Came across this as I was reading through my news this morning; thought you might get a kick out of this video. Something to think about if you’re pitching to an agent!
Be sure to visit Christie and Faye online through www.WriteWithUs.net.
Tips on How to Be a Professional | Part One of Three
Did you know that your chances of getting published increase the more professional you act? In this series of posts, I’d like to share with you some tips from other professionals working as freelancers, writers, publishers and editors. I’d also like to cover some tips that you might find interesting to think about as you navigate along your own path.
To start, I’d like to share with you an editor’s perspective. Besides her many other talents, Jennifer Brozek is an editor for Apex Book Company. She writes:
In the writing industry, it is always easier to work with a professional author than a non-professional one. I’m not talking just “published” authors. I’m talking about those authors (published or not) who have their acts together. They present themselves well in face-to-face meetings, have appropriate business cards and know when it is time to leave the editor to other business. They communicated well in an online forum, meet the specifications of the contract—on time every time—and they don’t tell tales out of school.—- Jennifer Brozek, submission editor for the Apex Book Company and author of In a Gilded Light
To start off the series, here are ten tips on how to be a professional that I’d like to share with you. These tips are related to acting like a professional writer, but some of them also echo with other creative fields like art and illustration or other freelancing roles as well.
- 1. Try Not To Act Desperate. Have you submitted a short story or a query for a non-fiction article? Can’t wait to hear back from an agent? Great! Guess what? You are not the only writer that has submitted something. Editors, agents, publishers wade through hundreds of submissions and often have other responsibilities besides addressing your work. Depending upon their workload (and whether or not they’ve worked with you before) it could take weeks, maybe even months, before they get back to you. Incessantly badgering people to read your submission will not make the process go any faster and it can actually hurt your chances of getting published.
So what is a good guideline for communication? Use your best judgment; some submission guidelines will cover what you should expect and some don’t. Also, I have seen some agents communicate generalities through social media, like Twitter. For queries, I like to follow-up within a week to confirm receipt, and say that I’ll follow-up again in a month if I haven’t heard anything. I’m usually more vigilant about other forms of communication, because a quick turn-around time can make (or break) a contract.
2. Read and Follow the Submission Guidelines – I’m not sure how much clearer I can be than that. Funny thing is, one of the most common reasons why people get rejected is because they don’t read or follow the guidelines. Did you know that they’re often there to see if a writer will follow directions? Don’t waste an editor’s time by avoiding pre-established rules. Seriously.
3. Write What You Want to Write – Do you like writing about flower pots? Then read similar articles on flower pots, research gardening magazines and write about flower pots. Do you hate writing about vampires? Then don’t write about them! It is easier to find work and establish your reputation as a writer if you enjoy what you’re writing. If your assignments turn into a chore, not only do you run the risk of approaching burn-out faster, but your quality might suffer, too.
4. Write Professional Correspondence – I talked a little bit about this previously when I said, “Please Write Out Your Emails.” I cannot stress enough the importance of writing a good query letter, email, cover letter, etc. If you don’t know how to do it, there are several books and blogs on the subject.
5. Do Not Publicly Bitch About Your Bad Experiences – While it is important to be yourself, in today’s environment anything you say can and will be overhead by someone you don’t know. I wrote a very tongue-in-cheek post about How To Ruin Your Online Reputation In 10 Easy Steps a while ago. Many of those comments apply to being a professional writer as well. Publicly bitching about your experiences in a way that reflects poorly on the publication (or agent) you’ve submitted to, an editor, etc. is a BIG no-no. Think about it this way: Would you want to hire an employee who’s complaining that they can’t get published? Or that an editor gave them a crappy review?
6. Don’t Overstate Your Abilities (Or Your Credits) – Take a good, long look at your list of publications. Is it accurate? Or did you fluff your credits with things you didn’t actually contribute to? While Credit is the Greatest (and Cheapest) Gift You Can Give, be conscientious of giving yourself too much credit. The publishing industry is not as big as you might think; people know other people in this business and they are not afraid to ask questions about you.
7. Don’t Talk About Your Personal Finances – Would you go to a job interview and say, “I really need this job because I’m broke and my cat just died?” Do. Not. Talk. About. Your. Money. Why? First of all, when you say that you are a) a writer and b) you’re broke, you are leaving an impression in someone’s mind that you are a shitty writer who can’t get published or make enough money to keep writing. Even if that isn’t true, no one wants to hire someone out of pity. Seriously. When my cat had emergency treatment, my SO and I talked about setting up a fundable page, partly because people asked how they could help. We did end up setting one up, but I didn’t post about it extensively, nor did I post about it on this site. Yes, emergencies do happen but the professional will always reign supreme. Unfortunately, it is very hard to keep the lines of “personal” versus “professional” separate online. Regardless of what you choose to reveal about your personal life, it is very bad form to beg.
8. Don’t Take Bad News Personally – Bad reviews, rejection letters, harsh critics…they’re all part and parcel to being anyone who produces creative works for a living. It sucks, it does…but it’s part of the job. When you get bad news, usually there’s a good reason for it. Maybe your story didn’t fit a magazine. Maybe your book didn’t hit the market at the right time. Maybe you’re query letter was terrible. Or maybe, just maybe, your story wasn’t good enough to get published. Whatever reason lurks behind getting bad news, that news has to do with what you wrote. It is not a personal attack on you. Keep that in mind as you navigate through your career. Yes, you have every right to feel and react to those emotions when you do get the bad news, but try not to go off the deep end.
9. Don’t Expect Other Authors To Do You Any Favors – As I was working on this post, John Scalzi wrote, “On the asking of favors from established writers.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
10. Be Strategic About What You Give Away For Free – Earlier, I wrote about My Stance On Writing For Free where I talked about how writing for free works if it is part of your business model. Throwing up stories and other content haphazardly is “not” a good way to get writing credits. Seriously. Some free sites have excellent reputations, and some do not. Check out a website thoroughly to see whether or not you want to be associated with it. (Please note that “fan fiction” is not a professional writing credit in most circumstances. For more information, read my explanation about What Is Shared World, Tie-In and Fan Fiction?)
The other reason why you want to be careful about writing for free, is that it is counter intuitive to your goal for becoming a professional author. In most cases, pros get paid. Saying that you’ll work for free just to get in on a sweet project is akin to saying that you don’t think your work is worth money. Keep in mind that I determine what I’ll write for free based on “what” it is, too. For example, I’ll occasionally write non-fiction for a little self-promotion, which I’ll cover in a later point.
In my next installment, I’ll cover more examples of being a professional and some other tips that you might want to consider. Are you a true professional that would like to chime in? Feel free to offer your tips for others in the comments below.
Creating an Offline Writer’s Group is Harder than it Looks
As many of you know, supporting my fellow writers and editors is very important to me provided my schedule allows for it. Whether someone is new to the craft or not, I can relate to the challenges of networking. When I started forming a writer’s group a few months ago, I really had no idea what to expect. I wasn’t sure if there would be a large interest or a small one, or if we’d have a more professional take on it rather than something casual.
What I’ve learned is that forming an offline writer’s group is a lot harder than it looks. I’d like to share some of the things I’ve internalized over the past, few months with you.
1. Writing Groups Seem to Work Better when There’s a Tight Focus – Because the physical act of writing is often extremely solitary, I didn’t want to create an exclusive “fiction” or “non-fiction” group. Initially, I thought that because there’s often writers (like myself) that do both non-fiction and fiction, a generic group might allow people to network and grow in the areas that they wanted to write in. What I found was that the group needed a tighter focus. We’ve had many different people come to the different writer’s groups; but everyone seemed to be interested in something that I wasn’t prepared to provide. Some wanted a workshop sort of a scenario, with a more professional (e.g. paying dues) structure that offered support for professional (e.g. established) writers. Others wanted a casual environment where leads and other opportunities happened organically, with less of a structure. This experience taught me that even though I had the best of intentions for creating a more generic, more people-oriented structure, it would have been more successful if there was an outline and an agenda that I could offer people up front. This also brings me to my next point…
2. You Can’t Please Everyone – I’ve learned that no matter how much I want to try to offer a group where there’s a little something for everyone, in reality that’s pretty darn close to impossible. Writing as a career is so broad (almost too broad) that it’s perfectly normal to have two, very successful writers who have experiences that have nothing to do with one another. A romance novelist, for example, may have something in common with another novelist, but not with an editor for a business journal. Query letters might be necessary for fiction and non-fiction, but they aren’t for people who are employed full-time in a company. Throw in writers who have never published an article or a short story, and it’s possible the group ends up not finding anything to talk about without prompting.
Realizing that I couldn’t offer a group that would mean something to everyone was a very, difficult lesson for me to learn. Add my own “wants” and “needs” on top of that lesson, and I found myself facing one, inevitable truth…
3. There’s Only So Much of “Me” to Go Around – It is no secret that I’ve been restructuring my long-term writing goals. I have a limited amount of time to work with, because I have a “day job” that I am committed to, which means that I need to be extraordinarily disciplined and aware of my time away from work in order to remain professional and achieve my goals. I would like to point out that I am exceptionally fortunate that my team supports my fiction-and-game writing efforts outside of work; many of my fellow team members are writers or have other creative endeavors as well, too.
I had initially envisioned the writer’s group to be something that just took off on its own, so that I could fit in into my schedule without creating a lot of prep time or additional time sinks. What I found was that because the organic nature of the group didn’t happen as well as I had hoped, I realized that I needed to dump more time into the group to nurture it along. Unfortunately, I had a situation where I was prepping for other conferences and I couldn’t devote time into it. Because of that, the group is a lot smaller than I had expected. Sure, if I had put more time and effort into it I’m confident that I would have been able to help it get off the ground, but that’s time I didn’t (and still don’t) have. Part of it, too, is that LinkedIn (which is where I first started this group) didn’t meet all of our needs, either. That thought segues into my next point…
4. Functionality Online is Key to Offline Organization – Facebook has “events” that allow you to see whether or not people are attending. Those invites are great for booking invitations. LinkedIn also has “events,” but they’re not part of a group’s functionality, so you have to send people to a separate location to sign up for the event. Group emails (like Google or Yahoo! groups) can work, but since they’re separate from where the group’s info might be located, they can be limiting and they also need to be monitored.
Regardless of the tools I’d need to facilitate group communication, I’ve also realized that because not everyone spends the same amount of time that I do online, they might not “see” something I post for a few days, maybe even a week. I feel that I should have figured out what tools I needed to use before I started up the group; and I should have established some sort of communication structure beforehand. So what’s the lesson here?
5. It’s Best to Plan Before You Form a Writer’s Group – From researching established writer’s groups to figuring out how the group will function in the long-term, I’ve learned that starting a writer’s group does require time and special loving care. In my opinion, the tools that you need to create a writer’s group are:
Going forward, I’m still going to offer something for the existing group and see where it goes. It’ll be structured around a more “social” idea, though. Once a month I’m going to offer a chance for people to network, either through dinner or a cocktail hour. Then, on a quarterly basis, I’ll have a workshop or learning experience of some kind. For fall, I’m going to toss out the idea of attending a lecture that might be invaluable for people who want to learn how to get published in fiction.
Even though I’m not sure how things will progress for the group, I’m learning to move forward in a new and positive direction.
Planners and Routines
Do you write more in the fall and winter than in the warmer months? I certainly do, which is part of the reason why this is such an important time for me. Self-discipline is definitely a requirement if you’re a writer, and that can be hard to manage. During the summer, we’re exceptionally busy with conventions and social events, and I find that it takes me about a week to get back into a routine if my schedule is disrupted because I’ve been going for a few days.
These next few months are pretty important for me, because this is also the time when I reassess my goals for the year. As you know I’m finishing the revisions for a novel, but I’ve also got a few other things in the works and I’ve been building my local offline connections, too. Getting into a routine not only helps me manage my time, it also helps me be more productive (and less distracted) too.
This is part of the reason why I’m so picky about the planners I choose. A planner has to have room to write and I need to be able to “see” my day. As someone who makes every attempt to be eco-conscious, recycled paper is also important to me, too. I picked up a Quo Vadis Planner a few weeks back and I couldn’t be happier. The weekly planner fits my writing schedule and it’s also good for the environment. It came with recycled paper and allows me to simply buy refills, so I don’t have to worry about finding a new planner that works when this one is used up.
Juggling work with writing is definitely doable for me, but it does take planning and a certain amount of crystal-ball gazing to do it. I have to admit I’m looking forward to the colder months, because I can’t wait to kick up the word count (both personal and work-related) for an exciting fall/winter season.
Bridging the Online to Offline Connection
Twitter. Facebook. LiveJournal. FriendFeed. Chat rooms and forums. The list of places where you can go to interact with someone online goes on and on and on. Eventually, you get to know personalities on these different platforms and (in some cases) can meet up with people offline. The experience of meeting someone offline can be either daunting or disappointing, but almost always it is “different” than interacting with someone online.
When you’re chatting with someone online, you are “just” relying on words and rapid responses to develop a connection which (more often than not) is hidden behind an avatar or truncated persona. When you meet someone offline, you make conscious and unconscious judgments based on body language and other social/professional cues. Unfortunately, because people are more accessible online than they are offline, we all know that the internet can foster an illusion of popularity or self-importance. Being chatty with someone online usually means precisely that. It doesn’t mean that people will necessarily remember who you are or expect that you’re their “best friend forever,” but those expectations do exist.
Over the past year I’ve been to several conventions, and at almost every, single one there is a story about how an author or an agent felt threatened by one of their online fans. Fans, readers and aspiring authors who have never met these people expected — nay, demanded — personal time with them because of a relationship they believed existed that wasn’t there in the first place. Even if the invitation was innocuous, it leaves a bad impression that can hurt an aspiring author’s (or fan’s) chances of continuing any communication. To put it into perspective: Imagine you were attending your company’s trade show. Say someone walks up to you that you don’t recognize. They introduce themselves as someone you’ve had an exchange with maybe once or twice. You don’t remember them, but you’re trying to be polite. Professionalism is important to you because you’re representing your company. Now they ask you out for an evening’s worth of entertainment. Would you say ‘Yes’?
Even if your intentions for an invite are honorable, I would recommend against having any expectations unless you set something up beforehand for professional reasons. Keep in mind that it’s becoming harder and harder to bridge that online-to-offline connection because of the bad experiences people have had and, subsequently, share with one another.
Most authors/agents/celebrities/etc. are online because it is part of their job to foster an internet presence and provide a glimpse into their life “behind-the-curtain.” Many of these people have hundreds, if not thousands, of readers who demand their time: they have to leverage that offline with writing, working their day job, maintaining a family and their own social life, etc.
As writers, it is exceptionally easy to lose social skills because of the nature of writing. When you’re writing, you aren’t talking “to” anyone and you’re typically engaging with an inanimate object. Writing can be a very lonely and solitary activity, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings or challenges if you haven’t been social for a while. This is why I cannot stress enough the importance of getting out there and finding ways to “be social” with other people. In my experiences, when you have a strong foundation of social skills offline, you will find that it’s easier to bridge that online-to-offline connection and remain professional when you do meet new people.
Here are ten, low-cost ways you can be social in your own community:
- 1. Start (or Join) a Book Club
2. Get a Part-Time Holiday Job
3. Volunteer (e.g. Shelters, Humane Society, etc.)
4. Join a Non-Profit Group (e.g. Church, Politics, etc.)
5. Be Part of a Community Theatre/Choir
6. Start (or Join) a Writer’s Group
7. Take a Class
8. Sign Up for Co-Ed Sports
9. Attend (or Organize) a Social Media Meet-Up
10. Visit your Library, Game or Book Store for Local Events