The best of all possible worlds, by Catriona

What would you do differently if you were starting your career in today’s publishing landscape?

I'm tussling hard with this one. I wrote my PhD about the interpretation of references to non-existent objects - from the Pope's wife, to bilingual hamsters. It had so many practical uses. Why, I still need it every day.

Anyway, I took a possible worlds philosophical approach to the problem (What problem? I know, I know.) and developed a theory proposing that references to non-existent objects were statements about other worlds. 

My point is I spent serious time thinking about counterfactual realities and it's left a mark. So, to make sense of this question, I need to assume that I've started writing at the same age I did in the real world - thirty-five - but I was born twenty-five years later than I was. Talk about an autumn crocus. My poor mum!

But have I just left UK and moved to America? Or did I leave sixteen years ago when I was nineteen?  No idea. This answer better be international.

Okay.

1. I know now that keeping the first book in a series in print is really important. I'd be less inclined to sign with a publisher who believed otherwise. Or I'd work hard to get my early rights back and self-publish the first titles in tandem. When I didn't do this, the reason was that it felt like a reckless expenditure. Now, with hindsight, I see it as a prudent investment. Ah well. 

2. I'd write more short stories if I was starting out today. Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine are still thriving. (Did you know your SinC membership gets you a reduced subscription rate? Reason 5734911 to join.) And the anthology is a growth area in our genre. I'm barely in double figures with short stories and my love for them has been a slow burn. But I'm all in now.

3. I'd probably do this next thing even though it's a bad idea. Amazon reader reviews didn't really exist when I was starting out so I had already learned the hard way how much a crummy review can wound, before the possibility of anonymous strangers - some with dodgy agendas - became a phenomenon I could fall prey to. Thus, through no kind of willpower or personal strength - in fact, because of cowardice and fragility - I've never got in the habit of looking at my own books' reader reviews. I see enough, from checking out the reviews of books I'm considering reading, to know they're . . . a mixed bag is the most neutral term I can come up with. 

If I was starting today, no way would I be able not to peek at what people were saying to other people about my books, even if none of it was meant for me to read. (I probably wouldn't be able to not doomscroll, not click on whatever the algorithms dangled or not have my phone in my bedroom at night either. There are benefits to being this old.)

The scariest thought is that I might not start at all if I hadn't started at the turn of the millennium. That was a heyday for fiction-writing as a viable career. Oprah was in her pomp, publishers were hungry, no one had a pocketful of distraction, so everyone still needed a paperback on the bus. Books were booming. 

But wait. I think my counterfactuality just fractured. That was me this age, thinking about today vs yesterday with that annoying lazy nostalgia. I'll take another run at it. 

4. If I was starting today, I'd produce my content using Plottr and Scrivener and then spray Booktok and Insta with wall-to-wall promo shorts. 

Doesn't sound like me, I have to say.

Cx