Before You Write That Book . . .

Everyone has a book in them, at least everyone who writes to me seems to have a story waiting to be packaged between hard covers and peddled on Amazon: The mother trying to support an autistic child on $6.50 an hour, the army medic who’s seen how military health care goes wrong way before Walter Reed, the inner-city school teacher who digs into his own pocket to pay for pencils and glue. These are all potentially great stories, but I have one piece of advice: Don’t write a book. At least not yet.

I’m not saying this because I want to keep the wildly lucrative business of book-writing to myself. First, it isn’t wildly lucrative; most of the royalty statements I’ve received over the course of my career have been in the negative numbers. I consider a book -- or an article -- a success if it earns just enough to allow me to go on to the next one.

More to the point, most books don’t start as books. They evolve from humbler efforts such as magazine articles, doctoral dissertations, even op-eds or blogs. If you find yourself saying “I could write about a book about it,” start by writing something far shorter. If you can’t get that published -- as an op-ed, for example -- you’re not ready for a book. Correction: you may be ready, but an agent or editor isn’t going to pay much attention to an entirely unpublished writer.

Nor do I warn you away out of some desire to mystify the writing process. Maybe, in some cases, there’s a “gift” involved, but most of us writers are just skilled craftspersons. We don’t sit down at the computer and watch elegant sentences float onto the screen by themselves. We research, we outline, we agonize, we draft and re-draft and go through countless revisions. If we do a good job, it’s because we’ve been doing it week after week, year after year, and because we’re always open to another revision or even another round of research.

It’s an odd way of life, often fatal to relationships and day jobs. You go to bed wondering if you’ve boxed yourself in with a digression or a point that should come later on. You wake up at 4 AM to scratch out a solution on scrap paper. Sometimes you’re elated; more often you’re convinced you’ve produced a pile of unsalvageable crap. If you want to be a writer, prepare to be bipolar, paranoid (that’s when everything in the world seems to be part of your theme), and, a lot of the time, solitary, sleepless and poor.

And we haven’t even gotten to the publishing part. These days, most publishers file unsolicited manuscripts under “recycling.” Once, in the distant past, I’m told, they paid low-level assistant editors to skim the manuscripts that came their way, but now publishing houses depend on agents to do the screening for them. The agent will read your proposal, decide whether it’s worth pursuing, and, in return for finding you a publisher and negotiating a contract, take 15 percent of any money your earn.

But first you have to find an agent. You start by writing a book proposal (about 20 double-spaced pages for a first-time author, or drafts of several chapters) and send it off, with cover letter and clips (of articles you have already published) to someone listed as a “literary agent” in the yellow pages. (There are 164 literary agents listed in New York City, the nation’s publishing capital.) You follow up with phone calls and, depending on your theological outlook, prayer or animal sacrifice.

My first agent let my book -- which has recently been re-issued as For Her Own Good: 200 Years of the Experts’ Advice to Women, co-authored by Deirdre English -- serve as a desktop ornament for nine months. Fortunately, we had one of those inside connections that is all too common in the publishing world. Deirdre’s father, who worked for a university press, knew an editor at Doubleday whom we could approach directly. We did; she took it; and the agent proceeded to sue us successfully for her unearned 15 percent of our tiny advance.

Now suppose you do land a publisher; you finish your book; it’s accepted and finally lands in your mail box -- a beautiful tome of extraordinary relevance, a monumental work that will change the course of human history. Stroke its glossy cover, admire the font, savor your brilliant last paragraph, display it on your coffee table. Because -- and here’s the tragic part -- chances are that no one else will. About 200,000 books are published each year in the United States, and few are even reviewed. In fact, the venues for book reviews are shrinking: fewer daily newspapers bother with them, and the flagship New York Times Book Review gets more emaciated every year.

Which is why I say: start small. Write a letter to the editor, a 700-word op-ed piece, or try pitching an article to a local weekly. Get used to rejection (there’s even a website for rejected letters to the editor). And if you’re tired of rejection, can’t find an agent or a publisher, and don’t have a trust fund to keep you going -- hey, you can always write a blog.

Comments

[Chris]

Thanks for the heads up, Barbara. I still hold on to the dreams of being a writer, and it's nice to have some candid advice from someone I greatly respect- not BS cliches but real practical advice about what to do and what to expect.

[Anarcissie]

I once heard Robert Penn Warren say that no one should write unless there was absolutely nothing else they could do. I am not sure about that, but I have found it is mighty hard work for the amount of money that tends to be involved.

[Rhea]

Great advice for aspiring writers! Especially the part about starting small with a short article or opinion piece. I am a longtime newspaper and magazine reporter/editor who aspires to getting one of my screenplays produced (I gave up on the novel years ago), so I know how hard it is.

[Hattie]

That's why blogging is so wonderful for all that not ready for prime time writing people like me have in them! My short stories, essays, and critical pieces sit year after year on my website, and every once in a while someone reads them. This is not depressing,the way a remaindered book would be.
I have even been published in Harper's, just like you! In the Letters to the Editor many years ago! What a thrill to have my name in the table of contents! But that was my 15 minutes of fame, right there.
Writing's a career. Other matters have taken up most of my time, and I have not always had the discipline needed to do extended work. And luck plays a big role, as you point out. For us also-rans the Internet has been a boon.
I reflected on that as I read my mother's work that no one ever saw until I put it on my site. She just hid it away, not thinking anyone would be interested, but I have gotten more inquiries about her writing than I have about my own.
It is as you say: write and publish when and where you can.

[Monica]

If you want to be a writer, prepare to be bipolar, paranoid , and, a lot of the time, solitary, sleepless and poor.

LOL--I guess I'm pretty well-suited to write a book, then! :)

Although nothign can stop you from wanting to be an Author (tm) more than being a writer in the corporate world for 20 years. Yep, that'll beat all joy in writing (and sometime the will to live!) out of you, alright! :)

I'm trying to put together a book to sell when I give talks, but am struggling with the desire to write at all... :(

[The Eternal Squire]

I used to earn a fair living writing poetry fit only for machines to read. Does that count as writing? :)

The Eternal Squire

[Thomas]

Great advice Barbara...wish I had seen it years ago, then maybe I would not have become a writer. Certainly, you have accurately pinned the ordeal of getting published--feel free to pass along ideas on how to make book sales soar...

Thomas

[Anarcissie]

In regard to poetry fit only for machines to read, a data processing manager I was doing some work for once showed me a Cobol program written in a French verse form. The correct number of syllables in every line, all the lines with correct rhymes. "That is truly astonishing," I said.

"Yes," chuckled the DPM, "and I thought it should not go unrecognized, so I immediately fired the programmer." I hope it wasn't you, ES.

[akinoluna]

Yeah that's why I laugh when people tell me I should write a book. I would probably go insane before work on the second chapter started.

[Arwen]

Awwwwww. C'mon now. That's no fair: I'm finishing the first edit of my first novel, and I was just beginning to feel cocky.

Looks like synchronicity has come to deflate my bubble.

(Fortunately, my reaction was to put down my blog roll get back to work, rather than to sink into despair. So, take that, Synchronicity!)

Thanks for the heads up though. I won't get too infatuated with publication.

[alphabitch]

It's the middle of the night, I'm at work (slinging copy) and I can't stop giggling.

Thank you.

People always ask me why I have this wretched web-monkey gig and I'm so talented why don't I write a book already. They don't understand why I laugh and laugh and laugh.

[Tertullian]

There is a difference between wanting to write a book and wanting to write books to earn money. Mostly, publishing houses and their adjunct agent parasites still control who'll be able to do that (though vanity presses, etc., allow some possibilities for those who do not get through the gate), but anyone can write that book and post it on the net for virtually nothing, just to write it and get it out there. If it is your *ideas*, thus, that you want to promulgate, get 'em going.

[The Eternal Squire]

Anarcissie,

No, I have never written a like of COBOL in my life. I hope I never do.

Tertullian,

I have a personal and family history fit for a soap opera: full of passion, madness, mayhem, and loss. I am also afraid that if I were to write such a book or blog certain parties would sue me for defamation of character.

So I am not sure what to do.

The Eternal Squire

[Andee]

Eternal Squire, what you need to learn is the art of character disguise and composites. You need only make sure the people you are writing "about" are not immediately publicly recognizable as your characters. IOW, if the people you are writing about are tall, make them short; if fat, make them skinny; if blonde, make them black; if doctors, make them plumbers; if they have Polish surnames, give them Italian ones; if they have squeaky voices, give them deep booming ones; and so on. Mix and match. Make the kleptomaniac sister and the bulimic sister the same person and give her a hair color neither one of the "real" sisters has. Or make them into a bulimic kleptomaniac brother instead. Writers do this all the time. That's the easy part.

[chris]

Eternal Squire, you wrote:

"I have a personal and family history fit for a soap opera: full of passion, madness, mayhem, and loss."

You're not alone in this. What makes your family chronicle more compelling than so many others that have come before?

You worried:

"I am also afraid that if I were to write such a book or blog certain parties would sue me for defamation of character."

If you're writing the family history and your story is true, you may have little to worry about.

There might be repercussions if you destroy someone's otherwise solid reputation. But the truth is the ultimate defense when it comes to libel and defamation.

In any case, the "Roman a Clef" is the story form most appropriate for your notorious family.

Have any of their exploits already appeared in the media?

[Monica]

If the work was so great, why did the programmer get fired? Was that because the program did not really work very well?

[Anarcissie]

Why did the programmer get fired? On general principles, I imagine. I was told the program did what it was supposed to do. However, there are several problems with such behaviors in a corporate environment; for instance, the programmer's manager must have feared that higher management might see the program and decide that he was allowing his workers to fool around instead of do their jobs. Moreover, the programmer's peers might be inspired by him to acts of playfulness which they could not have carried off so well, to the detriment of their work product. The programmer, like most of us, was working in a collectivity and had more to do than just get the job in front of him done; he had to get along, too, and help others get along. That can be the hardest part of a job, and the most needed.

But I think the DPM may also have felt that he was helping the programmer along to a more appropriate career by giving his work the sort of recognition it deserved. It was out of the box, was it not? Wouldn't it insult the poem and the poet to just corporately pat them on the head and say "That's nice"?

[Anarcissie]

chris: '... There might be repercussions if you destroy someone's otherwise solid reputation. But the truth is the ultimate defense when it comes to libel and defamation.'

Not if the target is a private person (as opposed to a politician or other public figure). People have a right to privacy. I am not allowed to publish you social security number and details of your personal business in the newspaper.

However, I don't think ES has much to worry about. In my naive youth I once was carrying on to a friend about the murders, suicides, insanity, criminality, degeneracy, incest, addiction and so on in my family and he snorted and said it was all very dull -- _everyone's_ family was like that. And I have found out that that was pretty much true. All ES has to do is change the names and claim he's not writing about anyone real. Of course, he might get sued anyway -- several years ago I read of a case where a novelist who had pretty much made up his characters and plot was sued by someone he had never heard of, because by chance the novel almost exactly paralleled the litigant's actual family history. The usual murders, suicides, insanity, criminality, degeneracy and so forth, I take it. I don't know how the case came out.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"Not if the target is a private person (as opposed to a politician or other public figure)."

Public figures must accept that people will publish lies about them and there's little they can do about it -- unless the lies state they have committed a crime or have a loathsome disease.

On the other hand, if the public figure has committed a crime or, in fact, is suffering from a loathsome disease, the big-mouth is safe.

You added:

"People have a right to privacy. I am not allowed to publish you social security number and details of your personal business in the newspaper."

There may be some specific law preventing the publication of a social security number, but personal business is something else. If we're simply talking about family secrets where no laws were broken and no one was hauled into court, you're right.

But you don't get to claim defamation or libel if some nosy person tells a reporter about your past as a convict who served time for manslaughter and the facts turn up in the local paper.

Having been sued for defamation, I know something about this. However, because everything I wrote was true, the plaintiff eventually dropped the case.

[chris]

Anarcissie, you wrote:

"several years ago I read of a case where a novelist who had pretty much made up his characters and plot was sued by someone he had never heard of, because by chance the novel almost exactly paralleled the litigant's actual family history. The usual murders, suicides, insanity, criminality, degeneracy and so forth, I take it. I don't know how the case came out."

I'm willing to bet the plaintiff saw a potential payday and went for it. I'd call a suit like that a "frivolous lawsuit."

[Monica]

I really don't agree with the idea that someone who does a great job should be fired for reasons such as that less skilled employees may try to do the same thing and get worse results, or because of what someone who is not even doing the real work (a manager) may think. In fact, it is quite likely that the employee did not "goof off" but actually invested some of his (unpaid) spare time into that perfect job. That's so unfair! He did his job, and a great one at that, and that's what really matters. If others don't do a good job because they are too busy writing poems or are wasting time, they are responsible, not him. His poem did work as a program thad did what it was supposed to do. Getting along is more along the lines of not arguing with others and being able to discuss and explain things if necessary, ask for information, and so on. There is no need to do a less good job because others may not have reached that level of proficiency or because someone who is not doing directly productive work (I'm not saying that all management is useless, but it's not directly productive) worries about completely hypothetical scenarios. As for being better off in a different line of work, that's up to the employee to decide. Maybe he really needed the money from his programming gig and in any case, it's hard to make a living as a poet or writer. Besides, if he did not work excessively long hours, he probably had time to write poetry or whatever he wanted after work. He should have sued the company if he could or publicized the story if he could not (of course, after trying to appeal the decision within the company). I can't believe one can get fired for being a near-genius who worked hard and did a fantastic job!

[Ron Davison]

I once saw a great New Yorker cartoon.
Old woman: I've had such a fascinating life, I should write a book.
Indignant author: I've had such a ringing in my ears, I should write a symphony.

[theresa]

Op-Ed pieces are basically of three types –those reporting information, those taking a stance, and those proposing solutions.

Barbara’s books mostly report information – in Bait and Switch, she started from the question of why so many experienced credentialed people were unable to find work, and the result was chapters and chapters of strange and unsettling reasons. For a short Op-Ed piece, you have to limit your results to a very specific point in order to make that 700 word limit. Generally, newspapers like enlightened explanations for a puzzling public incident or background that illuminates a hidden agenda.

In taking a stance, the premise is already in place, and you have to list reasons why it is a good or bad idea. A recent example is the “surge” debated for Iraq. You are either for or against it, and have to give concrete, compelling reasons as to why. Here you also report information, but it is focused on proving your stance is correct.

In prosing solutions, you determine a problem, report information, take a stance, and then use the bulk of the 700 words to lay out your methods that will best solve the problem. Again, using Iraq, you can report how you perceive the war is going and what in that makes the problem. The problem, then, can be those who have misreported information, taken a stance against yours, or whose solutions you think will fail. As you lay out your solutions, you illustrate why it is based on better information, a more seemly stance, or a more appropriate use of assets than previously explored solutions.

In the film industry, immediately after a pitch the question comes, “What’s the take away?” Others say, “So what?” “So what?” is your point. Why are you reporting information, why are you taking a stance, why are you proposing solutions? What will the reader take away from your piece?

Often, we are first moved to share our experiences through a sense of puzzlement, a sense of wonder, or a sense of righteous indignation. We exclaim, “Whoever thought life could be like this?” From there, we have to be clear on how we think it should be, what went wrong, and why. Often, we don’t know how to fix it, or if it can be fixed, but how are we going to survive it, if we can. And is the question one of survival or merely change. Or are we merely left with marks that eventually we may not notice, no matter how deeply they’ve been etched? What are the results in our lives and others? What ideas are you trying to illustrate?

The Take Away will help focus and motivate your piece, so you need to be very clear about it before you begin, or begin your revisions. Sometimes in the course of writing a piece, you will find your thesis shifting and some take that as a failure. But that’s just learning and should go with it unless you find it obliterates your Take Away, at which point, you might have to cope with your new one....

[theresa]

Op-Ed pieces are basically of three types –those reporting information, those taking a stance, and those proposing solutions.

Barbara’s books mostly report information – in Bait and Switch, she started from the question of why so many experienced credentialed people were unable to find work, and the result was chapters and chapters of strange and unsettling reasons. For a short Op-Ed piece, you have to limit your results to a very specific point in order to make that 700 word limit. Generally, newspapers like enlightened explanations for a puzzling public incident or background that illuminates a hidden agenda.

In taking a stance, the premise is already in place, and you have to list reasons why it is a good or bad idea. A recent example is the “surge” debated for Iraq. You are either for or against it, and have to give concrete, compelling reasons as to why. Here you also report information, but it is focused on proving your stance is correct.

In prosing solutions, you determine a problem, report information, take a stance, and then use the bulk of the 700 words to lay out your methods that will best solve the problem. Again, using Iraq, you can report how you perceive the war is going and what in that makes the problem. The problem, then, can be those who have misreported information, taken a stance against yours, or whose solutions you think will fail. As you lay out your solutions, you illustrate why it is based on better information, a more seemly stance, or a more appropriate use of assets than previously explored solutions.

In the film industry, immediately after a pitch the question comes, “What’s the take away?” Others say, “So what?” “So what?” is your point. Why are you reporting information, why are you taking a stance, why are you proposing solutions? What will the reader take away from your piece?

Often, we are first moved to share our experiences through a sense of puzzlement, a sense of wonder, or a sense of righteous indignation. We exclaim, “Whoever thought life could be like this?” From there, we have to be clear on how we think it should be, what went wrong, and why. Often, we don’t know how to fix it, or if it can be fixed, but how are we going to survive it, if we can. And is the question one of survival or merely change. Or are we merely left with marks that eventually we may not notice, no matter how deeply they’ve been etched? What are the results in our lives and others? What ideas are you trying to illustrate?

The Take Away will help focus and motivate your piece, so you need to be very clear about it before you begin, or begin your revisions. Sometimes in the course of writing a piece, you will find your thesis shifting and some take that as a failure. But that’s just learning and should go with it unless you find it obliterates your Take Away, at which point, you might have to cope with your new one....

[JoeB]

Let's make it 200,001. Reading "Before You Write That Book" is a review of the past 35 years of my life. The manuscript is in the final stages of editing by contemporaries, and it is to the part where I need to know which agent or publishing company to send my 700 words to! "Dictator of America" is itching to get out onto the coffee tables of our nation. Any leads, anyone?

[LoneRanger]

I earn a mediocre, no-benefits wage as a freelance writer. There is one ingredient in addition to some writing ability that is absolutely essential to survival in this very competitive field.

If you want to write, you have to be as tough as a 79-cent steak. You can't fear rejection letters or slumps. This isn't something for the faint hearted.

I constantly meet people who "want to write a book". It's always about them and their "unique" life. If your motivation is narcissitc, don't bother. You won't make it.

Besides, the real work begins after the book is written. You'll need to promote it and try to generate some sales. Don't expect the publisher to bust his butt for you.

[Jerome Alexander]

I will never give up. I've always liked to write. When I was in highschool, I took a creative writing course. The instructor told us to write about what we knew. What did I know at 16? I wrote a book at 50 and just started a blog. What do I write about? Something I've had 34 years to observe and contemplate - business organizations and workplace culture. Visit my blog. URL provided above. Thanks.

[raincoaster]

Can you please add something about not expecting total strangers to read your 300-page first novel for free? Pretty please??? I'm not even famous and I get several requests a month; the only reason I added a reading fee to my price list was to give me some cover for the "No".

[theresa]

I was searching through an old journal and found the folowing, written in 2004 --

We have a seeming oversupply of creative types. The number of Americans identifying themselves as artists increased from 737,000 in 1970 to 2.2 million in 2000. The number of musicians grew from 100,000 in 1970 to 187,000 in 2001, while the number of painters and sculptors increased from 87,000 to 255,000. The number of authors quadrupled to 128,000. With more artists than ever before, presumably creating increasingly vast quantities of work, you'd think that mathematical probability would result in more works of lasting greatness. On the other hand, remember those scientists at Plymouth University in England who recently tested the old proposition that if you gave monkeys typewriters, eventually one of them would produce a play worthy of Shakespeare? As one researcher noted, "The apes turned out to be more interested in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."

[facial anomaly]

Please come view my new fictional blog journal about a disturbed young man

facialanomaly.blogspot.com

[Carol Denbow]

How Hard is it to Write A Book
I've written books in less than 2 months. But then there's the editing, layout, etc. These things take time, especially if you are relying on an outside entity to complete this process for you.
The process of writing, publishing, and "selling" (the hardest part) can be especially frustrating to many upcoming authors. This may be why so many talented writers never see their books in print. It is also why I chose to write my third book, "A Book Inside, Writing, publishing, and selling your story." (will be released in 2008).
I am always happy to offer advice to new writer's. Feel free to e-mail me at [email protected] or visit my website at www.plainandsimplebooks.com