Fortitude—enduring the tired, tedious and unremarkable chores—is what makes the difference between those who dream and those who do.

Why am I talking about this? Because recently I saw some quote scroll past on social media. It was something (of course) posted by one of those super happy “life coach” people.

Though I’m certain the quote was meant to inspire, it hit a sour note with me. It seemed dismissive of the pain, sacrifice and—yes, suffering—of those willing to dream, and then stick to that dream. It bypassed the fortitude necessary for success.

I don’t recall the quote’s exact wording (they’re all so similar), but the saccharin essence was the same. Apparently, if you don’t LOVE every single moment of what you’re doing, then maybe you don’t have the right career.

Keep searching! Dream! You have a right to be HAPPY! If it isn’t making you HAPPY, then MOVE ON!

See, writing—much like any worthy undertaking—comes part and parcel with a lot of drudgery and loads of stuff we’d rather not do.

Fortitude & Learning Curve Drudgery 

A lot of folks believe that just because they’re proficient in their native language, they are then automatically qualified to write amazing fiction. Yeah…no.

Not judging at all. I used to be one of those people. I had zero concept how ridiculously hard it was to craft a readable story, let alone a good one.

Writing a novel that could span anywhere from 50K to 150K words (depending on genre) that manages to grab then hold a reader’s interest? AHHHH! Balancing plot points, plot arc, character, dialogue, scene and sequel, A-lines, B-lines, on and on?

It doesn’t take too long to understand why many great authors turned to booze and drugs.

*gives Poe a pass on the whole “heroin addiction'” thing*

Far too many writers start out believing the first novel they write is perfect, and if anyone counters this? They fall apart. Some give up. A few hire “editors” who are happy to tell them “the other meanie editor was totes unprofessional and it’s fiiiine to have fourteen POVs…all from cats.”

Others double-down on the denial and write a sequel or—God help us all—a series of equally crappy books that don’t sell.

Why?

Because learning to write novels is hard.

I’ve been through this, myself. My two formative mentors both made me cry…a LOT. And I am NOT a person who cries.

These mentors were nothing like my writing group. My writing group was so encouraging!

Bob and Les didn’t tell me my writing was unicorn tears, they told me it was more like what might come out of the other end of a unicorn.

No, not a unicorn. A hyena with tapeworm and a bad case of mange.

*weeps*

I didn’t love writing the same stuff over and over. Guess what? Didn’t always love reading and rereading the books they recommended I study.

Come to think of it, I didn’t love putting out my best only for it to come back with so much red I wondered if it had been hit by a bus then SHOT before they returned it.

Sure I could have quit. Thought about it a lot. A lot. Because shouldn’t I LOOOVE every moment of what I do? But, I didn’t quit because I wanted to become an excellent writer. I required more than glittery sparkly talent. I had to hone and develop fortitude.

I’m still a work in progress.

My critique group were fantastic cheerleaders, which we need…but not necessarily to make us better.

Cheerleaders look super pretty, but cheerleaders don’t train touchdowns.

Coaches who call out bad form, terrible plays, and awful habits create winners. These experts are hired to criticize, make a player watch footage over and over and, if warranted, do cherry-pickers until the player wants to DIE. Might seem “mean” but THIS is what will help that player make touchdowns.

Drudgery. Not pom-pom waving.

Fortitude: Welcome to the GRIND

There’s drudgery in the actual writing. Oh no! Yes, you heard it here first. Writing, while one of the BEST jobs in the world, contains more than its fair share of suckage.

The first draft can be loads of fun, until the mire of Act Two where you find yourself contemplating sudden and unexpected alien abduction—either for yourself to spring you from writing, or for your characters because you’ve messed up somewhere in the plot and written yourself into a corner.

Becoming successful in writing (or anything really) is never in the BIG things we do. It’s the compilation of a lot of small acts that build up over time.

It is showing up day after day even when we’d rather get a root canal than figure out what went sideways somewhere between page 1 and page 400.

We have to research, proofread, edit, revise, and all of this takes focus and time and pain. By the time a book is “ready” to be published, odds are pretty decent we’ll hate our own book and hope we never have to read it again.

***FYI: The feeling passes…eventually. Most of the time. Maybe.

Publishing Drudgery

For those who still want to traditionally publish, there is the drudgery of writing synopses and query letters and researching agents. Add the drudgery of the actual querying and subsequent waiting.

Meanwhile, most of us have day jobs and laundry and family members who expect to be fed every day #HighMaintenance.

Oh, and make sure to start writing the next book (refer to the love-fest above).

For those who choose a non-traditional path, we have to locate and hire the best people. Or maybe learn to format or design a cover ourselves. There may be multiple iterations of a cover. Then, if we believe we’ve found all our typos in our seventeen (hundred) passes? *clutches sides laughing*

And if we believe the proofreaders and editors caught all them too? Maybe, but..

On top of this, add in bookkeeping, record keeping, accounting, building a platform, understanding keywords and SEO and blah, blah, blah.

Suffice to say that YES, writing is a WONDERFUL job! I wouldn’t be here twenty years later if it was all bad. Yet, I do have to confess that choosing to become a writer showed me the worst parts of my character…in Technicolor.

I didn’t start blogging because I EVER believed my blog would be what it is today with millions of unique visitors. Want to know why I began blogging? I had ZERO self-discipline.

I’d become a person who didn’t want to do anything that I didn’t LOVE. If I wasn’t having FUN, then clearly I’d chosen the wrong career, right?

Wrong.

The Fortitude Factor

People who reach their goals and dreams are different for sure. Are they more gifted? Talented? Unusually good-looking? Perhaps. But, more often than not, these folks excel at handling the boring parts of the dream.

To which I shall refer to one of my favorite books on achievement. James Clear’s Atomic Habits (which I HIGHLY recommend), is fabulous. Yet, this quote in particular piqued my attention:

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why we get caught up in a never-ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next, one diet to the next, one business idea to the next. As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working.

~ James Clear, Atomic Habits

You have NO idea how often I hear, “If I only had the TIME, I’d write more.” As if time is laying around in the couch cushions with the petrified Cheerios and the TV remote no one’s seen Twilight was popular.

Hey, I have been guilty here, too. Still can fall into old (bad) habits if I fail to remain vigilant. Yes, even after a pandemic when we all had more time than we knew what to do with.

The reason people (mistakenly) believe they must FIND TIME? It’s likely because they’ve hit the part of the writing process that’s actual WORK. It’s ceased to be a glorious high.

And, if they don’t start a new book (chasing the high), then they put off writing altogether using excuses more creative than their plot ideas.

Hey! Told y’all I have been guilty too…so no hating .

Yet, when we look at anything worth achieving, from writing an amazing book to being a great parent to running a profitable business, we see that it is how these individuals handle the millions of unremarkable unexciting and downright soul-crushing (but necessary) tasks that makes all the difference.

We see the same common denominator in every success story, from the legendary athletes willing to do the same drills over and over until perfected to the entrepreneurs who mined drudgery for the edge they needed to outpace all competition.

Fortitude: Can You Handle Being BORED?

Everyone loves new beginnings. The new relationship with no baggage and all hugs and kisses, the smell of the fresh notebook, the empty page waiting for all of our brilliant ideas. We love the new blog because it holds so much promise.

Then there is the new workout from YouTube, the new diet we found on Instagram, the new craft project we saw on Pinterest….

A lot of us fixate on whether we can handle the BIG moments, the MAJOR crises but I’d actually offer different advice. We need to ask the hard question.

Can we fall in love with pain and process as much as the end result? Everyone loves the summit selfie but few want the climb. It comes with hypoxia and pretty good odds you’ll die and no one will be able to claim your frozen corpse…ever.

Many of us LOVE the idea of six-pack abs…but we LOVE tacos more. We struggle after a few weeks. Why? Because we are tired, sore, and even though we’ve been working out for a WHOLE MONTH, we still don’t have a ripped physique.

Heck, we can’t even see a muscle. We’re tired of the pile of smelly clothes, the aches and pains and having to measure all our food. It isn’t FUN. In fact, it’s downright tedious.

We don’t LOVE the gym, the job, the book, the YouTube channel anymore because it’s day after day of nothing all that special…and pain.

Lots of that.

Catching Fire

Yet, all these small actions add up over time. When we embrace the dull actions and commit, we will eventually ignite. Ray Bradbury poetically asserted paper had an ignition point of 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The actual number is about thirty degrees higher.

Paper will burst into flames at about 480 degrees Fahrenheit (without being directly exposed to flame).

Using this analogy, let’s take our metaphorical paper and heat it to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, then 250, then 300, then 440, then 451. Boy, this is boring and taking a LONG time and taking energy. Nothing is happening.

Heat it to 460, then 470, then 477 and then throw up your hands because paper NEVER sets on fire without a high-budget marketing plan…I mean match.

Or, maybe there is a marked transformation somewhere between 477 degrees and 482 degrees. At 477 degrees Fahrenheit all looks the same. Oh but add in a little more energy and IGNITION. And this ignition all occurs within a range of a couple degrees.

Then…BOOM!

The same goes for becoming a successful author (as in a professional who’s PAID to play with our imaginary friends). A major key to success largely rests on how we handle the boring parts. Can we keep going, keep putting on the heat when it looks as if nothing is happening?

Success doesn’t have a canonized ignition point. If it did, being successful would be easy. Fortitude is a massive game changer.

If I knew I had to write five books, three series, add in a hundred blogs and forty three good reviews to reach literary stardom? Dang skippy I’d stick with it. There wouldn’t be ANY drudgery, because I’d have certainty.

But that’s the problem.

The ignition point for succeeding in anything is anything but certain (and might not even exist in some cases). It differs between people, generations, goals, industries, abilities, etc. We DON’T KNOW and THAT is precisely why drudgery can so easily undo us if we lack the fortitude to outlast it.

In the End

I want all your dreams to catch fire—your dreams to write, create, to be an excellent parent or partner, to achieve the remarkable.

If you can appreciate that every masterpiece began as a blank canvas, a hunk of marble, an ugly cement foundation, a sketch, or an idea and that IN BETWEEN there was a lot of wash, rinse, repeat and fortitude (which we can control)? You’re on your way to reaching those goals.

We’re rarely limited by our talent, yet we’re all too often hobbled by impatience. Drudgery makes us cave in too soon. It takes time to hone skills, learn a craft, build an audience, etc. Just keep pressing and hopefully you’ll see your ignition point and it will be the most beautiful light you’ve ever seen.

Then you get to do it again for the next goal . *smoochies*

But, you’ll be better and stronger because you know to expect the span of suck before the breakthrough! You will have strengthened and honed the fortitude required to finish. And the cool thing is, the more we work it, the stronger it gets.

What Are Your Thoughts?

I love hearing from you! Do you struggle with the doldrums in your dreams? Is it hard not to just start something new? Are your fortitude muscles weak? Have you been starting over so much that maybe that’s why you aren’t further along? Are you so sick of your book you want to cry? #GotTheTShirt

Don’t you wish we had the magic “temperature” where our dreams LIT UP? Some way to know if we were close? Or even heading in the correct direction? Have you struggled with learning to finish what you start? Been too easily distracted?

The post Fortitude: Dream, Do, Then Keep on DOING Day After Day appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Imposter syndrome is a feeling very common to many creative professionals, myself included. The irony about imposter syndrome is that it can afflict many hard-working, high-achieving individuals.

There is no logical reason for feeling we don’t belong, or that our success is somehow a fluke. It’s bizarre to believe we don’t deserve what we worked very hard to accomplish, or that, at any moment, the gig will be up. We’ll be found out.

Did I mention writers often make no sense?

What I find so utterly hysterical (in the maniacal-laughing-losing-my-marbles way) is that, years ago, my mentor, NYTBSA Bob Mayer warned me this would happen and I brushed him off.

I was different. Special. Okay, apparently more “Bless your heart” special, turns out. When I was a new writer who couldn’t find the antagonist–let alone my own butt–without a map and a flashlight, it seemed so simple.

OBVIOUSLY, I wasn’t a real writer then because I didn’t have an agent, hadn’t been published, had hit no lists.

***Granted, I was making bank as a professional technical writer. But that wasn’t a “real” writer. As an author? Clearly an imposter.

It didn’t help that our industry spent a miserable decade arguing if indie and self-pub authors were “real.” A frigging decade wasted playing Schrodinger’s Writer while Amazon wiped out one publisher after another and laid waste to one bookstore after another (including Borders and B&N).

A traditional author could fail to sell a thousand books yet, existentially, our profession considered those writers more “real” than an indie author who sold millions of books.

Weird. I know. Alas, we will leave that for another blog.

Imposter Syndrome & Success

One would think success would improve imposter syndrome, yet not necessarily. I honestly thought when I hit various professional benchmarks I would no longer feel like a fake, despite the fact that Bob warned me it would likely only get worse.

Suffice to say, I have worked very, very hard and have been extraordinarily blessed to enjoy many successes. Hey, people paid ME to go to New Zealand to…talk…about WRITING. If that isn’t a win, what is?

So, if you are new, you should probably give up now.

Still here?

Whew! That’s good. I’d hate to actually run anyone off for real. But, I can say that I have blogged about this from the perspective of a total n00b who barely felt she even had a right to blog. Seventeen years later, I’m coming at it from the perspective of a seasoned professional.

It isn’t terribly different.

Most of the goals I set for myself when I began this journey over two decades ago, I can say I have accomplished.

And yet, it takes everything in me to believe I genuinely earned anything. That my stack of achievements I sacrificed years for weren’t simply…flukes. Or even then, maybe those were real achievements, but that was all the talent I had in me. I’m worse than an imposter…I am a wash-out!

Did I mention writers often make no sense?

4 Types of Imposter Syndrome

When researching this little topic I discovered there are actually different types of imposter syndrome. Apparently being a crazy-high-maintenance-neurotic is not One-Size-Fits-All. I’d like to give a nod to VeryWellMind’s post Imposter Syndrome: Why You May Feel Like a Fraud for the inspiration.

The Perfectionist

I have talked many times about perfectionism on this blog.

All of us want to do a good job. We want to put our best foot forward. We all say that we want feedback and critique, but deep down, if we are real honest, we want people to love everything we say and do.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality.

We can’t please everyone, and it is easy to fall into a people-pleasing trap that will steal our passion, our art, and our very identity.

I’ve seen this happen time and time again with–um, other–writers. They rework and rework and rework the first chapter of their novel, trying to make it “perfect”—which is actually code for “making everyone happy.”

Here is the thing. Not gonna happen. Ever.

One person will say our book is too wordy. Another wants more description. We add more description and then another person is slashing through, slaughtering every adjective and metaphor, while saying dumb crap like “all adverbs are bad.”

***Hint, they are not. Only redundant ones are.

This variety of imposter syndrome, I can say (at least in writing) I do much better with these days. I have managed to take my own advice.

Perfect is the enemy of the finished.

No half-finished “perfect” novel ever sold a bazillion copies but many finished-yet-imperfect ones have.

A great way to treat this form of imposter anxiety is to go look up your favorite authors and read their bad reviews. For instance, I hit a wall this past week on my WIP and, since I am a massive Joe Abercrombie fan and his writing, unlike mine, is perfect…I read his reviews.

And someone always b!tches. ALWAYS!

Thing is, at least he has a stack of best-selling breathtakingly brilliant books for the haters to b!tch about.

The Expert

I can definitely relate to this one. Speaking of Joe Abercrombie. He writes epic high fantasy novels. I cannot wrap my brain around how he not only builds these worlds, but manages to keep up with them!

I’ve spent almost a third of my life blogging, mostly on the craft of writing, yet still encounter authors who mystify me. They might as well be unicorns.

I’ve relentlessly pursued this mission of teaching about every aspect I can imagine when it comes to the craft of writing. I read two books a week, every week (audio books are the only way that happens), and have for years.

I’ve broken down books from every conceivable genre, all eras, and yet there is still so much I do not know and likely never will. The more I learn, the more out of my depth I feel.

But that is the thing isn’t it? We cannot know everything. No one can!

Did I mention writers can be a smidge ridiculous?

The Born Genius

I have to confess, I don’t know if I really struggle with this. In fact, I went to two different testing centers when I was trying to see if I was, in fact, on the ASD spectrum (I have Asperger’s).

I’ve taught myself three different languages, how to play clarinet, how to paint, and how to build a French well drainage system. I never really believed I was as much smarter than others so much as I was willing to outwork others.

That said, it really was humbling to get my I.Q. test results and see “Average.” One doctor even said I was “Below Average” verbally. I can’t help but think something was wrong with that test…or the doctor. Especially after I corrected her pronunciation of “mnemonic.”

Me: Did you mean MNEmonic or PNEUmonic? One is Greek for mind or memory, whereas the other is Greek for lungs.

Doctor: *withering stare*

Alas, I really never thought I was a born genius, though who wouldn’t hope, right?

Yet, how often do we see this in movies and pop culture? This myth that we are supposed to just “get” everything the first go ’round or something is wrong? How many of us give up on something we might really excel at because of unreasonable expectations?

The world expects every person’s first book to be an out-of-the-park work of genius and we fall for it. Who would expect the same out of a gymnast or violinist or even someone writing computer code?

Did I mention writers can be a tad unrealistic?

The “Self-Made” Imposter

Did you have to ask for help to achieve your success? Can you truly say you did it all on your own? If not, then clearly *hair flip* you are a phony.

I don’t know if people from other countries fall prey to this myth as much as we Americans. Who says we don’t have our own mythology here in the “New World”? Like the pegasus, Hercules, or King Arthur, want to know another myth equally as fictional?

The “self-made” success.

Usually we hear this nonsense from people who say BS things like, “You have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce.” Really? Because I mowed my own yard yesterday and have been doing laundry all day while I write and homeschool a gifted 10th grader.

Pretty sure, at the least, Beyonce not mowing her own yard.

We all need each other. Heck, that is why I’ve dedicated countless hours to this blog! Since I, apparently, have an average to below average I.Q., I wanted to break down concepts simple enough to where even I could understand them. And have a great laugh along the way.

There is no way I could keep the steam to keep writing these posts month after month, year after year, if you guys weren’t a) thoughtful enough to read these posts b) kind enough to comment (really love those) c) subscribe. There would have only been so long I could have blogged to the ether.

I’ve lost count YEARS ago how many wonderful people I have to thank for everything in my life. No way in a billion years could I do this alone and even then, who’d want to?

Have I mentioned writers can be a little really needy?

Imposter Syndrome Can Be a Good Sign

All this to say that feeling like an imposter is pretty common, especially among creative professionals. And why wouldn’t it be? There are no hard and fast metrics for measuring “success.” Our profession is largely subjective.

We also face a world that constantly demeans what we do while, ironically, spending most of their free time and disposable income devouring the fruits of our labors. The same @$$hats who claim writing a novel is easy are probably the same folks who paid us to write that four-page essay in school.

It just comes with the territory.

Yet, after getting out all this collective angst, I will say that feeling like you are an imposter, a fake or a fraud or somehow do not deserve what you’ve worked for can actually be a good sign.

Want to know who has impenetrable confidence and zero doubts about their amazing talent and inherent brilliance?

Talentless hacks.

People who have zero clue how to write, would never deign to read another author’s book (let alone study it), who actually brag about never reading, and who need no lessons on writing because they are naturally gifted and know everything.

This writer never has imposter syndrome. They never run out of rubbish to toss on a page then market and promote and spam endlessly to nearby victims.

And I don’t need to worry about insulting any of them, because it isn’t like they’d read a blog that focuses on improving their craft.

So, you’re welcome!

In the End…

My advice, when it comes to writing, is to shop it, ship it or kill it. Regardless, keep moving forward.

If we hope to be successful at this writing thing, we must master two diametrically opposite skills—latching on and letting go. We can’t finish if we don’t sink in our claws, but we also can’t finish if we fail to ever let go.

Virtually every long-term successful author didn’t make it with one novel. We make a good living at writing by writing many novels. But, if we don’t get good at shipping? Odds are we will never be able to write full-time.

Also, learn your craft!

The more you read, study and practice, the easier writing becomes. Read everything in your genre and outside of it. Study books. Break down why you liked them or didn’t. When we take the time to fill that creative reservoir, we have so much to draw from. If we read enough fiction, we can almost “write by ear.”

We won’t need as much revision and editing because we’ll have spent so much time with fiction–good fiction–that we will be able to intuitively sense when something if “off” with plot, timing, character, etc. Take classes, read blogs, read craft books, read fiction…then butt in seat and practice.

Practice alone is not enough. If I go to the driving range and hit thousands of golf balls with zero training, I get a bad back. I don’t become Tiger Woods.

Same with writing. We need mentors, masters, inspiration, tough love, training, and a relentless pursuit of bettering ourselves (practice) to truly be great.

When we know our craft and excel at finishing it is also a lot harder for that imposter devil to get under our skin–as deep.

So breathe and just move forward. It gets easier, until it gets harder.

Did I mention writers are masochists?

What are Your Thoughts?

What are your thoughts? Do you feel like an imposter? No matter how much you do or how hard you work, you think it has to be luck or worse, a mistake?

Do you find yourself too concerned with being perfect? Do you think you allow perfectionism to feed you procrastination? Are you still trying to “fix” that first novel and haven’t let go? Do you have trouble moving forward?

Apologies for being away so long. I gave up blogging and carbs for Lent. Neither was easy but I needed a reset and time to work on MY books. Missed you guys and am very happy to be back.

Please! I LOVE hearing your thoughts, questions, advice. Even maybe suggestions on topics you’d like to hear more about.

The post Imposter Syndrome: Am I a REAL Writer? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

“Real” writers (and critics) know a lot of things, but one thing they know is genre. And whatever genre you’re writing—for the record—it is probably stupid.

Last post, I made a joke about what makes us “real writers,” which is a notion that has cracked me up for at least fifteen years. Writing, for some weird reason, is one of the few professions that seems to always carry around this crushing existential crisis of whether or not we are REAL.

Like Schrodinger’s writers. If you put a writer in a box, are they simultaneously a freaking GENIUS and a talentless-hack-poseur?

I might think this “real writer” stuff is funny…but at the same time I also struggle with it.

Real writers always seem to be whatever I am not. They also DO whatever I don’t do and write whatever I don’t.

Today, we’ll pick on genre.

Your Genre is Stupid

Do you happen to write those silly little romance novels? Maybe those goofy cozy mysteries? Heck, I can read one of those in about three hours. Probably only took that long to write. Dragons, smut, and aliens. What DUMB genres.

Though NOT NEARLY as dumb as those LOOONG books.

Like Ken Follett and that Pillars of the Earth. Just how padded was that thing? Did he really feel the need to use every word in the English language, and then some? Apparently he did since there’s a WHOLE series.

Space books? Dumb. Sexy books. Dumb. Westerns? Obviously dumb. Self-help? Why would I waste time on just how dumb those are.

All right, now that I have probably either confused or ticked off everyone reading this, I DO have a point.

How many of us, deep down, BELIEVE THIS? This crushing doubt is what keeps us from starting, finishing, publishing, marketing, or even admitting we are a writer aloud and to other people. Deep down, we believe whatever genre we write is dumb, despite any or all evidence to the contrary.

Whatever genre we write is either useless fluff, boring pontification, derivative, whatever, *insult nonsense here*.

Genre Envy

Genre envy happens to me pretty much every time I read a good book, watch a great series, or go to a writing conference.

Say I am at a conference. I meet the romance authors who can write a book-a-month. They’re getting movie deals, and their books are translated into 27 languages and I think, “Now THAT is a real writer. I should write faster.”

Of course, then I meet the next author who writes deep, thoughtful, provocative novels so long that a print copy is heavy enough to take out a burglar. And I think, “Now THAT is a real writer.”

So, I go to the next session where there is a spitfire teaching me how to balance life, love, kids, cooking, working out, pets, and who tells me that mastering EXCEL is the secret to joy. And I think…Dear God please kill me. EXCEL? And THEN I think, “THAT is a real writer.”

I watch Netflix and there’s something light and fun. I should write more like THAT. Then I watch The Last Kingdom. No, I should write more like THAT. Those are REAL stories.

Want to know the funny part? I am actually right on ALL counts.

Maybe I’m the only one who does this so I am happy blogging to myself. But, I admit I struggle with genre envy. Too often, it seems the only REAL stories are whatever ones are not like mine.

Even down to writing all these blogs. I get so much enjoyment out of helping y’all laugh at a very intimidating world, and then making that world just a little less scary.

Word is, I’m even pretty good at teaching, encouraging and inspiring, but I’ve honestly held back on writing more TEACHING BOOKS because—SIGHS—then I wouldn’t be a REAL writer because we all know….

Those who can do, and those who can’t TEACH.

Which was a line from a George Bernard Shaw play that is still used to disparage educators despite being utterly flawed. Some of our greatest doers were also our greatest teachers. Ever heard of EINSTEIN? Apparently, my subconscious thinks he’s a “fluke” (along with Oppenheimer, Feynman, J.K. Rowling, and J.R.R. Tolkien).

***For the record, I’ve recently realized how dumb that is and just…yep.

Consider the Source

Maybe y’all are not like me and you are super confident that what you write is exactly what the world wants and needs (please send tips). I know when I was new, when I decided to quit working in Corporate America, I believed my writing WAS EXACTLY what the world had been waiting on.

This was before I found out the world around me had an opinion.

Everyone is a CRITIC.

If you haven’t seen this, take the three minutes for the good cry laugh.

As I mentioned, when I said I was going to become a writer, my grandparents thought I was joining a cult insane. Despite literally WALLS of books through their ENTIRE HOUSE, they believed I was doomed to poverty and foraging in dumpsters for food.

***Joke was on them, Taco Bell had a .99 menu…and I only foraged in dumpsters for furniture and the occasional outfit. I LOVED it when the guy next door fought with whatever girlfriend, because he always threw away any clothes left in his place on actual garbage day…and yes I am a bad person but I needed new tops more than the landfills did.

Anyway, my grandparents thought fiction was stupid. This came from a grandfather who literally bought and read every single Louis L’Amor book. If it was in space, SIGN HIM UP! My grandmother never met a Tony Hillerman or a Dick Francis she didn’t PREORDER.

Since I was reared by my grandparents who almost always had a book in hand, imagine my shock when they told me it wasn’t a REAL job, and that no matter what genre I wrote, it was stupid going to land me in the poor house.

One friend told me to write romance, another told me that mind candy was useless and I needed to put my intellect to good use with some solid NONFICTION.

I felt like that little bird in “Are You My Mother?” I’d hatched without one mommy genre I truly LOVED—because I’d read all of them—and so I flitted around asking “Are You My Genre?”

Still struggle with that.

Which Genre is WORTH Writing?

Let’s go back to all you guys I insulted earlier. I’m sure I didn’t say anything you haven’t heard. Romance authors? Y’all just AMAZE me. I cannot write romance. And we all hear the Hallmark jokes and laugh (while those writers who can write Hallmark stories are laughing all the way to the BANK).

And it isn’t just money for me. I genuinely wish I had the skill to weave a world where love wins and do that over and over and over.

That is not a gift, it is a SUPER POWER. The world NEEDS you. Maybe you will never win a Pulitzer, but who cares? Y’all make the world a brighter, prettier, sexier, livelier place. We need books that remind us about love, or being young, the thrill of a new relationship, or even the deep resonance of love that endures.

For the writers out there churning out space alien books or westerns, or alien westerns? Same thing. Not ALL writing needs to be heavy because LIFE is heavy and sometimes, we just need a break. We need to remember good guys win, love triumphs in the end, that broken people can heal.

We are SO overloaded, books help us remember what it’s like to be kids again. To believe in magic and dragons and spaceships or magical dragons with spaceships.

For the literary folk, y’all provide ways for us to question our world, look at life in a new way, from another point of view. What y’all do is critical as well.

What Genre Should YOU Write?

THAT is a question only you can answer. Did I mention an incredible book called Dear Writer, You Need to Quit?

I’ve been blogging HERE for almost 15 years, and I work really hard to give you guys a lot of options because writing is not One-Size-Fits-All. People are all different and we have different strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, we CHANGE. It is called GROWTH.

Why do I mention this? Because we are now Digital Age Authors which is hell awesome. It changes ALL the time. If you’re really good at one type of writing and you are happy and achieving YOUR goals? Keep at it. Maybe Amish Erotica hasn’t taken off, but the world might not yet be ready for Fifty Shades of Hay.

Conversely, the WONDERFUL (and maddening) part of our profession is we have to learn to reinvent and pivot. If you’ve been writing one genre and now you’d rather mainline cookie dough than write any more YA Urban Fantasy? Do something different! Maybe it will fail, but maybe it’ll work.

Or MAYBE it will just be the nudge you need to remember why you loved your genre of choice.

Which Books SELL the BEST?

We’ve spent all this time talking about genre and I hope you are feeling a bit better. Yes, the same world that spends every extra minute enjoying what creative people create is the same world that’ll tell you this isn’t a real job and that whatever you are doing is stupid.

The trick is not believing it. Because I am going to let y’all in on a secret. After all this, the books that sell the best are *dramatic drum roll*…

FINISHED ONES.

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. Western writer Louis L’Amor “wrote 100 novels, over 250 short stories, and (as of 2010) sold more than 320 million copies of his work.” Does this, however, make him any more or less of a REAL WRITER than Emily Bronte, J.D. Salinger, Oscar Wilde, and others who only had ONE BIG BOOK?

There are plenty of writers who’s works became classics, sold a bazillion copies, were made into award-winning movies, but they were essentially what the world calls one-hit-wonders, which I have feelings on that, too.

***Check out Self-Sabotage: I Don’t Deserve Success HERE.

Regardless of what you write, it doesn’t matter so long as you finish. There have been a ton of “crappy” internationally best-selling FINISHED novels, but I have yet to encounter the runaway success of a half-finished PERFECT novel.

So give yourselves permission to love what you write, because if you fall in love with it, we can feel that. And odds are much better we’ll fall in love with it too.

What are Your Thoughts?

So y’all know, I reward initiative. Are you someone who keeps changing genre? Do you have genre envy? I SO love George R.R. Martin complexity, but it would break my brain trying to write it. Is it hard to believe what you write matters? Come on! Spill! I can’t be the ONLY one.

To prove it and show my love, for the month of MAY, everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat.

If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly (and maybe even time with an agent).

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less). People with superlative writing, I (with your permission) have been known to pass you onto an agent.

I actually have landed agents for people who’ve won this contest. Agents like me because I make their lives easier.

Anyway, I look forward to reading your comments and your writing!

The post Give Up! Why Your Genre is Probably Stupid appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Rejection can be so devastating, that the emotional impact registers the same as physical pain. Think about that for a moment. Our brain cannot tell the difference between losing a job and getting hit with a bat.

In fact, for those of you out there who’ve ever been fired spectacularly (too)? You might even prefer being hit with a bat.

Can I get an AMEN?

The sense of “belonging” to a group is hardwired into our DNA, and for very good reasons. For most of human history, life was nasty, brutish and short. We needed to remain in groups to ensure survival.

Rejection was very literally a death sentence. This is why cultures all over the world all have some form of exile/banishment reserved among the gravest of penalties.

Not So Fun Fact

Earlier, I mentioned “being fired.” The etymology of this word is LITERAL. As in no one in the tribe liked you.

So they burned down your hut.

Subtlety had yet to be invented.

Pain is meant to teach lessons that keep us alive, in tact, and reproducing. We touch a hot stove? We instantly learn that’s a bad idea. Yet, here’s the rub. Social pain is ALSO meant to teach lessons. Historically, when we acted in certain ways, we could expect rejection (or, conversely, acceptance) from the group. Pain served as a guide and taught us how to be properly social.

The problem, however, is that—while that hand we burned at age two fades from memory—the first time we were dumped, fired, bullied, laughed at in public is likely to never go away.

I know. I missed my calling writing for Hallmark.

Why are we talking about rejection, anyway? For a number of reasons, but first and foremost, we are writers.

Need I say more?

Knowing this, how do we get up? More importantly, how do we keep getting up time after time?

Expect Rejection

To make it in our profession, we must develop rhino skin. Writing is largely subjective. Trust me. Once you put yourself out there, everyone has an opinion. Many feel the urge to express that opinion, regardless of whether it is helpful or not.

Despite the fact that the general population spends almost all their extra time and money on what WRITERS create (Internet, movies, Netflix, books), most will insist we do not have a REAL job.

Ouch.

It’s dumb. I know. Roll with it, and, if it helps? Remember people eat Tide Pods, too. What can I say?

If you want to publish the traditional route, then expect agents and editors to reject you. Hopefully, they’ll be nice about it, but there are no guarantees.

Say you get a book contract. Yay you!

Ah, but that book will hit the market eventually, and then it will be time to face the critics…and the readers.

While I love getting a good book review, they can’t all be good.

This said?

People can be amazing…but they can be so horrid they’ll leave a writer curled in the fetal position washing down cookie dough with tequila.

Blogging is Good Practice

Does every writer need to have a blog? No. Is it a good idea? Sure. Blogs play to a writer’s strengths. Writers WRITE. Or, at least we are supposed to. Blogs are a great place to learn, to refine our voice, to improve our skills, and to…*sigh* learn how to deal with rejection.

When I started this blog almost fifteen years ago, my biggest fans were cheaphandbagsandxanax, sexyrussianbrides, and hotcollegegirlsforyou.

They left the best comments.

“I so lick your blog.”

“You make many good poinsettias.”

“You’re post is much brilliant!”

*sighs wistfully*

I knew they were bots, but I didn’t have the heart to delete the comments because looking at NOTHING was so much more depressing. Week after week, year after year, I blogged to the ether. But, I kept at it and, with time, eventually people began caring what I had to say.

Blogging taught me self-discipline. I learned to write to a deadline and SHIP. It trained out all my most of my okay some of my perfectionism. Blogs don’t have to be Pulitzer-ready. Perfect is overrated. In fact, perfect is the enemy of the finished. Let’s just say that blogging helped me grow up as a person and a professional.

Sadly, though.

Not All Days Can Be Halcyon Days

It’s great fabulous to go viral. First time I went viral, I didn’t even talk about writing. I figured no one was reading my posts anyway, so I griped about STAR WARS in What Went Wrong with the Star Wars Prequels? Wow.

FYI, people are VERY passionate about a made-up universe. That post is over a decade old and still getting comments.

It’s all fun and games…

…until you write something meaty and divisive and get misquoted and it feels like everyone on the Internet wants to run your head through a garbage disposal.

I give you…“Pay the Writer.”

From the reaction, I might as well have written a post called “Punch a Kitten.” Weirdly enough, the notion of actually paying writers with MONEY was a very polarizing post. Who knew? While many authors and readers rallied to my side (y’all were AWESOME), others swarmed to my site to call me the “c” word.

“Cute” NOT the word.

It took all my willpower not to take down the post. I just wanted it all to STOP! But, I didn’t. If writers being paid was the hill I’d die on, there were dumber hills.

If I didn’t stand by my work, who would?

Book Rejection Reviews Can Hurt, Too

The same thing happens with all books. When I choose something to read, I rarely let reviews influence my choice. The reason? In my opinion, reviewers are often unreliable narrators.

I don’t know if this will help, but, statistically speaking, only two kinds of people are likely to leave a review. Those who LOVED our book…and those who want to set it (and maybe even us) on fire inside our hut with our keyboards.

***Learned that little nugget in political statistics.

Those who enjoyed the book—then simply moved on to the next read—are statistically unlikely to leave a review because they were neither super amazed or dismally disappointed.

People can be wonderful, but they can also be horrid. The same jerks who probably paid us burgeoning writers to do their THREE-PAGE paper for them because writing WAS SO HARD are the same people who’ll write a FIVE-PAGE evisceration review.

I don’t make the rules.

To be clear, I am not talking about negative reviews that are thoughtful and concise about what in particular the reader didn’t like. I’m talking about the turd-slinging that serves no purpose other than playing high-and-mighty while being needlessly cruel.

Jerks Happen

Sometimes I wish I had a “SMITE” button so I could zap these trolls (obviously with slightly-less-than-lethal electricity) so as to remind them that there is a living, breathing person on the other side of their ugly character assassination review. A writer whose ONLY goal was to inform or entertain.

We get it. The author missed the mark. No need to be a troglodyte.

SMITE!

Sadly, though. I do not have that button or I’d protect us all. But, I can’t. And, like my old blog post, you will have to be willing to stand, even if it feels as if you are alone.

Rejection sucks.

But here is a cool trick to help you keep perspective. I do this when I feel low. Go look up your all-time favorite books. The books you are certain are perfection on every page. Then look at the one and two star reviews and you will see the truth.

You cannot please everyone.

If you get a bad review, my advice is to listen and be teachable. Maybe they are onto something you didn’t see and can do better next time. If they’re just being a jerk, then you only need eleven more haters to technically be famous, so?

You’re welcome!

Rejection Defines and Refines Us

I am fairly certain many of y’all have been nodding along and that is great! But, you might want to keep this one bookmarked for a bad day. If you stay at this long enough, you’re going to have days that you wonder why you didn’t learn to be a dental assistant or why you left that exciting life in medical billing.

What were you THINKING?

When I decided to become a writer, my family didn’t talk to me for a year. I said, “I’ve thought this through and corporate sales is not for me. I want to be a writer.”

My family heard, “Blah blah, throwing away expensive college degree going to wear beret and write bad haiku, blah blah, writer, joining a cult, blah blah.”

DO NOT expect to get a lot of support outside of other writers. If you get it? Fabulous! But it’s good to hedge expectations. Even with all the social media that now connects us, this is STILL a lonely profession.

We write to deadlines. There is no clocking in and clocking out. As I mentioned earlier, most people will not believe what we do is actually WORK.

Because ANYONE can write 100,000 words with multiple POVs, character arc, plot arc, amazing dialogue and NO typos. Just like a grocery list!

Where was I?

Oh, yes. You will likely get knocked down but that is actually a good thing. When I started out, I was an ego-centric unteachable @$$ and writing taught me humility. Still have the scars.

But it also taught me that getting knocked down wasn’t the biggest deal. What mattered in the end was whether or not I got back up.

Is Rejection in Control?

Like the characters in our books, our wounds can be our best friends or our greatest enemies. When I wrote my “first novel,” I kid you not, it was 187,000 words long. I just kept on writing then finally thought, “Seems long enough. The end!”

I was too dumb to know what I didn’t know. When I attended my first writing group, I couldn’t wait for all the accolades. I just worried they’d be jealous that I was so naturally talented *hair flip*

THEN…I got my pages.

The bloooood! So much BLOOOOD!

Red pen, EVERYWHERE! I don’t think there was any white space left. I’d walked away from a sweet job with dental to pursue my dream only to find out I was a talentless hack!

I remember sobbing in my Honda Civic, blowing my nose with Taco Bell napkins because I hadn’t eaten anything that cost more than .99 for the previous six months.

It was decision time. Was I in or out?

How much did I really want to be a writer?

Apparently I wanted it a lot. A couple thousand blogs, several books (and a LOT of trolls) later, here I am. And you know what? Rejection still hurts like hell.

Even rejection that’s just in your head!

Just so y’all know, back in March, the 19th century stopped by to visit me. I caught frigging whooping cough.

Since I was presenting in Idaho in May—actually this weekend so…come see me?—I HAD to let my lungs heal if I hoped to make it there. The doctors said I was too close to getting full-blown pneumonia if I didn’t chill OUT (not my strong suit).

I couldn’t miss Idaho, because it is an INCREDIBLE conference featuring some of the greatest writers in our industry. So, if it wasn’t something on my phone, I pretty much shut down.

Problem is? I’ve missed blogging so long I’ve been literally afraid to POST. I feel like a total failure…as if I really had any control over the last eight weeks. And the GUILT! So much guilt.

What kind of special nonsense thinking is that?

***Thank you to Merry and Mimi and Mary and all the others who kept pestering me to post. I love you ladies.

See, my confession should give y’all hope that all these years later, I am STILL learning! I’m writing these posts for me as much as you.

What Are Your Thoughts on Rejection?

Oh the tales of rejection! I’ve been dumped on Valentine’s Day…twice. In the 90s, I worked for a tech company. One week after my boss told me how much she valued me…she fired me. Talk about blind-sided.

Security walked me and my potted plant out of the building in front of everyone.

One time on Amazon, someone gave me a one-star review because they bought my book by mistake.

I could go on, but y’all have been there. We put all the heartbreak and triumph in our stories. The jobs we lost, the love that failed, the friends we thought would be there forever…until we had to dislodge that knife from our back.

It’s life. The sweet is only sweet because of the bitter.

So what about you guys? Any tales of rejection? Reviews that made you question humanity? Rejection letters with your name misspelled? Do you put those people in books too? Have you let rejection refine you or define you?

And just a reminder for anyone who can make it. Better late than never!

The post Rejection: What is REALLY in Control? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Oddly enough, there has been quite a debate over on Twitter about what we think about a writer who doesn’t read. In fact, going a bit further, the person who posted the Stephen King quote (below) mentioned she’d even seen blogs via new writers who openly claim they don’t read/don’t like reading.

Before we get into this, though, please understand that I “get” everyone has different life constraints, budgets, and abilities. I know there are people with learning issues because I am one.

“Reading” does not have to be paper. It can be digital or audio or even visual. Long way around saying, if we want to be successful storytellers, then probably a good idea for us to be familiar with STORY.

When I used to run a writing group, we had a member who wanted to be a NYT best-selling author, but he never read.

Ever.

Claimed he was dyslexic. Okay. So I suggested audiobooks. Well, no, he was too ADHD to pay attention. All righty. Then I suggested watching films and studying them, but there weren’t any movies he liked.

Y’all seeing the problem here?

Thus, it was never any surprise that, in all the years he brought pages, they never improved.

EVER.

Reading and Writing

Whenever I am reading samples, I can ALWAYS…ALWAYS spot a person who never reads (and usually within a paragraph or two). There are a number of giveaways, but here is a quick list of red flags with N00B written ALL over them.

1. WAY too much stage direction.
2. Huge POV issues, usually guilty of head-hopping
3. Loads of cliches
4. Shallow/repetitive vocabulary
5. All characters sound/”talk” the same
6. Weird tags
7. Serious pacing problems
8. No dramatic tension/loaded with melodrama
9. Super-perfect characters
10. Flashbacks
11. Passive voice
12. Rely heavily on gimmicks (It was a DREAM!)
13. Material rife with basic grammar and spelling mistakes
14. Cast too large/loaded with redundant characters
15. Author clearly DOES NOT understand genre/genre expectations
16. Overwriting
17. Major plot problems
18. Moving/alien body parts (His eyes FLEW across the room. NO! Gets carpet fibers on them!)
19. No concept how to properly write dialogue (sounds childish and stilted or like cartoon villain monologuing).
20. Too much telling and too little showing

Writing is like no other profession. We are rooted in magic. Combinations of 26 letters to create entirely new worlds, people, religions, technology that has never existed before?

Puts the spell in spelling.

This said, writing a novel is a LOT like performing a magic show. Reading helps us learn to see where (other master performers) put all the wires and trapdoors that leave audiences stupefied. How do they use the lighting, misdirection, sound effects, or dry ice? We study all this so we can wow audiences when they attend OUR show.

It’s less about the props of the magic show and more about how we put them all together at the end.

Reading Tools

Admittedly, I was taken aback that some writers don’t read. Was even more astonished they were bragging about it. So throwing my two cents worth in.

I won’t take valuable time to list the obvious benefits of authors reading because that should be self-explanatory. What about the less noticeable benefits? And could those corollate with the “success” rates for “non-reading” writers?

This article spells out several ways our brains benefit from reading, and there are at least THREE of these I see as chronic problems for modern authors who don’t read.

Reading Heightens Connectivity

Part of being creative and possessing an amazing imagination is by making associations. Place two seemingly non-related objects or ideas together to come up with something even better.

When I get samples that blow me away? The writer is always, always a prolific reader. Conversely, if the story is flat, dull, and the premise done to death? Plot utterly predictable?

Guarantee the writer doesn’t read.

We need connectivity not only to come up with original story ideas, but to also piece the entire work together (and avoid being predictable). This connectivity is what will keep our story’s momentum when so many others stall out and die.

Even if we are born talented, writing is a skill that demands study if we want to be any good at it. Much like everything else.

Improves Attention Spans

When we have to sit and READ we are also training ourselves to sit and WRITE. Writing is tough because it requires so much focus. If we allow ourselves to get into bad habits of goofing off on social media, channel surfing, etc. we’ll wreck our ability to pay attention.

The only way the book is going to get written is if we put a$$ in seat and DO IT. Then DO IT until it is FINISHED.

Increases Working Memory

For those who have never FINISHED a book or a novel? It is a LOT to keep up with. I’ve never written a book that was under 83,000 words. Don’t you think I probably need to be able to remember what a character said or did earlier and where it is so I can keep the flow of the book going?

The better our working memory, the faster we’ll locate the necessary research, be able to glance at the plot and check all is okay, and the easier it will be to negotiate longer series. We’ll also be able to write a lot faster since we’ll have the information in our heads, and thus need to refer to notes less often.

Why is This a Discussion?

Ultimately, I am curious why this is even a discussion. To me, a writer who doesn’t read is so odd, it’s like thinking about what the number four tastes like.

That said, I’ve heard the “I don’t have time” argument a lot, and it is true. You probably don’t have time. Very few of us do. It is why we have to MAKE TIME.

If you’re like me, and it is a struggle to sit and READ a book, try retraining your ear and listen to audio books. Yes, I have to back the books up and listen multiple times, but perfect is the enemy of the good. When I find a book that is truly remarkable, I buy in paper…then scribble notes all over it.

Not only do I run a business from home, but I homeschool my seventh grade son. It was getting harder and harder to sit down with a book. I finally hit a point where I figured my writing would improve infinitely more if I “imperfectly” read 100 additional books a year than it would if I read nothing.

Ergo audiobooks.

The Entitled Elephant in the Room

I feel it should be fairly obvious why it’s a pretty good idea for writers to read. To reiterate, I understand time constraints, money issues and learning disabilities. This post isn’t about people who have challenges, who have to figure a way to work around obstacles. This is for writers who openly admit/are almost proud they don’t read.

Which ticks me off to no end.

Bear with me.

If we want people (a.k.a. “readers”) to spend their limited spare cash and seriously limited spare time to read OUR books, shouldn’t we extend the same courtesy to our peers?

How easy is it going to be to sell someone on reading our books if WE go around chirping about not reading/not liking to read? Something like 94% of the literate population are not avid readers. What goes through their heads when an AUTHOR claims they don’t like to read?

I read not only to improve my skills, but to support those other authors in the trenches with me. Reading supports my fellow writers by buying, reading and (if I can) reviewing their books. I also support the INDUSTRY I am in, because if no one supports the industry, none of us will have a job.

What are your thoughts?

Does it seem utterly bizarre that a writer wouldn’t also love to read (or at least love stories)? I read every day as part of habit. Instead of listening to music when I do the dishes, I listen to a novel.

For me, reading is much easier with Audible (and no I don’t work for them but maybe I should).

What about you guys? Do you not feel a need to read and I am somehow way off base? Can you tell if a writer isn’t also a reader? Does it seem weird an author wouldn’t also love that which they create?

Do you feel our profession is too often taken as a scratch-off lottery way to get instant fame and riches? What do you feel about books and the profession of writing?

The post What Do You Call a Writer Who Never Reads? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Pain is simply part of life. I think THAT much is clear as we are almost two weeks into 2023 *thinks of carbs and cries* Truth is, we have little control over most of what happens to us. This is true in life and in publishing. Control, in many respects, is an illusion. We can only do our little part on most things then hope and pray for the best.

This might sound a lot like me being a Debbie Downer here, but the truth can actually be quite liberating. When we recognize there is only SO much we can control, it narrows down our focus and all the things we “care” about.

We can set expectations accordingly and realize what is within our purview (finished books sell WAY better than unfinished ones) and frankly, what’s totally out of our hands (novels featuring left-handed snake handlers are all the rage!).

Dealing with Change

Publishing, like every other industry on the planet, has experienced a drastic transition over the past 12 years or so. An industry that had remained relatively untouched for over a century crumbled. Whether we like it or not, Amazon and on-line shopping dismantled an institution.

And yes, I hear all the writers collectively groan and wail. I don’t like it either. Shopping on-line just isn’t the same as browsing a bookstore all day, feeling paper in your hands and having a physical thing, right away you can touch and read and (if you are me) scribble in.

If you do want to set out to write professionally, then it is wise to understand exactly what you’re getting into. The actual path to publishing, not the “Made for TV” version we can be way too fond of (especially when new).

Writers are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are wise to do what is called a S.W.O.T. Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).

So the “bad” news first.

Pain and Publishing

The consignment model that bookstores have relied upon for well over a century is, for all intents and purposes, gone. For anyone curious how this model worked (and is now likely limping along) the The Hard Truth About Publishing—What Writers & Readers NEED to Know provides a detailed breakdown.

Regardless, publishing will continue to go more and more on-line for a number of reasons. The consignment model, as I’ve pointed out, is and always has been grossly inefficient. This was all well and good so long as bookstores and physical books had no competition, no cheaper alternative. But that is no longer the case.

Additionally, want to know something about paper? It is freaking HEAVY, which means, with the cost of diesel right now, the profit from any paper book is tied to the cost of crude.

If it costs a small fortune to ship books, that eats away at any profit. Eventually, there is a ceiling that even bibliophiles will reach. We’ll only pay SO MUCH for the paper books we love, especially when digital is a fraction of the cost.

All this to say that Ye Olden Days of Publishing are gone, and have been for a while. Which is fine, but also scary. In the August 2, 2022 article in The New York Times, The Books Merger That’s About Amazon:

Whether for good or for ill, a judge blocked NY publishing’s plans to merge two publishing titans—Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster—in hopes of faring better against their ongoing nemesis, Amazon.

Initially, the duo claimed they’d fight this decision, but have since withdrawn any future plans to merge.

It’s Just Business

In the face of a recession that’s steadily nibbling away at profits as well as supply chain issues, the future of publishing is, as always, uncertain. This has always been the case in traditional publishing (especially when an excruciatingly small minority of authors are responsible for most of the profit).

This said, publishing is a business. Writing, if we want to go pro, is a business. We are wise to understand that business and how it works (or doesn’t). I totally get you and wish I had different news. What I would GIVE if all I had to do was WRITE. But, when we go pro, there’s a lot more that goes into being an author than simply getting words on the page.

And enough about that.

My goal here isn’t to utterly deflate anyone’s dreams of becoming a successful author, but this is a voyage. Like any voyage, it’s simply prudent to be honest about the trip ahead and plan accordingly the best one can.

It’s Looking Up…Maybe

One good “trend” I am seeing is the resurgence of older titles. In a November 1, 2022 article in The New York Times, A Big Publishing Merger Was Blocked, but Brought the Industry Little Clarity:

What do I see in this? Readers are tired of the slush pile being dumped in their laps. I’ve always held issue with how the big publishers and major retailers like B&N conducted business, namely because they kept trying to out-Amazon Amazon instead of playing to THEIR strengths.

Big publishing’s largest strength has ALWAYS been the relative quality of their books (overall). Even the worst traditionally published book generally has a cohesive plot and isn’t riddled with typos. When readers are thrust into a market saturated with unreadable, unedited or poorly edited stories, traditional publishers have always had the advantage.

Ironically, the entity they fought tooth and nail (social media) is the main component that now seems to be saving them.

What Does This Mean?

It means, firstly, that there are two fundamental aspects to being successful as an author—> Good books and solid platform.

I think we are, blessedly, moving beyond the early fascination with the shiny widgets and we (readers) want quality reads. We also don’t have a lot of time, and resent wading through bad books, regardless how they’re published.

People will always want good stories (Fiction) and information (NF).

The fact that older, pre-digital age books are coming back big, is a sign to me that we have more readers than ever, and they’re enthusiastic about excellent stories. Not only enthusiastic, but also addicted to social media, so they will InstaTwitFace all day about what they love!

We’re also seeing an explosion of different KINDS of stories, thus creating opportunities for different kinds of WRITERS. Short works are making a BIG comeback. The digital age has resurrected many forms of writing that were almost lost to us (E.g. poetry, essays, novellas, short stories, serials, etc.)

I’ve published traditionally, indie, and self-pub. Since I’m a control freak who enjoys breaking rules, I prefer self-pub and agree with Stephen Haunts that we indies really are The Punk Rock of Publishing.

So more good news. We are no longer in a One-Size-Fits-All profession. Yes, we’ll have to choose our pain, but at least now we have more options for our publishing suffering.

To the Pain

For those of us who want go pro, it is time to get to WORK. I love NaNoWriMo as much as anyone. I’ve been doing it for years and most of the projects I’ve completed are now published works.

Yet, when we make the shift from hobbyist to professional, every month is NaNoWriMo.

We have to understand that, while there is nothing wrong with writing for fun, hobbyists play for fun. Pros play for keeps. Make a habit of writing every day. I don’t care if it is 500 words (2 pages). Two pages every day of every week soon becomes a book.

As Mark Manson reiterates in his best-selling book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, it is easy to fall in love with the end result. To imagine our books on every end cap, in People Magazine, trending on TikTok, or being made into a Netflix Original. And those are the dreams that will keep us going through the giant span of SUCK before the breakthrough.

Yet, in the meantime…

What KIND of Pain Will You Enjoy?

What kind of PAIN will we enjoy most? Because we cannot truly control anything in the industry beyond a certain point. To go pro, we must be honest about the pain writing entails then ask if it is worth it.

Would you STILL write even if I told you you’d never make a dime and likely die in obscurity? If the answer is yes, then we’re off to the races. If we write because we love it and wish to master it, then that is all that truly matters.

That passion will make us show up day after day and turn out word count. We’ll become experts at FINISHING. No half-perfect novel ever became a runaway success, but a lot of completed “crappy” books have.

We will have to keep an eye on the industry, understand how it works. If one publishes traditionally, then there is the pain of whatever limitations/expectations a publisher might place on us.

If we publish non-traditionally, then we not only need a good book, but we have to oversee the blurbs, back copy, formatting for paper and e-book, cover design, ISBNs, marketing, platform, brand, etc.

Which, for the record, ALL authors are responsible for marketing, platform and brand so there’s no Publishing Sugar Daddy that is going to shield us from that.

Peace with Pain

When we are okay with the pain of working alone, dealing with setbacks, learning to stick and move with an industry that changes at the speed of algorithms, and we’re willing to do the hard stuff because we love to write THAT MUCH?

Going pro is probably a good decision.

The better news is we’ll have lasting power our peers don’t possess. Believe it or not, most of being successful in anything is the discipline to consistently show up.

Every legendary book was written one word at a time.

Writing as a hobby is ALWAYS a good decision for those who have a passion for story. We don’t HAVE to monetize everything that brings us joy! It is OKAY to simply have fun.

Remember this when looking back at those New Year’s Resolutions still freshly inked on the page. If we fall in love with process, we can accomplish almost anything.

What are Your Thoughts About Pain?

Other than you don’t like it? Same. What I would GIVE for a pain-free option, but sadly life doesn’t work that way. Do you love the process or just love to fantasize about the end victories?

Hey, I was TOTALLY guilty when I was new. I spent more time imagining my books a movies than actually writing. Now? I am guilty of the opposite and need to do more dreaming.

It is 2023, so what have you decided? Go pro? REALLY? Or just learn to enjoy dabbling? Maybe a mixture of both? Do you need to be stricter with yourself, or maybe learn to lighten up a little?

I LOVE hearing from you!

The post To the Pain: Is Writing a Career or a Hobby? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Self-sabotage is something most writers are likely familiar with. We just about get in the habit of working on the WIP (work in progress), and then suddenly we put everyone and everything ahead of finishing that book. Usually they’re noble causes, too. Cleaning the house, organizing the closets, alphabetizing the pets….

I work hard to make “success” books part of my morning routine when I’m doing my chores: making the coffee, making the bed, putting on any laundry, etc. One of my favorite audio books is “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Namely because the advice is practical, doable, and aligns with my personal value system.

No shade on the “believe it enough and it will happen folks,” but there is also a degree of WORK involved in reaching any goal.

This is why we must learn to ignore the outside voices and take the helm of our own destinies.

Results Reinforce Habits

Why did I bring up “Atomic Habits?” Other than it’s a good book? There was something I read this morning that I feel needs expounding. Clear notes, correctly, that when we see evidence of our habits, that reinforces our identity.

When I declutter daily, I see my surroundings are neat and tidy. Therefore, eventually I identify as an organized person.

But what about being a writer?

Becoming a writer will likely be one of the hardest things any of us does, and for a number of reasons. Unlike eating healthy, working out, saving money, or systematically decluttering our living spaces, much of what we writers do is in the dark. There are many times we will have to press on using sheer force of will and blind faith.

We’ll have to write simply for the love of writing.

We can write millions of words, dozens of books, even publish books and I GUARANTEE you at least ONE @$$hat out there will intimate what we do is not “real.”

Whether they do this out of jealousy, misguided good intentions, or simply not thinking before they speak? Who knows? Yet, I can tell you that, after 16 years of working with all levels of writers, many of them household names? The insecurity never goes away. If anything, it gets worse.

Anything Here Familiar?

I just published a book!

Them: Yes, but you self-published.

My debut novel received almost a hundred rave reviews.

Them: Yes, Amazon really is trying to crack down on fake reviews. Are you sure they’re all real?

My book hit #1 as a best-seller.

Them: Amazon best-sellers aren’t REAL best-sellers.

My book made the NYT Best-Seller list.

Them: Everyone knows the NYT list doesn’t account for actual sales and the numbers are manipulated.

I just published my tenth novel!

Them: How nice. Amazing that Philip K. Dick wrote 44 novels and over 120 short stories. And Stephen King has written 9000 novels and 43,000 short stories.

Okay, I was being a bit silly there because I was starting to depress myself.

The point is we cannot rely on external validation. That is a formula to end up curled in the fetal position washing down raw cookie dough with tequila.

I also mention this because, we’ll self-sabotage wasting time pondering if we are “real writers” instead of WRITING!

What can happen is we’ll keep moving the goal post of what makes us a “real writer.” Eventually, we’ll give up because we set that standard SO high we crumble under the pressure.

Here are a few fun blogs to remind y’all that writers write. Plain and simple.

Diagnosing a REAL Writer: Do You Have Terminological Inexactitude Syndrome?

This is Gonna Leave a Mark: What Makes a “Real” Writer

Real Writers Don’t Self-Publish (Part One and SATIRE)

Real Writers Don’t Self-Publish (Part Two and ALSO SATIRE)

The Personal Apocalypse—When are We REAL Writers?

Self-Sabotage & Fear of Failure

I’ve been on social media since before it went mainstream in 2006, which means I’ve experienced and witnessed enough Imposter Syndrome to last many lifetimes. One of the main reasons we are SO hesitant to call ourselves a writer is precisely because of the head games mentioned above.

Critics will always find some reason to diminish what you’ve accomplished.

Most people fear failure, which is dumb because failing is the only way humans learn. How many of us would berate a toddler every time they fell learning how to walk? We learn by DOING, and we improve by FAILING.

Yet, our culture has ingrained fear of failure into our DNA. My parents never cared about the 90 questions I answered correctly, only the 10 I missed. Schools punish failure, jobs punish failure, culture punishes failure.

Want to know the one phrase that vexes me to no end? “One-hit wonder.”

Despite the FACT that many “one-hit wonder” songs have defined pop culture and even entire generations, our culture still saddles them with that term.

They were KUNG-FU fighting!

867-5309

Oh Mickey you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind.

Pass the Dutchie on the left-hand side.

Taaake ooooon meeee! Taaaaake meeeee ONNNNNNN!

Stop! Collaborate and listen!

Woot, there it is! Woot, there it is!

The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had. It’s a mad world.

What does the fox say?

Now that y’all have at least ONE of those stuck in your head, I hope I made my point. Go check out the list of one-hit wonders who, by definition, are “failures.” This is to point out the lunacy of our culture. So don’t look to it to feed your ego.

Self-Sabotage & Fear of Success

Many writers who do successfully hit a “real” best-seller list (whatever “real” might be defined as) then struggle with if they can do it again. Or will they be the dreaded…one-hit wonder?

Because if one book sold hundreds of millions of copies and redefined culture as we know it…but the author doesn’t KEEP doing that…then they failed.

Makes TOTAL sense.

Yet, we can fall into habits of self-sabotage not only because we fear we’ll fail (never finish the book, never land an agent/book deal, be published, make a list, etc.) but precisely because we are afraid we WILL accomplish these things.

What if I only have one good book in me?

I made Whatever Prestigious List, but was it a fluke? Can I do it again? What if I can’t?

This might all sound rather silly, but emotions aren’t always logical. Remember, perfect is the enemy of the great. It is also the enemy of the FINISHED. No half-finished “perfect” book ever became a runaway success, but some very much less-than-perfect ones have.

We’ve covered fear of failure and fear of success, but the one I really want to explore today is the notion of whether or not we deserve success.

I Don’t Deserve It

When we’re stuck in a culture that doesn’t value what we do, it’s easy to believe (at least subconsciously) that writing is some extra indulgence. A hobby, a guilty pleasure, something to be done after doing REAL work.

Many of us are partners or parents or are taking care of loved ones. We believe that when the laundry is done, the dishes washed, the beds made, the bills paid, the pets brushed, the curtains are washed, the ceiling is repainted…THEN we can write. As if writing is not a profession, but a treat to be doled out for good behavior.

THIS is a mindset we must change if we want to go pro. For the record, I STILL struggle with this. I have to MAKE myself get up and write first thing. All the while the siren’s song of dishes, litter boxes, email, and bills are calling me.

I’d love to say I’m always successful, but I try to keep my lying to fiction. There are many reasons this profession is TOUGH and not for everyone.

Fight for Your Right to Write

Yes, it can be a battle with others, but mostly with ourselves. Many of us have a lot of bad programming we need to overcome.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family (a.k.a. typical 80s family). Whenever I wanted something, my parents had a list of common responses:

Do you have a job?

Are you the one paying the bills?

Money doesn’t grown on trees.

Me DESIRING something was intrinsically tethered to my monetary contribution to the home (or said equivalent). Since I didn’t bring home a salary, ergo I had no right to want and did not deserve anything. I only deserved when I a) made good grades b) cleaned my room c) did my chores.

Seeing a pattern here? How many writers don’t write because their writing doesn’t make money, but their writing isn’t making money because they aren’t writing? We unwittingly self-sabotage and that self-sabotage just exacerbates the feedback loop from hell.

Been there, have the box of t-shirts.

No More Self-Sabotage: You Deserve It

We all deserve our dreams. If your dream is to be a writer, then YES, that will demand a lot of work. As in writing, rewriting, reading, studying, learning, researching, building a brand/platform, cultivating an audience, showing up day after day and putting down words no matter what.

What being a writer does NOT entail is you being a good little you and doing all your chores and “real” work before you’re allowed to go write.

If no one has yet given you permission to go write, I will.

WRITERS WRITE. Enough said.

Ultimately, we are in charge. There will always be people who will criticize, tell us why we are poseurs, fakes, fools, hacks, etc. Until we realize that all of that just goes with the territory and get to work ANYWAY, we’ll find every reason not to sit butt in chair and write.

We will revise the opening of that novel 9,763 times. Start new books while abandoning half-finished ones. We’ll believe we can’t succeed because (INSERT REASON HERE) and we’ll talk ourselves out of even trying. Ultimately, we won’t even need the outside world to work against us, because we’ll figure out a way to self-sabotage before they get the chance.

BUT, that is what happens when we are operating in auto-pilot. Now that, hopefully, we are more aware of counterproductive behaviors/ideas/attitudes, we can take action.

Think about all those one-hit wonders.

They did the work, learned to sing, play an instrument, or at least be brave enough to put themselves OUT THERE. And maybe they never made it into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but you know what?

Don’t worry. Be happy .

What are your thoughts on self-sabotage?

Are you guilty of shooting yourself in the metaphorical foot? Do you put everyone’s needs ahead of your own? Does writing feel like some guilty indulgence instead of the meaningful profession it is? Have you struggled with the notion of what makes a “real” writer?

What have you done to overcome these issues? Do you have any suggestions or tips? Hey, I am a work in progress ALWAYS and love the feedback!

The post Self-Sabotage: I Don’t Deserve Success appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Sales can be scary, so today I’m going to give you three ways to instantly improve your writing and also sell more books. I’m blessed to have a broad base of experience/expertise which includes corporate consulting and branding. I also spent years in sales and can honestly say, Coffee really is for closers. 

Sigh.

What Do You DO?

Among being a long-time author, ghostwriter, speaker and teacher, I also do a lot of freelance work in the corporate realm. Only mentioning this bit because it can help you guys improve.

I once accepted a leviathan project to redo copy for a website and rebrand a struggling company. I first explained my plan and reasoning in a detailed SWOT analysis. The owner was on board and signed off. The existing copy was outdated, bloated, confusing, and failed to appreciate the vast changes in our digital age culture.

I hacked through, reduced as much as possible and reshaped until the site showcased a truly fabulous company. To my horror, the owner came back and wanted me to add a deluge of changes which included mass amounts of extraneous information, charts, etc. and all of this content grossly deviated from the agreed rebranding.

I politely declined and we parted ways.

What’s funny is the owner never got around to changing the site from my version and was approached by a Richard Branson-type investor for potential partnership. Ironically, part of what piqued his interest was the site I designed.

Unlike the competition, the my version was visual, brief, and powerful, whereas the competition was like reading Wikipedia Articles from Hell.

This desire to cough up too much and “oversell” is common (namely because regular people believe writing is easy and fail to hire a pro). Business owners are passionate and so they want to tell EVERYTHING about their services, industry, product, whatever. Also, overselling is a mark of the insecure. Think “padded resume.”

We authors can fall into a similar trap if we aren’t careful.

Attention Spans are Shrinking

The average time spent on a website is roughly 54 seconds. I’d wager most people give a website 5.4 seconds to catch their attention and so we have a challenge when it comes to not only attracting the click, but also making people STAY.

***The same can be said with books. A cover and title catches the eye, but the opening sample pages only have a paragraph or five to win over the audience enough to stay and pay (and then read).

We can apply these business lessons to our writing, because we writers also have something to sell.

Our job is far tougher because 1) discoverability is a nightmare 2) less than 8% of the literate population are devoted readers 3) the remaining 92% equate reading with homework and a chore. Thus, we have the task of convincing 92% of the population to spend time they don’t have engaged in an activity they believe they dislike…and spend money to do it.

The other 8%? Sure they like to read books, but why ours?

Omit Needless Words

Trust the reader. If a character opens a door, we know he “reached out his hand” to do it. We assume he isn’t blessed with telekinetic powers unless we’re told otherwise.

Resist the Urge to Explain

This tenet applies in a lot of areas. We don’t need flashbacks or lengthy details of why a character thinks or acts a certain way. The more we leave to the imagination, the better. Years ago, Hubby and I fell in love with the mini-series Defiance. We ate through Season One and began Season Two.

Interestingly, Episode Zero was a compilation of all the flashbacks cut from Season One—the explaining how and what and why…and it was painful. I just wanted to hit stop and move onto the new episodes. The flashbacks added nothing and only wasted my time. The series was better without backstory being spoon fed to me.

I got it.

This over explaining happens a lot with characterization, but sci-fi and fantasy can be particularly vulnerable. I recently had a client who took four hours to explain all her world building. Most of this information was for her, not the reader. She didn’t have to explain every last detail about how her world had collapsed into a dystopian nightmare.

It just did.

All that had happened BEFORE her story even began, so the reader just accepts the world as it is presented.

Think about cartoons. Kids accept that a group of dogs can be public servants, talk and operate heavy equipment (Paw Patrol) or that a sponge with tighty-whities can work a burger grill at the bottom of the ocean (Spongebob Square Pants).

Belief is already suspended.

Value the Reader’s TIME

Get to the point quickly. The first sample pages of any book are our greatest selling tool. When I hear, “Oh, well the story really gets going by page 50″? My instincts tell me we probably need to cut 47 pages. When it comes to sales, we cannot afford to be boring.

Remember earlier I mentioned that we’re artists, but we also have a product to sell. In fiction, we’re selling escape. So think of it this way. How are you helping your customer escape reality?

Sales Route One

First, my dear (potential) reader, I need you to pack this list of gear, then sync this app on your smartphone. After that is downloaded, I’m going to text you coordinates for a geocache. Use the app to locate the cache, dig up the key, catch the L Train, wait for a guy with a blue hat and the code phrase is, “Duck, duck, goose.” He’ll then hail a cab and take you to a wonderful place you will enjoy.

Sales Route Two

Open a wardrobe and step through.

Which would you choose?

What are some ways you refine your work? Are you guilty of overwriting? I know I’m working super hard to lean down all my writing. It is NOT easy. Are there areas you could condense? Stage action or explaining that could be chipped away?

I LOVE hearing from you!

Can you articulate what VALUE YOUR book offers? What will your book make readers FEEL? How will it help them escape? What problem will it solve? Sales is all about offering a SOLUTION to a problem. So why is YOUR book a solution?

Does it reignite our belief in love? Offer us food for thought about modern culture? Challenge our beliefs? Provide an escape?

See if you can SELL me in the comments. Sales, like other skills, improves with practice.

If you keep scrolling, you’ll see ON DEMAND classes I have available. USA TODAY Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds also has some fabulous OD classes that I’ll have listed by next post for all of your holiday shopping desires.

ON DEMAND OPTIONS from ME!

ON DEMAND: Bring on the Binge: How to Plot a Series

SIGN UP HERE. Use New20 for $20 off

ON DEMAND: The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES

SIGN UP HERE Use New20 for $20 off

The Dark Arts: Building Your Villain ON DEMAND

Sign up HERE New25 for $25 off

World Building 101: Playing ‘Author GOD’

Sign up HERE New25 for $25 off

The post 3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Writing & Increase Sales appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Small steps are the most essential for achieving anything in life, yet they’re also the most underestimated. They are too easy to overlook or dismiss.

Unlike when we were kids, no one is handing out stickers or scented erasers to reward us for a day well done. There’s no list on the wall showcasing the names of those who put in the extra work and accomplished just…a…little…more than their peers.

So you got up and went to work this morning. Did anyone notice? When you finished reading and replying to those emails, did you get a thrill of electricity? You cleaned your house, kept your kids alive, paid your bills and didn’t run anyone off the road.

What does it matter?

No stickers for “Hey, I Didn’t Go to JAIL Today” or “I Didn’t Tell My Boss Off” or “I Returned my Grocery Cart Even Though Some Idiot Designed the Parking Lot Where the Return Corral was A MILE AWAY”. Okay, the last one might not fit on a sticker.

The others? Someone needs to get on that.

Who really notices what we do as much as they notice when we FAIL to do the same things? My family might not cheer me on for doing the laundry, but they sure notice when they run out of clean socks.

It feels as if we’re trapped in a world of homeostasis, and the needle never moves. But that is the lie. Big changes are always comprised of small steps. If we overlook small steps, then forget about setting goals, let alone reaching them.

This said, how do we keep going when, 99% of the time, it feels as if we are stuck in neutral?

Small Steps on a Realistic Path

I work very hard to be a positive person, but here’s some news you might like…or not. Whatever.

Perpetual positivity is extremely unhealthy. It’s actually a form of denial.

Sometimes life does suck. The odds CAN actually be against us. We face very real challenges every day. Acknowledging obstacles is what separates dedicated dreamers from hopeful fools.

In business, we run something known as a S.W.O.T. Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Obstacles, Threats). How Debbie Downer of me, right? Um, no. If we seek to achieve anything worthwhile, from cleaning out the sewing room to successfully publishing a book, we need a REALISTIC view of what’s ahead.

Most of you who subscribe to this blog appreciate that bluntness is my superpower. I’m candid because I genuinely care about you and am vested in your success.

Also, I did all the stupid things SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO. Take advantage!

If we’re going to take small steps on a grand adventure toward worthy goals, then it’s a GREAT idea to make sure we are heading the correct direction.

Genius stuff here. I KNOW!

But how many people say they want to be professional authors who sell enough books to write full time, but then they rarely write? They might finish the book but have done NOTHING to build a brand—which is when our name alone has the power to sell books.

Have they studied craft, writing, self-editing, or even the business of their business? Do they have a plan as to how they’ll actually SELL those books?

STOP NOW: Writing is a FOOL’S ERRAND

Bear with me.

You want to write novels? Series? Think you have what it takes to be the next J.K. Rowling? Odds are, you don’t. Think you have what it takes to at least make a healthy living writing books? Again, odds unfavorable.

Did you know that, according to Book Expo of America statistics, back in 2004, writers had a 96% failure rate? 96% of all authors published sold fewer than 1,000 books. And, of that number, over 50% sold fewer than 500 books. Most sold around 100.

And this was back before self-publishing and social media. These were largely agented authors with publishers and placement in bookstores.

One would think the numbers are better now, but not according to Forbes. Self-publishing is hardly a way to get rich quick. 20% of authors make ABSOLUTELY NO MONEY, and the median income is around $5,000 a year.

This number is skewed by a VERY small percentage of top earners (those earning $100,000 or more), so likely this median number is lower.

With well over a million books hitting the market, and this number compounding every year, most books will languish in literary limbo until the writer finally just sucks it up and accepts reality.

It was never meant to happen to begin with. Was never in the cards or the stars or the chicken bones…and WOW, I almost lost my “I Didn’t Day Drink” sticker!

Fail to Plan and Plan to Fail

The difference in the successful writer—whatever you define that to be—and the unsuccessful is all in the small steps.

How many of the zillions of writers who ran out to self-publish were still writing like it was 1999? When the ONE goal all writers fixated on was writing A GOOD BOOK?

Being a 21st century author is a LOT more than about writing and finishing a book (in fact, statistically it is all but impossible to make money with A BOOK). If our goal—HONESTLY—is to make a living writing, then there’s a LOT more work ahead.

Even if we decide to outsource certain jobs (I.e. cover design, formatting, internal design) we must get educated. There are too many grifters out there peddling fool’s gold to authors who want shortcuts.

This was why I wrote a Dummies’ Writers’ Guide to SEO recently. Feel free to outsource keywords and web stuff to experts, but have the knowledge to hire and fire wisely.

Who ARE You?

We are what we consistently DO. Hobbyists dabble and create when the mood strikes. Pros get to work no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you’ve not yet published a book. Ditch the imposter syndrome and suck it up. Writers *shock face* WRITE!

Understand it is OKAY to be a hobbyist. Just don’t expect pro rewards with a hobbyist work ethic. This is why it’s crucial to first define what kind of author you want to be.

If you’re writing solely for pleasure then you don’t need a business plan. But, if you want to replace the day job, then it’s career suicide to approach writing like the hobbyist.

Think about it. If you only showed up to your current day job when you were “in the mood” or “the muse visited”, how long would you remain employed?

There are GOOD reasons why this profession isn’t for everyone.

So, when we begin this ‘journey’ are we even pointing in the correct DIRECTION? Hobbyist or professional? That is a huge deal!

If I’m in Texas and my GOAL is to walk to California, then I really should check I am—at the very least—pointing WEST.

Granted I CAN, theoretically, reach California from Texas heading EAST, but what are the odds I’ll give up trying to circumnavigate the entire planet? Small steps are HUGE when I am walking a couple thousand miles down interstate highways, but it is DOABLE. At 15 miles a day, I can reach California in about 4.5 months.

The other direction? Fuggetaboutit.

Same with being a professional author. Yes, the odds are against us. But how much of that ‘bad luck’ do we have the power to change?

Small Steps & Brutal Honesty

What are ALL the obstacles standing in your way? List them and add to the list as you go along. Yes…as you go along. As you gain higher levels of expertise you’ll trade old problems for (hopefully) better problems.

This isn’t me being a Negative Nelly. It’s recognizing that, if I see a mountain range on the map in between where I am and where I want to go, it’s smart to look for the path through the mountains before I get there.

No amount of positive thinking is going to make those mountains vanish.

If I skip along to the metaphorical Alps with no plan, I will still be required to make a plan. Either I’ll have to plan a retreat or I’ll plan to find a path…and waste a ton of time and resources searching for a route I could have easily accounted for in the beginning.

Also, if I want to take on a trek of this magnitude, I need to account for internal obstacles. Self-doubt, burnout, stress, isolation, etc.

Same with writing. The author mountain range might be invisibility. How do we PLAN on standing apart from millions of other books? If we have a plan ahead of time, this prepares us mentally as well.

When we don’t immediately make a gazillion dollars, we keep on the paths that have the best reputation for delivering authors through that massive obstacle (I.e. multiple books, a series, a good blog, a strong social media following, etc.). Small steps. One foot in front of the other.

Trust in the process and that compounded efforts are like compound interest. Hard to see anything notable in the short-term, but then one day, BAMMO! The world sees an ‘overnight success.’

Small Steps Around Big Obstacles

I understand that life gets in the way. But I also appreciate the power of even small snippets of focused time. It’s why I’ve PAID for a Ning called W.A.N.A.Tribe for TWELVE YEARS.

(W.A.N.A. stands for We are not alone.)

Since I pay for this out of my own pocket, there are no ads or bots. We’ve been meeting every day, every week to do writing sprints for almost EIGHT YEARS. It is a virtual office space where one of us sets a timer for an hour, people join in the sprint (in the CHAT forum), and at the end, we relay what we accomplished.

Then, we chit chat a few minutes and do the next sprint and the next and the next. I’ve, personally, finished nine books, a novella and hundreds of articles using the sprints.

Some of us stay most of the day or even all day. I mix up sprints where I write with sprints where I clean, cook, and homeschool my 12-year-old son. It’s an amazing place for accountability. We have permission to leave the laundry, the dishes, the bills, the pets and kids for AT LEAST ONE HOUR…to write.

Here’s the weird thing, though. Out of almost 3300 members, any guess how many regularly show up for sprints?

Maybe 20, if I’m being generous.

But, want to know a fun fact about those who show up consistently? Almost all of them are highly successful multi-published authors.

Telling, isn’t it?

These writers all have lives. They have families, children, health issues, ailing parents or family members. We all have our share of crises, but guess what? We aren’t any better, any more talented. The only difference is we consistently show up.

Life Size is Bite-Size with Small Steps

I don’t mention the lackluster attendance on W.A.N.A.Tribe to make anyone feel badly. But think about pre-Internet. How many authors had a free and designated workspace with peers around almost every day to encourage and offer help when needed? Think how many authors dreamed of such a place.

Heck, I did, which was why I built it.

Trust me! I wish I ONLY had to worry my pretty little head about writing. Today, while working on this post, I have done the dishes, sorted, washed and folded laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cooked, cleaned the kitchen AGAIN and organized my vitamin cabinet.

Why?

Because LIFE is Messy & BIG

And needs to be broken into manageable bits. I can write about 500-800 words in a sprint, but then I need to move around unless I want back pain. Also, those dishes—sadly—aren’t going to wash themselves.

The vitamins are sorted and the ones that tried to bite me? I tossed. Then I did a quick guided meditation on my phone. NOW, I am back doing a sprint WRITING.

I use lists and timers for everything I do, all the small steps. It keeps me focused and on task and I accomplish a lot more (especially when there are others to hold me to task). But even if we reduced W.A.N.A.Tribe down to ONE sprint five days a week for six months SOLELY dedicated to writing..

How much could one get written?

What habits might one form? Is it reasonable to assume with just these small steps—logging in, writing for an hour a day, day after day—that it would be easier to self-identify as a professional author instead of a dabbler who maybe one day will get around to being amazing?

Obviously, I’d love everyone to use W.A.N.A. Tribe. The more the weirder! Does it matter if only 12 people continue using it? No. I don’t make any money off it. It’s really just a virtual office for those who choose to make writing a priority.

You We Are Not Alone

I certainly do not pretend to have my act together. In fact, I can only look at watercolor paintings if I’m on Instagram lest I give up all hope.

Anything worth achieving isn’t going to be easy, but we can improve our odds of success by simply being honest about our obstacles as well as what we want…then breaking all this down to bite-sized pieces.

Every massive success (or failure) is made up of small steps. In fact, I could make a case that it is impossible to trace the beginning of…anything. Couples don’t ONE DAY end up in a nasty divorce. That nasty divorce is comprised of many small steps taken or not taken. Then, we could go back before they married to their childhoods, their genetic predispositions, then farther and farther and father back.

The same can be said for success.

This is why it is key to simply DECIDE and START. Commit to showing up, whether that is as a writer, a partner, a parent, a whatever. When it comes to writing, you are not alone. Your chances of forming new habits and reaching goals vastly improves with a support network.

Feel free to use the Chat over at W.A.N.A. Tribe, or join a writing group, start your own. Just DO IT. Small steps are DOABLE as in TODAY, RIGHT NOW. They are simple to repeat. Just small steps day after day, month after month will take you thousands of miles from where you began.

Looking forward to seeing where y’all go! Btw, if you sign up for W.A.N.A. Tribe, I have to manually approve you. I try to be as instant as possible, but this is what keeps the bots away.

Thoughts? I LOVE hearing from you!

Do you REALLY think of yourself as a writer? An author? Are you guilty of dabbling when you really need to set a schedule?

For the record, I have had times I HAD to take off and resort to being more of a hobbyist. Burnout is a real thing. Rest is crucial. This said, how can we do better at making what time we have extra fruitful? How do you get the most out of your minutes?

***Btw, for those who want to make a living writing, make sure to scroll down and check out the classes below. When you treat yourself as a business, which you are, then classes are an INVESTMENT. All these classes will help you up the quantity AND quality of your writing.

I love hearing from you!

What do you WIN? For the month of APRIL, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice.

What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

Small Steps to Start

The Write Stuff Special: 20 pages for $55

Only TEN SLOTS AVAILABLE! Offer ends May 4th, 2020. Sign up HERE.

Small Steps with Classes

***All classes come with a FREE recording

Bring on the BINGE: How to Plot & Write a Series

Thursday, May 19, 2022 7-9:30 P.M. NYC Time

For more information, SIGN UP HERE.

The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES

Thursday, May 26th 7:00-10:00 P.M. NYC Time

For more information, SIGN UP HERE.

Practice Your Pitch: Master the Log-Line

Thursday, June 2nd, 7:00-9:00 P.M. NYC Time. This is a TWO-HOUR INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP!

For more information, SIGN UP HERE.

The post Small Steps & The Value of Simply SHOWING UP appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Sales can be one of the most terrifying words in the English language. If one happens to be a creative professional, let’s just multiply that fear level by ten…or a thousand.

In fact, many writers spent decades longing to sign with legacy publishers for the sole reason that they believed a major publisher would tend to all that vulgar sales business for them so they could simply write and create!

*clutches sides laughing*

It’s cool. I once thought the same. We’re all friends and philistines here .

The first hard truth is that, even if we are fortunate enough to score a contract with a major publisher (scant few that remain), if our book doesn’t sell, the publisher will eventually have to cut their losses (‘losses’ being code for ‘writers who fail to sell enough books’).

Second hard truth? In the modern publishing era, Big Six Publishing has been replaced with self-publishing, indie publishing and smaller, more efficient boutique publishers. Again, building a brand and book sales will largely be on the author.

Regardless of size, publishers are businesses not charities, and throwing good money after bad is better left to Hollywood. This said, the idea of having to ‘do sales’ is still enough to make many creatives break out in hives.

Which is why I am here to help.

Deep Breaths

We writers have a nasty habit of black-and-white thinking in regards to sales. In our minds, there are only TWO approaches to selling.

One approach is to be on every single social site running marketing blitzes, promotional campaigns, holding contests, and blasting people with emails/newsletters until they buy a book…or file for a restraining order.

The other option is we never tell anyone we’re an author or—GASP—that we have a book(s) for sale. Short of applying for WITSEC, we do everything and anything to hide that we’re a writer, including our NAME (refer to The Problem with Pen Names).

In an effort to avoid ‘sales’ we pretty much guarantee we’ll never sell any books…thus fulfilling the societal assumption that writers are all broke losers.

***We’ll tackle that bugaboo later.

I believe most writers are afraid of sales because they don’t understand what sales actually IS. Remember, we writers are in the entertainment business. Notice half that word is business and I dare you to name any business that will last very long without any sales.

And before y’all have a panic attack, what’s the title we authors covet most? New York Times Best Selling Author. Notice the title isn’t New York Times Best Writing Author. 

Even though it should be *grumbles*.

Cuz, Baby Things Change…

Before we tackle misconceptions about sales, I want to point out that we’re no longer in the 20th century. I know, time flies, right? The audience (customer base) of 2021 has evolved and what worked in the 90s no longer works today. Doing MORE of what doesn’t work is…well, stupid.

Alas, I cannot count how many sales books, training programs, etc. still push tactics that are over twenty years out of date.

Our customers (code for ‘readers’) have evolved, which means sales, promotion, marketing, branding, etc. must evolve as well or it will be virtually impossible to create meaningful connections that yield results.

Think of the English language. Have you ever tried to read the original Beowulf in Old English? To spare your eyes and WordPress from a cascading font meltdown, just listen to this (below) for 15 seconds.

Or five.

YES, THIS IS ENGLISH! Brought to us courtesy of Realm of History who apparently got someone drunk enough to be able to pronounce the words properly (as if anyone other than the ridiculously brilliant Cait Reynolds would correct them *rolling eyes*)…

Can you imagine if we tried to hold a conversation speaking this way? Good luck getting a date, a job, or ordering a hamburger.

If the world has evolved, we’re wise to keep pace.

Sales Has NOT Evolved…Much

This profession is as old as time. In fact, sales has been around since Og first realized others wanted the pointy sticks he’d become rather adept at crafting. #TrueStoryIJustMadeUp

Once Og grasped that others were willing to give him berries, nuts, and shiny rocks in exchange for one of his pointy sticks, the concept of business/trade emerged and an entrepreneur was born!

Og, being the clever Homo ergaster he was, eventually realized a fellow tribe member might even offer a couple of hot daughters in exchange for a large order of extra-pointy sticks. So, he recruited his drinking buddies Ag and Ug to help.

In doing this, Og unwittingly discovered scalability.

Og understood that, the more pointy sticks he could fashion and the pointier the pointy stick, the better. This meant he also needed to find ways to let others know about his pointy sticks. Maybe even demonstrate some advantages of owning a pointy stick on say a fish, a squirrel, or an annoying member of the tribe.

Welcome to SALES!

Once we appreciate sales has been around since the dawn of time and is vital and necessary, we can relax a little…or a lot. While sales in and of itself is a permanent societal fixture, tactics have to evolve. Don’t believe me? Try stabbing an annoying neighbor to demonstrate that knife you’re trying to sell and…point made.

*Bada bump snare*

Now that we’ve settled that sales is a good thing that’s here to stay, let’s do some myth-busting. I feel once we separate facts from fiction, it will be far easier to face our fears.

***Bonus points there for alliteration .

Myth #1: The high-pressure, fast-talking, aggressive personality is necessary to be good at sales.

Wrong.

There seems to be this cultural idea of what ‘personality’ is required in order to be successful in sales. Usually this is the fast-talking, Type A ‘extrovert’ willing to pummel any prospect into a purchase.

This is total bull sprinkles.

Yes, this type of salesperson exists and, odds are, we’ve all run into one…then run away from one. Good news is we’re now in the digital age.

The high-pressure, fast-talking, aggressive salesperson is a relic best left in the 90s with shoulder pads, fanny packs, the McPizza…and these things.

In the old days, badgering had no consequences. Now? We now can unfriend, unfollow, block, and unsubscribe. Or, if nothing else works, we can post on social media that this business or product is to be avoided more than The Black Death pandering a litter of rabid kittens in need of a loving home.

Myth #2: Salespeople Sell Stuff & Good Salespeople Sell A LOT of Stuff

Yeah, no. Not exactly.

Salespeople solve problems. Good salespeople solve a lot of problems or solve bigger problems.

That’s it.

The better a person solves problems, the more money they make. Why? Because happy customers LOVE to share a win because it makes us feel super smart, and we like to brag. Also, humans dig being helpful.

This is called ‘word-of-mouth.’

Simple.

Why so many ‘sales tactics’ fail is the seller fixates on selling the product (their needs) instead of focusing on the best way to solve problems (the consumer’s needs).

I get that newsletters, automation, and email marketing are all the rage. Somewhere, somehow my business email was rufied and taken hostage. I’m relentlessly bombarded with emails from authors (or ‘PR firms’ representing authors) all wanting something FROM ME.

Read MY FREE book. Review MY FREE novel. Share MY FREE series with YOUR friends!

This is NOT SALES.

Sales is when someone solves my problems, not when some stranger ambushes me to solve a long@$$ list of their problems.

Some random writer’s lackluster sales are NOT my problem. When the author (or their ‘PR firm’) craps up my email with fresh lists of demands guised as doing me some kind of a favor (I.e. Offering ME a chance to interview THEM about THEIR BOOK…on MY BLOG?)…

*deep cleansing breaths* ….they’re not a solution to ANY of my problems.

They’re an additional problem.

Because when I get an average of twelve of these kinds of emails a day, it makes it a bugger to find messages salient to doing my job. This doesn’t make me want to buy their books.

It makes me want to save that money to fund anyone willing to develop technology that delivers a non-lethal but painful electrical shock to anyone who spams me.

Myth #3: More is MORE

I mentioned earlier that we were no longer in the 20th century, but many marketers and promoters simply don’t grasp this. Or they don’t care to because being lazy and uncreative is easier.

See, it wasn’t until the late 90s and early aughts that computers and laser printers lowered the barrier to entry for businesses who wanted to use printed material for advertising.

This might seem like no big deal, but Kinko’s (and their ilk) started a small trend that’s turned into an unrelenting MONSTER—direct marketing.

Y’all have to understand that, before roughly 1998, printing was ridiculously expensive. Only big companies with massive budgets could afford to print anything on a large scale.

***This is why business cards used to actually impress people. Also, if you lost your cat, you only put up fliers if you liked (or feared) that cat…a lot.

Anyway, cheap printing breathed life into the golem we know as direct marketing (a.k.a. junk mail). Then, once more people owned computers and used email, direct marketing simply migrated to another place to bug the $#@! out of us.

Now? Social media is experiencing this same devolution. Too many authors (mistakenly) believe they need to be on all sites all the time to sell, sell, sell which is why there’s so much automation.

But riddle me this.

If we didn’t want the spam served as paper in our mailbox, and we didn’t want it served virtually in our email, why would it magically become appealing when plastered on our Facebook wall?

Hint: It isn’t.

Capitalism 101

We live in an age with countless choices, unlimited options, lower and lower prices, and in every color we could want. Even with SPARKLES! Cheap and FREE are invasive species glomming up the business ecosystem and making us all sick.

To succeed in any business, the goal is not to replicate what’s already abundant, but rather to take time and zero in on what is scarce.

So what’s scarce? For the sake of brevity I’ll name a biggie.

Trust

All brands, businesses, services and products must earn the customer’s trust. The reason spamming ‘readers’ with free books is so ineffective is that FREE alone is insufficient to close the trust gap, especially in areas the customer stands to lose more than they gain.

There are many instances where FREE has zero impact and perhaps a negative impact on the purchase decision.

For example, would you hire a nanny to watch your children while you went to work because she offered her first week on the job FREE? A new skydiving business opens and first jump from 16,000 feet is FREE! New tattoo artist, and first tattoo is FREE!

Granted, my examples sound crazy but why is FREE not super valuable in these instances? Because whoever is offering the FREE product or service is a stranger we don’t know or trust. We (customers) also stand to lose more than we gain. This is the important difference when considering FREE as a sales strategy.

The COST of FREE

If I’m in the store and a smiling rep offers me FREE a sample of sparkling juice, cool! Costs me nothing and the worst case is I dislike the taste. But, when an author who’s never so much as said hello to me offers me a FREE book, this costs my most valuable resource and the one that’s nonrenewable.

TIME.

And, since the book is being handed out to total strangers FREE, this makes me question why. If the book was actually good, why are they giving it away for nothing? This is when I deduce that FREE will cost me and I decline.

My decision might have been different had the author done something ahead of time to close the trust gap between us. This is why the social media platform and brand is essential if we hope to sell books. It’s also why I recommend authors having a blog. People get to know us, our voice, and see for themselves how well we write at least in one medium.

If we can hold an audience’s attention and show we have at least a basic understanding of the mechanics of writing, we’re already in a stronger position. A blog is free. It’s a pizza sample. The consumer gains more than they stand to lose and we begin establishing trust.

My opinion differs from others, and that’s fine. Some folks are naturally very adept at the old-school marketing and hard core sales tactics. As a creative? It isn’t a good fit for my personality, and the approach is one that must be constantly monitored.

Blogs, for instance, are evergreen (meaning they have a SUPER long shelf-life, unlike ads, tweets or FB posts). I have blogs so old I forgot I wrote them that attract new fans daily. Even though many of my posts are YEARS old, they’re still out there working for me.

My post What Went wrong with The Star Wars Prequels STILL attracts commenters even though the post was written ALMOST TEN YEARS AGO. I doubt anyone would ever discover me with a ten-year-old ad, tweet, or FB post. This is why it’s also vital to write more than one book and have a backlist. Odds are, if a reader enjoys one book, they’ll eat through all we have to offer.

Suffice to say, social media isn’t a new and improved way to spam people and push ads. Used properly, social media is one of the most powerful ways to close the trust gap between unknown author and potential readers by establishing then growing relationships.

Sales & Brand

If we stop and think about sales as a profession before direct marketing, what did it entail? A lot of taking customers to lunch, golfing, dinner parties. Essentially? True sales is about (and has ALWAYS been about) creating relationships. Done properly, the people one mingles with like us first, but they ALSO associate us with OUR product to solve THEIR problem.

Thus, when they need a book to download at the last minute when stranded at the airport, they (ideally) think of us.

This is where sales and brand merge together. What do people FEEL when they see our name?

Does our name evoke pleasant feelings or indigestion?

Too many authors, in a mad rush to promote, haven’t yet created rapport with their potential audience, and thus remain an unknown. The harder they market and the more they promote, the more they widen the trust gap into a trust chasm.

I know of many authors who are incredible with spreadsheets and marketing campaigns, and ads, and all of that is a wonderful skill. My point here is that too many get the proverbial cart ahead of the horse (hard-charging marketing) before establishing a relationship, and that is a formula for major burnout (especially for those of us who don’t have Excel in our DNA).

What is Our BUSINESS?

We writers are in the business of storytelling. Great stories are our business, our product and our single greatest selling tool. Outstanding books solve a lot of life’s problems.

Just ask anyone stuck in a doctor’s office, airport, or hospital with no wifi.

Humans LOVE stories. We are a story people. I love mysteries because they keep my brain and attention to detail sharp. Some folks want to experience the thrill of new love (romance), the adrenalin rush of the chase (suspense/thriller), or maybe retreat to a world of magic or far off galaxies. Real life, especially with COVID, is heavy, and fiction offers an escape, a place for catharsis, and even just plain fun.

It’s easy to believe that people just don’t read books anymore, but that’s hogwash. In our digital culture, audiences are hungrier than ever for content. They love blogs, binge on podcasts, and inhale audiobooks or read on their phones during long commutes. Netflix, Amazon and others in the movie industry are constantly on the hunt for books that can be made into new movies.

The best ‘sales strategy’ for selling a lot of books is to take the time, effort and money one might be tempted to pour into a steady stream of ‘promotional campaigns’ and write excellent stories instead. The product is essential. Write books people enjoy so much they can’t wait to share their experiences.

In between ‘life’ and on writing breaks, hop on-line and relax, get to know people, connect. Reach out to others via common interests. Get to know THEM. The best salespeople are authentically interested in others.

Ultimately, delighted readers are the best salesforce of all…and they not for sale .

What Are Your Thoughts?

Does this post make you feel a little bit better about sales? Clearer about what to DO on social media? Yes, it is OKAY to have fun and YES, post the kitten videos. It is also perfectly okay to advertise, promote and market…eventually.

Just that whole horse ahead of the cart thing.

I appreciate all your thoughts and love hearing your experiences. For those authors out there who ROCK the spreadsheets? I’m super jealous.

But for those like me who are more ‘ADHD meets nutty professor’ with lists for your lists and stacks for your stacks, take heart. You, too, can be good at sales if you always remember your book is solving a problem for your audience. If they want/need/crave magic? Give them MAGIC. They want love? Make them see hearts and sparkles. Do they long for adventure? Take them for a journey they’ll never forget.

Once you keep this core concept as your primary focus, sales is a lot more fun…or at least doesn’t make you want to hide in a closet weeping into a bowl of brownie batter .

Any thoughts, questions, concerns? I am happy to answer and might even write a post to help you out!

The post Sales: How Can You Sell More Books When You’re Terrified of Selling? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.