Becoming a Successful Author: The
Price!
BY KEVIN HART
So you want to be a successful
author? You want to be up there with Brown, Archer, King, but
what price are you prepared to pay? You might be lucky and
your first book could be an overnight success but the chances
are you’ll be hacking it for years before success knocks.
If you decided to become a
lawyer, an accountant, a bricklayer, or even to start an
‘ordinary’ business then you would be prepared to make
sacrifices, to invest in the future. Why expect it to be
different?
The amount of effort you put
into your apprenticeship will dictate how successful you will
be as a full fledged tradesman, a successful author!
Are you prepared to spend a
year putting a novel together to have it rejected by not one,
not two, not three but four publishers? Are you prepared to
take the novel, sit down and do a major rewrite? If you are
then you might, just might, be more successful the second time
around.
Harder still, are you prepared
to accept that the book just doesn’t hack it and bin it?
There are very few real
overnight successes. Roll up your sleeves and do some hard
graft, learn the trade. Then you'll succeed.
Competitions are a good
starting point. You are continuously challenged to meet
deadlines. You should aim to enter at least one competition a
month and you should aim to enter all the major competitions
for new writers. For details on current competitions see
my website. Remember that as far as major competitions are
concerned you can ‘win’ without collecting the first prize,
though that would be nice! Get a good mention and it will do
your career the world of good. Publishers are often asked to
judge competitions; think name recognition.
Competitions also help you
understand what it is you are doing wrong, and what it is you
are doing right. Contact the winner, congratulate them on
their success, ask them for a copy of the winning entry and
see how it differed from yours.
When entering a competition
you are effectively asking someone’s advice; you are asking
them is my entry the best in the bunch. And they will say
either yes or no! The price here is rejection.
If possible get your own
personal critic. Your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend,
sibling. Anyone as long as they are prepared to give you a
good, fair, honest opinion and not just say for an easy life,
‘that’s a fantastic story.’ If they’re not prepared to give it
to you, warts and all, then let them wait until they
eventually see your name in print.
A good place to find honest
critics is at your local writing group. Join one, join two -
but join! Some people underestimate these groups; think that
they are just a bundle of middle age women playing at writing.
In many cases that is correct but there is always one or two
serious authors there and it is those you want to meet.
Together you can knock ideas off one another. Believe me you
will learn and grow.
You wouldn’t dream of becoming
a lawyer or a doctor without buying the books necessary to
study. Granted you’ll not buy them all, you’ll borrow some,
perhaps most, from the university library but there are key
books you’ll need throughout your career and these you will
buy and use again and again.
Why on earth are you not
prepared to invest in your chosen career by buying your own
trade books? I’ve given a list of the most popular ones over
on my website. They’re not all essential, like all reference
books there is some cross over. But please: beg, borrow or
steal (no skip that last one!) at least three of them. I’ve
suggested the main ones. It’s all part of the price.
You’ve decided on the genre
you’re going to specialize in. You have, haven’t you? Well
then make it a point to read at least one, if not two, books
in that genre each week.
We all like to go to our local
library and borrow books, and I'm all for supporting my local
library. Be honest though, they are totally under-funded and
while my librarians are wonderful they can't come up with the
goods.
I'm not suggesting buying a
new book every week but I do suggest buying one every four to
six weeks. You must keep up with what the market is producing.
My site carries information on what is current.
For those of us who are forty
plus tax there is the added danger of reading what we like: be
careful, ask yourself the question would your favorite author
hack it today?
Consider collecting the works
of a particular (modern) author who you appreciate and admire
and don’t be afraid to use the yellow marker, after all they
are text books, not collector’s items.
What ever you do, don't try to
be the same. Why be a second rate Stephen King, or Jeffery
Archer when you can be an original!
Copyright © 2005 Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart is a published
author and chair of Armagh Creative Writers. He created and
maintains the
ABC Writers Network
website, offering creative writing information and a large
database of creative writing contests and competitions.
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