Breaking into Writing.
How to and why breaking into writing spaces is so difficult.
Written By: Sierra Cassity
So you've written a book or two, some articles, blogs and any number of other publications. But you haven't been able to gain an audience, or find an agent interested in your work. Is it worth it? Should you pack away your manuscripts to become some lost artifacts in the attic to remember you by later? There's a lot of reasons why you might not have found your fame in the writing industry and we will dive into it together.
Picture it, your'e hurled over your writing desk worlds away from society, lost in your own mind as you make up your next masterpiece.
"This is the one." You think to yourself as the last period is placed.
Congratulations you've written your first book! Now what? You head off to the World Wide Web to figure out your next move. You scroll through some different how to websites and scams. But you really aren't sure what to do so you close your browser and start working on your newest idea.
The truth of the matter is until you dive into the publishing industry -and for quite a while after- you won't really have any idea what to do. Floating in the unknown you wait for someone to come along and notice you. But that's not generally how the publishing industry works.
Hustle Culture
These days the word hustle is thrown around all of the time but what does it really mean? Dictionary.com defines hustle as someone moving fast or in a hurry. But when we are talking about the hustling culture in our modern society it is the lack of non-movement. Side gigs, working multiple jobs, you're hustling to get by or save up for something.
I like to think of it as continuous marketing to bring a better future to yourself. So what do you do to get that recognition in the publishing industry?
You clear out a drawer in your desk, a good sized one, and begin to query. The drawer is for the rejection letters because you will get them. I have acquired quite a few myself. Whether you are sending your manuscript to magazines or a query to an agent, a universal fact is you will get rejection letters. At least one.
I’m no expert, though if I’m being honest, I’m not sure anyone can be in this. But when we subscribe to hustle culture we are on the fast track to burnout. Writers have amazing abilities to create other worlds and scenarios for our characters and when they get tired we can write in a time skip. In the real world, we have to take breaks. Without breaks there is no way of powering through the tired and writers block that accompanies it. Look at it like a job, take an hour or two every day to dedicate to marketing yourself. This is one job you might not want to get overtime on, since there’s no payout until you start selling consistently.
If you are going the traditional route, you will want to get your querying perfected and your elevator should be recited like it’s an art form you’ve perfected. Plan to go to local events and maybe if you can afford it one or two larger scale events a year.
Tradition vs Self vs Hybrid.
What is the difference between being traditionally published, self published, and hybrid publishing? When thinking of traditionally published books I think of large publishing houses with different branches, thousands of workers, and millions of books they’ve gotten on shelves. But how does it work? Through agents.
For a lot of places you just query through an agent. Without one, you won’t get past the front doors so to say. Then comes the book deal. This is usually the bit where you get paid and the small details are drudged through. Then the book is out of your hands and into the company’s, soon to be shipped out to stores and online websites everywhere. Then your agent begins to ask when the next book is coming.
Self-publishing is just you. And anyone that you hire along the way. Here it is completely dependent on you to make or break your book sales. You buy your ISBN, and deal with printing and shipping. You do the cover design, and editing-unless you hire someone else to do so. You are also in control of the marketing. Your book could sit there, gaining cobwebs for the rest of eternity unless you market yourself and your writing. Taking out ads and going to events. A newsie on the corner if you will.
Hybrid publishing-the interesting in between. Also going by independent publishers or ‘indie’. This idea, is taking a small publishing company, aka someone else that has usually self-published their book and entrusting them to publish your book. This has become a really common way to become a published author. Taking out the tedious need to order wholesale and keep track of sales etc.
So What Do You Do?
Realistically, the journey is yours to take and no matter what I write here it’s all up to you. I prefer to self-publish, maybe I’m a bit of a control freak and like knowing all of the little details while having complete control. It would be a dream to be traditionally published, has been since I was a teenager.
The truth of it is this- there are millions of writers all over the world and a lot of oversatuation in the market. The tropes are all the same but we all tweak them a bit differently. I remember two things my professors told me. One told me that writers don’t write for the love of it, there is a deep seated need to get your story out, and that’s what makes writers. The other told us that the rough truth of the matter is that most writers won’t be able to write full-time. We are ordinary people that create the extraordinary in our spare time between work and life.
