Evolving into a pro in the trad publishing ecosystem

[H.P. Lovesauce]

Here's the picture I'm forming of The Path of the Anointed Writer. I may tend toward some excesses of cynicism; please adjust your reading accordingly.

I am a writer. I wish to become a well-known SF/fantasy author, beloved by many fans, given contracts for future novels and held aloft by advances in the low five digits. I think I see now what the approved life cycle is in the publishing ecosystem.

First of course I write. I write short stories in part to "hone my craft". These short stories I send out to markets, starting at the Big ones and working down to the Small ones. I should not submit to markets I don't understand, so I join 20% of the subscribers of a number of magazines and purchase issues for "market research". My work competes with a large number of other manuscripts in the "slush pile", which is essentially a lottery among the literate authors represented in it.

Whoever wins the lottery will be published in between the stories of Big Names who have only contributed stories to boost sales of their novels. If I am the winner, excellent--with three or more such paying-market victories under my belt, I can start to shop around a novel manuscript.

If I did not win that lottery, I must immediately enter another with that story, usually a similar market but in the next lowest "tier". While "honing my craft" in this way, I must also try for the big lotteries, the contests (chief among them Writers of the Future). I should try to get accepted at Clarion, the premier boot camp for developing as a writer while simultaneously homogenizing certain elements of one's stories for consumption by the U.S. market.

Clarion is a feather in one's cap; to stretch the analogy, I must now display said cap, and the Web is the best way to do it. By creating a web presence and going to conventions, I can begin the process of "becoming known" while also "honing my craft". If my name recognitioin reaches a certain point, I begin to hover slightly above the other names in a slush pile. I won't be sifted out quite as quickly, and my odds increase (just as they will if I win a contest).

"Becoming known" means getting an agent is going to be easier; I may already have met some at conventions. At this point, I have "honed my craft" a considerable bit and must have a novel manuscript to shop around in order to get into the next level. Here begins the more stately and less random process of getting a novel accepted and published. I should have several planned works in progress I can offer as a bouquet to a publisher. Once they have published a couple of novels of mine, the magazines come to me, in inverse order of side, asking please for an excerpt or piece of short fiction? It would, after all, help me "become [better] known" and more importantly "build a readership". As I've already "honed my craft" to a fine point with short fiction, of course I can provide something. And if you're lucky, your story will ascend from the lowly slush to stand beside mine.

[Gbondoni]

Well... It sounds about right, but why is it a problem? Most of it seems to fall under the category of hard work (writing, honing, marketing, etc.), mixed with a little luck and talent. It's basically the same as working in any other highly competitive medium.

For example, I seriously doubt that the CEO of whichever company you care to name (except for a few inherited positions) started out anywhere very high on the ladder. He or she either started his company and suffered through that or worked his way up from an assistancy or from the production floor. Likewise, baseball players go through the minor leagues, and many of them never see their dream of the 'one major league at bat, that's all I'm asking for' realized.

And yes, a published author has a slightly higher chance in the slushpile, a relatively known genre author even higher. And the big names are asked to write - that's fine, and its good for the genre. These are people who have honed their craft to the point where readers know that they're likely to get a good read - and, who knows, they might attract readers to YOUR work if their name appears on the same ToC as yours.

Writing may be a hobby for some, but for publishers, it's a business, and they have to act in a way that insures that their business continues to be profitable. And, since we need the markets, I'm glad they do.

[Jordan Lapp]

Pretty much the exact path I'm taking. In fact, I hope to get accepted into Clarion West 2008. I'm applying in September.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction

[Bill Ward]

I think that's a path, but not necessarily the path. You want to sell novels? Then skip all the other crap and write novels and shop them around, all the short stories, contests, and clarion is small potatoes stuff that only has meaning to an elite coterie of readers/writers/editors. If you are hung up on the idea of ingratiating yourself with them by all means follow that path, but there are other ways of getting novels published (like writing lots of novels and shopping them around--its still a 'lottery' to some extent, but the odds are probably a bit better than winning the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction Lottery).

I think there is some worth in short stories (which we've argued in another related topic here), as they teach a writer at least some basics of writing (both the craft and the discipline of ass-in-seat), but I think its a bad idea for a writer to write shorts purely because he thinks he has to, in a style that's made to appeal to the 'big' markets, as its basically training yourself to write for a small, specific, and poorly paying market.

Just look at the number of first time novelists that come out--the vast majority of them were not darlings of the magazines, and its not like the darlings are somehow fast-listed into mega-contracts because they have an audience; in fact all the big contracts I've seen for first time novelists were based on the publisher's expectations of the book's appeal to mainstream audiences, not some notion of a built in audience. Scott Lynch, Naomi Novak, Philip Rothfuss are just a few big contract first time novelists in recent years that didn't play the magazine game (Rothfuss did win Writers of the Future, and I think networked some connections to get his manuscript out--but he also spent years writing that manuscript and not pursuing some dream of pro magazine 'fame'). And the mid list is even more full, I'd argue very few mid list novelists got their contracts based on what workshop they attended or how many times they landed in F&SF.

So Lovesauce, I'm getting the impression the lottery-promag-workshop-awards&contests route isn't exactly to your taste, in which case I'd recommend you not get hung up thinking its the only way, or even the best way. I think if a person wants to make a living as a novelist then he needs to start writing novels and shopping them around, its so simple its brilliant. Getting you rname out with shorts can never be a bad thing, but getting so hung up on playing the pro mag success game might just see all a writer's energies going toward becoming a big fish in an incredibly small pond.

For fantasy, science fiction, and horror news, books reviews, opinion, and short fiction, check out: BillWardWriter.com</font>

[Jordan Lapp]

I guess I need to clarify my position. I've resolved to write short stories until my writing plateaus, which I'll judge myself. WHILE I'm getting there, it's nice to collect awards and publishing credits.

Clarion is useful for networking. If I make 17 close friends who are all ready to break out, that will be enough in and of itself. Plus I get to meet and be mentored by professional writers. If it helps my writing, which I cannot see how it can't, that's a bonus.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction

[Bill Ward]

And I think that's a good strategy, because there is a lot to be learned from shorts (it's what I'm doing too, basically). And Jordan, I hope you're one of the folks that comes out of clarion sounding more like yourself than ever before.

[Jeff Stehman]

Jordan Lapp said...
If I make 17 close friends who are all ready to break out, that will be enough in and of itself.

There's a lot of value in that, but I can see some risk in, say, forming a critique group in which everyone's been through the same training camp.

Myself, I've never been interested in Clarion, and I probably wouldn't submit anything to WotF if there wasn't such a nice prize attached to it. I mostly write short stories because they teach me more about prose than novels do. But that's just me. Let me quote Patricia C. Wrede, whom I've seen impart words of wisdom on this topic several times.

Patricia C. Wrede said...
Other things being equal, a novel by someone who has a track record of
short-fiction sales is more likely to sell than one by someone who doesn't
have a track record.

Other things, however, are *never* equal.

For one thing, very few writers are equally proficient, right from the
start, at writing in different lengths. Most people tend to get ideas that
are suited mainly to one length or the other (at the start of their careers,
anyway; eventually, most writers learn to write different lengths). Most
writers start off finding one length easier than the other, and/or doing a
better job of writing one length than the other. And it is always easier to
sell something good than something mediocre or bad.

If you're a natural short story writer, you'll probably do best by writing
short stories, not novels, to begin with. If you're a natural novelist
(which seems likely, given the lengths you're quoting), you'll likely be
better off writing novels. Really.

--Jeff Stehman

[Daniel]

Clarion doesn't appeal to me because so many clarion writers that I've read all write the same homogenized style

***

I'll second that observation....


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[tlmorganfield]

Jordon, don't count on making "17 friends ready to break out" because Clarion tends to either make or break some writers. Of my own class (CW02), only three of us are writing regularly anymore (and one of us is up for the World Fantasy Award this year, but she would have broken out without Clarion anyway. She already had a novel contract before going to CW.). The meeting and mentoring from professionals is wonderful though and worth the price of tuition.




www.tlmorganfield.com
The Feathered Serpent's Nest (Blog)

Availablestories:

"The Divine Conquest of Mexico" in SorcerousSignals, August 2007
"Someday" in Dark Recesses, January 2007

"The Last Arabian Prince" in Atomjack, November 2006
"The Wonder Tower" in Back Roads: Horror Off the Highway, September 2006.
"Dedication" in Dragons, Knights &amp; Angels, also available in Distant Passages 2.

Forthcoming stories:
"My Sweet Andromache" in Nanobison, 2007
"Independence Day" in Vortex Temporum
"So Weeps the Thunderbird" in Bound is the Bewitching Lilith

[lin]

Interesting Daniel. I am not familiar with Clarion 'effect' but there is a pronounced tendancy in other workshops to mold people into a certain mode.

So you get the 'workshop poem' as a genre, the 'workship story'. Contests have the same effect, actually. You end up getting a feel for the sort of photographs or writing win them. (And it's not the same kind that get publishing contracts)

[Jordan Lapp]

How much is the price of tuition, TL? I looked all over the site and couldn't find it...

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction

[BitterHermit]

Sorry for being a hypocrite, but I'd warn against judging your own plateaus. Not that it's impossible to be objective (I believe it is impossible to be totally objective at all, ever, about anything), but it's dangerous to measure yourself by internal standards alone when you're working toward something to send out in the world.


Beleive me, I just came to this recently (read that as 'yesterday'). Self-deception seems to be very natural for most of us, and not so much as a pathos as a survival tactic.


I guess what I mean is, if you judge it yourself, judge it on more than your own view of it. What criteria? As long as at least one criterion is others' professional reaction to your work, I think your safe enough.

Jordan Lapp said...
I guess I need to clarify my position. I've resolved to write short stories until my writing plateaus, which I'll judge myself. WHILE I'm getting there, it's nice to collect awards and publishing credits.

Clarion is useful for networking. If I make 17 close friends who are all ready to break out, that will be enough in and of itself. Plus I get to meet and be mentored by professional writers. If it helps my writing, which I cannot see how it can't, that's a bonus.

Incredibly prolific penster

[tlmorganfield]

The tuition varies from year to year, depending on grants and the price of rent. When I went in 2002, the students still stayed in Campion Tower on the University of Seattle campus and I think the full total (tuition and room & board) was about $1100 (that doesn't include the price of meals). The board probably hasn't settled on the coming year's tuition cost yet, but you could always email Neile Graham or Leslie Howle to ask.

www.tlmorganfield.com
The Feathered Serpent's Nest (Blog)

Availablestories:

"The Divine Conquest of Mexico" in SorcerousSignals, August 2007
"Someday" in Dark Recesses, January 2007

"The Last Arabian Prince" in Atomjack, November 2006
"The Wonder Tower" in Back Roads: Horror Off the Highway, September 2006.
"Dedication" in Dragons, Knights &amp; Angels, also available in Distant Passages 2.

Forthcoming stories:
"My Sweet Andromache" in Nanobison, 2007
"Independence Day" in Vortex Temporum
"So Weeps the Thunderbird" in Bound is the Bewitching Lilith

[Daniel]

Interesting Daniel. I am not familiar with Clarion "effect" but there is a pronounced tendancy in other workshops to mold people into a certain mode.

So you get the "workshop poem" as a genre, the "workship story". Contests have the same effect, actually. You end up getting a feel for the sort of photographs or writing win them. (And it's not the same kind that get publishing contracts)

***

Yes, I am a working poet as well and I know all-too-well about the 'workshop" poem. That's how you wind up with poetry that has no *zing* but is technically sound. I'd put that same spin on the Clarion subs I've read. They are all almost "museum quality" when it comes to technical precision, but it always seemed like something had stamped the suffin' right out of the emotional component. I read a lot of Clarion grad fiction when I was editing LoS and LoS 2 because we paid "pro" rates.

All the clarion grads had great cover letters!!! Great opening paragraphs, excellent formatting and grammar, but there was a conspicuous lack of *ooomph* and it started to feel a little like taxidermy.....

But that's just one man's opinion and I am sure that it has somethig to do with the genre I was editing in -- fantasy -- where there really aren't too many Clarion-esque practicioners, not so many pro markets, so I think I saw a lot of "trunk" stories.....





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Jordan Lapp]

David BH Pitchford said...



Sorry for being a hypocrite, but I'd warn against judging your own plateaus.

This is true of course. I suppose what I meant was, "I'd know when it felt right". I have the advantage of being in a super writing group who tells me straight out if my writing stinks or not. Saving your work also helps. Reading stuff I wrote a year ago makes me happy because I can see how much I've improved.

But you can still tell if you have areas to work on, can't you? I know my dialogue needs a little 'zing', and I really need to work on my range. Right now fantasy is a challenge for me (I'm a natural sci-fi writer), but fantasy novels pay so much better than sci-fi novels and that gener is way easier to break in to than sci-fi, so I've really got to develop in that direction too.

I think getting published in the pros (despite what some ppl on this board may think) is also a good indication of the quality of your writing as well. I've got one pro-credit under my belt, and several stories I have high hopes for, so we'll see how that goes.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
Every Day Fiction

[Daniel]

I think getting published in the pros (despite what some ppl on this board may think) is also a good indication of the quality of your writing as well. I've got one pro-credit under my belt, and several stories I have high hopes for, so we'll see how that goes.

***

Well, you've got to believe what you've got to believe. However, I see no upward curve in writing quality from the semipro markets to the pro, not really. What I *do* see is a conspicuous absence of successful novelists who emerge out of the "pro-credit" belt. I think the only thing "pro" publication does for a writer at the short story level is fill them full of the desire to be the only one on earth calling them a "pro." And then they repeat this incessently to anyone who will listen and then to those who won't!

"Pro" is also a misnomer altogether, since no-one in short fiction publishing pays what could be truly called a professional rate.

Publishing in the small press is just as efficacious, if not moreso, than struggling to crack "pro" markets.

One man's opinion.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Gbondoni]

'Publishing in the small press is just as efficacious, if not moreso, than struggling to crack 'pro' markets.'

But no one says you can't do both... I personally think I'd love to see my name in a pro short fiction market alongside people whose work I have read often (and, generally enjoyed). it hasn't happened yet, though!

I think what 'pro' ends up meaning is that you know where you stand with that particular author, and that his or her story will have at least a certain minimum level of plot, characterization and grammar (the strength of the first two in my own stories sometimes varies , so I appreciate what a valuable commodity that is!).

[Daniel]

Excellent points, Gustavo. I think what I am reacting to is the idea that making a "pro" sale in any way really distinguishes you from other writers in trems of *writing quality.*Those who may not have yet published (or *ever* published)in the so-called "pro" press often go on to become bloickbuster novelists OTOH, not too many people who publish in the "pro" short SF mags have done the same.

Arguing for superior quality due to a payment rate is a precarious claim to make considering: there are a very small number of pro publications and so the fact is many high-quality stories are rejected not on issues of quality but on *theme* or space.

This means nine times out of ten, when you have placed a story in *any* venue your story fit either a space or theme consideration (or both)in addition to passing the muster for quality.

Arguing that a single pro sale or even a string of them makes you a "better" writer than those who haven't done so is specious and self-aggrandizing.

Even worse is when a writer with a few "pro" sales starts condescending to the small press. That's why I always leap up to defend writers and markets which may not be considered "pro" but from what I've read as a reviewer and prospective submitter and long-suffering editor feature just as much quality fiction as any so-called "pro" venue.

Of course writers should submit to all the available, quality venues they can find, but they should refrain from deluding themselves that any one sale means any more than anotehr on the surface. Could be you 1/2 cent a word sale to Ricasso Preess attracts a movie-director or a big-time agent or publisher. [img]/emoticons/wink.gif[/img] Or more realistically, the same grup of writers/editors and publishers that read the otehr mags and zines. It is probably not the case that too many movie producers are reading F&amp;SF, although they may be -- if so, we haven't seen much movement there so far.








"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Gbondoni]

You're right about it not meaning that they are necessarilybetter stories (I only said that you know where you stand), and I absolutely agree that a writer with a only few pro sales who disdains any market is out of his mind.

As a matter of fact, I think the only way a writer can say no to a quality market is if he has comissions for so much writing that he hasn't actually got the time to write for smaller markets... Which is only the case if you have a blockbuster novel out there and a contract for the next six in the series.

It is NOT the case if all you've done is sell a couple of stories to Asimov's. But that might make it easier to find an agent to sell your novel... Who knows?

[Daniel]

It is NOT the case if all you've done is sell a couple of stories to Asimov's. But that might make it easier to find an agent to sell your novel... Who knows?

**

Oh, yes. Again, you make excellent points.

But your query letter to the agent and your novel or novel excerpt will still have to be good. Uncannily, there seems to be very little similarity between what presently makes a good short Sf writer in 'pro" mags and what makes a good commercial novelist, so it's doubly dangerous to assume that if you have published short SF in "pro" markets that your prospective novel will be on-beat for what literary agents and publishers are looking for.

You might just as well have a kick-ass query letter and excerpt when you approach agents. many of them are approachable still. And yes, if you win awards and get a good track record I think that would influecne editors and agents, but even they are often disappointed by such "yardsticks" of potential sales.

I'd say a track record of sales or built-in PR of any kind is more important than a track record in pro pubs, per se. But publication in pro pubs is just as good as anywhere else, just not exactly superior as certain surface level appraisals seem to suggest.

An awful lot of blockbuster stuff emerges out of the small press, a lot of it really does. And often writers get their "break" out of unexpected places. It's never profitable to "dis" lower tier markets -- until they've done something disreputable and etc. By the same token, it's fair to dis a "pro" market which has acted disreputably, I think.





"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[invertebrae]

i write short stories because i need to learn the craft of writing, and get better. i put down a high fantasy novel because i felt i was missing something in my ability to write dialogue and to properly plot. i've written about a dozen short stories now, submitted a handful, no acceptances, but i don't care.

now i'm back to the longer format, trying another novel. i think i find such joy and therapy in writing, that the sale has to come secondary.

@BILL's first post: I'd add to the list of first timers Daniel Abraham and Hal Duncan, as two excellent authors with limited previously published materials. Authors such as they inspire me, as I feel I can write to Abraham's level (not being cocky), though Duncan is another creature all together.

...ryan

[Daniel]

think i find such joy and therapy in writing, that the sale has to come secondary.

***

Hold ON to that feeling. The longer you have it the better writer you will be, I think.


"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel

[Gbondoni]

'By the same token, it's fair to dis a 'pro' market which has acted disreputably, I think. '


Of course it is. Look at what happened to DNA publications. Nevertheless, if given a choice between being published by a pro market alongside writers whose work you normally admire at 7 or 10 cents a word or an equally respectable small press, I have to admit that I'll take the pro market, and I suspect that a lot of people on this forum would probably agree with me. And, like me, dream of seeing their byline on the cover of Analog.

Fortunately (????), making this choice is not one of my current problems, so instead of trying to write a workshop story, I simply write for the sheer pleasure of it (and sometimes because I get hit by an idea I just can't ignore).

[Jordan Lapp]

Sorry to resurrect this point from the Dawn Age, but I love it so much because H. P. Lovesauce, dripping with sarcasm though he is, is EXACTLY right. I just love that he's nailed every step along the way (except maybe vying for a Campbell award).

Seeing as how there are a lot of new members on the board, I was interested to see what they thought of this 'path'.

Jordan

H.P. Lovesauce said...
Here's the picture I'm forming of The Path of the Anointed Writer. I may tend toward some excesses of cynicism; please adjust your reading accordingly.


I am a writer. I wish to become a well-known SF/fantasy author, beloved by many fans, given contracts for future novels and held aloft by advances in the low five digits. I think I see now what the approved life cycle is in the publishing ecosystem.



First of course I write. I write short stories in part to 'hone my craft'. These short stories I send out to markets, starting at the Big ones and working down to the Small ones. I should not submit to markets I don't understand, so I join 20% of the subscribers of a number of magazines and purchase issues for 'market research'. My work competes with a large number of other manuscripts in the 'slush pile', which is essentially a lottery among the literate authors represented in it.



Whoever wins the lottery will be published in between the stories of Big Names who have only contributed stories to boost sales of their novels. If I am the winner, excellent--with three or more such paying-market victories under my belt, I can start to shop around a novel manuscript.



If I did not win that lottery, I must immediately enter another with that story, usually a similar market but in the next lowest 'tier'. While 'honing my craft' in this way, I must also try for the big lotteries, the contests (chief among them Writers of the Future). I should try to get accepted at Clarion, the premier boot camp for developing as a writer while simultaneously homogenizing certain elements of one's stories for consumption by the U.S. market.



Clarion is a feather in one's cap; to stretch the analogy, I must now display said cap, and the Web is the best way to do it. By creating a web presence and going to conventions, I can begin the process of 'becoming known' while also 'honing my craft'. If my name recognitioin reaches a certain point, I begin to hover slightly above the other names in a slush pile. I won't be sifted out quite as quickly, and my odds increase (just as they will if I win a contest).



'Becoming known' means getting an agent is going to be easier; I may already have met some at conventions. At this point, I have 'honed my craft' a considerable bit and must have a novel manuscript to shop around in order to get into the next level. Here begins the more stately and less random process of getting a novel accepted and published. I should have several planned works in progress I can offer as a bouquet to a publisher. Once they have published a couple of novels of mine, the magazines come to me, in inverse order of side, asking please for an excerpt or piece of short fiction? It would, after all, help me 'become [better] known' and more importantly 'build a readership'. As I've already 'honed my craft' to a fine point with short fiction, of course I can provide something. And if you're lucky, your story will ascend from the lowly slush to stand beside mine.

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor, Every Day Fiction
First Place Winner, Writers of the Future Q3 2008

[crystalwizard]

>I must now display said cap, and the Web is the best way to do it.

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