Tell us about your
latest book.
My latest book is the third edition of
“Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer.”
As suggested by the words “third edition,” this is a revision of a book
I originally wrote quite a few years ago.
My original goal when I first wrote the first edition was to create a
book that answered the types of questions new freelance writers most commonly
ask – and to create a book that would enable a would-be writer to start
basically from scratch and, following the steps in the book, build a successful
writing career. As the freelance world
(and in particular the online world) evolves, this book has been evolving as well,
and I believe it still fulfils the goals that I originally set for it. This book guides you step-by-step through the
process of becoming a professional freelance writer, from market research to
handling your business taxes. It will
help you brainstorm article ideas from areas of your life that you might never
have considered “mining” for freelance materials. It explains how to craft a query that will
get an editor’s attention; how to draft and polish an article; and how to
handle the submissions process. It also
looks at ways writers can make the most of social media and their online
presence (including why a traditional website is still a vital tool for
freelancers); how to become a copy-writer; how to handle the business side of
freelancing (including negotiating contracts and understanding your rights);
and how to move from writing articles to writing books. Finally, it addresses the question of when
and whether to “take the plunge” from part-time writer to full-time freelancer.
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| http://amzn.to/2DY7GeM |
How was this book
published? (traditional, small press, self pub, etcc...) Why did you choose that particular publishing
route?
The book is commercially published through
Allworth Press/Skyhorse Books. While I
have self-published, a commercial publisher is still the only way to get your
book into bookstores across the country.
The book is also available on Kindle. I presume it will eventually be
available as a Nook Book as well, since the previous edition is. So you can get
the book on Amazon, B&N, etc., as well as in quite a few bookstores.
Do you read your book
reviews? How do you deal with the bad or good ones?
Yes, I do.
I don’t really “deal” at all. I
accept either as the opinion of the reviewer.
Of course I’m thrilled by good reviews, but I don’t let negative reviews
get me fussed. It’s not worth the
time.
What's your favourite
quote about writing/for writers?
Oh, gosh, I have so many. I have a huge list, because I create a
writer’s planner for my Writing-World.com website (you can download it there
for free) and I put in a quote for writers on just about every other page. Here are a few of my favourites:
“There is no way of writing well and also of
writing easily.” – Anthony Trollope
“Please don't entertain for a moment the
utterly mistaken idea that there is no drudgery in writing. There is a great
deal of drudgery in even the most inspired, the most noble, the most
distinguished writing... Believe me... if you wait for inspiration in our
set-up, you'll wait for ever.” - Ngaio Marsh
“If you don't have time to read, you don't
have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” - Stephen King
“Doing things,
and not dreaming about them, is the secret of success. Thinking out plans will never come to
anything unless the thought be followed by a determined will to execute.” –
Anonymous quote from a Victorian women’s magazine
“When I
consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how
they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal
life to those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and
foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truth from heaven; I
give eternal blessings for this gift, and thank God for books.” – James Freeman Clarke
What's the best thing
about being a writer?
That’s sort of a trick question. If you are a writer, the best thing about
being a writer is being a writer. You
should only be doing this if you love writing.
You will only ever do it well if you love writing. If you don’t love writing, there’s no “best
thing” about being a writer – it’s just
never going to be “your thing.” If you
do love writing, there is no other “best thing” – it’s not about fame, or
money, or even that elusive quality of “independence” that we associate with
the idea of working for ourselves or freelancing. The best thing about being a writer is the
only thing about being a writer: writing.
Where can people find
out more about you and your writing?
Since this particular book is for writers who
wish to improve their chances of success in the writing business, the best
place to learn more is my website for writers, Writing-World.com (http://www.writing-world.com/). This site has hundreds of articles for
writers of every type and level of expertise; its purpose, like that of the
book, is to guide you in the steps necessary to achieve your writing goals and
dreams. I have a host of editorials on
the site (look under “Editor’s Corner”) – and that will certainly give you a
chance to get to “know” me a bit better!
But let me also take a moment to plug my Victoriana website,
VictorianVoices.net, which is an archive of articles from Victorian periodicals
and the site of my monthly Victoriana e-magazine, “Victorian Times.”
How long did it take
you to write your book?
Since this was a revision, I gleefully
expected that it wouldn’t take me long at all.
The first time I wrote the book, it took nearly a year. Well, so much has changed in the writing
world between then and now that it took about six months to complete this
edition. I kept finding more things that
needed to be added or changed, and the result is that this is the longest
edition ever (I was amazed at how fat the book was when it arrived a few weeks
ago!). So I guess the moral is –
whenever you’re planning a project, assume it’s going to take quite a bit
longer than you expected. I don’t think
a book can ever be written “quickly.”
Do you believe
in writers block?
Yes, I do. I’ve known too many people who have developed
writer’s block for one reason or another to dismiss it as nonexistent, or just
something that you should be able to “get over” if you were just more
disciplined or something.
That being said, when I develop
writer’s block, my belief is that my subconscious is trying to tell me
something. When I’m writing fiction and
I run into a block, it’s usually because
I’ve made a mistake, written myself into a corner, or created a contradiction
or an impossible situation. My inner
editor is telling me to stop writing and figure out what I’ve done wrong and
fix it. Otherwise, I could go on writing
and writing – and have to back up and throw most of it out because I was going
in the wrong direction.
In nonfiction, if I run into a block,
it’s usually because I have absolutely no interest in what I’m writing
about. I might have an article
assignment and I just don’t care about the topic. Then it’s very difficult to drag myself through
the process. I can usually do it, but I
always feel that the result is of poorer quality than when I am enthusiastic
about the material. I think there, my
inner editor is asking, “Why are you wasting precious writing brain power on
something that means nothing to you? Is
the money really worth it?”
If you could
tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
It would be “start sooner!” I always knew I “wanted” to be a writer. But I was the world’s worst
procrastinator. If I had known then what
I know now, I would have chased my younger self around, kicking it in the
behind to actually start doing something about writing.
In my book, I reference Carol Dweck’s
book “Mindset.” Dweck conducted a study
that indicated that when you tell someone (i.e., a kid), “you’re really good at
X,” you’re actually doing them a disservice.
When you tell a child, for example, “you’re really good at writing;
you’re a natural at it; you have a gift,” etc., the child tends to develop the
notion that skill at something like writing is something that comes naturally
and easily. If you’re “good” at
something, it means you don’t have to “work” at it. I was always “good” at writing in
school. I didn’t mind essays and
ten-page reports. Conversely, I was
never “good” at math; I had to work at that.
So obviously I was “meant” to become a writer, not a mathematician,
right?
Only, when you start writing in the
real world, you find out that it’s a lot harder than it looks. What worked in high school doesn’t work in
the real world. (One of the first things
I had to learn was that writing a newspaper article was completely different
from writing a college paper!) Writing
is work. When it no longer comes easily
and you’re no longer being told (by teachers who are comparing your essay to a
host of others from the same class) that you’re wonderful, you get
discouraged. I hadn’t learned how to
push myself outside of my comfort zone as a young writer.
Probably the best thing that ever
happened to me was getting a job as a magazine editor. One of the first things I was told to do was
to take a pile of information and sit down and write an article on flea control
for dogs. What, just like that? I was used to waiting for inspiration to
strike; I’d never imagined that you could just take a pile of clippings, start
going through them, sit down at the typewriter and crank out an article in an
afternoon. But in the “real world” of
working for a magazine, that was exactly what you had to do, and what I learned
to do. That’s when I learned how to put
the behind in the chair and get the job done, even if it wasn’t easy or
fun.
I’ve written quite a lot in the last
few decades, but I do wonder how much more I might have written if I could have
gone back in time and given myself that advice??
What are your
thoughts on self-publishing versus traditional publishing?
Very mixed! I’ve done both. When I wrote my first nonfiction book,
“Coping with Sorrow on the Loss of Your Pet,” I had just come across a book on
self-publishing, and it intrigued me. I
did send out some proposals to commercial publishers for the book, but I think
I was already half-convinced to try self-publishing even when I did that.
Now, keep in mind that this was
1987. The Internet did not exist. The Macintosh had just come out, and was
making it possible for the first time for a self-publisher to set their own
type. (Otherwise, you’d pay $10 or more per page, which was obviously out of
the question.) I designed and formatted
my book on one of those old Macs that look like an overgrown shoebox – remember
five-inch floppies? We didn’t have a
laser printer so we took the files in to my husband’s office to print. I still had to do the paste-up the old
fashioned way, by hand, with blueline sheets and rubber cement. But I got it done, and then settled into the
endless process of trying to promote the book.
I didn’t make my money back on that edition, but that book has remained
in print – through self-publishing – to this very day, and I’ve sold something
like 17,000 copies total. It hasn’t made
me rich but it has more than repaid my initial investment and keeps on selling.
That’s my success story. I’ve self-published a number of books since
then that have gone nowhere. Part of the
problem today is that I no longer have the time or energy to devote to the
nonstop marketing that I gave that first book.
So I do see self-publishing, and various forms of DIY publishing such as
POD through avenues like Lulu or CreateSpace, as viable for certain types of
nonfiction projects. If you have a
strong platform in a narrow market niche, self-publishing can be the way to get
a book out there that a larger commercial publisher wouldn’t consider
economically viable.
I do not see self-publishing as a viable option for most fiction. There is so much fiction out there that the reader doesn’t have to browse through pages and pages of independently published author websites trying to find something to read. While there are occasional dramatic author success stories in the fiction self-publishing field, you have to recognize how occasional those really are. If you want your book to be in bookstores, airport shops, Walmart, grocery store shelves, and all those other cool places where people grab books on impulse, the only way to get there is through a commercial publisher. If you want your book to be available around the world, you need a commercial publisher. And if you want your book to be read by thousands of people, not tens or hundreds, you need a commercial publisher.
What disturbs me today is that so many
writers are choosing self-publishing not because they can’t get a commercial
publisher, but because they are impatient and don’t want to bother going
through the painful process of trying.
The DIY marketplace has sung a siren song of how you can be in “control”
of your book, how you can “own” it, how you don’t have to be subject to the
whims of a marketplace that is just driven by money, yadda yadda yadda.
I’ll give just one downside to this –
if you have a book that is almost good enough for commercial publishing, and
you submit it to a publisher or agent, there’s a chance that you might get some
valuable feedback on how to make your book better, more publishable, and more
marketable. You might not like that
feedback. But if you’re aiming for
commercial publication, and you find that you need to keep polishing and
editing and reworking your book until it’s “good enough,” that’s what you’re
going to do. And along the way, you’re
going to end up not only with a publishable book, but with better skills as a
writer to bring to your next book.
But if you bypass that process – if you
dismiss commercial publishing as just a bunch of bean-counters who don’t care
about good writing but only about the bottom line – and you just dump your
novel on Kindle and move on to the next, you’re not doing anything to improve
your writing. You’re not facing the
challenge of what it takes to be “good enough” to “get published.” You want to get your book into the
marketplace today, right now, forget the two-year wait involved in finding a
“real” publisher. And so you settle for
50 readers, or 100 readers, instead of the thousands that you might have
had. I see all sorts of rationales for
writers who say they just love being able to “connect” with their 50 readers...
Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I’d rather have 50,000 readers that I maybe don’t
chat with every day, but who love my books and can’t wait for the next one to
come out.
author interview
authors
books
Interview
interview feature
Jo Linsdell
Moira Allen
non fiction
Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer
writers
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