Today, author J. L. Lawson joins us with a guest post as part of the virtual book tour for his latest book, Just a Curtain. He is also giving away an ecopy of the book to one lucky reader of today's post so be sure to leave a comment.
10 Things You Didn’t Know About Becoming a Published Author
When I was in my late twenties, in between contracts in California, and only had an old Remington typewriter, loads of copy paper---“borrowed” from a previous employer---and my local Boulder Creek Library as my tools for writing---there wasn't a world-wide web or extensive internet yet---my first forays into putting together entertaining, evocative narratives based more on fact than fictions was tedious to say the least. There followed a lot of just plain life for many years before I finally, actually, started writing as a vocation. That was by then rather late in life, relatively speaking. By that time, well after the advent of the internet, POD, social media and other such marvels of industry, getting published had become a relatively simple matter of formatting one's materials properly, choosing a reliable and efficient printer and bam, you've got a book published. But that's not the end of it by any stretch---unless one is content to merely have one's own shelves populated with one's own books and have no exposure or audience beyond that.
TEN: Do your research.
No matter if you're writing about totally imaginary worlds devoid of seemingly
any touch with reality, in order to connect with an audience you're going to
have to get your facts straight. Even if you are making them up as you go
along, everything needs to be at least internally consistent. Most fiction and
all non-fiction, however, requires a more constant reality check. In my youth
it was the library that stood as the bastion of facts and data, history and
general information. With a laptop and the web, constant trips to the local
branch aren't the impediment to sound research any longer. But you must still
check and cross-check your data. Just because there's a lot available out there
doesn't mean it's all valid, even correct.
NINE: Make sure you say
what you really want to say. That may sound obvious, but unless your thoughts
are clear in your own mind, what comes across to the reader will be a fog of
notions. Take the time to hash out your ideas, opinions and most importantly:
storyline, so that there are no loose ends, no internal inconsistencies, no
circular logic sabotaging your best efforts to bring your story to an expectant
audience. See my blog: Preparing for Interviews,
How Writing is Therapy... section.
EIGHT: You gotta have
style. You can put one word after another in a convincing manner, but would the
average reader recognize your writing from, say, their own or some other
writer's hand? I will not encourage anyone to adopt the bon ton paradigm of the
day: the overpopulation of crude language, steamy and out-right explicit
sexuality or the omni-present tone of disdainful cynicism that appears to
pervade the marginalia-made-book-form of some contemporary
'literature'---Unless that's actually your chosen genre! What you must
attempt to cultivate in any event is your own voice. Your writing style will
follow as surely as night follows the day.
SEVEN: Nothing new under
the sun. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but whatever astonishing “new” idea you have for
your “best-seller” has very probably,
most very likely been written... many times before... to death. Cold facts. But
here's the kicker: Shakespeare didn't come up with anything new either! His
plots were already old and moldy before he picked them up. What breathed new
life into that staleness was: HOW he filled them out; WHO his characters really
were; with WHAT cleverness, depth and flow he imbued their dialogues and
soliloquies. So take heart. Even “Boy-Meets-Girl” can come to new life
in your hands---just make it your own.
SIX: So you have your
narrative. Your friends and family grudgingly read through it and are
pleasantly surprised that it doesn't stink. Then the other foot falls: you need
some editing---not just proofreading for typos and the odd transposed word or
out of place homonym---seriously cut, move stuff around Editing. If you're
brave (or masochistic), you can post it on your blog and open it up to readers'
comments. Probably better however, and less demeaning, is to have a
professional dispassionately make your work shine as it was intended. It may
cost a bit, but what's the price of avoiding Professional Embarrassment?
FIVE: Judging a book by
its cover. That little phrase is still with us because it's more than a
splinter of truth in this business---it's axiomatic. I assure you that I have
built my own covers, was pleased at how they appealed to my eye, but set them
up next to others in their genre and they were the red-headed step-children.
Sad, disheartening, but true. Look at what's catching the eyes of Bookstore
customers---brick-and-mortar stores or the on-line variety---there's always a “Here's what others
are looking at...” section to be
inspected. What catches your eye as you look at those shelves?
That should be a clue.
FOUR: Knock on the biggest
door. Unfortunately, major publishing houses, almost without exception, do not
accept unsolicited manuscripts. You'll need an agent to go there in your stead.
What? Not enough budget for hiring and retaining an agent? How about a
publicist, a marketing analyst, a distribution agency? No? Don't give up just
yet. How about utilizing an indie press and taking on the marketing, sales and
distribution with your own sweat and tears? It has been done successfully. In
fact, that's likely why you're reading this right now---you ARE using the
available means at your disposal and spending as little as possible to make
your title a household word.
THREE: Location, location,
location. It's the marketing of published work that creates the greatest
challenges and forces the most attention and creativity an author can muster.
There are now an over-abundance of resources and advice out there. Let me offer
a shamelessly promotional example: I am writing this now, because I am part of Orangeberry Book Tours because Pandora Poikilos has
connections and know-how I don't. I have contracted with Substance Books for other branding and marketing
efforts for the long haul because Hajni Blasko has the experience and expertise
I don't have.
I
work at Voyager Press who utilizes: KDP, iBooks, Bowker, CreateSpace,
for print and eBook production, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, GreatReads and many
other outlets for distribution---including their own online VPDirect Store. For
Industry exposure they contract with the Jenkins
Group and Combined Book Exhibit, as
well as those firms affiliates. The gist of this note is that networking with
those who have the know-how, the connections and talent is how to put together
a winning team.
TWO: Which brings us to
the penultimate Need-To-Know item in Publishing: It takes a Village!
Just
like raising children or getting a mom-and-pop store out of the red, getting a
book into the hands of potential readership takes all the talent, experience
and relationships you can garner and gather around yourself from the very
beginning. Anyone who thinks they can go it alone in this most highly
interconnected world village of today is either fabulously wealthy already and
can buy their way into a reader's hands, or is, as was suggested at the outset
of this article: “...content to merely
have one's own shelves populated with one's own books and have no exposure or
audience beyond that.
ONE: Simply put: In the
end, a writer has to make informed decisions and never let loose of her/his
pursestrings all too easily for un-researched, un-validated, un-verified
printing, editing, developing or marketing avenues constantly bombarding email
portals with wildly fantastic claims for success. Keep it Simple---Read,
Research, Review, Write, Re-write, Request---those are the new R's of
publishing success in this day and age. But be prepared: Change is always a day
away---it wasn't long ago there was no interweb...
About Just a Curtain
Genre: Literary Fiction, Adventure, Coming of Age“If you had virtually unlimited resources and a pristinely practicable imagination, and a knack for turning air into butter, what do you suppose you’d do next?”
—Tera Elphinstone, Drummond Group Director
Just A Curtain is the remarkable, fast-paced gateway to both The Elf series and the grander epic recorded in J. L. Lawson’s other works: The Donkey and The Wall trilogy and The Curious Voyages of the Anna Virginia Saga.
Just A Curtain chronicles the remarkable life and achievements of Dashiel Drummond and the capable group of people he gathers around him to make a change for the better in the world in which he finds himself. A coming of age story, orphaned at sixteen, he rises through the angst of adolescence to the challenge of fulfilling the promise of his potential—from ranch hand and welder to the pre-eminent global entrepreneur and builder of starships.
About Author J. L. James
I am a father, a grandfather and a “Came-to-Writing-Professionally-Late-in-Life” kinda guy. After rewarding careers as a Land Planner, Standards Engineer, Technical Writer/Graphic Designer, and as an Educator (High School and College Literature/Composition) I settled down at the laptop and began storytelling for a living. My wife and I live in the Cross-timbers country of North Texas and spend as much time seeing this amazing country, its National Parks and Forests, as we can manage.My own journey has taken me both far afield and deep within. It is a journey, no doubt, similar in nature to many seekers’ travels who have come before me. However, an unconditional commitment to the work is the trait of only a handful of those who set their aim very high indeed, and then to find a guide who knows the way through this rarely known land, is without question what all others have equally sought. Some gave up the search, some became distracted by the lure of other interests, many became satisfied with the knowledge they had already gleaned from their initial searches. There is, in the end, only so much gold.
Don't forget to leave a comment on this post to enter to win an ecopy (mobi) of Just a Curtain by Author J. L. Lawson!
I confess to judging a book by its cover!
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