THE WRITE STUFF
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of — exhausted really by — all the political going’s on, and as an author, I miss talking about literary topics. In fact, I sorely miss conversing with readers and other authors, and so this post will NOT be about anything political. Or social. Or ethical. Or patriotic. I want to talk about a topic close to my literary heart: The “Write” Stuff. Okay. It’s a cute phrase. But to me it signifies the challenges that one must face when moving from writing to authoring.
Writing for me is about putting ideas into sentences onto a digital written format FOR ME. Moi. Purely for my own enjoyment. Be it a diary (an excellent way to begin writing), poems (the very heart of prose), blog posts (the modern writer’s usual arena of choice), or musings on social media platforms (supposedly the “common person’s” medium), in the end, it’s all about the writer, in some cases, one’s most stringent critic. I like to think of writing as the practical way to get to “know thyself,” and a practical college or vocational school for want-to-be authors. I’m often reminded that “Many are called, but few are chosen” to make the move to authorship.
Authoring is about putting ideas into sentences onto a digital written format, yes, but FOR A TARGET AUDIENCE. It’s not enough to “know thyself” (in and of itself difficult), but one must “know thy readership.” Publishers know this. Each has a specific (and typically different) target readership, which is why it can be so frustrating for a new author to “get a publisher” which, I think, better stated, would say to bond with a publisher who believes that publishing company has the right readership for a prospective author’s work. Rejections, I’ve learned to take as admissions that my manuscript simply doesn’t fit in well with the publisher’s readership. Notwithstanding, years ago when one hand-typed manuscripts in quadruplicate (OMG I don’t ever want to go back to that pre-COVID “normal”), I papered one wall of my bedroom with pink [rejection] slips. Back then, I took each rejection personally, as another strike against my quality of writing, but eventually I learned it was more about finding the right publishing “home.”
But that’s only the beginning. Once accepted, one has to learn to control one’s new found hubris sufficiently to work effectively with an editor. In my experience, there are few Mozart-manuscripts, written so perfectly that it is simply not open to editing, or, said another way, after all my own pre-submission editing, yet another edit, especially one of significance (usually to make the work fit the publisher’s readership better) seemed simply unbearable. I’ve learned to accept a publisher editor’s edits 95% of the time, and often find that I wish I had taken the editor’s advice the other 5% of the time.
Then there’s the entirely new and incredibly complex world of publicity and marketing. In the “old world” (yesterday?), the publisher did or at least organized and paid for most if not all of the publicity and marketing. In today’s world, that may still be true for a confirmed million-copy, bestselling author working with a large publishing company, but more and more I find readers taking any company “advertising” with larger and larger grains (mountains?) of salt. Why spend oodles of money advertising, if a work is so good it will acutally “sell itself?” Or, by another way of thinking, if the ad says the car is like new, it’s most likely not. These days, many authors like myself find ourselves having to use the tried and true method of publicizing: Do it yourself with those you know and know you. The problem is that publicizing methods aside from sending out emails to those you already know and know you, are quickly becoming jammed with paid political and social ads. Think Trump and Twitter. It’s hard to get a tweet in. An author with a small to medium sized publisher must become his or her own master of direct publicity and marketing, leaving one to wonder where to find the time to author another work.
There’s also the bug-a-boo about sales and royalties. In the past, publishers, and to some extent authors, had a good idea of how well a printed book was selling in order to decide what part- or full-time other occupation would be necessary to pay the bills. These days, with eBooks coming of age, very few publishers can know for certain how many times a work is read, and authors, in my experience, increasingly rarely develop an income stream sufficient to count on to pay the bills, much less so if one has a vanity publisher or self-publishes. In addition, I’ve heard said over and over that one in a hundred good books, p- or e-, ever “hits it big.” I’ve decided therefore that I’ll plan to keep my second job at least until I’ve published a hundred books. Get my meaning?
It’s also often said that encouraging a writer to become an author is a bit like encouraging a good doodler to think of him or herself as another Picasso or Rembrandt. Not “like” another Picasso or Rembrandt, but an artist (yes, author’s are word artists) of equally outstanding stature and popularity. It’s not easy being an author. But for those crazy enough to want desperately enough to be one, and willing to commit to learning and developing the creativity, discipline and business skills of authorship, well, no one like that would ever listen to discouraging advice anyway.
Raymond Gaynor is the pen-name of the multi-award-winning, reclusive writer-artist-photographer-videographer, who, in his own words, “lives and breathes” San Francisco. He co-authored with William Maltese on the Tripler and Clarke naughty gay political thriller, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) and with A. G. Hayes on the fifth Koski & Falk adventure, QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016). He is the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction works published under a variety of different pseudonyms. THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) is Raymond’s first wholly authored work.
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
Writing for me is about putting ideas into sentences onto a digital written format FOR ME. Moi. Purely for my own enjoyment. Be it a diary (an excellent way to begin writing), poems (the very heart of prose), blog posts (the modern writer’s usual arena of choice), or musings on social media platforms (supposedly the “common person’s” medium), in the end, it’s all about the writer, in some cases, one’s most stringent critic. I like to think of writing as the practical way to get to “know thyself,” and a practical college or vocational school for want-to-be authors. I’m often reminded that “Many are called, but few are chosen” to make the move to authorship.
Authoring is about putting ideas into sentences onto a digital written format, yes, but FOR A TARGET AUDIENCE. It’s not enough to “know thyself” (in and of itself difficult), but one must “know thy readership.” Publishers know this. Each has a specific (and typically different) target readership, which is why it can be so frustrating for a new author to “get a publisher” which, I think, better stated, would say to bond with a publisher who believes that publishing company has the right readership for a prospective author’s work. Rejections, I’ve learned to take as admissions that my manuscript simply doesn’t fit in well with the publisher’s readership. Notwithstanding, years ago when one hand-typed manuscripts in quadruplicate (OMG I don’t ever want to go back to that pre-COVID “normal”), I papered one wall of my bedroom with pink [rejection] slips. Back then, I took each rejection personally, as another strike against my quality of writing, but eventually I learned it was more about finding the right publishing “home.”
But that’s only the beginning. Once accepted, one has to learn to control one’s new found hubris sufficiently to work effectively with an editor. In my experience, there are few Mozart-manuscripts, written so perfectly that it is simply not open to editing, or, said another way, after all my own pre-submission editing, yet another edit, especially one of significance (usually to make the work fit the publisher’s readership better) seemed simply unbearable. I’ve learned to accept a publisher editor’s edits 95% of the time, and often find that I wish I had taken the editor’s advice the other 5% of the time.
Then there’s the entirely new and incredibly complex world of publicity and marketing. In the “old world” (yesterday?), the publisher did or at least organized and paid for most if not all of the publicity and marketing. In today’s world, that may still be true for a confirmed million-copy, bestselling author working with a large publishing company, but more and more I find readers taking any company “advertising” with larger and larger grains (mountains?) of salt. Why spend oodles of money advertising, if a work is so good it will acutally “sell itself?” Or, by another way of thinking, if the ad says the car is like new, it’s most likely not. These days, many authors like myself find ourselves having to use the tried and true method of publicizing: Do it yourself with those you know and know you. The problem is that publicizing methods aside from sending out emails to those you already know and know you, are quickly becoming jammed with paid political and social ads. Think Trump and Twitter. It’s hard to get a tweet in. An author with a small to medium sized publisher must become his or her own master of direct publicity and marketing, leaving one to wonder where to find the time to author another work.
There’s also the bug-a-boo about sales and royalties. In the past, publishers, and to some extent authors, had a good idea of how well a printed book was selling in order to decide what part- or full-time other occupation would be necessary to pay the bills. These days, with eBooks coming of age, very few publishers can know for certain how many times a work is read, and authors, in my experience, increasingly rarely develop an income stream sufficient to count on to pay the bills, much less so if one has a vanity publisher or self-publishes. In addition, I’ve heard said over and over that one in a hundred good books, p- or e-, ever “hits it big.” I’ve decided therefore that I’ll plan to keep my second job at least until I’ve published a hundred books. Get my meaning?
It’s also often said that encouraging a writer to become an author is a bit like encouraging a good doodler to think of him or herself as another Picasso or Rembrandt. Not “like” another Picasso or Rembrandt, but an artist (yes, author’s are word artists) of equally outstanding stature and popularity. It’s not easy being an author. But for those crazy enough to want desperately enough to be one, and willing to commit to learning and developing the creativity, discipline and business skills of authorship, well, no one like that would ever listen to discouraging advice anyway.
Raymond Gaynor is the pen-name of the multi-award-winning, reclusive writer-artist-photographer-videographer, who, in his own words, “lives and breathes” San Francisco. He co-authored with William Maltese on the Tripler and Clarke naughty gay political thriller, TOTAL MELTDOWN (Borgo/Wildside 2009) and with A. G. Hayes on the fifth Koski & Falk adventure, QUANTUM DEATH (Savant 2016). He is the author of numerous fiction and non-fiction works published under a variety of different pseudonyms. THE EDGE OF MADNESS (Aignos 2020) is Raymond’s first wholly authored work.
Total Meltdown: A Tripler and Clarke Adventure
Quantum Death
The Edge of Madness
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0999693859
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