I made the intentional decision not to dig into the publishing industry (the business side of writing) until after I'd written my first book and received some feedback. I wanted to make sure what I wrote was worth the effort. It took me until mid-May to join my first writers' group - the Hamilton East Public Library's virtual group called The Write Stuff.
So far, the biggest and most important thing I've learned is that this is a very slow-moving industry—at least for debut authors trying to get in. This makes sense, though. It's a highly saturated industry, with anywhere from 40,000 to 80,000 new titles published each month. And that's just traditional publishing! Expand out to self-publishing and you get upwards of 300,000 or more new titles every month. That's an enormous amount of new works.
Those numbers don't include unpublished works either. The average literary agent can receive around 1,500 queries (unsolicited requests for representation) every single month—and they only take on about 6 new clients each year.
So, yeah, it's a long, hard slog up the mountainous road to becoming published (especially traditionally).
Back to the point of this post. I'm learning. A lot. And I'm taking my sweet-ass time getting there. I'm not betting on this new side-job/hobby landing me a new lucrative income stream. The average published author sees only about $5,000 in income over the lifetime of their writing career.
Okay. No problem. Move slowly, write well, learn the business. Just enjoy it.
Christopher Clouser, a local Indy author with many published books under his belt, recommended I check out the Midwest Writer's Workshop, held at Ball State University. And I'm so glad I did.
When I registered for the workshop, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I told Jess the days could be short if the workshop turned out to be a big snoozefest. How wrong I was. I learned craft—how to be a better writer. I learned business—how to find an agent, get published, and promote my works. And I learned about people—I met both published and aspiring authors.
What I learned prompted me to start a 4th revision of my first book with one simple premise: every chapter must move the plot and/or characters forward. This is proving a little harder than I first anticipated.
The first chapter or two are important for driving reader continuance. A reader wants to gauge if the book captures their interest fairly soon. It seems like common sense, but sometimes I need to hear someone say it for it to register properly and for my brain to start thinking about how each chapter progresses the plot and character development. Now, I've read books that didn't capture my interest until I'm 75% through. But I'm also not a quitter. Jessica makes fun of me when I'm groaning about a book, but I slog through. Granted, a lot of these are much older titles, like House of the Seven Gables or Moby Dick.
Overall, this workshop was a great primer to improve my writing craft and further my understanding of the business. If you're a current author, published or unpublished, or you're looking at starting a writing hobby or career, I highly recommend it.
https://www.midwestwriters.org/
Here are a few highlights of what I learned:
ABDCE Story Structure
Action - the story starts with something happening to the main character to draw the reader into the story
Background - provides context for how the character got into this situation
Development - character and plot development through rising actionso
Climax - biggest and final rising action
Ending - put a bow on it
Reasons for an Agent Rejecting a Query
1. Writing is good, but the story does nothing (it's flat)
2. Too much telling, not enough showing
3. You wrote a bad pitch (query) letter
Shel Harrington on the Humor of God
Don't pray for patience. The longer you stay away from the thing you love, the more self-doubt grows.
Jessica Berg on Writer's Platform
Author Brand != Author Platform
Author Brand = Voice, Values, Visuals, and Vibe
What lives at the heart of my stories? (My answer was personal growth - learning, trying, failing, and growing)
Shel Harrington on Humor
Use plosives in your speech. A plosive is the sound before a hard consonant - P T K B D G.
Rule of 3 - the third item adds the humor. What size do you want? Small, medium, or diabetes?
"Laughing is universal. What's considered funny is not."
Jessica Berg - Agent Querying
Have a hook, not just a premise.
Types of hooks:
- one line thrill
- high concept what-if
- emotional dilemma
- strategic contradiction
Lead with voice, not vibes. Intrigue over info. Cadence over correctedness. Voice over resume. Give me the stakes, not the weather.
Voice -> Hooks -> Stakes -> Tone
