There is More Than One Path... or You Don't Need a Publisher or Agent to be a REAL Writer

Going through the various bits and pieces, today - FB, Email, blog pass - and it hit me again that the amount of pressure there is on new writers to find an agent and follow a traditional publishing path is incredible. All of the attitudes, worries, myths, fears, prejudices, and pressures that I encountered when I started out in 1991 are STILL THERE.

And they're wrong.

It doesn't have to be this way.

I've been seeing a lot of it lately, and it really bothers me that the majority of the writing industry tries to tie new writers to a traditional path - and many 'established' writers support that...even though the industry does not necessarily support them...even though they cannot make a living solely from their writing...even though their colleagues and friends fight them for the (very few) publishing slots available in a traditional publisher's schedule.

If you look around, today, there are very few traditionally published writers who can make their rent, let alone their groceries and utilities as well...yet new writers are still pushed toward that path, still told that all it takes to make a living as a writer is to write, still given the impression that their first contract means they've 'made' it and their writing career has begun.

It's so wrong. 

Your writing career starts the moment you put your first word on the page with the intention of being published. Your writing career starts with that...and continues with the next word, and the next.

 

I started writing with an eye to being published in 1991, but I was writing for years beforehand. I love writing. I followed all the usual advice: submit to magazine markets, go to writing events and meet editors so they can put a face to a name when you send your submission in, enter literary competitions, all the blahblahblah, and, for a very long time I thought I failed to be published because I wasn't good enough and never would be.

 

It took me a long time to learn that there is more to being published than the quality of your writing. It's also affected by what a publisher perceives their market to be - your book can be brilliant, but if it doesn't fit that market, the publisher is not likely to take it. Being published also depends on whether the editor already bought a 'dragon'/'colony'/'werewolf' story that week, or if yours is the fiftieth 'dragon'/'colony'/'werewolf' story that crossed their desk that day...and it depends on there being room for your story in that publisher's or magazine's line-up. If they're already fully stocked, they won't take your work, either.

 

None of those reflect on your quality - although quality helps in being selected when you do match the publisher's perceived market, when it is one of the first of its genre to cross the editor's desk and when there is room for it to be added to the schedule. Quality matters a lot.

 

Getting to meet editors and other writers is also a two-edged sword. Living on the wrong side of town, for instance, actually affects how you...and, subsequently, your work...is perceived. Imagine my surprise when I found that out - of course, the hard way. Having a different approach or opinion to the wrong person has the same effect. The quality of the work you produce in either of those circumstances didn't seem to matter...or, at least, not in the very small circle of Australian publishing I was experiencing at the time.

I watched people smile and regard me with interest when introduced at a writing gathering, only to turn away when I answered their question on what suburb I lived in. When I sent my work to overseas publishers rather than Australian ones I was criticized for not supporting the local industry, and when my research could no longer be ignored and I finally started down the independent path, I found myself very much on my own.

 

 I know that, in my very early days, my work needed to improve, but I worked at it and it got better - and, despite the lack of support from local writers, I didn't give up. I worked numerous day jobs - holding down four or five part-timers while raising a primary student in order to put myself through university so I could get a better day job - but I still wrote, and my writing improved.

 

In 2009, I signed contracts with three different small publishers having disciplined myself to learn how to write romance suited to their audiences. I also had roleplaying adventures published, one as a product, and several as part of an international roleplaying organization as a volunteer.

 

I started independently publishing my work in 2012, but with almost no budget for advertising or covers, I had limited success. In June, 2018, when my whole world was going wrong, I submitted a nine-book proposal set in someone else's world, expecting another rejection because they didn't know me and I was, on the scale of things, a nobody author - a writing nothing, and not even successful by almost every standard you can think of.

 

That year, I also made submissions to six anthologies, four of which wanted just the outline, and one of which the first 500 words.  By then, I'd been writing and submitting work long enough to know that my writing style and genre choice didn't fit most of the established markets, so I didn't expect to get anywhere with any of them.

 

I sent the work, anyway.

 

By December, 2018, I had had one firm reject, one reject that said I could submit an alternative story, four acceptances pending final product, AND I had a contract for the series submission. I didn't know what had hit me...a feeling made worse by three months of illness and being told my mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

 

I wrote, anyway. I did my absolute best for each story, but still struggled. Even though I finished the first story that was rejected, and the second...and the replacement for the second, which was accepted, completed two more successful submissions, AND completed the initial trial chapters for the novel series, as well as most of the first novel, I had to delay the first novel and write an apologetic letter to the publisher of the anthologies for the last two short stories explaining what had happened and saying I understood if they no longer wanted the pieces I hadn't turned in.

 

I was blessed that everybody was prepared to be understanding...and still wanted their stories.  By the end of February 2019, I had the two shorts and the first three novels completed, the fourth novel completed by the end of March, the fifth by July, the sixth by September and the seventh by January or December. By the end of July 2020, the final book of the series had been released, I'd been contracted for some work for hire (because I helped somebody out I didn't know), and I'd completed another short story (rejected) and an additional novel in one of my own series.

 

Now, this might be all very well, you say, but what does it have to do with new writers being pushed toward the traditional path of being published?

 

My point is this: If you want to make a living from your work, you need to be prepared to explore all the avenues to being published (which takes time) - and you are statistically more likely to make an actual living from your work as an independent or hybrid author than if you follow a traditional path - and THIS is what new authors are not made aware of...or are mocked and looked down on for considering.

Authors have options

 

Sure, look at traditional, but do the math and weigh the long wait times, the small runs, the comparatively short publication lifespan, a very limited release schedule, the higher pricing, the smaller royalty return, the lack of marketing, and your lack of control and loss of IP rights against appearing in book catalogues and being ordered by mainstream bookstores. You might also need to consider the prestige of being published by a publisher or represented by an agent - those are benefits, but weigh the cost.

 

If you look at being independent, do more math and consider the cost of covers, editing and marketing (even on a shoestring budget) as well as the cost in time organizing those will require. Consider the benefits of retaining control of your IP and subsidiary rights, your ability to control your pricing, the higher royalty return, the ability to release multiple books each year and almost absolute control of your release schedule, control of cover content and advertising content and the freedom to create spin-offs without worrying about whether or not you still hold the rights to do so.

 

If going independent, you will also need to consider the loss of standing you'll suffer in traditional author circles and at many conventions, and the fact people will cast aspersions on your work because you chose to publish it yourself instead of having someone else approve it. How much you'll experience those last will depend on where you are and what circles you move in, but they will be present to varying degrees.

If you consider being hybrid - i.e. having some work published through a publisher AND putting some work out yourself - you need to consider all of those factors (and probably a few I haven't thought of while writing this), but you'll need to consider them for each project. You'll also need to consider why a particular path is good for you and/or that piece of work, at this instant.

Think of things like: Will it give you exposure you need to gain more readers...and is it the best way to gain that exposure and those readers? Is the impact on potential income worth the benefit you expect from that path? Is it something you're doing because of the challenge of writing involved? Will it push you to be better at your craft? Do you enjoy it?

 

There is more than one path to making a living from writing fiction - and one size does not fit all, and the reason I wrote this post is the amount of doubt and trauma I see among new writers who are told that, in order to be a REAL writer, they MUST find an agent and they MUST be published by a publisher. That isn't true.

A new writer MUST first and foremost WRITE...and they absolutely MUST decide which path to publishing best suits THEIR goals and aims, and then they MUST do their research and continue to monitor changes in the industry as they follow that path as best they can. 

As I write this, I am preparing two series for re-launch, putting into practice some of the things I have learned over the last 29 years of wanting to be a published writer, and the last 8 years of independently publishing, and wanting to make a living from my work. I am not traditional, but now I'm not truly independent, either. I am now a hybrid - and I've followed many paths to get to this point.

In the last eighteen months, I have independently published (and pulled from circulation pending re-release) one novella, one short story, one collection, 6 YA chapter books, and one novel. I have also had an eight-book series published by a publishing company, and completed several pieces of work-for-hire. I did not get to this point by following a traditional path or by allowing the expectations of those locked into that path to limit my expectations or my avenues to a writing career - and it hurts me to see others being constrained and discouraged that way.

If you are a new writer, WRITE. Furthermore, DREAM, but, most of all, take a look at the paths open to you that were not open in the past, take a good long look at your options, decide what is best for YOU (according to your research and not someone else's opinion), and then work to achieve it. 

Also: good luck - may the words come swiftly, may they be the right words, may your stories flow - and your readers be entertained.

No matter which path you choose.