Being a Professional Author

means spending half your time doing things that are not writing, such as:

1. answering business emails.

2. talking to your agent/editor on the phone, sometimes several times a week.

3. going through multiple edits of every book.

4. arranging for book-selling opportunities, like signings.

5. answering fan email, snail mail, or other social media alerts.

6. traveling to conferences to speak about writing and your own books, often on your own dime.

7. making nice with people in publishing whose books you may not like and whose personalities you may not enjoy.

8. deciding how to write an email explaining your objections to the proposed cover of your book.

9. looking over contracts, yes—even after your agent has already done so.

10. doing your own taxes every year as your eyes glaze back in your head, sometimes on New Year’s Eve when everyone else on the planet is celebrating.

11. asking to be paid—again!—for a school visit you did a year ago.

12. looking for sites giving away ebook copies of your book for free and asking them to stop.

13. trying to avoid getting sick so that you can keep your schedule.

What it rarely includes, despite the hype:

1. spending a lot of time dreaming about who will star in the dream cast of the movie version of your book.

2. creating art for your book yourself.

3. deciding how much your book will cost, in either paper or ebook format.

4. choosing which celebrities will appear at your book launch.

5. planning how much space your new house will have for your writing office.

6. paying for other people to promote your book for you.

7. glamorous vacations without family so that you can research your next book.

8. hiring nannies and housekeepers full-time so that you can relax at your pool.

9. hanging out with Stephen King and JK Rowling.

10. sending away books to people for free who simply thought to ask you.

11. painting your car to match your book cover.

12. designing dolls to look like your favorite characters.

13. discovering the manuscripts of brilliant, unknown authors whom you can promote with all of your new found power.