Oh, another one of Those Guys...
Newbies come in various flavors. Some have real trouble building momentum. Here are stereotypes to avoid, and how to avoid them
When I write Quora answers, I just bash them out and hit Submit. Sometimes they aren’t even finished yet and I don’t notice until someone points it out in a comment. I’m not sure why I feel that freedom from perfectionism on Quora when I don’t feel it anywhere else.
Here’s a question that came up recently on Quora. You can read my answer here, but have developed it a little better for you here on Substack:
What are the main errors that aspiring young authors make upon entering the market? What are things to avoid when you are on a quest to publish your first novel?
It depends on the motives and goals of the author, and on their personality and experiences too. “Know Thyself” is the first (and the unending) requirement for success in any entrepreneurial venture. What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? Why am I doing this? What is my goal: how will I know whether I am successful?
At the same time, you’re trying to understand the fundamental terrain involved for everyone who does this thing you’re beginning. What is the fundamental activity involved, the sine qua non of this industry? What are the resources needed for this venture in general, and for the approach I’m considering in particular?
As with any such questions, keep in mind that you’ll be refining your answers (and your questions themselves) as you go along. But let me offer a couple of thoughts on the ones I have already posed:
Specific strengths and weaknesses will change over time. Your skills will grow, you will change, your situation will change, and practical aspects of the tasks will shift, sometimes dramatically. Having said that, here’s a general rule that will serve you well: maximize your strengths and manage around your weaknesses. Sure, you must acquire and even master certain skills at certain times, but don’t waste your time struggling to turn a deep-seated weakness into a strength if there’s a way to manage around the weakness— let someone else with that strength do those tasks for you, if at all possible.
If it isn’t possible at all, and mastery is absolutely demanded, well, do that impossible thing, and you will have a good memoir to write afterward (whether you succeed or fail!).
Don’t be intimidated by people who are able to summarize their “why” in a single concise sentence. It’s okay to be a bit tangled and complicated inside. Most of us are! Even when you can’t come up with one clear driving purpose for becoming a published author in the first ten seconds of considering the question, keep considering the question. Try on various motives and see whether they fit. If it’s close but not quite right, ay attention to the ways it chafes, and cut those away: what’s left? How would you describe that motive differently now that it fits better (or at least isn’t chafing anymore)? A clear “why” will inform and motivate everything you do and every level of your planning, which leads us to…
Goal-setting is related to “knowing your why,” but not quite the same. Obviously the two will intimately inform one another, and as one changes, so must the other. When a new writer is asked “How will I know when I am successful?” they often respond, as if trained in school, with a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal.” Sometimes they’ll even call it that: the “BHAG”1 is not my preferred term. Having a BHAG can be helpful in some ways to some people, but the nature of a BHAG means that every day that goes by, you have failed to accomplish it. This sense of constant failure remains subconscious at first, but if you live long enough, it becomes deeply demoralizing. Pragmatic and sustainable goal-setting involves breaking your BHAG into smaller steps that ultimately lead to the BHAG. Each of those goals will require a list of practical tasks to accomplish it; those tasks are determined by the strategy you choose to accomplish each goal, and by the tactics available to you… it gets complicated. The point is that a BHAG can serve as your North Star, but you need daily, weekly, and monthly “wins” that you can celebrate or you’ll wither and die under the faint light of that distant star.
The sine qua non of being an author is simply this: you write stories, which people read.
You write, you create a finished product (a novel, in this case). The frequency of completion is irrelevant, but zero completed works = something is broken.
You find a way to get it into the hands of readers who will enjoy it. The exact number of readers is irrelevant, but zero readers = something is broken.
You do it again, improving both step 1 and step 2 with each iteration. If you get stuck here in step 3 (trying to perfect your writing, learning “everything” about publishing, pining for that one perfect agent, posting on socials to grow your fanbase without feeding them new stories), you’re not “being an author.” Write. Publish. Repeat, changing things that you wish you’d done differently. That’s “being an author” at its core.
There’s so much more to be said about all of these, but instead of drafting a book about it, I’ll give you some idea of “things to avoid.” Speaking from several decades of experience—21 of those years with Wordsmith Writing Coaches—here are several “foolish aspiring author” stereotypes we see all too frequently:
The True Believer: Loves their own writing, and writing is easy for them! Their target audience is everybody in the world! They read an article about [becoming wealthy by publishing books / transforming the world by publishing books] so now they know the magic six-step process and it will be SO AWESOME!! They will quit their day job and go FULL SEND!!! (They wildly overuse all-caps and exclamation marks too: it’s a co-morbidity) These folks are convinced that they know how to succeed as authors, and nothing but bitter experience will change their minds.
That ‘70s Author: They live in the old world of traditional publishing even though they are just getting started now. “Self-publishing” is beneath them; they want a contract with a Respectable Publishing House. They need help finding a literary agent; all real authors have agents. Agents are magical publicity fairies who take you out for coffee (or bourbon, in a properly depressing dive bar), match you with big publishers and negotiate $50,000 advances for you, and effortlessly handle all that pesky marketing and media stuff so you won’t have to. A really good publisher, of course, will take most of that off the agent’s hands so THEY won’t have to carry that horrid burden either. I mean, who wants to connect personally with one’s readers? A respectable author wants to curl up with a cat, a cup of coffee, a Smith-Corona and a ream of typing paper and sit at the garret window typing Pulitzer-winning prose all day (or all night). It is surprisingly difficult to drag them out of their imaginary garret and into the 21st Century.
That 2010’s Author: They live in the happy dawn of the golden age of self-publishing, which I describe here. Even thinking about the traditional publishing world is beneath them; they are convinced there is nothing to learn from the Old Guard. Similar to the True Believer, they are convinced of their path to success; unlike the True Believer, they have a much more open mind, and are pulling insights, strategies, and tactics from many sources. Unfortunately, these are woefully outdated sources: the simple 20BooksTo50K formula2 worked great for a while, but it doesn’t anymore. Their illusions, being of a more recent vintage, are trickier to dispel as those of the 70’s Author… perhaps a few years of failure and frustration will do it.3
The Supportive Family Author: Their other misconceptions and traits will differ, but when it comes to a specific task they might outsource to a pro, they’ll always enlist a family member instead. “My mom/aunt/grandma is a retired English teacher, she’ll do all the editing” …that’s so common it’s proverbial. Another common one: “my daughter/cousin/boyfriend is super artistic, he’ll do my book cover for me.” I can’t tell you how many new authors are shocked when their artsy family member flakes on them, or openly gives up when they realize what’s required to make a cover image that is even uploadable, much less non-embarrassing to the artist. If you want to be a pro, work with pros.
The Someday Author: Opposite of the True Believer. Suffering from “analysis paralysis,” they over-research and under-commit. They don’t feel ready or able to take the next step until they know more, and there’s always more to know. Their overall condition, analysis paralysis, can afflict any author at some particular point of their writing life, but for the Someday Author, it exemplifies the entire experience. Unless something changes, they will put off actually writing, or actually sharing their work with others, or actually publishing, until it’s too late. Best-case scenario is when their heirs find a finished manuscript or two hidden away in a drawer or in a folder on their computer after their death, and it gets published posthumously… it’s more likely their heirs will find bits and fragments and half-finished work. I’m not sure how common this is in the general population, but I have met several dozen Someday Authors over the decades and only managed to help a handful of them overcome this condition and become published authors. For the rest of them, my encouragement and exhortation runs right off the armor shell of their inadequacy. I’m not even sure it leaves a residue. I never hear from them again.
The Skinflint: These aspiring authors are sometimes talented, often hard-working, ready to learn and grow in their writing craft and career… they just can’t bring themselves to invest in it in any significant way. They browse the writing websites and author newsletters for free tips, free webinars, free introductory workshops, free local events, free initial consultations. They have the courage and confidence to strike up free conversations with working authors and publishing professionals, hoping to “pick your brain” but only if they can do it at zero or minimal financial cost to themselves. I had a wannabe writer “take me out for coffee” to chat about their book idea and then NOT pay for my chai. It turned out they hadn’t paid for the conference where we met, either— they had wrangled a “scholarship” that covered the entire event, even though they weren’t really eligible for it. Some of these people are struggling financially but could make the sacrifices necessary to advance their career, or to self-publish wisely— they just won’t. Many Skinflint aspiring authors are quite wealthy. They could easily afford to invest in their success— they just won’t.
This isn’t an exhaustive list of newbie-suthor stereotypes: if you think of one that I’ve missed, please add it in a comment below and I might include it in a longer future article on this topic.
There are many other common newbie errors that don’t fit into a single identity-pattern. Give me a more specific context and I can give you more examples. The first one that comes to mind: falling for a vanity-press sales pitch right off the bat. Another one: failing to even consider traditional publication when you’re hoping to build a career of this (or failing to even consider self-publishing, for that matter: wise self-publishing really is the future of publishing. Twenty years from now, publishing houses and their imprints will be just additional potential platforms to consider whether you’re “going wide” or “going exclusive.”)
Meanwhile, in the immortal words of Keith Ogorek, “I don’t know how many books you’ll sell if you go ahead and publish. But I know how many you’ll sell if you don’t.”
Write well and publish wisely!
I hate this acronym, so I’ll keep using it to describe the unhealthy version of the concept. The acronym is not as bad as the enslavement to a goal that gets further away, rather than closer, as you pursue it… if you find you’re making progress toward an audaciously ambitious goal, by all means, pursue that goal! But if in the pursuit of it you realize a different goal suits you better, change your goal!
This isn’t the usual “5-Step Path To Easy Riches,” it’s a formulaic but general approach that allows for a wide variety of personalization. The Facebook group still exists, and honestly it’s still a great resource for up-to-date info and a wonderfully supportive community for new writers and aspiring authors. I do highly recommend it. But the classic 20Books strategy hasn’t worked for almost a decade. The global phenom writers conference of that name (“20BooksTo50K”) has collapsed (er, “folded” is a better word). A new conference, Author Nation, sprang from its ashes. Sometimes you just have to burn everything to the ground and begin afresh in order to stay relevant, and that’s what Author Nation has done. I highly recommend it too.
Or perhaps just recognizing themselves in this description will do the trick? We can hope!