Wow, in the same morning both John Scalzi (see post below) and Harlan Coben said things that I completely agree with and that back up what I have been saying here for years now. John on traditional contracts and Coben on the business itself.
So in this wonderful interview of Harlan Coben on The Big Thrill by Anthony J. Franze, Coben gives some great answers to some wonderful questions. Read the entire interview. But here are a couple questions and answers I think new writers and indie publishers can learn a great deal from.
Franze: Does your success insulate you in any way from all the changes occurring in publishing? Do you worry about the industry?
Coben: I don’t worry about the industry because there is very little I can do about it. Here I will give out some free advice to “newbies”: Stop worrying so much about the business and spend that time WRITING. I know one thing—if I write a good enough book, readers will find it if it’s on digital or paper or stone tablets. If the book isn’t good enough, checking your Amazon rankings and tweeting how wonderful you are, isn’t going to help.
Franze: What’s your best advice to new writers—both those who are trying to get published and those with one or two books under their belts?
Coben: See answer two questions above. Most of the social networking and whatever are worthless. Yes, some writers have benefited from them, but some writers have also won lotteries. And yes, publicists will pressure you to do it, but a few years ago, those same publicists were telling you to travel on your own dime and set up book signings at remote stores or hand out bookmarks. How many writers made a big splash doing that? Sure, you need to know the business. It is constantly changing and we are entering a new world. But in EVERY instance of a book that really broke out, that really shook up the bestseller lists . . . it was word of mouth. Never does a clever tweet or funny Facebook status or Amazon list manipulation trick have any real, lasting effect. And that’s a good thing. The story is the thing. Embrace that. Career-wise, find the authors whose careers you admire. Study how they do it.
Franze: What’s the worst piece of writing advice that you’ve heard dispensed to writers?
Anything that doesn’t end with the sentiment, “Just shut up and write.”
(Entire article worth reading at The Big Thrill.)
Thanks for this.
I started planning a mailing list, but worried about having another thing to manage. Ugh! I’ll wait until I have more money for automatic email submissions. Then I can set and forget. In the meantime, let retailers tell readers when I publish. If they like me enough, they’ll keep track themselves.
I’ve been using my hand pain as an excuse not to do anything, yet I found time to comment on blogs…Time to get down to business. Seriously, this time.
Just shut up and write indeed!
Clive Barker said this about that:
“”People often ask me what advice I have for writers, and I reply that the most important responsibility I believe a writer has is to his or her personal truth. Don’t be misled by the bestseller lists. Just do what feels true to you. Speak your heart, however strange or revelatory it is. Don’t be ashamed of how your imagination works. What a reader wants to discover in a book is what you hold uniquely in your head.
I keep a dream journal, which is a repository of images and ideas that spring to mind in sleep. I jot down any and every stray notion that pops into my head during the working day, however irrelevant they may seem. I am always waiting for the connections to occur to me. The threads of narrative which tie these disparate and unconnected notions and images together.”
“I think making stories which touch people deeply is always hard. I’ve been writing plays and books for 20 years and I still go to my desk every morning with a mixture of excitement and dread.”