by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
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| MorgueFile--MitchLee83 |
I think the reason this segment resonated
so much with me is because I’m desperately clumsy and have been my entire
life. I regularly fall down the stairs
in my house (my husband just shakes his head and says, “We’re moving to a
garden home in the next ten years….”), walk smack into doorjambs, and have
wrecks with my cart in the grocery store.
There are things that I’ve done to
minimize my risk of getting hurt, knowing what I know about myself. I won’t walk down our stairs while holding
things in both hands. I don’t get up on
skis of any kind. I don’t ride
horses. I wouldn’t dream of getting on a
bike without a helmet or walking a treadmill without that stupid safety clip
attached to my waistband.
Being a fairly cautious person, I’ve
approached risk the same way with my writing career. A note—this won’t apply to every writer and
you probably won’t enjoy this unless you’re super-cautious like I am. There are
many creative free spirits who will thrive by forging their own path. I’m just not one of them.
Minimizing
risk of failure and rejection as a writer:
Traditional publishing and
self-publishing. I do both. I’m hedging my bets, covering my bases,
whatever cliché you want to use. :)
Deciding what to write. I learned that the books I most enjoyed
reading were in strong demand and considered commercially viable. I read more of them to learn more about how
the books were structured and paced. In
addition, I learned that genre books were easier to sell to publishers because
the books already had an established audience…readers who were dedicated
“regulars” for a particular genre and loyally purchased books each month that
fit that category.
Finding a traditional publisher. I did my market research by going to the
bookstore, flipping through the new mysteries and finding out who published and
edited them (editor is in the acknowledgments unless author forgot.) Reading the books gave me a sense of what was
currently selling. This helped me minimize my risk of rejection by seeing who
was buying and editing what.
Querying agents. I ignored any “no simultaneous submissions”
and targeted as many agents who stated they handled my subgenre as possible.
Querying publishers. After racking up an impressive number of
rejections from agents, I queried targeted publishers (using the research I’d
gathered in the bookstore as well as online and in my copy of Writer’s Market.) If they were closed to submissions…I sent
something off to their slush pile anyway (blushes.) Here again, I was just covering my bases
with both agents and publishers. And if
you’re sending to a slush pile (a repository of unrequested queries, samples,
and submissions), the process will take forever anyway.
Promo.
As a risk-adverse person, the idea of doing aggressive promo made me
shudder. Wouldn’t this turn potential
readers off? I couldn’t take that risk,
so I went with indirect promo/platform building.
Self-publishing. What was risky for self-publishing? Having a lousy cover. It seemed that I would have a higher chance
for success with a professional-looking cover, formatting, and editing. The cheaper approach seemed at a higher risk
for failure.
Series were selling well for
self-publishing. I decided to continue
writing a discontinued series instead of starting something new…again, the
least-risky approach.
Reader expectations. Cozy mystery readers are loyal readers and
very interactive ones. I have generally
taken their lead when they tell me what they like and don’t like about my
books…tweaking future books to make them more appealing and to give them more
of what they like and less of what they didn’t.
I also follow my genre’s general guidelines in terms of content…keeping
the necessary violence in a mystery toned down.
Researching. Admittedly, I’m a researching nut. I’m not going to try the waters of anything unless I’ve got information
(preferably hard data) on it. Trying out
ACX/audiobooks? Exploring print as a
self-pubber? Backing off from traditional publishing and devoting more time
into self-pub? I’m reading everything I
can on the subjects: dos and don’ts, tips, disaster stories, success stories,
etc. And I follow publishing news
closely, to see what might be coming around the bend at us.
Creative exploration. I’m getting to the point where I’ll likely
start branching out and experimenting…cautiously, I’ve no doubt. And…more than likely with a pen name since my
name has become so associated with traditional mysteries.
The biggest risk of all? Pinning all your hopes and dreams on a single
book. More about this on Friday.
Let’s face it…being an artist is a risky
enough proposition without making things worse—especially for us cautious
types. While I don't enjoy failure, I do learn from it and analyze what went wrong so I can perform better the next time. That being said...I'd rather avoid it when I can.
Now I’d like to hear from y’all on
this…my free spirited, risk-taking friends, too! What’s your approach to writing and
publishing? Has it changed at all?
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