If you’re an aspiring writer (and if you’ve told anyone about it), you’ve probably been told at least 10,000 times by now not to quit your day job. Haha. Hilarious. So original.
Yes, writing is a tough industry. No, you probably won’t turn into a sensation with your first book, or ever. It’s a lot harder than some people might lead you to believe, but it’s also less impossible than your critics will tell you.
I finished my first serious manuscript in college. It was something like 40 or 50,000 words and it was complete trash (but even trash is GREAT for experience). I re-wrote the whole thing line by line (and I didn’t edit nearly enough. Don’t be like me). I have since reenvisioned that story and re-written it at least four times. Right now I’m on draft one of concept 4 or 5.
Fast forward to 2018 when I wrote two more manuscripts (new books, though). The first was 75k and the second was 98k. That’s at least 300k that I wrote without a plan to market myself as a writer.
Can you spell stupid? I can. Times 300k.
Anyway, like all things, writing takes a lot of hard work and time. But I’d like to save you some heartache with the following 10 tips I wish I would have known before I started writing my first book. Trust me, you’re not going to want to pass on these.
When I first dreamed of being an author, I pictured a solitary cabin, preferably in the mountains, where I would stare at the wilderness and sit by the fire in between crafting my masterpiece. That’s not what it’s like at all.
Becoming a writer is just like starting any other business. You are an entrepreneur more than anything else—especially if you want to do it full time. The day you decide you want to be a writer is the day you need to start marketing yourself online. It’s never too late to start, but the earlier the better.
Yes. Why? Because someday you’re going to want to pitch your manuscript to an agent. And when you go to write your first query letter, you don’t want to write “I have no experience and no following, but will you please buy my book?”
Getting an agent is hard enough as it is. Having a blog, website, or social media following in your niche (preferably all three) will be invaluable to you when it comes time to sell yourself to agents and publishers.
Great. You still need followers to buy your books. Build your email list and write your blog ASAP so that when you have a book, you have a built-in audience to read it. I promise all the hard work will pay off, but you need to put in the time for your future.
The most important thing is to think of it as a business. Your attitude will have a huge effect on your decisions, and therefore your success. Treat it like a job and take it seriously from day one. Writing can be a lonely job, so it’s important for you to take it seriously or you won’t have what it takes when the going gets tough.
One of the biggest reasons that writing is so lonely? People who aren’t writers usually don’t get it. It’s easy for people to respect an established author like Rowling or King, but tell them you want to be an author and they’ll look at you like you just said you want to sit on the couch mooching off the system for the rest of your life and never contributing to society.
It’s not that they don’t care (well, sometimes it is). But generally, the people closest to you want to see you succeed, and they know this is a tough business. Because they don’t want to see you fail, they may subconsciously or directly dissuade you from writing.
I don’t say any of this to bash your friends or to discourage you, but I wasn’t prepared for how much my friends would turn out to be…rather unsupportive.
My advice? Don’t tell anyone you want to write (other than your fellow writers, of course) until you have something to show for it. There is scientific evidence to support the idea that keeping your goals to yourself will make you more likely to achieve them. It’s hard not to talk about it with the people you care about, but in hindsight, I wish I would have kept it to myself. Food for thought.
This, more than anything else on this list, was my greatest mistake. I wish I had taken writing seriously enough to enter contests back in middle school and high school when I had more time and a guaranteed place to live. But it’s never too late to start!
There are so many free contests you can enter which is hands-down the best thing you can do for your career. Getting published is a HUGE advantage in every way and submitting your work will give you tremendous experience even if you don’t win. It’s also the best way to learn how to write for an audience which will improve your other writing endeavors.
You won’t most of the time. But it’s never too early to get used to rejection. I had a professor at UVU who said he aimed for 100 rejections a year because that’s how he knew he was submitting enough. “No” is a word you’re going to hear a lot as a writer and you need to build a tough skin so you can keep trying when you inevitably face rejection.
At the end of the day you can sit on “what-ifs” until you’re 80 years old, but you should be asking yourself “why not” instead. Why not give it a try? There’s no such thing as wasted time if you learn from your failures.
Okay, so you should do this anyway. But starting your own business requires a lot of input. That means cash money, my dudes. Not only is it in your best interest to start a website with a real (as in paid) domain, but you’re going to need to go to writer’s conferences as often as possible. And you might even consider some paid marketing campaigns to get your brand out there.
At a writer’s conference, authors, writers, agents, and publishers meet to discuss books, topics, industry, and so forth. A lot of them will have guest speakers and classes you can take to improve your craft, and it’s a great way to meet people. Networking is SO HUGE for writers and you will do a lot for your career by meeting these people in person. If you’re an aspiring writer you can get great tips and meet people who can help you build a writer’s community. And if you have a manuscript ready, you can pitch it to agents in person (so much better than sending a query letter. They get hundreds a day).
If you want to look into conferences, here’s a great resource for you. There are also free conferences every so often, but the best ones are going to cost you. I promise it’s worth it. There is no good reason to make it any harder for yourself to start a business. Take all the help you can get and invest in your future. Take writing classes before you go to college (if you can afford a formal education, which I know is not always possible). Writing in your basement is decent practice, but it’s not as valuable as getting tips from professionals. And there’s an added benefit to classes because you have someone who has to read your work and give you feedback.
The other reason you need money? Check out tip #3:
I don’t care how great of a writer you are. You will miss things in your own work. Your brain will literally skip over misspelled words. Beyond that, you will keep sentences and ideas that seem important to you but that will hold your work back. Beta readers are great, and they can give you awesome feedback for your plot and character reception. But the only person who can give you professional feedback that will improve your manuscript is a professional.
Whether you want to look at self-publishing or go the traditional route, you will want an editor. Self-published books have come a long way and readers have high expectations. If your book has spelling and/or formatting errors, you will get negative reviews that will haunt your book sales for all of time.
Yes and no. If your book gets picked up, the publishing house will almost certainly hook you up with an editor to make sure your book is the best it can be. But in order to get a publisher, you have to get an agent, and literary agents are inundated with thousands of queries a day from aspiring authors. You need every advantage you can get, which is why I suggested entering contests. Agents are somewhat forgiving for editing mistakes if your story grips them, but too many mistakes in your sample will turn them off right away.
Picture a query letter where you can tell the agent that you’ve been published in x magazine/journal, you have a blog with 20k followers, AND your work has been professionally edited. Your letter just shot to the top of the query pile. Here are some great tips on finding the right editor when the time comes.
It’s a romantic notion to think you can be the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King and get famous for writing books, but that’s the best-case scenario. I’m not saying you should shoot for the stars, because you have to have a vision for your future and you should set your sights as high as you want. But in the current climate, you can’t get away with writing the occasional book and hope it will take off. You won’t make it as a one-trick pony, even if your trick is seriously awesome.
Consider starting a blog (meta, right?). If you do want to create a website, use my link to get yourself a discount from Bluehost. For the record, I do get paid by Bluehost if your sign up through my link, but it’s at no cost to you and you can do the same thing after you sign up.
Anyway, blogging is a great way to get started as a writer. But there are plenty of traditional jobs for writers that can help you get paid for your talents while you work on your books. The point is, writing takes a lot of input and it can take years to start making real money. You can only benefit from throwing out as many possibilities as possible. You can always drop the things that don’t work for you, but you’re more likely to be successful if you try as many things as you can.
This one comes with a caveat. Because if you want to work in publishing or something, you should definitely move to New York or Chicago where those industries live. It can also help you on the networking side because the best networking happens in person, so if you’re living in New York and putting yourself in events where there are publishers and agents, you’re that much more likely to build connections.
As we all know, New York is hella expensive. And those tips you’re making at Starbucks won’t get you an apartment in one of the most expensive
Any exposure is good, right?
Wrong.
It’s great to get a following. So if you decide to start a fiction blog where you post stories or even books, make sure you only give away the stuff you don’t intend to get paid for, ever. I never say never, but an agent/publisher is not going to take a risk on your book if thousands of people have already read it for free. Who’s going. to buy it when they publish it?
Now, this is different from contests. You should absolutely submit your work to magazines, journals, and whatnot. But sites like Wattpad or Critters that allow you to get your work online can damage your ability to sell that work later on. Sites like these are great for building your community with other writers, and I’m not saying you should never use them. I’m just saying you should be very careful about what you put out there and make smart decisions for your career. Remember, if you’re good at something, never do it for free.
For a minute there, I was fully prepared to self-publish through Amazon. The kindle publisher is super helpful and easy to use, and I figured I’d take home more of the profits without a publisher/agent taking most of my cut.
The main reason I wanted to self-publish? It’s shocking to see the numbers for traditionally published authors. Most authors make little over $1 per book. Scary, right? I was having a Robin Hood moment and I couldn’t stand the idea of someone else getting rich off my hard work. Lots of people will try to scare you into self-publishing with numbers like this, but take a moment to think about it:
Publishers take a big cut because they take a big risk in publishing your work. As you’ll find out if you follow tip #3, marketing is expensive. A publisher has to pay print costs for your novel as well as advertising, and there’s no guarantee they’ll make that money back. Remember when I said writing is a business? It’s their business, too, and you can’t expect them to take care of you without taking care of themselves.
I have nothing against indie authors, and if you feel it’s the right course for you then you should definitely self-publish. But it’s not right for everyone, and it’s a lot more intensive than it sounds. In this scenario, you take on all the risk. Any marketing you choose to do will come out of your own pocket, so if you can’t afford the ads, people are less likely to find your book.
The main reason I suggest doing all the things above is that it takes time to make a living as a writer. Entrepreneurs cycle through multiple business ideas before they find the one that sticks, and writing is no different. I knew it would be hard to get published. But knowing that and living it are two different things. When I got my first round of rejections for my first manuscript, I was crushed—even though I went into it knowing I would be rejected more often than I’d be accepted.
The important thing to remember is that there’s a lot of luck involved in any business, but especially in books. The timing has to be right for an agent to fall in love with your book and sell it to a publisher. That blog you’re writing needs time to build up an audience and it will take months (at least) to get people listening to you. Your freelance business needs time to acquire clients and get reviews. Whatever you’re doing, you need to be patient. You also need to have multiple things going at once so that you can budget your waiting time and get a head start on the success part.
I wish someone had told me all of this before I got started, but all hope is not lost. No matter where you’re at in your writing journey, you can take these steps today and start building your career as a writer. Have courage, have patience, and have fun.
See you next time! Post your questions and thoughts below, and have a wonderful week.
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