Russell Blake |
Author Myths – 1
Posted: 26 Mar 2014 11:24 AM PDT
I
hear ‘em all the time in chat groups and forums, and they drive me
nuts. Author myths. Shit that’s just not true, and yet continues to
circulate like literary fool’s gold, luring newbies and veterans alike
into a kind of idiotic somnambulism.
I’m here to disabuse folks of a few of them in an ongoing series of
blogs. Here, in no particular order, are several doozies that I believe
are responsible for more author misery than VD, hangovers, or taxes.
1) Books Sell Themselves. No, Victoria, they kinda
don’t, at all, and never did. That’s why trad pubs spend massively on
promotions. Because they know that visibility sells books, not invisible
cosmic forces or author brilliance. It’s a highly competitive market
with millions of choices, and it’s a retail market, and in retail,
visibility is key. Which means constant promotion. Which most authors
hate. But it’s reality, so get used to the idea. A companion to this
aphorism is the next one…
2) Just write the next one. Sure, if you want to
have two undiscovered gems instead of one. Look, writing the next one’s
important, but not if it’s used to justify not promoting the last one,
which is often the case. You have to both market the last one AND write
the next one. Sorry. You do.
3) It’s all about luck. Well, perhaps some of it is.
Maybe even much of it is. But so’s everything. You drive to the market,
and 30 seconds after you pass the intersection some dumbass crashes
into the car behind you. Luck. A hundred people start restaurants in
town and two do well while the rest fail. Luck. A mugger attacks you
after a movie. Luck. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. The book biz is no
more or less random and chaotic than life, and yet some folks seem to
consistently do better than others. I believe you need to work very
hard, prepare, and be persistent, creating some of your own luck. As an
example, it’s possible you always wear your seat belt and the other
driver didn’t today. In that case, bad luck becomes disastrous due to a
simple act of preparation. Or in the case of the restaurants, perhaps
the ones that prospered had owners that worked 18 hour days and were
talented chefs, and further, were savvy and inventive about getting
people to try their cuisine. Preparation, persistence, hard work combine
in that case to drag lady luck in their direction. With the mugger,
maybe you have pepper spray or spent years on martial arts or have a
concealed carry. Your preparation is the mugger’s bad luck.
Luck may be a factor, but in my experience it’s only one factor, and that perspective of it all being about luck breeds apathy.
4) Do everything right and you’ll make it. Huh. If
that were so, every book put out by big pubs would do well. The vast
majority don’t. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do everything
right, unless you want to worsen your already slim odds rather than
improving them.
5) The best you can do should suffice. Mmm, not so
much. This is a popular refrain from those destined for obscurity. In a
highly competitive business, you need every possible edge. Which means,
in this one, your cover, your blurb, your concept, your writing, your
formatting, and your marketing need to be top shelf, not as good as you
can manage given all your issues. Nobody cares about why you can’t
produce a product that’s great. Your job is to produce it. Cheap out or
try to do it yourself (unless you’re one in a million and not only a
brilliant author, but also a brilliant, experienced cover designer,
editor, formatter, etc.) and you just radically worsened your odds. Why
would anyone buy something sub-par? Would you buy a sub-par car, or
house, or phone, or anything, because the company producing it found it
too hard or expensive to do it right? No. And neither will readers. At
least not for long.
6) Do this and you’ll succeed. Whatever. No
you won’t. Or rather, not necessarily. No more than practicing your
basketball skills will get everyone into the NBA. Millions play every
year, tens of thousands are good, many thousands are excellent, and yet
only a handful make the cut. There’s no guaranteed formula, just ways to
improve your odds. But don’t develop good work habits, don’t refine and
improve your craft, don’t learn everything you can about the biz and
put it to use, don’t turn out a polished product…well, your chances just
got far worse.
7) The secret is X. Nope. There is no
secret. The book business is, as are all businesses, a business of
exceptions. Exceptions because most don’t succeed. So you need to figure
out how to be one of the exceptions. That’s really tough. Almost
impossible. It usually involves a ton of effort, sacrifice, and risk
that’s commiserate with the reward. Beyond some general guidelines and
common sense principles, nobody has the secret – and snake oil salesmen
abound.
Nobody can tell you how to be an exception. You have to figure it out. Part of the job.
8) It’s all hopeless. Yes, it is. Or rather, it can
seem that way. But every year some make it. Every week there are new
names on the lists. It may seem hopeless at first blush, but the only
truth is that every day someone beats the odds and has a win. That’s
exciting as hell to me, just as it was when I first started at this 33
months ago. Put another way, it’s only hopeless when you give up hope.
There are far more of these destructive myths, and I’ll do another
eight when I can. I had a fender bender the other day and due to a freak
accident, my hand’s now in a cast for seven weeks (apparently if you
wear a big watch, like nearly 50mm, if your hand hits the steering wheel
just right, even going slow, the watch can transform into a blade and
snap your metatarsals near your wrist, which my TW Steel did in two
places – just put your hand up like you’re signalling stop, and imagine a
disk the size of a silver dollar strapped tight to your wrist, and
you’ll quickly get the idea).
If anyone wants a deal on a big watch, you know how to reach me…
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