"Just write harder" and other stupid ideas
A genius on the internet explained that:
· They make a good living from writing, “because they work hard”.
· If you don’t make a good living from writing, it therefore follows “that you need to work harder”.
This is what passes for intelligence on the internet.
For example, if every writer wrote three times as much fiction, would three times as much fiction be sold? It’s far more likely that the total quantity of writing bought wouldn’t go up much/at all, and the price paid to the author would go down.
You can be good, you can write fast, you can revise as required… you may use time wisely on social and through other marketing … your friends may think you are the best writer on earth - and still you may not make a good living.
I’m not whinging. Writing can be amazingly good fun and has its own rewards. Books remain an amazing, immersible, mind-expanding joy. I’m just explaining why you may enjoy acting but not end up kissing Brad Pitt.
The short version
Whether you go the traditional route, self-publish, use a small press, or crowdfund, or might use any of these, a sustained career is far from straightforward.
No-one is entirely sure what people want to read, nor whether the current hot sub-genre will last a year or ten. It’s hard to get your book in front of people - online, in other media, or in a bookshop. There’s never been so much to do that’s not reading.
There is a war between what you want to write and ‘will it sell?’ Between creativity burning in you and a desire to see it out there. Some people can write a book a year, some more than that. Not everyone’s brain works like that.
Some self-publishers argue you need at least four books a year - ideally in a series.
In my 14 years as a writer I’ve landed a five-figure two-book deal from an agent who didn’t know me, the second book I wrote. I keep telling myself, that’s better than I had a right to expect.
I worked bloody hard those 14 years. Had a comms job for half of them. The publisher gave it their all but sales were disappointing. I didn’t really have ‘a more of the same’ book at that time. My first agent left the business and I parted ways amicably with the second, and my editor retired.
In that time my partner and I juggled unemployment, illness, kids leaving home, and two deaths of our parents. I spent the pandemic trying to keep a major NHS hospital afloat, a useful and unglamorous cog which meant commuting to a plague-filled hospital four days a week. I have friends who had it much tougher than that.
In that time social media has constantly changed but ceased to be the panacea for sales (it never was), and average trad author incomes have fallen. Once a publisher would be OK with a first book underperforming but now, that really counts against future work. Thank goodness for self-publishing, but most self-published people don’t live off it.
Being able to write is not the same as being a genius for the business.
I probably didn’t need to work harder, but in some magic way, smarter. I pursued some projects I may not land.
Dear Heart is the first book I wrote that might sustain a series, or a prequel, or books in the same world but with a different focus.
You need good friends
Self-publishing? Don’t know many authors? Desperate to see if your problems are unique? There are excellent professionally minded author communities, and book marketing communities. My writing group is great. Other authors are basically colleagues, or at worse, background noise. You don’t get far by seeing them as rivals.
Here is the good news
Ignore the great brain guy.
Don’t let your self-esteem rely solely on how you think the writing is going. There will be times it isn’t going.
Write in part because it is something you must do, or you enjoy doing, or ideally both.
Savour everything you get from it whether that is ‘earning a living’ or not.
Learn all you can, don’t be fossilised, enjoy other people’s achievements, and give back to other people.
Don’t die inside because of everything you ‘could’ do to network, promote the book, or learn your craft feels overwhelming. You can’t do everything - make informed choices.
Consider cultivating the worldview of my friend Oliver who treats sales and reviews as a lovely side benefit of being a writer.
And don’t get wound up to write 900 words every time you read nonsense on the internet. (Have an angry crab. I searched for a word like crab but didn’t find a picture.)
The Three Body Problem on Netflix. (minor spoilers)
I think it was ambitious to take on a big sweeping science fiction tale, based on a best-selling Chinese trilogy by Cixin Liu. The adaptation achieved the rare art of being notably not like everything else. There’s some good acting, clever effects, and they found a reasonable place to end Season One. It deserves a Season Two.
Several people I know haven’t watched it because the marketing doesn’t say what it is about.
It’s ‘about’ a group of people who partly by chance get a ringside seat at momentous events. We are in contact with aliens, they have some presence on earth, but they will only be here in force in 400 years. Yet, we see the story and care through individuals and friendships.
The story brings in a whole host of science fiction ideas. It does things I wouldn’t have done, which is excellent. The problem with hard science fiction is that I fret more about things which I know a bit about. It helps to remember science fiction is about things which can be explained using a scientific paradigm, not ‘things which are absolutely known to be possible’. Not least because people who write the latter are often still proved wrong.
It reminds me what is possible, and it encourages me to do better myself.