Decisions, Decisions

 

Terry here, weighing in on our topic this week: The business and creative sides of writing can feel like being on a teeter-totter. How do you manage to keep a balance? 

I’m not sure I actually keep a balance. I’m never going to spend the time that being a really good business person requires, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I SHOULD DO. 

I know what the creative side of writing means for me. It’s letting my interior child out to play and being excited by the idea she comes up with. Following her lead to write my books, working hard and enjoying the process. I'm willing to put a lot of time and effort into this, and I get a lot of intangible satisfaction from it. 

But what exactly is the “business” side of writing? Here are some examples of decisions a writer may have to make regarding the business side of writing. 

 1) What to write: You may have to choose between writing a book on a subject that is popular now or one that your agent and editor says is a dead end, but that you are really excited by. 

2) You may have more than one agent interested in representing your work, and you have to decide between one who is known for securing “big” deals, but whom you don’t think you fit well with, and one lesser known whom you really like. 

 3) A choice between a publisher that offers a bigger advance and one that isn’t able to offer as much upfront—but the big advance publisher is reputed to do a poor job of supporting their authors, while the “lesser” publisher is known for being very supportive. 

 

4) You may have to choose between being published by a publisher you don’t particularly respect, but is the only one who made an offer, or publishing independently. The business decision here is huge, and involves whether you are willing to learn how to publish your own work effectively, or if it’s likely to drive you crazy because it takes so much effort, and then may not pan out? 

 

5) Choosing to do your own promotion versus hiring someone. You have to weigh the pros and cons. Will the money you spend be realized in sales? But also, will you feel good knowing that you have hired a professional to boost your efforts? 

6) Choosing which social media outlets to become involved with. It’s almost a given that you need to have a presence on social media, but which one? You may loathe Facebook, but your research tells you that if you are engaged with your Facebook friends, they make a good target for your promotion. Or that may be true of Instagram, or Twitter, or any of the lesser known social media sites. Making that choice is not only a business decision, it’s a personal one. And that’s true of a lot of these decision. 

7) You maybe despise public speaking, but you know that speaking at bookstores,

book clubs, local social clubs, and other venues is a good way to get the word out about your books. You have to make that choice. 

In both your creative and business sides you have to weigh what efforts will be most likely to be satisfying, not just monetarily, but emotionally. To make the decision best for you may require doing some research, and even then it can come down to knowing yourself well enough to know how much time and effort you are willing to put into each one. 

 Here’s a real life example. I attended the California Crime Writers Conference this weekend. It’s expensive (although not as expensive as some) and time-consuming. So how do I decide whether attending a conference was worth it? I weigh how much it supported my creativity vs how much it may lead to better promo opportunity. 

Here’s the trade-off: It may have been expensive in time and money, but the panels were amazing, including this one I was part of, 

and I made some wonderful connections with other authors. These are connections that may not ever bring me any monetary gain, but they give me great satisfaction as a person. I learned a lot, some of which may be useful, some not. But even the things I learned that may not bring me monetary reward, brought me intangible rewards. Plus, being with other authors makes it possible to brainstorm new ideas for both the creative and business sides of writing. 

Susan Shea, Deb Crombie and I had a ball spending two hours brainstorming twists and turns for our works in progress.

Bottom line, I don’t spend as much time and effort on making good business decisions as I do on creative decisions, but I try to stay aware of what I MUST do, and not worry too much about what I COULD DO. That's the best balance I can strike.