Tip of the Day: This is our 1000th post!! Wow! I feel like we should give away a car or something. But that's not happening. :-)
In preparation for the release of Just Your Average Princess, I'm going to be giving away some books on Goodreads. Click here to enter to win The Espressologist. An advanced copy of Just Your Average Princess will be available on Goodreads in a day or two. Check my blog then for details.
Have a good weekend!
About a month ago, I faced the fact that my TBR (to-be-read) book pile, if unchecked, stood a good chance of taking over the house. (I assume the only reason it hasn’t already is that the prospect of ruling two middle-class adults and one self-important cat isn’t particularly compelling, as coups and takeovers go.) I couldn’t shake the thought that there’s a certain silliness to buying more books when I have dozens of perfectly good unread books at home. (Readers everywhere will understand, though, that you have to be in the right mood to read a book, and sometimes that means putting off the TBR pile another day.) Also, I like to subscribe to literary magazines, but ever since I sold my first book, issues of these journals have been piling up unread.
As an inveterate list-maker, I decided that making a list would help me put a dent in the TBR pile. Nothing thrills a compulsive list-maker like crossing off items on a list, or getting to add to a list of accomplishments! I decided to do both: to make a list of all newly-read books and magazines that were already in the house as of April 17, 2011; and to list all books purchased since then, and record whether I’ve read them or not.
I know you are all waiting breathlessly for my stats, so here they are for the first month: Since starting this project, I’ve read three novels that I already owned; seven issues of the literary journal OneStory; and one issue of the literary magazine Tin House (likewise). I have also purchased ten new books, of which I’ve read six. That’s a net decrease in the amount of unread material in the house! I’ve also reread some books, as I always do, but they don’t count toward this list.
I’m not sure how I’ll handle library books—I don’t have any checked out at the moment. *ponders* The nice thing is that, read or unread, library books don’t hang around the house for long, joining the TBR pile in whatever act of rebellion it’s plotting.
How do you manage your TBR pile—or do you manage it?
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Jennifer R. Hubbard writes contemporary YA stories, including The Secret Year (Viking, 2010), “Confessions and Chocolate Brains” (a short story in the 2011 anthology Truth & Dare), and the upcoming Try Not to Breathe (Viking, 2012). She blogs at http://JenniferRHubbard.blogspot.com
In Defense of Keeping the Day Job
Every writer knows the old adage, keep your day job. It’s spoken to aspiring writers as a soft warning with the requisite slight grimace and empathetic head tilt. It’s meant to relay a thousand cautionary tales: less than twenty percent of debut authors will ever see a royalty check; bookstores are crumbling and publishers are investing less money in new authors; with the uprising of e-books, authors are making less money. Keep your day job. But it’s every writer’s dream to one day turn in their two weeks notice, right? Or is it? Well, I’m here to tell you that keeping your day job is not always a bad thing.
Now, I’ll fess up: I only work part time and I’m one of those rarities who loves their day job. I’m an optometrist and it’s a great field. But believe me, there are days when after prying scraps of metal from the ultimate eye squeezer that I’m contemplating full time writing. So why don’t I?
For me, it’s all about balance. Writing is the ultimate roller coaster. It’s an emotional ride. Because writing is so subjective, it can bring crippling insecurity. I’ve seen major NYT bestselling authors blog honestly how they still fear their new books will not be well received. It’s a financial ride – a nice advance check followed by months of no income at all. Writing, I’ve also found, is a roller coaster ride of time management as well. There will be weeks of intense deadlines that require a monopoly of time followed by a span of weeks where you sit twiddling your thumbs waiting to hear back from your editor.
This constant undulating of emotions and paychecks and time requirements can elicit extreme joy: I just got the most amazing fan letter! I just got an awesome advance check! I just met my deadline! Or it can throw you into a fit of lows: I just got a two star review on Amazon! Will I ever earn out my advance? What am I supposed to do while I wait to hear back about my submission? For me, I like to complement this roller coaster ride of highs and lows with the steady reassurances of my day job. I don’t have daily emotional doubts about my ability in my day job, there’s a guaranteed paycheck and a nine to five schedule.
Then, there’s the physical nature of writing. There’s all that sitting and staring at the computer screen. All that quiet. I love the balance of having days where I’m bouncing around from room to room, seeing new faces and talking with new people. Which brings me to the solitary nature of writing. Sure, there’s social networking available to the lonely writer. True. And there’s value in it, absolutely. But, for me, the computer will never replace true connections with other people. I’m still a firm believer that much of actual communication in a relationship is relayed through tone of voice, body language and the ebb and flow of an actual verbal conversation. All these things are lost with just typed words. I love that my quiet, creative writing time is balanced with a day job that puts me in constant connection with different people. Not only does it fill a social need, but it serves as a schoolroom to witness actual people and their quirks and mannerisms – all things that eventually help shape my character development and dialogue. In fact, it was a little over a year ago when I walked into the exam room to hear two teenagers in the midst of a very animated discussion on how they should make a voodoo doll of an ex-boyfriend. I quickly scribbled a note and the next day, in my writing time, I crafted an entire voodoo scene that wound up in my new YA novel.
For me, weaving together the stability of a day job with the creativity of writing has helped me achieve a blended balance that keeps me sane. So the next time someone tells you, don’t quit your day job, don’t necessarily think of it as a bad thing. Think of it as an avenue to balance the undulating emotions, keep a healthy bank account, throw some diversity into daily activities and an opportunity to study people for inspiration.
Blazing An Indie Trail
I’d like to give a big thanks to Kristina Springer for asking me to come here and discuss the options available to authors in 2011.
My path started much as many authors have. I finished my first book, Into the Shadows, in the summer of 2008. I spent the rest of 2008 and most of 2009 querying that same book around to agents and editors. I joined SCBWI (Society of Childrens’ Writers and Illustrators), and joined three critique groups. I continued to write while I waited, sometimes minutes, sometimes months, for responses on my queries.
I had some very positive responses, requests for partial and full manuscripts (which my SCBWI friends were very impressed with) but ultimately I got a NO. 100 times. I even had some nice rejections…agents who liked the writing, or liked the story, but due to the economy were unable to take on new authors.
Oh well. On to the next. The book was thrown on the shelf to collect dust. I wrote another book and started working on shopping that around, even getting a full request from an agent that had requested a partial on my first book. Things looked positive, but ultimately she rejected it as well. I was in the process of researching and writing my third book (now fourth or maybe fifth book as it’s still a work-in-progress) when I came across a blog in the summer of 2010. I honestly don’t remember how I found it, but there I was at J.A. Konrath’sblog (http://jakonrath.blogspot.com), reading all about his ebook adventures.
I was shocked. I’d always thought self-publishing was for losers who couldn’t get a ‘real’ publishing deal. But here was a published author skipping his publisher and going straight to ebooks. And he was making a lot of money. A LOT of money. Now, I am, of course, a realist and thought, well, he’s been published before, he has a following, but because the money he was making would allow me to write full time, I certainly kept paying attention and following along. I read about every epubbed author I could, how they did it, what they were writing, using social media to talk to these people and just gathering all the information I could.
And after a lot of thought and consideration, I decided that I would try out this epublishing and see what the big deal was about. I figured—what did I have to lose?
I had a book collecting dust on the shelf and I figured if anything, I’d get some readers, get some experience, and maybe make a little money as well. I planned to still submit my second novel to agents, hoping it wouldn’t be a black spot on my name that I had *gasp*—self-published. I followed Konrath, using the same cover artist and formatter. I figure it’s best to copy the successful folks.
But something happened. The further I got into epublishing, the more I realized I loved it. And that maybe I didn’t want to query anymore.
And I’m not knocking people who are traditionally published, being published is fantastic, no matter how you do it, but I’m also happy there are more options now than there were when I first started querying. You can chose your own path, which is great. Some authors are even doing a combination of traditional and self-publishing, which is a great idea.
As for me, since November 1st,2010, I’ve sold over 400 copies of Into the Shadows, and sales have really increased, I’m now selling 100 or more copies a month. I expect them to continue to grow as word gets around and with the release of my second book, Bloody Little Secrets, later this spring. I’ve earned back the money I spent on the cover and the formatting and am now making profit. If I can sell at least 100 of each of my upcoming books (I hope to have a total of 4 titles of my own by the end of 2011), I will be making $800 a month off of ebooks, or $9600 a year. And that’s assuming I don’t write any more books, which I of course will! This is also assuming sales stay the same, however I believe they will continue to increase, so these numbers are modest.
In the meantime, I decided to band together with other like-minded authors, and with Megg Jensen (www.meggjensen.com) and G.P. Ching (http://genevieveching.blogspot.com) to create DarkSide Publishing (www.darksidepublishing.com). DarkSide is a publishing label, where indie authors work together to produce great ebooks. By April 4th, DarkSide will have 4 titles available, and by the summer of 2011, we should have 7-8 titles available.
Megg Jensen has also seen great results, just in the first month, turning a profit and cracking the top 100 in Teen Fiction Ebooks on Barnesandnoble.com. G.P. Ching hit bestseller category lists on Amazon within the first two days of her release. We have high hopes for new author Angela Carlie’s upcoming release. (http://angelacarlie.blogspot.com)
All in all, I think self-publishing has emerged as a viable option for authors looking to get their work in front of readers. Some epubbed authors have received book deals here in America and abroad, movie deals, gotten agents, and have really made a career for themselves.
I’m so happy with the decision I made and so excited for the future and I wish you the best of luck with your reading and writing endeavors. Be sure to try out an indie book the next time you have a chance!
Karly Kirkpatrick is the co-owner of DarkSide Publishing (www.darksidepublishing.com), an indieepublishing label and author of Into the Shadows, available now, and Bloody Little Secrets, coming soon. She writes about her Adventures in Epublishing on her blog, www.karlykirkpatrick.com. In addition to being a grad student in the Writing and Publishing program at DePaul University, Chicago, Karly is also a member of SCBWI, a high school German teacher, and mother of an almost-four-year old.
