I know an author \u2013 she works for Jericho Writers \u2013 who always wanted a two-book deal with a commercially ambitious Big 5 publisher. So she wrote a book and got an agent and the two of them got themselves in front of an outstanding imprint at a Big 5 publisher. The publisher said yes, please, they wanted the book.<\/p>\n
I know an author \u2013 me \u2013 who had a perfectly successful career as a trad and self-pub author. Now admittedly life got a bit over-complex (kids, a business, disability in the family), but he\u2019s still writing. The logical book would be #7 in the successful Fiona Griffiths series. It\u2019s already mostly written.<\/p>\n
I know a highly successful self-pub author \u2013 Debbie Young, who runs our brand-new self-publishing course \u2013 who has a very popular crime series. That series was badly in need of a next instalment and she felt perfectly able to write it.<\/p>\n
But, but, but \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Last year was pretty damn grim. It was all about lockdown and anxiety and rampaging sickness statistics.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s hardly been merry either. More lockdowns and more conflict over lockdowns. Some brilliant vaccine news (yay!) but also a succession of new variants. Here in the UK, the news cycle is, once again, crammed with a particularly grey shade of pre-Christmas gloom.<\/p>\n Which is why I ask: what do you want? What do you really, really want?<\/strong><\/p>\n My colleague, the one with the two-book offer from the fancy publisher, said no.<\/p>\n The publisher in question wanted to dumb down her book, to strip it of personality. It was clear they wanted someone to deliver a commodity product which they would package up and sell as a commodity online. So she said no. Instead, she\u2019s signed up with a smaller (but very able and ambitious) indie publisher instead, because they wanted the book she had actually written just as she had always envisaged it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a better solution for her.<\/p>\n And me? Well, that #7 Fiona Griffiths book just feels too large and complicated for where my life has been this year. So I\u2019ve almost completed a literary book so barmy I don\u2019t even quite know how to tell you about it. (Hmm: \u201cIt\u2019s a literary novelty book about story-making, polar adventure and cannibalism.\u201d Something like that.) I can\u2019t tell you if the book will ever be published or not, but I can tell you that I\u2019ve loved every minute I\u2019ve had while writing it.<\/p>\n And Debbie? She confessed the following:<\/p>\n In the last few months, more and more indie authors have been telling me they are weary of the pay-to-play rollercoaster of certain publishing platforms. I know quite a few who are recalibrating to focus on quality rather than quantity. Particularly after the battering our mental well-being has taken from the Covid pandemic, stepping back from marketing pressures, while maintaining an effective author platform (website, social media, etc), can feel like a much-needed healing process.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026 As to myself, I made a conscious decision this summer that whenever I start a new project, I\u2019ll write whatever is in my heart, rather than necessarily what makes the most commercial sense. I took time out to write a standalone novella when I was overdue to write the third in a series of mystery novels. But I\u2019m really glad I did it, and I will continue to take this approach for the foreseeable future. It feels controversial or even heretical as a successful indie author to be saying this, but I have a feeling that a significant number of authors out there when they read this will be thinking, \u201cOh please, yes, let me just write for a while! In 2022, I just want to write!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I think it\u2019s great to be commercial about what you write. Books are better for having readers. It\u2019s hard enough getting published, let alone making any money. Manuscripts that start out without any feel for the market normally end up essentially unread.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s a balance to be struck. Not one of us thought, \u201cGosh, I\u2019d really like to be stupidly rich, so I\u2019ll just write some books.\u201d On the contrary, the passion came first. Thoughts about publication came second. Thoughts about making money from publication came a snail-like third.<\/p>\n So here\u2019s the question: are you getting joy from your writing? Do you love the project you are currently working on?<\/strong><\/p>\n And I don\u2019t mean \u201clove\u201d as in \u201cright now this minute\u201d. Even with projects of passion there are dark passages that just need to be muscled through. I mean love, more like marital love: with its ups and downs, but still most definitely love.<\/p>\n Do you love your writing? I hope you do.<\/p>\n Have a very merry Christmas. I shan\u2019t email next week or the week after. Normal service will resume in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know an author \u2013 she works for Jericho Writers \u2013 who always wanted a two-book deal with a commercially ambitious Big 5 publisher. So she wrote a book and got an agent and the two of them got themselves in front of an outstanding imprint at a Big 5 publisher. The publisher said yes,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n