My Personal Path To Publication - Stephen King
My guest today is author Stephen King. Probably you are thinking not THE Stephen King, and you would be right. But he is pretty much just as cool. In fact, his name is sort of why we met. Clearly, if you know me by now, you know I had a bordering-on the-criminal kind of obsession with THE Stephen King, so when I found Stephen on a facebook group, I HAD TO friend him. Then when I found his blog and starting reading it and some of his writing, I began to realize, the fates were not accidental in his name. Not to mention, he does have the coolest named blog out there. Now, mind you, don't think with a moniker such as his he isn't already facing a pretty serious amount of pressure, but I believe he is quite talented, and you will too. Now, we just need to convince the publishing world. Stephen is still poised to receive that magic call. While he waits, let's check out his journey so far.
1. How long have you been writing?Depending on what you're asking: long time, ornot long at all. With a real name of Stephen King, it was my greatestdesire to stay away from writing fiction. For the past several years as aDean, though, I've written tons of stuff, including multi-thousand-pageaccreditation applications and both policy and disciplinary correspondence ofall sorts. Is that writing? Of course it is. It's notcreative, certainly, but years of technical and official writing have taught mea great deal about word flow and grammatical structure.
I've only been writing creatively for severalmonths. I tried a NaNoWriMo back in 2007. I began by buying allsorts of fancy pens and notebooks as well as a few books on writing, and then Iwent to work with a novel idea. I failed. I got halfway in andrealized I was writing another version of Ender's Game. Now, I likeEnder's Game, but the world only needs one instance of it. Instead offixing it I quit, and I stayed in a "quit" status till February ofthis year when I decided it was time to dust off the writing hat again. Since then I've completed a novel and a novella, and I've also completed earlydrafts of another one of each.
2. Are you published and if so, how long have youbeen a published author? If not, what's your plan?Nope, not yet. It's funny that you askabout my "plan" as though I had one. Originally, I'd planned towrite a book, send it to an agent who would, of course, fall all over himselfto sign me up as a client, and he would hand the manuscript off to a publisherwho would read it overnight, send me a contract and a six figure check, andtoss it onto bookstore shelves post-haste. Yes, I know that doesn'thappen to most authors, but I'm better than most, right?
That's what I thought, anyway. The currentplan, if I withhold my giggles long enough to call it that, istwo-pronged. First, with the novel, I'm continuing the joyful activity ofsending out queries, as many as possible as fast as possible, to garner as manyrejections as possible before the James River Writer's Conference in earlyOctober. Hey, if I get a yes that's great, but by now I know better thanto plan on it. At JRWC I managed to get my name in the hat early enoughthat I'll be meeting with an agent, and a great one at that, in one of herOne-on-One slots. That should be a defining moment. If she says"meh" I'll give up entirely, at least for the time being, ontraditional publishing.
The second prong of my plan uses the novellas and,if the agent in October says "meh", the novel to become self-published. I'mlucky, in that my past experience has taught me how to run a business (whichbeing an indie is an example of) and how to market. Books are differentfrom colleges in the marketing, of course, but there is plenty of informationout there to help.
3. Which route did you choose for becomingpublished, the traditional route, with an agent, the "indie" route, goingdirectly to the publishers yourself, or deciding to self-publish?I started out with the notion that traditionalpublishing is the only legitimate way to get a book out to the public, becausethat's the route with access to the bestseller lists, the bookstore shelves,etc. It was also the route I knew of; to me, self-published works seemedto only be done by people who didn't qualify for publication the"real" way. Shows how little I knew of the indie world, doesn'tit? I'm still trying to find an agent, because if nothing else the agenthelps build an author's career and gives contractual advice, and once I becomerich and famous it's the agent who will negotiate my speakingengagements. Meanwhile, I still want at least one book to betraditionally published because I want to be a member of SFWA and they don't currentlyaccept self-pubbed authors. With my luck, of course, by the time I becometraditionally published they'll change that rule.
4. How long did it take you to write your firstnovel?See, that's why I started a blog about theprocess early on (http://theOtherStephenKingOnWriting.blogspot.com). It wasn't that I figured my exploration of the writing craft would make forparticularly gripping reading; it doesn't. I did, however, hope and praythat someday somebody would be interested enough to ask me something relevantlike you just did. Now I can just go to my blog and figure it out. The first blog post was on 2/28/2011, and it reports that I'd started "acouple of weeks ago" and was up to 32K words. Then there's the poston 3/20/2011, titled "Finis," in which I describe the indescribable(yeah, it's kinda silly) feeling I got when I tackily wrote "The End"at the end of my 68K-word novel. Incidentally, as nice as it felt to typethem, those words are gone, now, bled to death by an unamused editor'spen.
Then again, the answer to your question is a bitmore complex than my previous paragraph suggests. I finished my firstdraft in about five weeks. That's a rockin' speed, by the way; it's by nomeans record-setting but it's not bad either. Then I started the secondhalf of the novel, appropriately named Book Two (now RotG: Ascension), and bythe end of May had 87K words written in it and "The End" typed on itslast page. I set that aside and started the process of revising Book One(now RotG: Cataclysm) to be something somewhat decent. I even coined theterm "decrappifying" to most accurately describe what I was doing toit. By late June I was done to the point where I was comfortable lettinga pro look at it, and so I sent it off to Debra Ginsberg, my editor. Shereturned it to me with some great comments by the end of July, and I got busyreworking it.
August 21, then, I sent out my firstquery. That's six months and one week, ish, between first using the Newcommand to create the Word document and reaching the point where I consideredit a complete work.
5. How long did it take you to publish it?Still working on that. Traditionalpublishing, the route I've chosen with the novel, is rumored to take anywherefrom several months out to "Oh, God, I'm gonna need Geritol bythen." The novella is really quick to self-publish, or will be onceI'm satisfied that it's ready. Then again, there is a lot of really badself-published stuff out there, largely due to the speed at which you can pushit out. I'm taking my time to do it right. Target date is October1, 2011.
6. How many times did it get rejected before itgot published?Still counting. 12 rejections sofar. That's nothing compared to a great many others, as I constantly mopeabout on my own blog. Many people get 60 or even over 100 rejectionsbefore they get a yes.
7. Describe your worst rejection letter.I haven't gotten one that was negative, really,if that's what you mean by "worst." I did get one thatacknowledged being a form letter yet contained a grammar error, which seemedpretty silly to me.
8. Describe the best news you ever got in yourwriting life and how it felt.My wife liked the draft. If I never, everget published, that's still enough of an achievement to make me smile.
9. What's the worst piece of advice you ever got?Well, when I was a young boy, pulling thetrigger on a BB gun with it pointed at another kid (the neighborhood bully, ofcourse) was a pretty rotten piece of advice, but we all lived through it, andI'm betting you're not asking about that anyway. I haven't really gottenany bad advice that I know of that related to writing. Some of my betareaders suggested some things that I didn't agree with (one guy, for example,told me to remove the Atlantis chapter from my book) but I just thanked themfor their input in those cases and moved on.
10. Now, tell us the best.From Strunk & White, transmitted to me firstby Stephen King (the other one) in his marvelous book On Writing: "Omitneedless words."
11. What's the one thing youwould want an aspiring writer to take away from your personal path topublication?Don't quit. Don't quit revising. Don't quitlearning the craft; writing isn't something you can learn to do by watchingothers do it. Once you have something, don't quit pushing it. Thefirst few rejections make you feel like a complete failure, trust me. Move past them. Don't ever quit. Oh, and don't quit your dayjob.
Stephen doesn't have a book cover, but he did provide the following blurb for his Work In Progress:Book cover: under developmentBook: Undercover Truths, by Evan Koenig (pen name)Release date: 10/1/2011For details, see www.EvanKoenig.com
Blurb:A science fiction novella set in a world wheresovereign nations no longer exist, and where all nuclear power generation hasbeen centralized into the Colony of America, Undercover Truths tells the fast-pacedstory of Stacy, the young reactor director, battling off an attack byenvironmentalists with the help of the colony's Governor and his strangeassistant. Station and surrounding population safe again, Stacy turns herattention to determining who is behind the attack, and the answer surprisesboth her and her Governor.
I'm excited to see the finished product and can't wait for October 1st! Thanks for sharing with us, Stephen...we'll see you around your blog!
Here's how to connect with Stephen:Evan Koenig
Author Return of the Gods: Cataclysm, andUndercover TruthsFacebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Evan-Koenig/162069773856209For news, bio, and release data, or to purchasebooks: http://www.EvanKoenig.comE-mail contact: evan@evankoenig.comBlog: http://theOtherStephenKingonWriting.blogspot.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/#!/skingcharter
1. How long have you been writing?Depending on what you're asking: long time, ornot long at all. With a real name of Stephen King, it was my greatestdesire to stay away from writing fiction. For the past several years as aDean, though, I've written tons of stuff, including multi-thousand-pageaccreditation applications and both policy and disciplinary correspondence ofall sorts. Is that writing? Of course it is. It's notcreative, certainly, but years of technical and official writing have taught mea great deal about word flow and grammatical structure.
I've only been writing creatively for severalmonths. I tried a NaNoWriMo back in 2007. I began by buying allsorts of fancy pens and notebooks as well as a few books on writing, and then Iwent to work with a novel idea. I failed. I got halfway in andrealized I was writing another version of Ender's Game. Now, I likeEnder's Game, but the world only needs one instance of it. Instead offixing it I quit, and I stayed in a "quit" status till February ofthis year when I decided it was time to dust off the writing hat again. Since then I've completed a novel and a novella, and I've also completed earlydrafts of another one of each.
2. Are you published and if so, how long have youbeen a published author? If not, what's your plan?Nope, not yet. It's funny that you askabout my "plan" as though I had one. Originally, I'd planned towrite a book, send it to an agent who would, of course, fall all over himselfto sign me up as a client, and he would hand the manuscript off to a publisherwho would read it overnight, send me a contract and a six figure check, andtoss it onto bookstore shelves post-haste. Yes, I know that doesn'thappen to most authors, but I'm better than most, right?
That's what I thought, anyway. The currentplan, if I withhold my giggles long enough to call it that, istwo-pronged. First, with the novel, I'm continuing the joyful activity ofsending out queries, as many as possible as fast as possible, to garner as manyrejections as possible before the James River Writer's Conference in earlyOctober. Hey, if I get a yes that's great, but by now I know better thanto plan on it. At JRWC I managed to get my name in the hat early enoughthat I'll be meeting with an agent, and a great one at that, in one of herOne-on-One slots. That should be a defining moment. If she says"meh" I'll give up entirely, at least for the time being, ontraditional publishing.
The second prong of my plan uses the novellas and,if the agent in October says "meh", the novel to become self-published. I'mlucky, in that my past experience has taught me how to run a business (whichbeing an indie is an example of) and how to market. Books are differentfrom colleges in the marketing, of course, but there is plenty of informationout there to help.
3. Which route did you choose for becomingpublished, the traditional route, with an agent, the "indie" route, goingdirectly to the publishers yourself, or deciding to self-publish?I started out with the notion that traditionalpublishing is the only legitimate way to get a book out to the public, becausethat's the route with access to the bestseller lists, the bookstore shelves,etc. It was also the route I knew of; to me, self-published works seemedto only be done by people who didn't qualify for publication the"real" way. Shows how little I knew of the indie world, doesn'tit? I'm still trying to find an agent, because if nothing else the agenthelps build an author's career and gives contractual advice, and once I becomerich and famous it's the agent who will negotiate my speakingengagements. Meanwhile, I still want at least one book to betraditionally published because I want to be a member of SFWA and they don't currentlyaccept self-pubbed authors. With my luck, of course, by the time I becometraditionally published they'll change that rule.
4. How long did it take you to write your firstnovel?See, that's why I started a blog about theprocess early on (http://theOtherStephenKingOnWriting.blogspot.com). It wasn't that I figured my exploration of the writing craft would make forparticularly gripping reading; it doesn't. I did, however, hope and praythat someday somebody would be interested enough to ask me something relevantlike you just did. Now I can just go to my blog and figure it out. The first blog post was on 2/28/2011, and it reports that I'd started "acouple of weeks ago" and was up to 32K words. Then there's the poston 3/20/2011, titled "Finis," in which I describe the indescribable(yeah, it's kinda silly) feeling I got when I tackily wrote "The End"at the end of my 68K-word novel. Incidentally, as nice as it felt to typethem, those words are gone, now, bled to death by an unamused editor'spen.
Then again, the answer to your question is a bitmore complex than my previous paragraph suggests. I finished my firstdraft in about five weeks. That's a rockin' speed, by the way; it's by nomeans record-setting but it's not bad either. Then I started the secondhalf of the novel, appropriately named Book Two (now RotG: Ascension), and bythe end of May had 87K words written in it and "The End" typed on itslast page. I set that aside and started the process of revising Book One(now RotG: Cataclysm) to be something somewhat decent. I even coined theterm "decrappifying" to most accurately describe what I was doing toit. By late June I was done to the point where I was comfortable lettinga pro look at it, and so I sent it off to Debra Ginsberg, my editor. Shereturned it to me with some great comments by the end of July, and I got busyreworking it.
August 21, then, I sent out my firstquery. That's six months and one week, ish, between first using the Newcommand to create the Word document and reaching the point where I consideredit a complete work.
5. How long did it take you to publish it?Still working on that. Traditionalpublishing, the route I've chosen with the novel, is rumored to take anywherefrom several months out to "Oh, God, I'm gonna need Geritol bythen." The novella is really quick to self-publish, or will be onceI'm satisfied that it's ready. Then again, there is a lot of really badself-published stuff out there, largely due to the speed at which you can pushit out. I'm taking my time to do it right. Target date is October1, 2011.
6. How many times did it get rejected before itgot published?Still counting. 12 rejections sofar. That's nothing compared to a great many others, as I constantly mopeabout on my own blog. Many people get 60 or even over 100 rejectionsbefore they get a yes.
7. Describe your worst rejection letter.I haven't gotten one that was negative, really,if that's what you mean by "worst." I did get one thatacknowledged being a form letter yet contained a grammar error, which seemedpretty silly to me.
8. Describe the best news you ever got in yourwriting life and how it felt.My wife liked the draft. If I never, everget published, that's still enough of an achievement to make me smile.
9. What's the worst piece of advice you ever got?Well, when I was a young boy, pulling thetrigger on a BB gun with it pointed at another kid (the neighborhood bully, ofcourse) was a pretty rotten piece of advice, but we all lived through it, andI'm betting you're not asking about that anyway. I haven't really gottenany bad advice that I know of that related to writing. Some of my betareaders suggested some things that I didn't agree with (one guy, for example,told me to remove the Atlantis chapter from my book) but I just thanked themfor their input in those cases and moved on.
10. Now, tell us the best.From Strunk & White, transmitted to me firstby Stephen King (the other one) in his marvelous book On Writing: "Omitneedless words."
11. What's the one thing youwould want an aspiring writer to take away from your personal path topublication?Don't quit. Don't quit revising. Don't quitlearning the craft; writing isn't something you can learn to do by watchingothers do it. Once you have something, don't quit pushing it. Thefirst few rejections make you feel like a complete failure, trust me. Move past them. Don't ever quit. Oh, and don't quit your dayjob.
Stephen doesn't have a book cover, but he did provide the following blurb for his Work In Progress:Book cover: under developmentBook: Undercover Truths, by Evan Koenig (pen name)Release date: 10/1/2011For details, see www.EvanKoenig.com
Blurb:A science fiction novella set in a world wheresovereign nations no longer exist, and where all nuclear power generation hasbeen centralized into the Colony of America, Undercover Truths tells the fast-pacedstory of Stacy, the young reactor director, battling off an attack byenvironmentalists with the help of the colony's Governor and his strangeassistant. Station and surrounding population safe again, Stacy turns herattention to determining who is behind the attack, and the answer surprisesboth her and her Governor.
I'm excited to see the finished product and can't wait for October 1st! Thanks for sharing with us, Stephen...we'll see you around your blog!
Here's how to connect with Stephen:Evan Koenig
Author Return of the Gods: Cataclysm, andUndercover TruthsFacebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Evan-Koenig/162069773856209For news, bio, and release data, or to purchasebooks: http://www.EvanKoenig.comE-mail contact: evan@evankoenig.comBlog: http://theOtherStephenKingonWriting.blogspot.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/#!/skingcharter
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