved in some other aspect of writing (volunteer or paid), note that too. Depending on the level of your involvement, you may need to create separate business plans. However, having them listed in one spot will help you manage your time better when setting goals.

4. Marketing
It’s so easy to want to stay at home and only write or at most, to go to a writing meeting where we chat with like minded people. Marketing means getting out of our comfort zone and reaching out. The easiest way to do this is to have a plan and to follow it. A haphazard approach erodes confidence and the ability to present things in a comfortable confident manner.

For every product you need to have your elevator pitch, synopsis, chapter by chapter plot line, a great manuscript before you promote. Having these will help you understand your product so you can differentiate it and create a unique selling proposition. In other words, what distinguishes your story from others it the market? Why will your target market (children, young adults, mystery/romance/horror fans) like it?

Describe how your stories will be sold – book stores (which ones?), on-line, book clubs, and how you intend to get the books there. Even if you have a traditional publisher, you still have to market and sell, so be prepared to do that.

What are your promotional tactics? In other words, how will you reach your audience? Some examples are: tradeshows, school appearances, readings, book tour, social media marketing (Twitter, Facebook, etc,), reading clubs (local, Goodreads, etc), on-line advertising, conventions, local advertising and book trailers. Your website should appeal to the book buyer. One writer I know designed her site for teachers because they’re the ones who will be buying her books and will be allowing her to make school presentations. Who is your website designed for – readers, teachers, technical users (how to books), other writers?

There have been many good posts on marketing at Fictorians so just click on the Marketing category and you’ll receive a ton of information. Just remember to choose a few things to do (for example you can’t belong to every book club and effectively utilize all social media) and do them well.

5. Finances
Having a budget will focus your marketing strategy and allow you to develop and manage your business more effectively by allowing you to prioritize. Which convention/workshop can I afford to go to? Do I purchase business cards or have a professional design my website? What can I do for free?

After all the work we do to write our wonderful books, we can’t afford to fail now because we failed to plan the business part of our passion.

How Writing Badly Can Help Your Career

November 13, 2013

Leigh Galbreath

Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Leigh Galbreath Motivation Publishing Rewriting Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life 2 Comments

Sounds a bit silly, doesn’t it? But as I’m sure everyone here knows, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for any aspiring author isn’t really how good their book is. It’s how finished their book is.

After all, you can’t have a business without a product, which is, in our cases, a completed story.

The key is to be productive and with just about everyone I know, one of the biggest obstacles to their productivity (right next to the two hour commute or the kids who can’t seem to do anything without parental help) is that voice in their head that keeps popping up to say, “What are you thinking? That comma’s ruining the emotional thread of this scene!” or “Jeez, this is crap. Let’s go play on the Playstation where it at least feels like I’m accomplishing something.”

A recurring session during the Superstars Writing Seminars is Kevin J. Anderson’s productivity tips (which he is currently covering on his website for NaNoWriMo). This is where I first heard his #3 tip: Dare to Be Bad (At First)…Then Fix It.

And the guy must be on to something because he makes prolific authors look lazy.

Now, I do spend some time prewriting to figure stuff out, for the most part I find my story as I’m writing it. For the longest time, I’d get stuck in that loop that made me want to re-read what I’d already written and tweek the text until I had to force myself to move on to the next scene. And then I gave myself permission to write badly. This was incredibly freeing. Now, when I’m doing a first draft, I can write upwards of 20-25k words a week, knowing that I’m going to edit it like crazy once the first draft is done. They aren’t great words, sometimes they’re downright horrendous, but they come together to form a completed work.

Now, your process might be different. But ask yourself, is your book stalled because you keep going back to that one or two scenes that seem so pivotal but your inner editor keeps telling you it’s just not right and if you don’t fix it now the whole book will fail utterly?

Stop that.

A house builder doesn’t sit there working on the same bathroom for years because they can’t get the shower to the perfect dimensions. They have a whole house to build and if someone isn’t living in it, it has no purpose. The same goes for you. Don’t let a desire to write perfection stop you from finishing the book, because if no one reads it, it also has no purpose.

Once the first draft is done, then you can let your inner editor run amuck…somewhat.

I usually have to step away for a bit before diving in the editing/revision process, otherwise, I’m just polishing the punctuation. Some people go ahead and send it out to alpha readers to get feeback. You’re process should be whatever works for you, but the real key to editing your own work, I think, is honesty.

Yes, that scene in your epic fantasy between the hero and his pet parakeet makes you cry every time, but does it move your story forward? Yes, you skipped that escape scene in your adventure to get to the emotional angst, but is the reader still engaged? Yes, you left out the detailed description of your cyborgs in your SF because it slowed the pacing, but can the reader really understand your world?

They may be you and your critique group’s favorite scenes. They might be hard to write. But if the story and the reader isn’t served, be honest. You’re going to have to fix it. The nice thing is that you’ll probably like the result better.

It’s actually kind of funny how often I tell someone that a scene isn’t working, or the story is missing something, and they say, “Yeah, I was kind of thinking that, too.” If something doesn’t ring true, or a scene doesn’t seem right, don’t wait for someone to remind you of something you already know. This instinct might take some time figuring out on your own, but the only way you’re going to learn how to tell what works and what doesn’t, is to keep writing and reading your genre.

It’s all so much work, I know. But that the difference between a hobbiest and a professional: get the work done, then make it the best you possibly can.

Dare to be bad. Fix it later.

Get on the Train

November 5, 2013

Evan Braun

Conventions Evan Braun Motivation Superstars Writing Seminars The Writing Life No Comments

Train3 I have a few different fingers in the publishing pie. I wouldn’t be writing for the Fictorians if I wasn’t a writer, but that’s not the aspect of publishing that dominates my time. I’m also a professional editor, something I don’t often talk about in my Fictorian blog posts. In addition, I am a typesetter. Occasionally I’ve even served as a slush pile reader, though that torturous (and tortuous) experience hasn’t always been a high point.

Recently, while on an afternoon walk through my neighbourhood, I realized that I’m kind of unemployable in the “real world.” I’ve been a full-time, self-employed contract worker since the age of twenty-four, and all of my skills are in publishing. Sure, I could wait tables and wash dishes, but I am pointedly leaving those items off my resume. To say the least, I’m firmly enmeshed in the business of publishing.

This is a pretty surprising career development, at least from the perspective of ten-years-ago me, who didn’t set out a specific goal to get to where I am today.

However, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it accidental. Rather, I started making choices that allowed me to follow my publishing dream, and those choices led to opportunities, and those opportunities, when seized, led to my current reality. In short, I got on the train.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The watershed moment happened in Pasadena, California in the winter of 2010—the first annual Superstars Writing Seminar, which we’ve devoted a lot of digital ink to on this blog. Over the course of the next couple of years, I went from trying really hard to be a writer in a hostile world to being surrounded by writers all the time. The world doesn’t seem so hostile now. The proportion of my Facebook friends who are writers is truly out of control. I used to read my newsfeed for updates from old high school buddies. I can hardly do that anymore, because the newsfeed has gradually been swallowed up by publishing business.

I call it business, because that’s what it is. Every day, my friends are asking for advice, providing advice (because some of my friends are seasoned pros), posting articles from trade magazines and blogs, providing sneak peeks of cover art, hunting for beta readers, and on and on and on. This level of immersion, I think, is crucial in a writer’s life because it marks the point when education becomes continuous—and almost automatic. I live and breathe this stuff.

The first conventions and seminars I went to were all about learning new things. Attending Superstars in Pasadena was an overwhelming experience, because ninety-five percent of what I heard there was totally brand-new information. I came home with over forty pages of notes. The notes were important, but the forty friends I picked up were actually much more helpful, because they got the ball rolling. Instead of cramming years’ worth of learning into one weekend in a convention centre meeting room, I started getting it piecemeal every day of my life.

This last spring, I went back to Superstars for the first time in four years. In 2010, attending Superstars was like attending a computer programmer’s convention without any computing knowledge beyond how to boot up Windows. I could barely follow along half the time; I hung out at the fringes of conversations, snatching up scraps like a hungry dog beneath the family dinner table. I was hopelessly lost. This time, I was the guy talking contract terms, market trends, and business practices. It’s impossible to pinpoint where and when it happened, but I came to speak the language.

The information at Superstars 2013 had changed probably sixty percent from the first year—because that’s how quickly this industry is shifting under our very feet—but I went from forty pages of notes to four. Maybe fewer. It’s not that the information wasn’t timely and valuable, and yet I absorbed very little that I didn’t already know—well, that’s not true; there was plenty that I didn’t know, but I was so well primed for it this time around. The benefit was not all of the advice and new-fangled information. It was having so many of my business friends and contacts in the same place at the same time.

That’s what will happen once you start down this track. You don’t need to have a step-by-step plan for how you’re going to succeed. The industry changes too fast for step-by-step plans to be practical, anyway.

Think of the publishing industry as a train. One day, it motors past your station, so you hop aboard. At first, you don’t know any of your fellow passengers and you don’t have the context to understand their insider conversations. But there are only so many people on this moving train, so unless you hide in your cabin all day and refuse to talk to anyone, it’s only a matter of time before you’re caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily train life.

So just get on the train.

For the Love of Words

November 4, 2013

fictorians

Craft & Skills Editing First Drafts Guest Posts Motivation Publishing The Writing Life 1 Comment

A guest post by Lisa Mangum.

I love words. I love how they work and how they sound and how they look on the page. I’ve been reading since I was three, so perhaps it’s not much of a surprise that I chose a profession that is all about words.

I actually chose two professions: I am both a writer and an editor. I’ve been in the publishing business since 1997, when I was hired by Bookcraft as their Editorial Assistant. Bookcraft merged with Deseret Book in 1999, and I’ve been there ever since. After several years as an Assistant Editor, I recently switched responsibilities to work more in acquisitions and developmental editing. It’s the part of the job I love the most: finding that diamond in the rough and polishing it until it shines. Every time I see a manuscript turn into a book I think it is magic.

And nothing was more magical than seeing my own manuscript turn into a book. I wrote The Hourglass Door in 2007, and it was published by Shadow Mountain in 2009. I finished out the trilogy with The Golden Spiral and The Forgotten Locket. My most recent book is After Hello.

So, having been on both sides of the writing desk for so long, what is the best advice I’ve been given about writing?

Three things:

My first piece of advice comes from my friend Rick Walton who tells this to his students who aspire to be writers:

1. “Quit. But if you can’t—do the work.”

Writing is hard. It’s exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, but it is hard. So, before you get too far down that road of “being a writer,” you should think seriously about just quitting. Because if your heart isn’t in it, then there’s nothing wrong with not being a writer and being something else—with following your true passion.

But if there is something inside of you that won’t let you quit, that says, “No! I am a writer; I do have a story to tell,” then your only choice is to do the work.

Which leads me to Advice #2:

2. “Dream bigger.”

Recently, I was on a panel at SLC Comic-Con about Disneyland and one of the other panelist said that what she wished she’d known earlier in her career was that it was okay to dream bigger.

I love that! I think we as writers work hard to figure out what works for us and how to write a story and how to get published. And then we think, “Whew, I made it.” Well . . . maybe we need to dream bigger. If there is always a bigger dream out there beckoning to us, we’ll never stop reaching for it. And if we never stop reaching, we’ll simply get better and better until we reach that new dream.

So whatever it is you’re dreaming about—dream bigger.

3. “Don’t hurry. Don’t worry. Don’t stop.”

I saw this years ago written on a wall in the Innovations building at Disneyland, and I instantly resonated to it. Writing is a process; don’t hurry. Take time to learn your craft. Take time to enjoy the journey. Publishing is a process. Take time to learn the business. But don’t worry if you don’t get it right the first time. Don’t worry if you make mistakes, or if other people don’t understand your vision. Just—don’t stop.

I believe that there is a story inside each of us that only we can tell. Each of us has a valuable and unique voice. Don’t be afraid to use your voice. Don’t be afraid to tell your story.

So dream bigger. Do the work, and don’t hurry, don’t worry, and don’t quit.

Guest Writer Bio:

Lisa Mangum has worked in the publishing department of Deseret Book since 1997. She specializes in editing fiction for the Shadow Mountain imprint and has worked with several New York Times best-selling authors, including Ally Condie, James Dashner, and Jason F. Wright. While fiction is her first love, she also has experience working with nonfiction projects (memoir, educational, cookbooks, etc.) and some children’s picture books. She loves finding that “diamond in the rough” in the slush pile, and she is particularly skilled in the developmental editing part of the process. Lisa is also the author of four national best-selling YA novels (The Hourglass Door trilogy and After Hello). She graduated with honors from the University of Utah, and currently lives in Taylorsville, Utah, with her husband, Tracy.