As I dive back in, after a month of nonstop family/events/travel/company/visiting.... the first thing I need to do (after the house is together) is start back in on feeding the always-hungry monster that authors know as Their Platform. As both Philip Yancey and Lisa Samson -- two incredibly talented long-time award-winning best-selling writers -- pointed out in recent days, Publishing Aint What It Used to Be. I have some thoughts on that. (This is going to be long. Youve been warned, if you arent interested in this subject or are in a hurry.) I am also a long-time writer, who had one bestseller :), got two glowing Publishers Weekly Reviews, and a couple of small honors. In other words, Im a solid B Plus writer. I realized early on that I would likely never become a mega-bestselling author. But that was okay, because I quickly learned to be happy with being known as a good, steady, work-horse author who was fun to work with and turned her projects in on time. I remember an A-ha moment for me was reading that Isaac Asimov made a great living by writing across multiple genres and learning to write fast and prolifically. He wrote 500 books, to be exact. (He may still hold the title as Most Prolific Author of All Time. But I am gaining on him.) So I knew if I wanted to actually make a real income in writing (which I needed to do), I would have to: 1) get the right agent who understood how to shepherd the kind of writing career I needed that could support my family 2) write books from-my-heart alongside I need the money projects (usually collaborations, ghosting or editing work) 3) support my writing with speaking and book table sales (half of my income came from writing/ half from speaking and back-of-room book sales) and writing articles and columns (this income opportunity has dried up and all but vanished from reality now, though writing blogs for businesses can pay well) 4) write fast and prolifically (Which meant once and for all, I had to give up the dream of becoming an Annie Dillard, who wrote incredibly well, but sparsely and who, in her book, The Writing Life, said, It takes years to write a book--between two and ten years. Less is so rare as to be statistically insignificant. Call me Statistically Insignificant, but I paid the bills! And so, twenty plus years since my first book, I have written, collaborated on, or ghosted an average of 2.5 books a year. From family humor to marriage and parenting books, to Gabe & Critter picture books, to Camp Wanna Banana mysteries for young readers to collaborations on memoirs, parenting and books, three books with brilliant PhDs on the brain, to the latest mother-daughter projects --humor memoirs about cooking and nourishing our lives. I have seen publishing change from lots of angles. I have been an author for more then twenty years, married for ten years to a literary agent. We both have friends and professional colleagues in all the major CBA publishing houses.(Most of which have now been bought and absorbed into New York houses.) It is true that in general we have seen a trend in lower book advances. Now, even for the best known writers , platforms are must haves in order to sell books. Some of the best and brightest authors with fabulous reviews, suffer dismal sales in this book-saturated, web-based publishing world. I do not blame authors who remember better days, that Golden Era of publishing, for looking to other ways to make an income. But what I want to say to those who love to write, who must write, who cant NOT write is this: there will always be a place for good writers who are willing to write across many genres, learn how to write fast and write well, are creative and flexible enough to realize that only a tiny percentage of authors make enough from the sale of a book to pay the bills of an average household. You can build your platform as best you can, and write one book every year or every two years... but you probably wont make a living this way. In truth, only a small percentage of authors ever did, even in the Golden Age of Publishing. However, if you are willing to conduct interviews and write anothers story, or to collaborate, to work for hire, or write blogs or travel and speak and sell books at the back of the room, you CAN make ends meet. Its a boatload of work and it isnt for everyone. Self-publishing is also changing the financial landscape for writers, some for better, some for worse. In ways I feel blessed that I have always had to write prolifically, always had to find creative ways to use this skill to put food on the table. My expectations have always been that writing is low-paying, exhausting, hard work. And that I still love it enough to find ways to make money at it. For those who are okay being more like Isaac Asimov and less like Annie Dillard, I promise there is still plenty of work to go around in the business and art and calling of writing. P.S. These trends in publishing are behind my literary agent husbands new website, faithhappenings. He came up with this innovative mega-idea to meet some real needs, and also create a shared platform, if you will, for authors, publishers, musicians and more to showcase their art in a way that will stand out from the sea of content on the web. (So many of Amazons books are now self-published, badly edited and reviewed by family, friends or hired reviewers. There has to be a better way to sift the truly well-written, professionally edited books from the chaff.)
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:08:55 +0000
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