Any writer who's ever turned their thoughts to self-publishing will have heard the term 'gatekeeper' at some point. It's usually used to define those who, in traditional publishing, attempt to 'vet' those who wish to be published - the sorters of wheat from chaff, of men from boys, of 'bona fide authors' from 'wannabe hacks.'
They're not viewed with much affection by many writers who self-pub. In some circles they're regarded as nothing more than an Old Boys' Network; if your name's down you can come in, but if your face don't fit you can forget it, chutney. Come back when you're wearing proper bling-studded trainers that you bought with the royalties of all of your books that are already selling. And while that sounds harsh, it's not really much different from a lot of other career avenues - it just that, in some ways, it seems far more unfair when it applies to writing or indeed any creative profession. Nobody minds the selection process being stringent for brain surgeons, for example - in fact, we all have good reason to prefer that system - but since nobody actually dies if an artist doofs up their latest creation, perhaps we feel the judgement should be a little less - well, judge-y - when it comes to art of the heart.
And this is why some writers who self-pub or aspire to coined the phrase 'Gatekeeper,' and put under this moniker the traditional publishers, literary agents and, in some cases, literary critics. But did they also consider there might be other categories of people who view the self-published with a degree of suspicion? Like, for instance, some traditionally-published writers?
I read this article recently, written by an author who bills herself "Award-winning author of three memoirs, she is also a journalist and travel writer." I'm sure she's not lying about that, or even over-egging her pudding, so I'm not here to cast doubt on whether or not she's 'earned' her right to voice the opinions she airs in her article.
I will admit, however, that when I first read it I had to check to make sure this was actually a fairly recent piece, and not something written five or more years ago. I mean, I know self-publishing had a pretty bad rep back in its early days, but I was under the impression that things had changed since then, especially with many already-famous and successful authors getting in on it now.
But no, the article was posted in December 2016 - barely a month ago. And this lady certainly doesn't mince her words when it comes to her opinion of those with the audacity to put their work out there without receiving the approval of a trad publisher or agent.
My first reaction was indignation. With Redemption, my primary plan of action was to submit to trad publishers and agents first, but if the feedback I got was positive but didn't get any results (i.e. they liked it but couldn't see a market for it and therefore weren't willing to take a risk) I would self-publish it. Putting my Realist Head on, that's the best-case scenario I'm imagining for me (the worst being that no-one wants to take a risk on it because they all hate it.)
And now here was this woman, this random writer, telling me that if I'm looking to self-publish it will only be because I'm a shit writer writing shit. No arguments, no actually reading anything I've written to make that judgement, just the bald-faced, sweeping assumption. And that judgement doesn't just extend to me; it covers every self-published writer out there. She might not have read a single word of any of your books, all you self-pubbed out there, but she doesn't need to - she knows, with absolute certainty, that everything you've put out there is pure, unadulterated crap, and you are a creeping virus that's hurting her personal credibility as a 'proper,' trad-pubbed author. I wouldn't be surprised if she's got an E.L. James voodoo doll impaled with nine-inch nails hidden in the back of her writing drawer somewhere.
But when I asked myself "why does she think this way?" I had to concede it was because... she's not entirely wrong either.
I've seen some of those books she's railing against. Heck, if you're a reader or a writer you've probably seen them too. Usually by accident, with the 'Look Inside!' option (God bless you for that, Amazon, even though I imagine you only implemented it because the thought of legions of furious customers frightened the digital pants off you.) There's no denying, there is a tsunami of crap out there in self-publishing land.
Of course, there's also a heck of a lot of fine-quality writing out there as well, but just like you can't spot a diamond in a dog turd from fifty feet up, the well-written self-published books are competing with all those written by people who are the literary equivalent of the tone-deaf squawkers on reality/talent shows who claim they're The Next Whitney Houston. Either that or they've figured out they only need to sell a 99p zero-draft, 15-page 'novel' once to a hundred or so people to make a reasonable profit, and since you can write a zero-draft, 15-page 'novel' in a few days... four a month, with perhaps a few different pen-names to cover your tracks, and you could legitimately claim to have earned money as an 'author.'
So what's the answer? Amazon, Smashwords and the like aren't going to introduce 'minimum standards' for potential authors anytime soon (and you could argue they won't because doing so would bring them just as much 'Gatekeeper' hate as is currently directed at traditional publishing,) So how do we persuade authors like the one who wrote her damning article that not all self-published books are crimes against literature?
We have to police ourselves. We have to be our own gatekeepers. And that means being honest with ourselves and not settling for 'that'll do' when we should be aiming for 'this is of a high enough standard to be traditionally published.' If you're a writer and you're considering self-publishing your work, please, take the following to your heart:
1 - Writing 'The End' is just the beginning. Don't just publish your first draft of anything - once it's complete, let it sit for a while, then come back to it and read it through again. You will see places where it can be improved. Make those improvements. Repeat this process until you reach a point where you honestly feel you can't do any more on your own to improve it. (If you don't know what I mean by a 'first draft,' then you don't yet know enough about writing in general and you definitely shouldn't publish it. Read some writing how-to books, join an online writing community, learn stuff about writing. Then go through the above stages.)
2 - Get it beta-read, by other humans. You've been eyeball-deep in your word-baby for all the time it took you to write it, and you can't see everything that's wrong with it from that height. Other people - people who haven't invested that time in its creation and therefore have no emotional attachment to it - will be able to see problems you can't. Your friends and family probably aren't the best (as in, unbiased) guys for this job, so other options include writing groups and online writing communities (many of which offer critiquing services.) Weigh up to the feedback you get - you don't have to act on all of it, but if many beta-readers are saying the same thing they're most likely right. Don't like the idea of complete strangers picking your book apart? Well, what do you think readers are going to do once it's published? At least with beta reader crits, anything negative they say won't end up on Amazon, Smashwords and GoodReads, for all the world to see...
3 - Get it checked for typos and formatting errors - by a professional. That might mean hiring an editor and/or proofreader for actual money, or, if you're lucky enough to have a qualified copy editor friend or relative who'll do it for free or a favour, ask them. Sorry, but no - get the idea out of your head right now that self-publishing means being able to get your work Out There for free or cheap as chips. If you've got connections (like the aforementioned editor pal and others which I'll come to next) then you might be able to get away with that, but if not... if you're self-publishing your books you are producing a product, for customers. It doesn't matter if you're charging 99p or £9.99 for that product, you owe it to your customers to give them a product that works like it's supposed to. It should be produced to the same standard as any traditionally-published book - and that means not full of typos, errors and wonky formatting.
4 - Be prepared to spend money on making it look like a proper book. If you know next to nothing about designing book covers, don't knock up your own book cover in an afternoon, using that software program you got a free demo of a few months back. Don't use a photo you took on your smartphone and then slap your title and name over the top with a text box in Microsoft Word/Publisher/Paint. Unlike actual people, readers really do judge a book by its cover, and if yours looks like it was put together by a chimpanzee on crystal meth you are simply embarrassing yourself and all other self-published authors who took the time to get a professional involved. If you know a skilled artist who's happy to create some quality cover art (and by that I mean not something that looks like it was painted by your kid, or your auntie Shirley who's 'quite good at drawing') you'll be one step ahead, but if not DeviantArt is a great source for artwork, and you can approach artists individually and negotiate rates. There are some good online book cover design services too, offering everything from reasonably-priced commercial templates to the more expensive bespoke layouts.
If any of the above has annoyed you... well, I'm sorry about that. Actually no, I'm not. You needed the wake-up call, frankly, if that's the case. Self-publishing with the goal of making money from your work is not - and, more importantly, should not be - considered the cheap-and-cheerful, minimal effort option for wannabe authors. You are a business if you self-publish, and as such you are obliged to behave in a professional manner befitting of the boss of that business. If you're not prepared to invest as much time, care and effort in your product as traditional publishers invest in theirs, you should not be asking your customers to pay for your product. If you genuinely can't afford to self-publish to the standards I've listed, you could always try setting up a KickStarter or Patreon page to raise the funds - many others have done that, and successfully too.
Post your work online, for free, at designated websites or on your own blog if you simply want people to appreciate your work. There's no shame in not making a profit from your writing, and building up a fanbase that loves your stuff for free does not make you less of a writer in any way. Best of all, it'll mean you already have an existing readership who'll be willing to take a chance on you when you can finally either afford to get your work professionally self-published or get traditionally published.
Some of you may be thinking this is an 'elitist' attitude. But where did you get this idea that any human who can make words should expect money from people's wallets in return for whatever they produce? You realise that criteria includes the average YouTube commenter, right? If you have any self-respect as a writer, you won't aspire to be little more than those 'authors' whose books never make it past the 'Look Inside' stage. You'll want your product to be the best it can be.
Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-publishing. Show all posts
Tuesday, 17 January 2017
Saturday, 31 October 2015
3 Writing Monsters That Aren't Just for Halloween
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| Don't letcha Evil Bonnie getcha! |
All writers have 'em. Yep, even the likes of Stephen King (and we're not talking the kind he likes to write about.) They can be habits that drag us into a rut, they can be destructive self-beliefs that are hard to shake off or they can be the damning voices of criticism from our own Inner Grinches. All of them can bring writing sessions to a screaming halt - sometimes for days or even weeks at a time. They're often the real reason behind Writer's Block, that phenomenon that may or may not exist depending on which side of the fence you stand on.
Me, I got flippin' loads of 'em. This is why I've never even considered auditioning for The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent (I mean, apart from the fact I'd probably be laughed off the stage - and not in a good way.) Those same bugaboos that hit me in the writing doldrums would have an absolute field day if I ever decided to stand in front of Lord Cowell and his Big Red Buzzer.
Well, they say the best way to deal with your inner fears is to face them head-on. And what better way to do that than list three of the biggies on a blog page and make them all terrifyingly public, eh? Hey - I'm doing it so you don't have to (unless of course you want to, in which case, come join the party! I got cake!) Let's do this...
1 - I cannot write unless The Muse is In The House
That feeling of sitting in front of a blank page when the brain-champagne just isn''t flowing is a soul-crushing one, I know. When this happens, writers are faced with a stark choice. They can either:
A) - continue sitting in front of that page and filling it with whatever crap they can pull out of their head - knowing, with every word, that it is pure, steaming crap and they're probably going to junk the whole lot when they read it back tomorrow...
B) - or they can say "the time is not right. I'm not in a Creative Frame of Mind today, so it's pointless for me to strain my poor artist's brain in this barbaric manner. I shall come back tomorrow, renewed and refreshed."
B is what happens when the writer believes that their creativity comes from some 'other' place, outside of them but channelled directly into their brain when the stars have aligned and their creative brain is most receptive to these psychic messages from the imaginosphere. Which sounds very lovely and spiritual on paper... but kind of makes your creativity a jailer and you its prisoner. If you have to wait for your Muse to show up before you can start writing... well, what happens if he's a massive tool who suddenly decides he doesn't want to hang out with you any more? How hard are you prepared to grovel, beg, offer up sacrifices to him in a desperate bid to persuade him to keep shaking his magic booty for you?
Don't let your creativity be the boss of you - you gotta be the boss. That's why A is most often the better option, even if it's the more painful one. Because even the worst writing in the world can be made better, and even if it really, truly can't... you've still done your mental push-ups for the day. Think of it in the way an athlete might think of training for a marathon. He might go out to run on a day when it's hacking down with rain, so he gets wet and cold and miserable, and then a bunch of kids laugh at him and call him a loser, and then some arsehole in a range rover ploughs through a puddle and tsunamis him, and then some little old lady's dog snaps at his ankles as he sloshes past...
Does he think the whole session was an utter waste of time when he gets home, simply because he was miserable for nine-tenths of it? No. He put the time in and worked his muscles. And your creativity is a muscle too. Use it or become the writerly equivalent of Homer Simpson.
If I have all three of these Special Things going on for my writing session - man, I am going to kick ass! I will be totally in the zone and everything that flies out of my brain will be solid gold keepers, for sure. Except of course when it isn't - but that's okay, because I don't remember those times anyway because selective dissociation... however, I do remember every single time where I didn't have my Special Things and my writing suffered as a direct result of that...
It's all tosh, of course. Breathing in nice smells, chillaxing to mood music and shovelling chocolate in my face definitely improve my mood - but do they really have a magical mojo effect on my writing? Even now, my heart wants to say yes, but my brain has got her sensible pants on and says no, of course they don't. I've written some pretty good stuff without all that palaver going on, and, if I'm honest with myself, I also know I've written the equivalent of steaming horse-dump while high as a kite on my Special Things triad.
And Special Things come in all sorts of guises. Some people feel they can only concentrate on their writing when the house is tranquil and close to silent - i.e. spouse and child-free. Others need their 'proper writing space,' with a big desk and all their equipment within an arm's reach. Nice if you can get it, obviously - but real life isn't always that obliging. And many successful authors didn't get those kind of optimal environments until after they hit paydirt - which means they must have first spent an awful lot of time putting up with less-than-ideal conditions and carrying on writing anyway...
Special Things are nice to have... as a little treat. They're even good for motivation when you really don't feel like writing ("just write for an hour and you can have that luvverly chocolate bar that's siren-calling you from the fridge!") But letting them become the equivalent of your lucky rabbit's foot ("I can't write without it - it brings me luck!") is, like the Muse above, just another way of making some otherworldly thing responsible for your creativity rather than owning it yourself. You make the magic happen, not your talismans. If background noise distracts you, wear headphones (fun fact: even if you don't even listen to anything through those headphones, just the feeling of having something blocking your ears can be enough to 'cancel out' background distractions.) Try writing something away from your writing space, even if that means doing it the Stone Age way with a pen and notebook. Embrace the power of adaptivity!
It's your Inner Grinch, popping up to mess with your head. His official job is to make sure you never settle for half-assedness (or at least, that's what he'll tell you if you ask him) but he often goes a bit overboard, because, well, he's a bit of a dick like that. And you take everything he says to heart, because you do actually care about your writing and you really don't want to inflict donkey-barf on your reading public... and props to you for that, because it's the right attitude to have. But you're probably judging yourself way too harshly.
Want proof? Allow me to introduce you to... the world of e-book self-publishing!
Now don't get me wrong. There are some fabulous e-books out there where the authors went completely indie and did it all themselves, from writing the thing in the first place to designing the cover, compiling the whole thing into e-book format, self-publishing it through one of the many digital options available now (Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace et al) and all their own marketing. Indeed, I've read and loved quite a few that are of a quality easily equal to anything published by the Big Six.
But... I've also seen a metric tonne of self-published e-books of woeful quality (thank the stars for Amazon's 'Look Inside!' feature, which must surely have saved millions from making the mistake of actually parting with money for those atrocities.) And by woeful quality I don't mean I just didn't dig the story, or the author's 'voice,' or the subject matter they were writing about. I mean they were badly written at even a basic, technical level. Littered with typos and spelling and grammar errors, sometimes to the point of wondering whether what you're reading is actually in English. Characters changing the spelling of their names, their hair and eye colours and even their genders - sometimes in the space of a single paragraph - not as part of the plot but simply because the author wasn't paying attention and couldn't even be arsed to do the most basic of proof-reads before hitting 'publish.'
Obviously no book will please all of the people all of the time. I recently read a brilliant self-published sci-fi e-novel about a same-sex relationship between a civilian man and a cyborg-soldier who deserts to live a normal life with his lover, and while I loved it I can imagine how hard it would have been for that author to persuade any of the Big Six to even consider it for publication, because, sooo not mainstream, y'know? On the other hand, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series has been hugely successful, gaining millions of adoring fans... but I would rather watch paint dry than read any more of it than I tried to, not because of any perception about the writing quality but because it's just not my thing.
But, even when you encounter the badly-proof-read, shoddily-cobbled-together messes I mentioned previously, a quick look at the accompanying figures show that some people out there in cyberspace are actually buying - and, presumably reading - even these books. Of course, it's highly likely it's the last book they ever read by that author in most cases, but still... it begs the question: how confident of their writing abilities must those authors have been that they would have slapped up the first draft of their novel for public consumption without even bothering to read it through for mistakes? "Pfffft, nooo, I don't need to check it, I'm frickin' George R.R. Tolkien, I am!"
If you're doubting your own writing skills, and worrying that you're not 'good enough' to publish anything... chances are pretty damn solid that you're already a lot better than those jokers. And some folks out there have actually bought their books. A few might even have... actually liked them - enough to look past the structural and technical car-crashes because they just really dug the story that author was (albeit cack-handedly) trying to tell. Let's be realistic here, those numbers will be teeny-tiny and there aint no way in hell those 'authors' are gonna make any kind of proper living out of their writing unless they pull their socks up. But one thing you can't argue with: they didn't let their self-doubts stop them from putting their work out there for people to see, Why then, as someone who does care enough about the quality of their work to want it to be the best it can be, should you?
Yeah... not everyone's going to love your stuff. And, certainly to start with, you're going to be writing stuff that... isn't that good. (Trust me, when you re-read some things you wrote ten years ago that you thought were fab at the time it can be a cringeworthy experience - been there, done that, worn the *embarrassedface.*) But that's why we keep writing; to learn from what we did before and get better and better. This isn't like The Hunger Games - it's not 'kill or be killed' every time you write something you want others to see. It's a series of stepping stones to where you want to be. Occasionally you'll slip off and get an icy, dunked ass. But that's when you get back up and carry on, because the stones will still be there.
What are YOUR Writing monsters?
2 - I cannot write if I don't have my [insert Special Thing here.]
I'll come clean - I am soooo guilty of this one. With me, it's Special Candles, Special Music and chocolate (all chocolate is special by default.) My candles must be scented - but they must be the right kind of scented; foody-type scented like Honey and Vanilla rather than Toilet-Duck-type scented like Midnight Rain (who decides what 'midnight rain' smells like anyway? Do they have the meteorological qualifications to make that call?) The Special Music must be instrumental (lyrics are too distracting) and atmospheric but not too spiritually uplifting (in case I get too lost in it and forget I'm supposed to actually be writing stuff.) Oh, and it also has to be only just loud enough for me to hear; not loud enough to distract me but also not so quiet I can't hear it over the other distractions I'm trying to distract myself from with my Special Music. Chocolate just has to... be chocolate.If I have all three of these Special Things going on for my writing session - man, I am going to kick ass! I will be totally in the zone and everything that flies out of my brain will be solid gold keepers, for sure. Except of course when it isn't - but that's okay, because I don't remember those times anyway because selective dissociation... however, I do remember every single time where I didn't have my Special Things and my writing suffered as a direct result of that...
It's all tosh, of course. Breathing in nice smells, chillaxing to mood music and shovelling chocolate in my face definitely improve my mood - but do they really have a magical mojo effect on my writing? Even now, my heart wants to say yes, but my brain has got her sensible pants on and says no, of course they don't. I've written some pretty good stuff without all that palaver going on, and, if I'm honest with myself, I also know I've written the equivalent of steaming horse-dump while high as a kite on my Special Things triad.
And Special Things come in all sorts of guises. Some people feel they can only concentrate on their writing when the house is tranquil and close to silent - i.e. spouse and child-free. Others need their 'proper writing space,' with a big desk and all their equipment within an arm's reach. Nice if you can get it, obviously - but real life isn't always that obliging. And many successful authors didn't get those kind of optimal environments until after they hit paydirt - which means they must have first spent an awful lot of time putting up with less-than-ideal conditions and carrying on writing anyway...
Special Things are nice to have... as a little treat. They're even good for motivation when you really don't feel like writing ("just write for an hour and you can have that luvverly chocolate bar that's siren-calling you from the fridge!") But letting them become the equivalent of your lucky rabbit's foot ("I can't write without it - it brings me luck!") is, like the Muse above, just another way of making some otherworldly thing responsible for your creativity rather than owning it yourself. You make the magic happen, not your talismans. If background noise distracts you, wear headphones (fun fact: even if you don't even listen to anything through those headphones, just the feeling of having something blocking your ears can be enough to 'cancel out' background distractions.) Try writing something away from your writing space, even if that means doing it the Stone Age way with a pen and notebook. Embrace the power of adaptivity!
3 - This book/I will never be good enough, and I'm too deluded to see how terrible it really is/I really am.
I saved the worst for last. You're welcome. It's that feeling, when you're squirreling away at your latest w-i-p, that comes over you in a flash and sucks the love right out of you - "Why the heck am I still bothering with this? No-one's going to read it, and if they do they're going to hate it... why did I ever imagine this was something anyone would want to read? Everyone's going to tell me I suck and I should never write another thing ever again, not even a shopping list..."It's your Inner Grinch, popping up to mess with your head. His official job is to make sure you never settle for half-assedness (or at least, that's what he'll tell you if you ask him) but he often goes a bit overboard, because, well, he's a bit of a dick like that. And you take everything he says to heart, because you do actually care about your writing and you really don't want to inflict donkey-barf on your reading public... and props to you for that, because it's the right attitude to have. But you're probably judging yourself way too harshly.
Want proof? Allow me to introduce you to... the world of e-book self-publishing!
Now don't get me wrong. There are some fabulous e-books out there where the authors went completely indie and did it all themselves, from writing the thing in the first place to designing the cover, compiling the whole thing into e-book format, self-publishing it through one of the many digital options available now (Amazon, Smashwords, CreateSpace et al) and all their own marketing. Indeed, I've read and loved quite a few that are of a quality easily equal to anything published by the Big Six.
But... I've also seen a metric tonne of self-published e-books of woeful quality (thank the stars for Amazon's 'Look Inside!' feature, which must surely have saved millions from making the mistake of actually parting with money for those atrocities.) And by woeful quality I don't mean I just didn't dig the story, or the author's 'voice,' or the subject matter they were writing about. I mean they were badly written at even a basic, technical level. Littered with typos and spelling and grammar errors, sometimes to the point of wondering whether what you're reading is actually in English. Characters changing the spelling of their names, their hair and eye colours and even their genders - sometimes in the space of a single paragraph - not as part of the plot but simply because the author wasn't paying attention and couldn't even be arsed to do the most basic of proof-reads before hitting 'publish.'
Obviously no book will please all of the people all of the time. I recently read a brilliant self-published sci-fi e-novel about a same-sex relationship between a civilian man and a cyborg-soldier who deserts to live a normal life with his lover, and while I loved it I can imagine how hard it would have been for that author to persuade any of the Big Six to even consider it for publication, because, sooo not mainstream, y'know? On the other hand, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series has been hugely successful, gaining millions of adoring fans... but I would rather watch paint dry than read any more of it than I tried to, not because of any perception about the writing quality but because it's just not my thing.
But, even when you encounter the badly-proof-read, shoddily-cobbled-together messes I mentioned previously, a quick look at the accompanying figures show that some people out there in cyberspace are actually buying - and, presumably reading - even these books. Of course, it's highly likely it's the last book they ever read by that author in most cases, but still... it begs the question: how confident of their writing abilities must those authors have been that they would have slapped up the first draft of their novel for public consumption without even bothering to read it through for mistakes? "Pfffft, nooo, I don't need to check it, I'm frickin' George R.R. Tolkien, I am!"
If you're doubting your own writing skills, and worrying that you're not 'good enough' to publish anything... chances are pretty damn solid that you're already a lot better than those jokers. And some folks out there have actually bought their books. A few might even have... actually liked them - enough to look past the structural and technical car-crashes because they just really dug the story that author was (albeit cack-handedly) trying to tell. Let's be realistic here, those numbers will be teeny-tiny and there aint no way in hell those 'authors' are gonna make any kind of proper living out of their writing unless they pull their socks up. But one thing you can't argue with: they didn't let their self-doubts stop them from putting their work out there for people to see, Why then, as someone who does care enough about the quality of their work to want it to be the best it can be, should you?
Yeah... not everyone's going to love your stuff. And, certainly to start with, you're going to be writing stuff that... isn't that good. (Trust me, when you re-read some things you wrote ten years ago that you thought were fab at the time it can be a cringeworthy experience - been there, done that, worn the *embarrassedface.*) But that's why we keep writing; to learn from what we did before and get better and better. This isn't like The Hunger Games - it's not 'kill or be killed' every time you write something you want others to see. It's a series of stepping stones to where you want to be. Occasionally you'll slip off and get an icy, dunked ass. But that's when you get back up and carry on, because the stones will still be there.
What are YOUR Writing monsters?
Saturday, 11 October 2014
Why Writers Have To Be Their Own Simon Cowell
It's that time of year again - the emotional human cheese-grater that is The X-Factor is back! And yes, I have been following it, but much more for the window on homo sapient psychology than for the actual singing part.
I've heard the Speeches, delivered by wobbly-lipped wannabes accompanied by a backing track of suitably poignant music. With glistening eyes, they tell of how they've been gigging in pubs and clubs for years because singing is their whole life and that's why they've just got to win the X-Factor because if they don't that's it, it's ovah for them! Singing is all they know, so if the X-Factor dream ends for them today they simply can't just go back to the life they had before, which was... um, singing, wasn't it? Yeah, but that was just singing in pubs and clubs, so it doesn't even count, man..!
Yeah okay, I'm being cynical here. I'm also being cynical (probably) when I say that the programme is more about creating ratings-grabbing, reality-tv-stylee dramatics than actual recording artists (it's nice when that happens of course, but I refuse to believe the producers of the show spend much time agonising when it doesn't.) And I'm probably being most cynical of all when I say it's created a whole section of society that totally believes getting yourself on a telly talent show is a giant springboard to instant fame and fortune. Forget all those idiots slowly grafting their way up from the bottom for years and years but still aren't platinum-selling artists yet - that route's for losers, baby! Nah - get yourself on a talent show and you can bypass all that boring hard work rubbish and get straight to the good bit.
And, while we're on that cynical train, you could also argue that the self-publishing revolution enabled by Amazon, Smashwords and the like has generated a society with a similar mindset in the world of writing.
An X-Factor style programme for writers would never work, of course. The Live Shows would be pretty boring, for a start:
"So, what are you going to write for us tonight, Hermione?" "I'm going to write Chapter Sixteen of my Zombie Romance Novel, Simon." "Okay then, off you go - good luck."
*Two hours later*
"Hermione, why did you stop to get a cup of tea in the last half-hour? You could've nailed that last paragraph, but you let yourself get distracted!" "I'm sorry Louis - please give me another chance, I'll do better in the second draft, I promiiiise!"
Yep, definitely not gripping telly. So writers don't have an equivalent to the instant-springboard-to-stardom promised by reality tv shows. No - because that would just get in the way of the even-more-instant-springboard-to-stardom that upload-and-click-to-publish provides! Heck, compared to that, an X-Factor-style gig would practically slow the whole process down!
And so... y'know all those people you laugh at in the first-stage auditions of those talent shows? The ones who clearly rocked up with no plan, no rehearsals and no idea how utterly terrible they are compared to even the mildly talented people who at least tried to do their best on the day? The writer equivalents of them are pumping out self-pubbed books on an almost hourly basis. 'Novels' that are ten pages long, that have been nowhere near even Word's Spell- or Grammar-Check, never mind an editor, and that the authors are asking you to part with ninety-nine of your actual pence for the 'privilege' of 'reading.' (You can get two litres of milk for ninety-nine pence - and that'll take you a darn sight longer to get through than one of those 'novels.')
That's the downside of the upload-and-click-publish facility of course. Gazillions of people - the same kind of people who think all the pop bands they don't like are 'talentless' and "I can sing better than that" - are publishing their books because they can, without giving a nanosecond's thought as to whether they should. And there's no Simon Cowell around to give them a reality check.
I'm not saying those authors should stop publishing altogether. I appreciate that finding agents and getting traditionally published is devilishly hard these days, and self-publishing is the only way for many cracking good authors to get their work and the recognition they deserve out there. But to those other 'authors' out there - those of the ten-pages-of-badly-spelled-grammatically-mangled-nonsense-pretending-to-be-a-'novel' variety - I'm simply saying the following:
"For the love of all things writerly, make an effort and stop assuming that writing a book is as easy as taking a dump after a hefty portion of bean casserole. See, here's the thing. If it only takes you a week to finish cranking out your latest ten-page masterpiece, y'know what? You could probably afford to spend a little extra time on improving it. Making sure you've spelled everything right for starters, and that the grammar is right. Double-checking your story makes sense and that there are no giant plotholes is another thing you could try, along with making sure your characters don't suddenly change their names, ages or even genders halfway through for no discernible reason. Oh, and by the way - a ten-page book is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a 'novel.' Even a novella - which is the name given to a book considered 'too short' to be a novel - has an average wordcount of 30,000 words, which is about 75-90 pages depending on linespacing and font size used. So... ten pages, a novel? Nah. Maybe call it a short story instead. Or a 'leaflet.' 'Cause I can walk into a doctor's surgery and get a ten-page leaflet about Managing My Asthma - that'll be grammatically correct and spelled right all the way through - and I won't even have to pay ninety-nine pence for that.
"But most of all - and this is probably the most radical suggestion, so apologies if it blows your mind at first - chew on the notion that the first and only version of the story you write generally isn't the one to just go ahead and publish. I know it looks okay to you, right after you type 'the End' and hit Save - but trust me and a million other writers, it really isn't. If you don't believe me, put your latest aside and don't go near it for a week, and then come back and read it again. I guarantee you'll see places you can make it better - and pick up on mistakes you didn't even know you'd made. Just try it, okay? What's the worst that could happen?
"I know what you guys are thinking (if you're still reading at this point.) "Ha, it's just another one of those jealous 'old-skool' writers getting all angry and defensive 'cause trailblazers like me are rewriting all the rulebooks and they can't deal with the competition!" Well yeah, you're right - we are getting angry and defensive. Here's why. Imagine you're a single person planning to have a night on the town, a good time, maybe even find yourself a hot date. Do you decide not to shower, and grab the grungiest clothes out of the laundry basket to wear - y'know, that top with the two-day-old pizza stain down the front and the pants with the baggy elastic that smell vaguely of wet dog? Do you eat a tin of cold beans and drink a bottle of cheap cola down in one before you go out, so that you can spend the whole of your night out being a human fart-tornado? No you don't. Because you know that will send any potential suitors running, screaming, in the direction of far far away. So you make an effort; you put your best gear on and make sure you present yourself in the best way possible.
"So now imagine this scenario. After you've made an effort, both hygienically and sartorially, and you step out on the town lookin' your best, everywhere you look you can only see pizza-stained, doggy-smelling-baggy-pantsed, fart-tornado people. No clean, tidy, non-farty people at all. "Where are all the nice people, the kind I'd want to meet?" you ask. "Oh, they don't come out here anymore," you are told. "They've got so fed up with only finding skanky, farty people that they've given up and just stay the heck away." "But that's not fair," you cry. "I'm not like that - I've made a proper effort! How am I supposed to meet the nice people if they won't even bother to look for people like me anymore?" And all you get in return is a big, fat shrug.
"That, in a nutshell, is why we're angry and defensive - because we worry about that scenario becoming real someday, but in the world of self-publishing. It scares us - and it should scare you authors of ten-page-non-edited-pretending-to-be-novels too. Because after The Public stop looking for our work anymore, they'll stop looking for yours too, because they'll stop looking completely. Yep, you lose out as well. So doesn't it pay to know how to make the stuff you publish the best quality it can possibly be? Even it means - horror of horrors! - it takes you longer to produce them?
"So take a little time to find out how to do that. Go to a bookstore or a library, look at the books there. See how thick they are, and how many pages they typically have - maybe even read some of them. Hell, read lots of them. Brush up on your spelling and grammar - or if you have problems with that stuff, find someone who'll help you with it. Read about writing; there are so many websites with writing advice, tips and whatnot that there's really no excuse not to take advantage of them. Talk to other writers - if not in person, via online forums. Let those other writers (not just best friends and loving family) read your work and offer you feedback on what you could improve before you publish it - and consider that feedback carefully. And finally, don't just publish the first version of everything you write. If you're as good as you already think you are - and you must think you're pretty damned good if you're happily slapping up your work and asking people to part with real, actual money for it - then waiting a while and polishing it up can only make it better. And that's a good thing for everyone - both writers and readers."
/End rant.
I've heard the Speeches, delivered by wobbly-lipped wannabes accompanied by a backing track of suitably poignant music. With glistening eyes, they tell of how they've been gigging in pubs and clubs for years because singing is their whole life and that's why they've just got to win the X-Factor because if they don't that's it, it's ovah for them! Singing is all they know, so if the X-Factor dream ends for them today they simply can't just go back to the life they had before, which was... um, singing, wasn't it? Yeah, but that was just singing in pubs and clubs, so it doesn't even count, man..!
Yeah okay, I'm being cynical here. I'm also being cynical (probably) when I say that the programme is more about creating ratings-grabbing, reality-tv-stylee dramatics than actual recording artists (it's nice when that happens of course, but I refuse to believe the producers of the show spend much time agonising when it doesn't.) And I'm probably being most cynical of all when I say it's created a whole section of society that totally believes getting yourself on a telly talent show is a giant springboard to instant fame and fortune. Forget all those idiots slowly grafting their way up from the bottom for years and years but still aren't platinum-selling artists yet - that route's for losers, baby! Nah - get yourself on a talent show and you can bypass all that boring hard work rubbish and get straight to the good bit.
And, while we're on that cynical train, you could also argue that the self-publishing revolution enabled by Amazon, Smashwords and the like has generated a society with a similar mindset in the world of writing.
An X-Factor style programme for writers would never work, of course. The Live Shows would be pretty boring, for a start:
"So, what are you going to write for us tonight, Hermione?" "I'm going to write Chapter Sixteen of my Zombie Romance Novel, Simon." "Okay then, off you go - good luck."
*Two hours later*
"Hermione, why did you stop to get a cup of tea in the last half-hour? You could've nailed that last paragraph, but you let yourself get distracted!" "I'm sorry Louis - please give me another chance, I'll do better in the second draft, I promiiiise!"
Yep, definitely not gripping telly. So writers don't have an equivalent to the instant-springboard-to-stardom promised by reality tv shows. No - because that would just get in the way of the even-more-instant-springboard-to-stardom that upload-and-click-to-publish provides! Heck, compared to that, an X-Factor-style gig would practically slow the whole process down!
And so... y'know all those people you laugh at in the first-stage auditions of those talent shows? The ones who clearly rocked up with no plan, no rehearsals and no idea how utterly terrible they are compared to even the mildly talented people who at least tried to do their best on the day? The writer equivalents of them are pumping out self-pubbed books on an almost hourly basis. 'Novels' that are ten pages long, that have been nowhere near even Word's Spell- or Grammar-Check, never mind an editor, and that the authors are asking you to part with ninety-nine of your actual pence for the 'privilege' of 'reading.' (You can get two litres of milk for ninety-nine pence - and that'll take you a darn sight longer to get through than one of those 'novels.')
That's the downside of the upload-and-click-publish facility of course. Gazillions of people - the same kind of people who think all the pop bands they don't like are 'talentless' and "I can sing better than that" - are publishing their books because they can, without giving a nanosecond's thought as to whether they should. And there's no Simon Cowell around to give them a reality check.
I'm not saying those authors should stop publishing altogether. I appreciate that finding agents and getting traditionally published is devilishly hard these days, and self-publishing is the only way for many cracking good authors to get their work and the recognition they deserve out there. But to those other 'authors' out there - those of the ten-pages-of-badly-spelled-grammatically-mangled-nonsense-pretending-to-be-a-'novel' variety - I'm simply saying the following:
"For the love of all things writerly, make an effort and stop assuming that writing a book is as easy as taking a dump after a hefty portion of bean casserole. See, here's the thing. If it only takes you a week to finish cranking out your latest ten-page masterpiece, y'know what? You could probably afford to spend a little extra time on improving it. Making sure you've spelled everything right for starters, and that the grammar is right. Double-checking your story makes sense and that there are no giant plotholes is another thing you could try, along with making sure your characters don't suddenly change their names, ages or even genders halfway through for no discernible reason. Oh, and by the way - a ten-page book is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a 'novel.' Even a novella - which is the name given to a book considered 'too short' to be a novel - has an average wordcount of 30,000 words, which is about 75-90 pages depending on linespacing and font size used. So... ten pages, a novel? Nah. Maybe call it a short story instead. Or a 'leaflet.' 'Cause I can walk into a doctor's surgery and get a ten-page leaflet about Managing My Asthma - that'll be grammatically correct and spelled right all the way through - and I won't even have to pay ninety-nine pence for that.
"But most of all - and this is probably the most radical suggestion, so apologies if it blows your mind at first - chew on the notion that the first and only version of the story you write generally isn't the one to just go ahead and publish. I know it looks okay to you, right after you type 'the End' and hit Save - but trust me and a million other writers, it really isn't. If you don't believe me, put your latest aside and don't go near it for a week, and then come back and read it again. I guarantee you'll see places you can make it better - and pick up on mistakes you didn't even know you'd made. Just try it, okay? What's the worst that could happen?
"I know what you guys are thinking (if you're still reading at this point.) "Ha, it's just another one of those jealous 'old-skool' writers getting all angry and defensive 'cause trailblazers like me are rewriting all the rulebooks and they can't deal with the competition!" Well yeah, you're right - we are getting angry and defensive. Here's why. Imagine you're a single person planning to have a night on the town, a good time, maybe even find yourself a hot date. Do you decide not to shower, and grab the grungiest clothes out of the laundry basket to wear - y'know, that top with the two-day-old pizza stain down the front and the pants with the baggy elastic that smell vaguely of wet dog? Do you eat a tin of cold beans and drink a bottle of cheap cola down in one before you go out, so that you can spend the whole of your night out being a human fart-tornado? No you don't. Because you know that will send any potential suitors running, screaming, in the direction of far far away. So you make an effort; you put your best gear on and make sure you present yourself in the best way possible.
"So now imagine this scenario. After you've made an effort, both hygienically and sartorially, and you step out on the town lookin' your best, everywhere you look you can only see pizza-stained, doggy-smelling-baggy-pantsed, fart-tornado people. No clean, tidy, non-farty people at all. "Where are all the nice people, the kind I'd want to meet?" you ask. "Oh, they don't come out here anymore," you are told. "They've got so fed up with only finding skanky, farty people that they've given up and just stay the heck away." "But that's not fair," you cry. "I'm not like that - I've made a proper effort! How am I supposed to meet the nice people if they won't even bother to look for people like me anymore?" And all you get in return is a big, fat shrug.
"That, in a nutshell, is why we're angry and defensive - because we worry about that scenario becoming real someday, but in the world of self-publishing. It scares us - and it should scare you authors of ten-page-non-edited-pretending-to-be-novels too. Because after The Public stop looking for our work anymore, they'll stop looking for yours too, because they'll stop looking completely. Yep, you lose out as well. So doesn't it pay to know how to make the stuff you publish the best quality it can possibly be? Even it means - horror of horrors! - it takes you longer to produce them?
"So take a little time to find out how to do that. Go to a bookstore or a library, look at the books there. See how thick they are, and how many pages they typically have - maybe even read some of them. Hell, read lots of them. Brush up on your spelling and grammar - or if you have problems with that stuff, find someone who'll help you with it. Read about writing; there are so many websites with writing advice, tips and whatnot that there's really no excuse not to take advantage of them. Talk to other writers - if not in person, via online forums. Let those other writers (not just best friends and loving family) read your work and offer you feedback on what you could improve before you publish it - and consider that feedback carefully. And finally, don't just publish the first version of everything you write. If you're as good as you already think you are - and you must think you're pretty damned good if you're happily slapping up your work and asking people to part with real, actual money for it - then waiting a while and polishing it up can only make it better. And that's a good thing for everyone - both writers and readers."
/End rant.
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