What, really, does it take?

veronie · Mar 9, 2006

I was thinking today about what it really takes to be a successful writer. And by successful, I mean one who earns her sole income from writing. Oh, and be able to live in a house or apartment, not on a park bench.

An article was posted here recently that said that 25 million Americans consider themselves to be writers, and of those only 5 percent have actually been published. Therefore, the writer concludes, the odds of winning in Vegas are better than becomming a published writer.

I tend to disagree. But, I wanted to get some feedback from a few higher-ups here who know the business. First, the odds of winning in Vegas are always worse than just about anything else you could do, at least in the long term. But here is my real beef. It seems that what is holding most people back from being successful writers is their lack of devotion, commitment, get-up-and-go, stamina, stick-to-itness, drive, call it what you will. Secondly, and maybe not as important, is that some people are just bad writers. But, there are thousands of good writers who are never published, and the reason they aren't is because they don't have the umph to do it.

From the viewpoint of an editor or agent, is that what you see, too?

Unimportant · Mar 9, 2006

"But, there are thousands of good writers who are never published, and the reason they aren't is because they don't have the umph to do it."

I'm not an editor or agent, but I would disagree. There are many good writers who are published; there are many good writers who aren't published; there are many bad writers who are published; there are many, many, many bad writers who aren't published.

Being in the not-published group does not automatically mean you don't have the "umph." It can be due to a lot of factors. You can have the talent, the drive, the ambition, the experience, and the doggedness, but sometimes you also have just plain bad luck and never manage to hit the right editor on the right day with the right book. Or you may write material that's not of interest to a a wide enough audience to make the 'big bucks', so while you are published regularly and successful within your niche you can't exist solely off your writing.

Every author's path is individual.

Cathy C · Mar 9, 2006

You want the truth? Really...do you think "you can handle the truth?"

Okay, then. Here's what it takes:

1. You have to write a good book. That's not meant to be facetious. It has to have a good solid plot, entertaining characters and be correct in form, grammar and spelling from the moment it touches the editor's desk.

2. You have to have the ability to EDIT that book very quickly. I don't care if it took you ten years to write it -- you'd better be able to completely REWRITE it in a month if the editor needs it. All the way down to the point of view. Maybe you LOVE first person. The editor may not. Loves the story, loves the people, but HATES first person. "Change it to third, rewrite the beginning to bring the reader into the plot more quickly and, oh, by the way -- we got tied up on this end and I'll need it back, fully revised, by the middle of April. Sorry about the short notice."

3. You have to be able to write the NEXT book (even if you haven't started it) of equal quality to the first in about nine months. That's when the editor will need it to fill the slot for the following year (I'm expecting that you'll have entered into a multi-book contract, since that's how you make a living at writing).

4. You have to be able to multi-task and jump easily between worlds. You don't get to be "tired" of the story you turned in months ago, because you're going to go back to it at least twice more (and possibly more depending on the internal structure of the publisher.) When you're writing full-time, you'll probably have one book in the writing stage, one that you're making edits on, one that you're copy editing (grammar, punctuation, etc.), and the synopses/proposals to be written for future stories. It takes awhile (if ever, depending on the editor) before a publisher will write a contract for something sight unseen. Be prepared to slap out a couple of chapters on any given synopsis in a week or less if the editor asks.

5. You'll need to have five to seven books in the back of your head, fully planned so you can suggest them to your agent (which isn't required but is a good idea to make a living at writing). The agent will start to push for the second contract for the next quantity of books about the time the first one hits the shelf.

Unless something extraordinary happens on the shelf with the first book, you probably won't make a true "living" at it until you have about five books in the pipeline.

ETA: It also depends on what you consider a "living." I should have mentioned that earlier. If my co-author and I were one person, this year we would probably make a "living" at writing. But with both of us, we're still in the "well paying hobby" category. I can't really live well on $28K. Maybe next year, though!

Hope that helps!

Branwyn · Mar 9, 2006

OK I'm ready!!!!!!

veronie · Mar 12, 2006

Thank you so much, Cathy. Very helpful. And I hope next year it'll be more than $28k.

Lauri B · Mar 13, 2006

veronie said:
I was thinking today about what it really takes to be a successful writer. And by successful, I mean one who earns their sole income from writing. Oh, and they have to live in a house or apartment, not on a park bench.

An article was posted here recently that said that 25 million Americans consider themselves to be writers, and of those only 5 percent have actually been published. Therefore, the writer concludes, the odds of winning in Vegas are better than becomming a published writer.

I tend to disagree. But, I wanted to get some feedback from a few higher-ups here who know the business. First, the odds of winning in Vegas are always worse than just about anything else you could do, at least in the long term. But here is my real beef. It seems that what is holding most people back from being successful writers is their lack of devotion, commitment, get-up-and-go, stamina, stick-to-itness, drive, call it what you will. Secondly, and maybe not as important, is that some people are just bad writers. But, there are thousands of good writers who are never published, and the reason they aren't is because they don't have the umph to do it.

From the viewpoint of an editor or agent, is that what you see, too?

First, the reason only 5 percent have actually been published is that most people are very, very bad writers but don't know it. Way more than 5 percent of people who say they are writers have terrific ideas, great imaginations, and probably DO have wonderful stories they can tell to anyone who will listen, but a person's ability to TELL a story and his or her ability to WRITE a story that is compelling, interesting, and entertaining are not necessarily interchangeable.

Cathy has done an excellent job talking about writing novels. Regarding nonfiction or freelancing (and I've done LOTS of both): If you are a good writer (you absolutely don't have to be a great writer to be a successful freelancer, but you do have to be a good one), and you are willing and able to crank out the stories, the pitches, the interviews, the ideas, hit all the deadlines, and write for the publications that pay the most, whether you necessarily like the subject or not, you definitely can make enough money to live comfortably. It becomes more a matter of how much you enjoy what you're doing rather than how to pay the bills each month. Most people begin freelancing and think they they'll write a story or two, spend a few days relaxing, and then look for another couple of stories on subjects that they like. Sure, you can, but don't expect to get rich. It's a grind to be a successful freelancer, and most people aren't willing to put the work into making it lucrative. I know lots of freelancers who live very comfortably writing for un-glamorous but well-paying publications. They worked hard, figured out where the money was, and went that route.

Cathy C · Mar 13, 2006

VERY good point, Nomad! I forgot to mention those things. I started out freelancing (and, in fact, still squeeze in a few magazine articles every year.) I was at a conference once where my primary editor was a speaker. I managed to get him aside (during a cocktail party) and simply ASK him the very question you posted. His response was that in order to make a living (which he categorized as $30K per year) at freelance writing, you had to have in the pipeline EVERY SINGLE MONTH a minimum of thirty stories that had been assigned. That's not queried--but assigned.

This is because it takes that many to get a steady stream of checks rolling in each month (since some pay on acceptance and some pay on publiciation) You MUST have steady checks each month to pay the mortgage and power company. Now, some months will pay $2,000 and some will pay $200 just due to accounting departments and mail service, but at least you can delay some bills if you know money is coming.

Naturally, that concerned me, because I told him I was spending hours researching a 2,500 word article and that even a well-paying market of $500-1,000 only equated to about minimum wage when it all sorted out. Even selling multiple articles from the same research didn't bring me up to a "good" salary, because most articles weren't in the $500-1,000 range, but closer to the $100-300.

His best advice (which made me laugh): He shrugged and said, "Write novels. They pay better." :roll:

So that's what I'm doing...

Jamesaritchie · Mar 13, 2006

Only about six million of those twenty-five million "writers" will ever finsih a novel. About 70% of those finished novels will be so horribly bad that you don't have to worry about them. Another 20% will not be horrible, but they won't be good enough, and will have other problems. The main problem they'll have is that there isn't one new idea in any of them.

Now, take the 10% remaining. Only a relatively few will be in cometition with your novel, meaning in the same genre, same book line.

Now, as for the thousands of good writers who are never published. Where the heck are they hiding? Sometimes a good manuscript does turn up in a slush pile, and you have to reject it for one reason or another, but it's rare, and just about all these novels go on to be published somewhere else.

If there are any really good writers out there who aren't being published, then darned few of them are actually finishing anything they start, because such writers almost never show up in sludh piles.

Jamesaritchie · Mar 13, 2006

Freelancing

Cathy C said:
VERY good point, Nomad! I forgot to mention those things. I started out freelancing (and, in fact, still squeeze in a few magazine articles every year.) I was at a conference once where my primary editor was a speaker. I managed to get him aside (during a cocktail party) and simply ASK him the very question you posted. His response was that in order to make a living (which he categorized as $30K per year) at freelance writing, you had to have in the pipeline EVERY SINGLE MONTH a minimum of thirty stories that had been assigned. That's not queried--but assigned. This is because it takes that many to get a steady stream of checks rolling in each month (since some pay on acceptance and some pay on publiciation) You MUST have steady checks each month to pay the mortgage and power company. Now, some months will pay $2,000 and some will pay $200 just due to accounting departments and mail service, but at least you can delay some bills if you know money is coming.

Naturally, that concerned me, because I told him I was spending hours researching a 2,500 word article and that even a well-paying market of $500-1,000 only equated to about minimum wage when it all sorted out. Even selling multiple articles from the same research didn't bring me up to a "good" salary, because most articles weren't in the $500-1,000 range, but closer to the $100-300.

His best advice (which made me laugh): He shrugged and said, "Write novels. They pay better."

So that's what I'm doing...

There's no way on earth I could have ten assigned article sin the pipline each month, let alone thirty. And if I did have them, I'd never, ever have time to write them. I find that advice rather odd.

It can take six weeks to write a single article, and many, many take from one to three weeks.

I suppose your editor meant that if you wanted to earn a living selling to small magazines, that would be the way to do it. But that sure seems like a nearly impossible way to earn a living at freelancing.

About thirty to fifty articles per year should be more than enough to earn that 30K. Quite a bit more, if you're writing for the proper markets. Writing more than one article per week almost always means you aren't writing for the kind of magazines that can offer a living, and spending too much time writing small articles for small mnagazines may bring in a steady supply of checks, but it'll wear you out and take away all the time that could be better spent finding big markets.

Lauri B · Mar 14, 2006

Another option is to become a freelancer in a specialty field, like finance or funerals or bass fishing or whatever. I have an acquaintance who makes around $75 K a year as a freelance financial report writer, working 3 days a week. It's a well-paying, if mind-numbingly boring, gig. There are definitely times when I wish I knew something about finance so I could have that kind of boring income.

Julie Worth · Mar 14, 2006

Nomad said:
First, the reason only 5 percent have actually been published is that most people are very, very bad writers but don't know it.

I think that’s right. When I began writing, I thought everything I wrote was great. “Hey, look at this, I wrote a sentence!” People came and looked. “Yes, they said, that’s some words you’ve got there. Ah, but don’t you need some punctuation to go along with it?” Huh...and I realized, okay, I’ll listen, for after all, I’m new to this. So, I, added, punctuation. And now my sentences were perfect. But you think they stopped with the niggling? That’s the worst thing, I came to realize, the jealousy, the unbridled envy. Twenty five million Americans want to be writers, and they can’t stand it that I’ve become one, right under their noses. You see how they are? Instead of congratulating me as they should have, they used every opportunity to trip me up. Telling me that me that my character’s names are unpronounceable, that my plots are indecipherable. One of them even fell asleep on my own couch with my manuscript on his chest. “Are you dead?” I said, poking at him, assuming he’d killed himself because my writing was so good that he couldn’t hope to compete. He snorted. “What, I’m reading I’m reading...ah...yeah, uh huh.” I’m glad I’m not one of those bad writers who don’t know it. Jeez, I’ve got enough problems with the jealous wannabes.

David McAfee · Mar 17, 2006

Nomad said:
First, the reason only 5 percent have actually been published is that most people are very, very bad writers but don't know it.

Ok, that's a given. The question is, if we stink, and no one tells us we stink, how will we know?

veronie · Mar 17, 2006

David. You don't stink. Now, go write.

David McAfee · Mar 20, 2006

veronie said:
David. You don't stink. Now, go write.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, veronie.

rtilryarms · Mar 22, 2006

I just write for pleasure.

Julie Worth · Mar 22, 2006

rtilryarms said:
I just write for pleasure.

I've reached that point too.

Lauri B · Mar 22, 2006

It's fine to write only for your own pleasure. The original question posed by veronie was what does it take to be a financially successful (which I am interpreting to mean 'solvent') writer. I didn't mean to ignore David's post asking how to know if you stink if no one tells you, but I have had a difficult time trying to answer him. I guess if you dedicate yourself to writing and revising many different pieces, you send them out to beta readers, you revise and revise again, then submit and submit and submit and you never get a bite, then it's pretty clear that you stink. That's the best answer I can give.

But if you're writing for yourself, or like spywriter, because you enjoy it, then who cares if you don't make a career of it? You're writing because it's good for you.

Yeshanu · Mar 22, 2006

Being in the not-published group does not automatically mean you don't have the "umph." It can be due to a lot of factors. You can have the talent, the drive, the ambition, the experience, and the doggedness, but sometimes you also have just plain bad luck and never manage to hit the right editor on the right day with the right book. Or you may write material that's not of interest to a a wide enough audience to make the 'big bucks', so while you are published regularly and successful within your niche you can't exist solely off your writing.

That's not "bad luck," it's bad planning. One of the things I've read over and over again is that freelancing is a business that includes more than just writing. If you're the best writer in the world, and you submit a fiction manuscript to a non-fiction publisher, it won't get published.

The other thing that I've noticed as a trait amongst successful writers is persistence. If something comes back in the mail as a rejection, it's out to a new market the next day. I know a lot of "writers" (myself sometimes included) who send out a piece to one market, and if it comes back, assume it's unsellable.

Ok, that's a given. The question is, if we stink, and no one tells us we stink, how will we know?

Get beta readers who know something about spelling, grammar, and the conventions of the genre you're writing in. Post something in Share Your Work.

Believe me, there are people out there who will tell you what's wrong with your work, if you're willing to hear what they have to say, and work on improving it.

Find them.

And as veronie said, keep writing. You may be making a few mistakes. Don't let that stop you -- you can learn to write better, but only if you keep writing.

Cathy, Nomad, and James:

:Hail:

You are all super people and I admire all of you tremendously. Thanks for your advice.

Now I'm done playing and need to get back to work...

David McAfee · Mar 22, 2006

Yeshanu said:
Get beta readers who know something about spelling, grammar, and the conventions of the genre you're writing in. Post something in Share Your Work.

I DO have stuff posted in SYW.

Unimportant · Mar 22, 2006

David, there are a lot of free critique groups on line for speculative fiction writers -- here, Critters.org, various yahoo groups (fantasy_writing, critical_writing, SF_fantasy_writers, etc) -- where you can workshop your work. Are you also offering critiques to other authors on SYW? Workshops are always quid pro quo, whether on an honour system or an enforced points system. You'll probably find that the more you put in, the more you get out: I learn as much or more by critiquing someone else's work as I do having my own critiqued.

If you have the chance to attend the Viable Paradise workshop, you'd likely find it extremely helpful. I highly recommend it.

Yeshanu · Mar 22, 2006

David McAfee said:
I DO have stuff posted in SYW.

K. I'll look it up...

David McAfee · Mar 22, 2006

Unimportant said:
David, there are a lot of free critique groups on line for speculative fiction writers -- here, Critters.org, various yahoo groups (fantasy_writing, critical_writing, SF_fantasy_writers, etc) -- where you can workshop your work. Are you also offering critiques to other authors on SYW? Workshops are always quid pro quo, whether on an honour system or an enforced points system. You'll probably find that the more you put in, the more you get out: I learn as much or more by critiquing someone else's work as I do having my own critiqued.

If you have the chance to attend the Viable Paradise workshop, you'd likely find it extremely helpful. I highly recommend it.

Good Point. I haven't exactly been critting others in SYW lately. I should jump in there, too.

Steven Pollack · Apr 2, 2006

Julie Worth said:
That’s the worst thing, I came to realize, the jealousy, the unbridled envy. Twenty five million Americans want to be writers, and they can’t stand it that I’ve become one, right under their noses. You see how they are? Instead of congratulating me as they should have, they used every opportunity to trip me up.

This applies to self-employment as well. When I decided to go off on my own as a goldsmith/independent contractor they told me not to, too risky. That was in 1990 and I never looked back. I ended up owning a successful jewelry store for nine years.

Now I decided to go to law school at 38 and again I was counseled not to. I may not practice but I sure am glad I understand the law. I will make the tuition many times over applying it in the business world. It also forced me to do more writing than I ever wanted to in the past and that leads me to want to memorialize my knowledge of retailing into a how-to book.

Basically I agree that there is a certain jealousy that manifests itself as criticism that comes at you from many directions, sometimes including loved ones. It never fails when you come up with something new. My wife has always been supportive of our trying new business ideas and this has helped a lot.

Steve

blacbird · Apr 4, 2006

rtilryarms said:
I just write for pleasure.

I write mainly for the pain. I just wish I could inflict some of it on others.

caw.

first time writer · Apr 22, 2006

my 2 cents worth

I agree with you on everything you said. But I would like to add my 2 cents worth. I have gone past the items you listed. I have the oomph and motivation. As a matte of fact I have just finished my novel. My roadblock is finding an agent who will take on my book. I have had several rejections so far. I have sent out about a dozen querys and proposals. Still waiting.

Tony

Cathy C said:
You want the truth? Really...do you think "you can handle the truth?"

Okay, then. Here's what it takes:

1. You have to write a good book. That's not meant to be facetious. It has to have a good solid plot, entertaining characters and be correct in form, grammar and spelling from the moment it touches the editor's desk.

2. You have to have the ability to EDIT that book very quickly. I don't care if it took you ten years to write it -- you'd better be able to completely REWRITE it in a month if the editor needs it. All the way down to the point of view. Maybe you LOVE first person. The editor may not. Loves the story, loves the people, but HATES first person. "Change it to third, rewrite the beginning to bring the reader into the plot more quickly and, oh, by the way -- we got tied up on this end and I'll need it back, fully revised, by the middle of April. Sorry about the short notice."

3. You have to be able to write the NEXT book (even if you haven't started it) of equal quality to the first in about nine months. That's when the editor will need it to fill the slot for the following year (I'm expecting that you'll have entered into a multi-book contract, since that's how you make a living at writing).

4. You have to be able to multi-task and jump easily between worlds. You don't get to be "tired" of the story you turned in months ago, because you're going to go back to it at least twice more (and possibly more depending on the internal structure of the publisher.) When you're writing full-time, you'll probably have one book in the writing stage, one that you're making edits on, one that you're copy editing (grammar, punctuation, etc.), and the synopses/proposals to be written for future stories. It takes awhile (if ever, depending on the editor) before a publisher will write a contract for something sight unseen. Be prepared to slap out a couple of chapters on any given synopsis in a week or less if the editor asks.

5. You'll need to have five to seven books in the back of your head, fully planned so you can suggest them to your agent (which isn't required but is a good idea to make a living at writing). The agent will start to push for the second contract for the next quantity of books about the time the first one hits the shelf.

Unless something extraordinary happens on the shelf with the first book, you probably won't make a true "living" at it until you have about five books in the pipeline.

ETA: It also depends on what you consider a "living." I should have mentioned that earlier. If my co-author and I were one person, this year we would probably make a "living" at writing. But with both of us, we're still in the "well paying hobby" category. I can't really live well on $28K. Maybe next year, though!

Hope that helps!

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