I recently undertook to do an 'Assessments Day' for a local writing centre. I was honoured to be asked and really enjoyed the event. The writers I spoke with were generally very sensible and had their feet on the ground, but now and then I come across someone with stars in their eyes: someone who thinks writing books is going to be their path to riches.
Sadly, this is usually far from the truth. Most writers in this country earn less than the dole. In my city of Perth, for example, I believe there is less than a handful of people earning their living by writing fiction. If you write, do it because you enjoy it, not because you expect to make a living at it.
As a freelance editor, my speciality is doing what I call
‘mini-assessments’ for new writers. A mini-assessment is based on a synopsis
and the first twenty pages of the writer’s manuscript.
I always start by giving new clients what I call 'the standard lecture'. Now, it’s
quite possible that you already know these things, but it’s surprising how many
writers do not, so I'll restate them here to be on the safe side.
1.
It’s
extremely hard to get a novel published, and it’s getting harder and harder
with the current uncertainties of the economy and the radical changes that are
inevitable in the publishing industry. For every thousand MSS sent to
publishers, no more than a half-a-dozen are published. Hard SF – or even ‘soft’
SF – is harder to sell than Fantasy and even harder to sell than the most
popular genres, Romance, Crime and Mystery.
2.
Because
it is so hard to get published, your work needs to be of a very high standard
in every department. This usually means spending money on editing and/or MS
assessment, and these services are not cheap. Because of that, it’s sensible to
make sure you’ve done absolutely all you can with the work before handing it to
an editor.
3.
You
may well decide to self-publish. Here are a couple of things to bear in mind.
‘Vanity’
publishing should be avoided at all costs. Publishers who want money from you
to publish your novel are vanity publishers, even if they call themselves
self-publishing houses. True self-publishing means you set yourself up as a
publisher and engage your own sub-contractors for editing, artwork, layout and
printing. It’s a lot of work, but it usually works out cheaper than vanity
presses. In either case, distribution and marketing fall to the author, and it’s a sad fact that most self-published or
vanity-published fiction books sell fewer than 100 copies, and many sell fewer
than twenty. The bolding there is deliberate as it’s something every
wannabe author should know and accept.
A
note on e-publishing. This is becoming more and more the route most writers
will follow to get their work ‘out there’. A quick look at Smashwords on any
given day will reveal that several dozen new books have miraculously appeared
overnight! So it’s just as competitive as the hard-copy market. All those books
begging to be read — no one could possibly read all of them, and many
readers still have a resistance to reading on-screen at all. So an e-book has
to be outstanding to succeed, and the author must also be ready to undertake a
lot of work on promotion through the social media. Just sticking your book up online
will not by itself bring in sales.
I hope
I haven’t put you off self-publishing with the above comments: properly approached, self-publishing is as valid a way of any to get your work in front of readers. However, I do like to make sure
new writers don’t have stars in their eyes and are not on the road to being
conned by vanity publishers! There are some veritable sharks about on the
internet. I’ve heard of people paying as much as $25,000 to get a book
published, because they didn’t know any better, and I've personally met one young man who'd been fleeced of $12,000 for a really shabby editing job and very ordinary looking stock cover. Don't let this happen to you: don't be conned - be careful!
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It's a different book from The Dagger of Dresnia, although Ellyria is again the linchpin character, with her daughter-in-law Tamirayne as her sidekick. They are twenty-two years older, and as the story is basically a double romance, the plot highlights the adventures of Ellyria's two granddaughters, Milana and Lyrien, both of whom fall in love with men their parents would consider to be unsuitable partners. The Dark Spirit is still around, as is Nustofer, the villainous cleric from The Dagger of Dresnia, and as with any good medieval fantasy, there are plenty of of love scenes, battles and mysteries. You can buy the ebook from Amazon and other online retailers, or direct from the publishers at http://satalyte.com.au/ - and if you're holding out for hard copy, just put in a pre-order.
