I’ve seen a lot of posts from other
authors about writing fast. Telling
others that if they want to succeed as an Indie author, they must “hurry up and
write.” Write. Write. Write. Somewhere in the post they might mention quality,
but then the focus returns to writing fast
so the author can get more books published, which helps to sell the other books
that they also wrote fast.
The desperate Indie authors are often
lured into following this advice because… well, they’re desperate. Desperate for
recognition. Desperate for justification that going “Indie” was the right
choice, and desperate for the book sales that this “strategy” of writing fast
promises to deliver. Unfortunately, I see too many writers heeding this advice
despite the consequences.
What’s Wrong
With Fast?
Unless you’re in a race, “fast” is
usually a problem. Think about your favorite restaurants. (Once you get to know
me, you’ll realize that food and coffee are high on my list of passions,
so all thoughts usually go back to one of those.)
I don’t know about you, but I keep
returning to the same restaurants because they always serve me great food.
The calamari is done to perfection, the seafood ravioli I have no words to
describe, and the tiramisu…fahgettaboutit!
I’m a picky individual. My wife would
add four or five adjectives prior to the word “picky,” and a few of those
adjectives I wouldn’t put in print, but that’s neither here nor there. Yes, I
am picky, and if that restaurant didn’t serve me absolutely magnificent
food, I wouldn’t go back. I don’t really care how fast they serve my food.
If the meal is a little late, I’ll have another cappuccino, or another glass of
wine while I chat with my wife. In any case, anticipation makes the meal taste
better, doesn’t it?
Quality
Counts
Think about this—if you’re looking for
referrals on an electrician or a carpenter, do you ask how fast they did the
job, or how good a job they did?
You don’t build successful businesses on
going “fast.” You build them on quality. Even Fed-Ex didn’t build their
business on speed. It might seem like it at first, but think of their motto:
“When it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight.”
Fed-Ex didn’t say, “we’ll get there
faster than UPS, or faster than the Postal Service.” What they did was guarantee
that their package would be there the next day. And then they delivered on that
promise.
Laying Bricks
My wife and I
got married young, and the only job I could get was construction. I became a
bricklayer. One day I was up on the scaffold laying brick and the owner of the
company came by. I was full of youthful zeal and wanted to make an impression,
so I laid bricks as fast as I could. After a few minutes, he called me down
from the scaffold.
“You were
going mighty fast up there, young man.”
I beamed with
pride, dreaming of a raise even as he spoke. “Yes, sir.”
He placed his
arm on my shoulder and started walking along the scaffold at the bottom of the
wall. About halfway down he stopped and pointed to a spot maybe ten feet up.
“You do all this work?”
“Yes, sir.”
Now I knew the raise was coming.
He nodded,
then he said, “You see those two bricks up there? The ones sittin’ crooked in
the wall.”
I gulped, and
quickly realized there would be no raise. “Yes, sir.”
“The crazy
thing about bricks, is that a hundred years from now, after we’re long gone,
they’re still gonna be there. And maybe somebody will be standing right where
we are and looking up at that pretty wall. And then one of them is gonna say,
‘look at those crooked bricks.’ When they see those bricks, they’re not going
to wonder how fast you laid them, they’ll just know they’re crooked.”
Crooked bricks
I nodded my
head. And I knew what I had to do. I went back up the scaffold, took the bricks
off the wall, and started relaying them—straight.
Back to the Books
Straight!
That’s the way I like my books. I don’t want someone picking up one of my books
five, or ten, or fifty years from now and wondering how fast I wrote them. I
want them to sit down and enjoy them.
Maybe over a
good cup of coffee. Maybe over a chat with their spouse.
One last thought
…which do you
prefer—instant coffee, or coffee where the beans have been hand picked, roasted
to perfection, and then brewed for exactly four minutes in a French Press?
Yeah, me too.
I don’t like instant coffee, and I don’t like fast books.
Guest post by Giacomo
Giammatteo, author of Murder Takes Time, and A Bullet For
Carlos. He lives in Texas where he and his wife have an animal
sanctuary with 41 loving “friends.”
 |
