Writing to Publishing (tags #writing #authors #sfwapro)

At SQL Saturday Orlando, another speaker and I got into a discussion about the transition from writing to publishing. He went to my blog looking for SQL Server stuff and got confused when he found all the literary references. For a moment, he thought he was in the wrong place, then realized he had indeed found DBA Brandie who was fulfilling a dream that he himself had.

So he found me at lunch and we started talking shop, then writing. It was an amazing conversation because he articulated something that had happened to me back in the day: the endless writing loop with the goal of getting published, but none of the action.

And that’s a problem. Not just for him and not just for me, but for many people. Everyone has this dream but now that I’m in the industry, I keep forgetting what it’s like to not know how to do it. We write, we go to classes, we write some more, we go to conventions and press flesh, then we write even more. All the while we keep waiting for that magical piece of advice, that golden key that someone at a bar or in the middle of a panel will say “Brandie Tarvin, give me your novel and I will publish it with great fanfare.”

Except it never happens that way.

Sure we get contacts and we do our networking and (as I’ve said before) Networking Is Good. But until the day we actually get off our collective duffs and do something, all the networking in the universe won’t get us published.

So aside from having a completed story, what does it take to get published?

Most of the current available advice consists of the following:

Sigh. That’s all good advice, but it misses the point. That most people don’t know where to start with any of that. There’s a terror of rejection or, worse, fraud that steals all their rights or even their stories. The scariest tales of copyright infringement and intellectual property theft come from the unpublished authors, not the published ones.

So how do we do this, get from unpublished writer to published author? It depends on what you expect to get out of publication.

If you write only short stories, you’re unlikely to find an agent since most of them only rep novels. It’s the same with media tie-in works. I don’t have an agent as of yet, and here I am published.

So let’s start at the basics. You’ve finished your story. You think you’ve polished it off and it is an excellent piece of fiction. Your family and best friends have all read it and they love it. Maybe you have a writing group (and if you don’t, you need to get one). They’ve gone over it and corrected the grammar and pointed out plot points they think need fixing. Are you ready? Not quite. Get some beta readers, preferably ones that have been published before if you can and have them give you a critique. Most importantly, do NOT make changes to the story while someone is reviewing it. That’s a waste of effort and will make them feel like their opinion is unwanted. Plus you might screw up something fantastic in your quest to fix a non-existent bad thing.

If you don’t have beta readers, you can get some at these online groups: AbsoluteWrite.com, Critters, and Book Country.

Remember to take critiques with a grain of salt. All reviewers have their own agendas even when trying to be unbiased. Get reviews from people who enjoy reading the market the story is aimed at. After incorporating the comments and reviews into the next draft, go through for a final spellcheck and punctuation review.

Decide if you want an agent or are submitting to publisher directly. Then look them up. You can learn about potential agents and publishers via Writer Market (a helpful but expensive resource that is partially out of date when it reaches print, though it has an online version too) or via search engine (an iffy result set due to paid advertising) or Publishers Marketplace (who doesn’t always vet the people who sign up there). Yet for all that, these are good ways of finding names and potential matches to your market. So use them, then follow up with additional research once you think you have a match.

And yet, we’re still missing the crucial piece here. Where to find the market for the story. The current “big six” science fiction & fantasy publishers (though that is changing with all the mergers) are Tor, Baen, Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin (which was bought recently by Random House). Harper Collins and Hachette Book Group are also big publishers but I ignore them as I am not currently writing for their markets. Other places to find current markets (though they are mostly short stories) include Ralan.com, Duotrope, and the CRWROPPS Yahoo Group (whose link I can’t get to work. BTW, this is mostly a poetry listing).

Once you know your market, I strongly advise researching them before submitting. Check out their website (if they have one), Google their name with the words “+ scam” attached to the search, and most importantly read the submission guidelines (and any sample contracts they may post to their site). AbsoluteWrite, Writers Beware, and Preditors and Editors have the best resources for investigating potential agents, editors, and publishers. They report (as truthfully as they can) what sounds hinky, what looks good, and when people disappear.

Decide on where you want to submit first. Read the submission guidelines at least three times so you understand what they want, what they will accept, and how to format your cover letter / submission. Then write up the cover letter, create the submission, and send it away.

Expect rejection. You will be through the moon if they accept, but expect rejection. It’s not personal. It’s part of the business. It’s not about you. It’s about the story, the timing of the story, the voice the individual submission editors are looking for, and what slots they have available. Don’t dwell on rejection, just have a good cry and move on to the next market.

Rinse, Repeat.

Yes, you should absolutely be writing the next thing as you wait to hear back, but you should also be submitting every chance you get. Keep a list of who you submitted to and who you didn’t submit to. Put it in order of Best to Worst markets. Submit to the high paying markets FIRST (not last). I can’t say this enough. Reach for the highest bar you can. The fall might hurt a little bit more, but there’s a strategy to this. If the work is that good, and hits the right note at the right time with the right person, you won’t have to “climb the rungs” to get to the best markets. In fact, in writing there is NO SUCH THING as working one’s way up to the top. We start at the top and work down. That’s the way to get published.

And if you feel your work is still missing something, apply to one of the three best writers workshops (and most trustworthy) I’ve ever heard of: Odyessy (if you have 6 weeks free), Clarion (again, do you have 6 weeks?), or Viable Paradise (a 1 week experience that I absolutely loved). These intense writers workshops are for advanced writers with the basics down who are missing that one or two little things that push them from unpublished writer to published author. Trust me, it does work, and you make friends and networking connections that will last you a life time.

So, this is how to go from writing to publishing. The thing is, as long as we keep writing, but not submitting, all we’re ever going to be is writers with a dream. We have to take that leap of faith, that risk of failure, before we can succeed. Success is not for the faint of heart but for those brave souls who risk the chasm to grasp the reward on the other side.

Did I miss anything? Probably. Let me know if you can think of any questions I didn’t answer, any advice I passed by.

#sfwapro

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