Find Blogs

Clues for the Clueless about the Writer’s World Write a comment.
blog by SHUTTA CRUM

1. There is no substitute for good writing. (Having “connections’ in the publishing world won’t help if the writing is not good.) The most useful thing you can do to push your publishing career forward is to hone your craft. That means practice writing—and yes, despite what you might have heard—grammar, syntax and punctuation are important.
2. You need to be a reader in the area in which you wish to write. Read! Read! Read! Compare readings, take notes, and read like a writer. Could you do brain surgery if you did not understand the workings of the body? (‘Nuff said.)
3. No one can do your homework for you. While you’re doing all that reading you need to research children’s publishing and current award winners. You need to know what is already out there so you won’t waste your time, and so it will inform your writing. You will be building a base of knowledge about your craft. That cannot reside in the mind of someone else. And remember, these are “current” books you will be studying because you will be writing for the millennial (today’s) child, not the child you were fifty years ago.
4. No author will refer you to his/her agent or editor without falling in love with your manuscript. Relationships of this type are built on trust. No author would do damage to his or her agent/editor relationship without first reading and loving your manuscript. (Agents and editors are already inundated by thousands of manuscripts.) See # 5 for more info on this point.
5. Few authors have the time to mentor/read your manuscripts. (Thus they will have no time to fall in love with your writing.) This is because they are squeezing every second they can out of the day to work on their own manuscripts, and still retain some semblance of a family life, and sanity. Teachers/instructors and contest judges will, generally, read your whole manuscript. A few authors offer manuscript critiquing for a fee. Also, you can hire an independent editor or book doctor.
6. Everyone gets rejected. This even applies to well-known authors, who may have just gotten a rejection from the same agent/editor to whom you are seeking an introduction. There are many reasons for rejections. Get used to it. A lot of authors had hundreds of rejections before a first acceptance. (I did!)
7. No one is interested in your memoir unless you are in the public light already, or did something amazing that few know about. The only exception to this is your immediate family.
8. No one is interested in the family stories your grandchildren love. Unless . . . (see #1) you have crafted elegant stories from these through the hard work of plotting, revising, and revising again. (The exception to this is stated in #7.)
9. The majority of authors make very little money. Surprised? Do the math. The basic contract for a novel is 10%, so that’s $1.50 for a $15 novel. General first, or second print runs are a few thousand copies. For picture books, it’s worse! That 10% must be shared between the author and the illustrator. (No one magically comes up with another 10% for the illustrator.) Thus, 5% of a $16 hard-cover picture book is only 80¢ per book! So event organizers take note: most authors will not travel long distances for “the opportunity” to sell a few copies of their books—the price of gas would eat up any royalties made on the sales. (The exception to this is bookstore signings/conferences when networking is of more importance than the number of books sold.)
10. Authors do not get unlimited supplies of free copies. Generally, an author will get anywhere between five and twenty-five free copies. That’s it, folks! After that, authors must buy their own books—though at a discounted rate. So event organizers, or teachers: when you’re looking for “donations” for various causes, know that most authors will only donate to personal causes, or make family decisions on donation requests as the cost of the books will be coming out of the author’s pocket.
11. To extend #10 a bit further, unless an author is self-published (or published through a print-on-demand company, or a subsidized/vanity publisher), most authors cannot purchase author copies of their titles at a discount price and then turn around and sell them at the listed price—you can see that would cut out most of the profits made by others. In fact, some contracts expressly forbid this . . . so most authors who are not self-published do not rent tables to be vendors at book fairs or other functions. Don’t expect them to self-sell their books. However, many authors are very happy to appear and autograph books if the sponsoring agencies handle the book ordering and sales. (p.s.—I would also venture to guess that most mainstream authors do not have sales tax licenses for all the states to which they are invited.)
12. Finally, most authors do not have the time to be online pen pals with you or your very talented students/children. We love children, we love schools and teachers, and parents who care. It’s just that there is not enough hours in the day—barely enough to be available to love our own children, spouses, and students. (Due to # 9 above, some of us hold down full-time day jobs, as well—like teaching.)

I hope this short list has given you some insight into a writer’s life. It’s not all rosy. It’s often quite demanding and exhausting. Why do it then? That’s simple: we love how vision and thought combine to flow from the mind to the hand shaping words on a page. And then, how those words can march forth and change the world in big or small, but significant, ways. It is the artist within us exclaiming, “I am here. I make a difference.”

Happy writing.

Ciao!

Shutta

Posted in July, 2008