Writing and Speaking > Writing > Help - My Writings Not Selling!
0
Reviews [ add review ],
Article rating : 0.00, 0 votes. Author : Angela Booth
If the definition of insanity is to keep doing what's not working in the confident
expectation that it WILL work, then writers and other creatives are nuts.
When you're a writer, you write and you market your work. That's it. It's exactly the
same process for Stephen King as it is for Stephen Brand-New-Writer. You dig a
hole and you keep digging until they bury you in it or you hit a gold mine.
That's what makes a life in the arts so challenging. If you're a creative, you create,
and you sell. That's all. This counter-intuitive process leads many writers on an
endless quest for the "secret". There has to be something else, they think. It's too
simple. There has to be more to selling your work than that.
The bad news is that there's no more to it. And that's also the good news.
=> The good news: Every word you write makes you a better writer
Write every day. Write constantly. You've heard it all before, you're sick of hearing it.
You don’t want to write every day until you get some guarantees that it's not all for
nothing. After all, your partner has threatened to throw the computer out the
window, and you want some semblance of a normal social life before you die.
It's true, every word you write makes you a better writer, and you don’t get to be a
better writer without putting in the time writing those words. Dig out some old files.
Go back five years, if you've been writing that long. If you've been writing for less
than five years, go back and read your first efforts. Does your beginning work make
you cringe?
Your improvement has been incremental. The more you write, the better your
writing gets.
Along with writing, you should also read and study other writers. Take writing
courses. The big benefit of a writing course is that you're forced to write.
But that's not enough.
=> The bad news: Selling is often a matter of luck
Here comes the bad news. Selling is often a matter of luck. New writers like to
believe that editors and agents are super-human beings who know everything. They
certainly know better than writers. (Big wry smile.)
Editors and agents have problems even as you and I do. They have jobs to do, and
they want to do them as easily and as quickly as they can, with the least amount of
hassle. This means that when you send an article proposal to a magazine and
another writer sends a similar idea, if the publication has worked with him before,
he gets the job. It may not be fair, but to the magazine he's a known quantity. They
know what to expect with him. On the other hand, if there's a book on the topic and
the agent calls to offer the serial rights for less than it would cost to hire either of
you, you both lose out.
Rejection is a fact of the creative life. Many genre novelist have written
ten complete
novels before the first one sold, and that sale was often a matter of luck. That novel
was in the right place at the right time, so to speak. Let's see, at 80 to 100 thousand
words per novel, that's close to a million words, before a single word sold. Of
course, once a novel sells, the editor and the writer's agent will encourage the writer
to dig out those past efforts, revamp them, and chances are they will be published
too. (So if you're filling a couple of filing cabinets with unsold manuscripts, take
heart. Look on them as your retirement fund. :-))
Many writers have to continue for years, doing what isn’t working. They have no
guarantee that it will EVER work. But if they stop digging that hole, they'll never
strike gold.
=> How to survive until you sell (and forever afterward)
Firstly, don’t forget to trust the process. It works. You create, and you market your
work. That's all.
However, you also must:
* keep up with what's selling, so that you’re not selling a bicycle in the rocket age.
This doesn’t mean you hop on every passing bandwagon. Trust yourself. If you're
writing a multi-generational family saga-type novel and only chicklit Bridget Jones
clones are selling, keep writing. The wheel turns. If you write from your heart, you
will sell;
* get a life aside from your writing. If you refuse to live your life, your creative well
will soon dry up. Keep living and keep writing. If you can’t yet support yourself with
your writing, take heart. Look on your day job as material. For a writer, everything is
material;
* take chances. Write what's fun for you --- or what’s painful for you. Take
whatever happens to you, and use it. It's all material. If you've been writing for ten
years and haven’t sold a word, write about that. (I'm not kidding);
* have fun with your writing. Never get so keyed up to sell, sell, sell that you stop
enjoying what you're doing. At least 80 per cent of your writing must be writing
you'd do for pleasure, even if they weren't paying you. I enjoy copywriting, it's a
game to me, and I get as much enjoyment out of writing copy as I do out of
crossword puzzles. Find out what you enjoy writing, and focus your efforts on that.
* try new stuff. Investigate other kinds of writing you might enjoy.
To sell your writing, keep doing what's not working --- yet. One day, maybe
TODAY, it will work, so keep digging that hole.
Turn words into money! Subscribe to copywriter and author Angela
Booth's new free ezine, Write For Cash.
Discover how to turn your own words, or someone else's into money. The
new Web boom is upon us, so content has never been more important, or
more valuable. Each issue contains a strategy and a product:
information you can use immediately. If you want to build a global
business from the comfort of your easy chair, subscribe today.
Article reviews
Post your review
[ Note : no HTML/URLs - will removed automatically ]
More articles from Writing and Speaking > Writing
|
