Notes from the Boston Writing Workshop!
Last weekend I attended my first writing workshop, The Boston Writing Workshop. This was a fantastic experience for a few reasons:
I learned a lot of tips and tricks not only about writing but about publishing as well.
I was able to pitch directly to an agent for 10 minutes. This is invaluable as you try to get off the slush pile.
I was surrounded by other writers all whom were at different stages of their book writing / publishing, but all whom were excited and enthusiastic about it! Sometimes you need to get out and see other people doing what you’re doing to feel not so alone.
As a first time writer, it can be daunting to try and write, edit, and publish your book. As a multiple time author it can still be those things as well. Having a chance to learn more, even the most basic of tips, was super helpful.
The technical sessions on writing (for non-genre and genre specific) were fantastic. The standard publishing route sessions were also wonderful. The only thing really lacking were sessions that really delved deep into self-publishing. In fact, none of the sessions I went to were hosted by a self-publisher, including the session titled “Everything you need to know before you self-publish”. The conference was highly skewed towards traditional publishing routes, and for good reason.
Self-publishing is a wild west of information and how-to’s. And self-published authors aren’t the traditional bread and butter of events like these. These events drive authors with an eye towards agents and traditional publishing houses. Because that’s what’s always worked in the past and that’s what still works today.
But self-publishing is becoming a more widely used tool and less stigmatized. There were many sessions where people had questions about self-publishing, and the hosts just couldn’t quite answer them, because honestly they had never self-published and didn’t know.
Regardless, it was an amazing event, and I would definitely recommend attending one for the myriad of tips, tricks, ideas, and networking you can get. Also, it’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday!
I took a whole bunch of notes, mostly in the form of 280 character tweets. You can see them all threaded on my twitter @StayAtHomeSean and I’ve also collected them all as best I could below.
A Birds Eye View of Publishing & Books in the year 2018
My first session consisted of “A birds eye view publishing & books in the year 2018”. It was helpful to get a large overview of just how to get your book published. It was hosted by a published author @BrianKlems, who wrote and published the book, “Oh boy, you’re having a girl”. It was quite lacking in the self-publishing areas, but all in all it was a super helpful session, and a great one for first time authors like myself. Here are the notes for that session:
In traditional publishing, you need to get an agent, who then sells to a publisher. Most big publishers (Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Shuster) won’t accept a non-agent query. They use the agents as a sort of pre-selection process, to help curate the hundreds and thousands of book queries they could get. Literary agents work as the first of many “gatekeepers” in the traditional publishing world. So if you want your book traditionally published, you will first need a Literary Agent.
*Some smaller boutique publishers won’t require an agent first and will accept direct queries. These tend to be smaller or regional presses*
So why would you want to go through the process of finding a literary agent, who will then sell your book to a publisher? Because these publishers have the DISTRIBUTION. Your goal as an author is to sell as many books as possible. Amazon and other online retailers have made this simpler, but in doing so have also saturated the market. Where can you go to find a book that’s been, in essence, curated for its quality and potential sellability? A bookstore (yes those still exist). Barne’s and Noble, Books-A-Million and others still have physical stores with real shelves where they stock books to sell. Smaller, independent bookstores also exist with shelves as well. So how do you get on a shelf? Or the coveted front table at a book store? Or have your book on a bookend face out for all the world to see? You need to have those stores place them there, and often they will only work with the larger publishers to do so, because these larger publishers have assured them of a standard of quality and in essence given your book a stamp of approval.
So what’s the cost of this traditional publishing route? It breaks down as so:
Publishers will look at your book and say, “We think we can sell X amount of books at X price” This price is determined by the publisher, not you. They are essentially banking on the idea that you can hit this minimum threshold.
Based on that threshold, they will offer you an “advance against royalty” – meaning they will “pre-pay” you for the amount of books they think you can sell, based off of your royalty.
A royalty is the amount of money you get per book you sell. This royalty can be negotiated (sometimes at the expense of a smaller advance), and typically falls within the 6%-10% range.
What does this mean for the publisher? It means they are banking on the idea that you will sell at least up to your advance, and anything after that you split the profits.
6-10% per book? You mean I put my blood, sweat, tears and reputation on the line for a measly 6-10%? Yes, yes you did. Why? Because the publisher will use the remaining 90-94% for all the things you never thought of: the actual book itself (paper cost money), editors, cover art, marketing, promotions, and their own bottom line.
How does the math work out? See the table below:
In the table above, you won’t start making money until you’ve sold 10,000 books to cover your advance. After that, you will start making $1 per book sold!
Now, remember when I said you needed an agent to get a big time publisher to publish your book? They make money off contingency, meaning they only make money when your book sells, and not before. This is important to stress – THEY WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR MONEY UPFRONT. If they do, they are a scam.
How much does an agent get? The standard is 15% FROM YOUR CUT. Meaning, if you make $1.00 from every book you sell, the agent will get $0.15 from it. So in theory, you actually only make $0.85 per book in our scenario.
That’s not a lot, which is why you want to sell a ton of books! That’s the goal, lots of quantity, because the margins are so small. But publishing a book requires a lot, and I mean A LOT of work, and skills that often times an author doesn’t have, or have time for. Marketing, printing, editing, artwork – all these things take upfront costs, and these costs are covered by the publisher. Thus, their very high percentage of the profits.
But traditional publishing has it’s cons. First, as I’ve mentioned a bunch, you need an agent, and that in and of itself can be a huge hurdle to get over. Agents get queries every day, and most of these queries get rejected. The percentage of queries that make it through is so small, that it’s not uncommon to get dozens of rejections by literary agents. It’s their job to not only pick books that fit their skills, but also ones they think they can sell to potential publishers. Every agent is different, and I’m not just saying that. EVERY AGENT IS DIFFERENT. I sat through a panel of 15 different agents who all read first pages of different books. All fifteen agents had different reactions, some ranging from “I hate this” to literally the person next to them saying “I actually loved this”. It goes to show, this process is a numbers game.
Another con is the lack of control. Once you’ve signed on with a publisher, you lose a bit of control over your work (during the editing, pricing, artwork, marketing). Publishers have been around the block a few times, and just because it’s your baby, doesn’t mean you always know what’s best in publishing, which can be hard for someone who wants control over most of the aspects of their work.
The last con, which is twofold, is the low royalty rate (as discussed earlier) and also that as an author, you have to spend a lot of time self-promoting your book as well. Publishers will give you tools and help with some of the technical stuff (online advertising, SEO, PPC), but it’s ultimately up to you to work on your social media presence and attend conventions or fairs and get your name out there. Particularly in today’s age, publishers and agents are looking for an author platform – how much reach does this author have, which can in turn make it easier for them to sell your book. Even with the low royalty rate, they expect you to lift your fair share in the promotion world.
But there is another way! Self-publishing can be the answer when all the doors are closed to you (meaning no agent or publishing house would take your book). Self-publishing has gone through a rebrand of sorts over the years. Originally called “Vanity publishing”, self-publishing used to be a way of signaling your book wasn’t good enough for the big publishers and you had no alternative. That’s not the case any longer, as many people choose it as their primary way of publishing their book.
The Pros of Self-publishing:
You control everything. Don’t like the cover, change it. Pick the editor you like.
You keep more of the royalty money. The only thing you have to pay for per book is the production of it (the paper still cost money)
Unless your going strictly e-book, then the paper don’t cost a thing.
It’s much, MUCH, quicker than the traditional publishing route (which can take 6 months to a year). You can literally self publish your book if you wanted to by next week (I wouldn’t recommend it, given the other stuff involved).
You can park your book online until a publisher picks it up!
The Cons of self-publishing:
You take on the upfront costs (Editor = $3-4k, Artist= $1k, Marketing = $$$, ISBN = $)
You may not actually have the skills or knowledge of how to successfully launch and promote and sell your book
It can be difficult and near impossible to get it into major (or minor) bookstores
It can be difficult to get on awards or best seller lists
If you park your book, the publisher will look to see how you’ve done, which may be a negative against you if you’ve only sold to friends and family.
It’s a literal wild west and there are a lot of different options for printing presses and it can be hard to figure out what to do or who to choose
All in all, the first session was dope and really helpful to think about the different avenues you can take for self-publishing. Particularly the breakdown of royalties for traditional publishing was insightful!
15 Tips to Write like the Pro’s
The next session I attended was “15 Tips to Write like the Pro’s”. I was only able to see half the session due to the fact that I was pitching to literary agents during the first half. But the half I did go to was great! Here are the notes:
Don’t go out of your way to think of a clever way to avoid using the word “said”. Unless it fits the scene, using other words throws the reader out of the story. People see the word said as more of a comma now, so having “said” in your dialogue is okay. If you have too many “said’s”, see if you can use action that makes sense for the scene. Or, maybe you have too much dialogue. If your reader can’t tell who is talking by the WAY they are talking, then you might have a failure of your dialogue
Don’t information dump: you lose your reader when you do this. Similar to show, don’t tell. Reveal information instead of telling it. Instead of saying, “My dad worked for a bank”, say “I walked downstairs and noticed my father’s briefcase waiting by the door as it always was, the PNC Bank logo reflecting light through the window.”
This one is HUGE! Leave a “hook” at the end of your chapters. Make you’re reader to WANT to continue reading. This was a revelation for me. I always end my chapters with a resolution, never needing to have you come back after the commercial.
There are three ways you can end a chapter:
The promise (something is coming up, read and find out)
The Resolution (it needs to be something worthy of the resolution)
The Cliffhanger (leave on the edge of the seat, needing to know what will happen next)
Quick ways to develop your characters to make them unique:
Give them a flaw (internal or external)
Give them a quirk
Give them a memorable name. (Don’t do this for every character)
These are tips, they don’t have to happen but can add depth to your various characters.
To create pacing, use action words. Create hooks for chapter beginnings and also think about how the chapter flows. Something that JK Rowling does well, is like every five pages or so she’ll throw something unexpected. An event, obstacle, or just new information that causes the characters to contemplate or do something. So if the characters are waiting for class to begin, make the teacher not show up, and see how the characters respond and overcome the challenge.
Don’t cut for the sake of cutting. Kill your darlings, your favorite lines/paragraphs, chapters in an effort to make the whole better. But if your favorite thing works, keep it. Don’t kill off characters just to do so, and make sure the killings or cuts do something.
Writers Got Talent - A Lit Agent Critque
I then Attended a session labeled “Writers Got Talent” where 15 different Literary agents read first pages of manuscripts and critiqued them on the spot. It was pretty brutal.
Starting the story with name, description, action puts the reader out of it. “Alvin, a small redshirted chipmunk, sang.” It just feels very “Wikipedia” to start off a story.
With anthropomorphic animals, you can get lost in how things work. Can Alvin talk? Does he walk on four or two legs? Etc.
Opening with action and dialogue is good but don’t get stilted with lots of exposition in a short period of time. You need to hook your reader quickly.
Your first page and ten pages should be error free and really edited. Don’t waste an agents time.
Trust your audience, if you put in a word in a different (real) language, don’t tell them what it is a few sentences later.
Don’t have too many adjectives in your first couple lines. Have some weighty adjectives, not just a slew of them
Setting up expectations and then breaking them is okay, but don’t break genre expectations. If you’re going to be a rom-com, you have to get there quicker. If we know what the scene looks like, don’t go into so much description. Everyone knows what an alleyway looks like.
When all of descriptions are weighted equally, then the reader doesn’t know what to pay attention too. “She walked in through he door, her brown Michal Kors purse set on the black Ikea table as she took off her red slippers.” Are any of the descriptions important? Is the purse or table important? Does it come back up later? If not, don’t waste time on those details.
Italicized thought can sometimes feel out of place. Can better be incorporated into prose.
Quickly setting the time period and setting is helpful to the reader
If you’re doing historical fiction, make sure to put the reader in the setting beyond just saying the time. Describe clothes, etc.
Books that start in reflection can be tough especially followed by big descriptions with no characters, that can be tough to attach too. People read to attach to characters, you need to get there sooner.
Don’t show off your vocabulary instead of building characters. Don’t overwrite. No one cares you have a thesaurus.
Keep your characters on the page, don’t get lost on description.
Don’t over describe items and actions before you describe the character itself. If the visual elements aren’t important to the story, you’ll get lost. What’s actually contributing and what’s not
What in the scene do I need to zoom into and what to zoom out of.
When you tell us everything, nothing has the weight that you need it to.
Don’t start with repetitive sentences. You can create setting with descriptions of the world rather than just saying the timeframe.
For certain genres you need to have the payoff sometimes a bit sooner to let the reader know they are reading what they are looking for.
Labeling is really important when sending a query: make sure your story is what it’s labeled. Where can you put it in the bookstore.
Be careful that some stuff in your “page one” isn’t more of “page two or three”
A strong ending on the first page is important that makes you want to read into page two.
Having other characters do the exposition instead of the narrator is more organic.
A single page and often that’s all you get from the reader. Understand your genre, the expectations, and what you’re trying to accomplish
Sci-FI and Fantasy Writing Tips
I next went to a genre specific workshop for Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers. It was super helpful on a technical standpoint, however the host was a short story writer and not a novelist, so some of the lager ideas for a lot of the novelist were lost. Here are my notes:
It’s important to understand your space thoroughly because these types of readers are enthusiastic problem solvers and like to figure things out for themselves.
It’s a genre that takes metaphors and says “but what if that metaphors were literal?” The only way to answer these questions you raise are through the SFF worlds you build. If you can answer them normally, then why do you need SFF
You need to know the parameters of the world you create, the metaphors, the literalism and understand that your readers will read everything literally. Make sure your readers are getting what you are trying to convey
For the story to last the subjects need to be real to the readers. If it’s not, it won’t last. LotR lasts because it’s a long story about death and how that affects people. That’s a real thing people can latch too
Don’t explain too much to your readers more than they need to know. They want to figure it out themselves based on how you’re presenting it.
You can’t be lazy or inaccurate with your world building. These types of readers care about their folklore, science, political traditions, and will stop reading when you start to fudge the world to fit.
World building is special because you’re setting your story in a. Different world. Why is it different and how and what domino effect does that have on the rest of the world you’re creating. You need to create a world that is larger than the one the reader sees
Create a big enough of a world to feel like it’s been lived in and if you walked past the boundaries of the story there would be more world out there
How to avoid excessive exposition: bring in an outsider to explain what the rules are. Then it feels more natural.
You want a hook pretty quickly and you want your reader to be curious. The readers want to figure out things and explore, you need to show them the world and characters quickly
Use the beginning of your book to promise to the reader what they’re reading. Six-Fi, Fantasy, all the sub genres. “The red sun was on the horizon, the blue one was high in the sky”
Exposition can be fascinating if done well but runs the risk of being boring. In this genre it sometimes needs to happen, but have it happen naturally and not done in a way that slogs
Don’t mistrust your readers that they can’t pick up what’s happening by what you’ve laid out for them. They can build the world themselves sometimes if you’ve given them enough information throughout
Every book is entitled to one “hand waving” idea. Warp speed, etc. how this thing works, we don’t know but it does and that’s what’s important. You don’t get two unless you’re super famous.
If you put a hand wave at the beginning, it’s a “premise”. It sets up the world. It’s fine, it’s allowed. If you put the hand wave at the end, it’s cheating, and your readers will rebel.
Out of time to the reader problem (Tiffany problem). Even if you’re time period makes sense for a name, if your readers think of it in a different time, they will reject the premise
Understand the tropes for your genre, and make sure you don’t trip on them. Either use them or subvert them, but know them and make sure you don’t repeat them in a way that makes the reader give up.
It was a great day and a wonderful workshop. I couldn’t have asked for a better time, and I learned so much that I just want to go to more of these types of events. But in order to be a writer, you have to write, so for now, I’ll work on that instead!