Evolving into a pro in the trad publishing ecosystem

[hughhowey]

lin said...
What I'm seeing a lot of lately is a whole different kind of triad for people who want to be novelists.

Start off doing a serial novel on blog software and build readership in that format. Getting read, getting feedback, perhaps even monetizing along the way.

When there's a whole book ready, put it out as an eBook, or perhaps even a POD paperback.

If a big enough readership base can be established take it publishers and parley it into a contract.

This is actually working for lots of people--disproportionately in SF., Fantasy, Horror and gay vampire high school wriiting. It might not replace the old way of doing things, but a lot of younger writers are much more interested in this model.

This is almost the method I used to win publication of my first book. I wasn't giving the actual story away, but fictionalizing the writing of it on a blog and using short stories to attract a fanbase. A publisher picked me up because they saw how many guaranteed sales I had already manufactured.

Still, the novel writing came first. Though I am convinced by the arguments in this thread that starting with shorts is a better idea in general. I may be the exception that proves the rule.

www.hughhowey.com

[Jordan Lapp]

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.

Graduate from Clarion West - Check
Win Writers of the Future - Check
Achieve Pro Sales - Check.
Get Novel Contract - Check and Check.

Thanks, H. P. Lovesauce!!