The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Poppy Gee

What have you sacrificed to be a writer?

When I reflect on my regrets as a writer, it's the small sacrifices and compromises I have made, that come to mind. We beg, borrow and steal our writing time, the chance to sit uninterrupted for hours is not something most of us take for granted. You have to miss out on things, and we're willing to, but sometimes I've made mistakes. Here are some:

1. We were living in Zermatt, a mountain village in Switzerland. It was the summer of 1999, there were wild flowers all over the mountainside, mother and baby deer grazing on dewy grass outside my window, and a perfect blue sky above the white-crested majestic Mattherhorn. My boyfriend (now husband) was going caving with a group of our friends. This involved climbing down into caves, and wandering through caverns and creeks. We were all in our twenties, we'd worked the winter ski season together, and were having a beautiful summer of friendship and fun in the idyllic tiny village. On that day, it was my one day off from being a nanny. I chose to stay in our studio apartment and work on a novel that would never see the light of day. I still think about that decision. I wish I went caving.

2. Once I didn't go to the funeral of a person who was not close to me, but was close to someone I know, because I was writing. Again, it was my one writing day and my kids were babies and I had organised care for them for a few hours. I regret my choice for many reasons. At the least, it would have been an interesting way to spend the day - funerals are great material for novelists. But mostly, I regret not being a better friend. At the time, I felt like I had no time to write, and the compulsion to lock myself in a room and write for those few hours was stronger than my integrity as a friend. I regret that. 

3. I spend so much time alone, and don't invest a lot of time in my friendships, and I wonder if there will come a day when I don't have any friends left, except a few stragglers who, like me, have spent most of their lives doing something insular. I don't say that to feel sorry for myself, but there is a real chance. The question is, will a life of interiority and solitariness, of spending most time alone reading and writing, be worth it. The answer is, I don't know.

There are lots of scenarios like these in my life. Some I don't regret, such as not going to parties because I want to use the weekend to write, or not going away on girls weekends because I'd prefer to have a solo weekend and write. It's hard to find the time, and justifiy the time, to be a writer. My advice for emerging writers is to never put your writing before your family and loved ones. Always put precious people first. You can think about your writing while you're with them, and then scribble it down in stolen moments later. The challenge is getting the balance right. For me, the balance is a work in progress. 

If I Had a Penny, by Catriona

What have you sacrificed as a writer? 

Apart from the obvious: paid holidays, paid sick leave, a pension and a monthly salary (although I'd have lost the first three when I left Europe anyway and waved goodbye to the last by aging into gig economy times), what *have* I sacrificed by being a writer instead of doing some unthinkable other job that it still scares me to imagine having to return to? (At a push, I could clean pub toilets again. But I'd hate to have to go back to being an academic.)

Book 39! Buy links

There are only three real sacrifices that I've managed to identify, and they're barely worth the name.

1. People believing I've got a job.

I've lost count of the times this has happened. Early on, I tried to decline a standing invitation to a weekday coffee get-together. "I work on Thursdays," I said. "Oh," came the reply. "You got a job?" I might have blinked. "Yeaahh," I said. (This person had been at my book launch.) "I'm a writer." 

Another time, I dropped everything to step in and deal with a fraught situation. It wasn't my family. I did it anyway. I sort felt that maybe there might be a mild "thank you" coming my way. Imagine my surprise when, instead, there was an "It's lucky you don't work, so you had time to do this." 

Or a no-longer neighbour, who'd regularly phone me up to ask things during the day, because evenings were when her husband and mine came home for family time. You know, after they had finished . . . what was it? . . . Oh yeah: work. I actually went as far as giving her Neil's office number and saying she could phone him instead. Gasp. "But he's at work!" she said, recategorising me as the kind of wife who deserved to be run out of Stepford.  

Sometimes it's just people I haven't seen for a while asking, "Are you writing anything at the moment?" and then being surprised that I am. Doesn't happen to plumbers.

But hey-ho.

Keep reading.

2. People recognising that it's *my* job

This really bugs me. It happens to everyone who writes. I don't know if it happens to painters and musicans, but I doubt it. Here's how it goes: you're at a party, or the dentist, or a funeral - you exist, okay? And someone you don't know sidles up and makes you an offer they are astonished you can refuse. "How long's it take you to write a book?" they say. I find that a hard question already. A year? I write two books a year but it's like being able to wash clothes and make bread at the same time. You can hang the washing out while the bread's rising, and you can knead the dough while the sunshine's drying the clothes. Leaving drafts to rise (or dry) is an essential bit of the process. But let's say a year. "Okay," says the party/dentist/funeral guy - and I don't use "guy" in a genderless way, believe me - "I tell you what. I've got a killer idea. I'll share it with you and then you write the book, okay?"

What I actually say when this happens is, "Oh no! No, don't give it away. It's *your* precious idea, burning in *your* belly. *You* should write it. I'll come to the launch party when it comes out."

What I want to say is, "Okay. You spend ten minutes telling me the idea and I'll spend six hours a day for three months on the first draft and then another seven weeks per re-draft, then a further month on copy edits, and a week for the proofs. How would you like your 0.0000134% paid, when it's done?"

But I don't say that, because hearing the split that drunk-toothache-coffin guy was expecting will make my eyes start to bleed. You do know the split that's suggested every single last damned time this happens, don't you? Correct. 50/50.

3. People connecting my job with pay (just like their job).

It's not even people asking you to do speaking events for "exposure" although that's bad enough. I'm actually fine with people saying up front that their fundraiser or volunteer event can't stretch to a stipend but they'll pay travel expenses and take you out for a nice lunch. Naw, I'm talking about these two things. 3a. People who're themselves drawing a salary for running events they charge people to attend, but never considering paying the authors who're central to the event. 3b. The somewhat related people not mentioning money at all and reacting as if shocked by the intrusion of grubby commerce when they're asked about it. Hmmmmm. Try that anywhere else - at the end of a meal in a restaurant, at the door of a cinema, on the phone to an airline. "I'm sorry? What is this "bill" of which you speak? Qu'est-ce que c'est  "ticket"? I'm not familiar with "fare"? Can you explain, please?"

But even that isnt my biggest peeve. (Do I mean biggest? Or smallest? You can't have read this far and still not have noticed that this entire blog is a petty little whingefest.) Anyway, that prize goes to my friend and yours, Climbing-into-the-coffin-with-a-party-hat-on-and-blaming-the-novocaine-Guy. He's ba-ack. And the bad news is he listened to what I said and he's written his book. Now he wants an evaluation of it. Two things are wrong now. 3c. No, he doesn't. He doesn't want to hear what you think. He wants to hear that it's a cathedral of dizzying genius and 3d. He doesn't want to pay for your time. 

Why would he, when he's doing you such an enormous favour? And how do you know he thinks it's a favour? Because of the missing word in this heartsink of a sentence: "I've finished my book. I'll _____ you read it now."

You know the missing word right? Right.

Cx

Book 40! Coming in December.
I'll _____ you read it then.

Sacrfice by Eric Beetner

 Life: What have you sacrificed as a writer? 

(TV? Fitness? Family? Marriage? A well paying job?! and how do you feel about that.)

When I made a conscious effort to slow down in recent years, this question was on my mind quite a bit. Much of it needs to be measured by the business side of things. The ROI or Return on Investment. Not so much financially, though that is a factor, but in the intangibles, mostly having to do with time.

I set myself a goal to finish my first novel before my youngest daughter came home. I met that goal and it signaled my switch from screenwriting to primarily novel-writing. Since then I have sacrificed family time for sure. I don’t think I ever gave up a detrimental amount of time. My kids always took priority over any book event or arbitrary deadline I had looming. I made it to the swim meets and the lacrosse games for both of my girls. They both enjoyed seeing me head off to a book festival or a bookstore signing. They weee supportive and never asked me to slow down. If they had, I would have. Now they are off in college and I have more supposed free time, right when I need to slow down for the other looming specter: my health.

I get more exercise now than I did a decade ago for sure. Again, a conscious choice. Has my word count suffered? Absolutely. And that’s okay.

My late nights aren’t as late as they once were. I shifted my schedule so I can get up at 6 am to go exercise by playing volleyball on the beach a few times a week. It’s a worthy trade-off in my opinion.

I’ve never spent excess amounts of money on my writing career. I’ve been able to pay for most conferences out of book royalties, I don’t make rash investments in the latest online ad fad going around until I know anyone who has seen success. I’ve been lucky to have a well-paying day job so my writing has never had to sustain the family. We’d be living in a cardboard box under an overpass if it did.

The trade-off there is the old adage that you need to spend money to make money. I’m sure I have missed out on some sales or slowed the growth of my career because of my frugality, but keeping a roof over our heads, saving for college, being able to take a vacation now and then are all much higher priorities than my Amazon ranking. I have seen far more authors who spend that money only to see little or no return, though. 

I can honestly say I have sacrificed a little of my mental health pursuing a writing career. My day job comes with its own stresses. I’ve been a part of many creative industries including the music business, Film business, TV business and publishing business. None of them are for the faint of heart. All of them will crush your soul. 

I have endured frustrations, humiliations, heartbreaks, brushes with success so close you can feel the heat and also betrayal, jealousy and disrespect. And guess what? So have all of us who take this on. It comes with the territory.

The decades of rejection can wear on a person though. I hope I never let it bleed into my home life or I never took out my frustrations on my wife or my kids, but I’m sure I was in a sour mood from time to time. I’m only human.

I do feel I have created a fair balance in my own life. I know that any successes I’ve had have been of my own making. I still long to be let into the exclusive club of working authors, but I know there is only so much room on the other side of those doors. I will likely never make it inside. At the same time, there are writers behind me in line who wish they were as close to the door as I have gotten.

To them I would say, protect your most valuable asset: your own time. If I stopped to calculate my hourly rate based on how much time I have spent on writing vs. how much monetary compensation I’ve gotten back I might go insane. But it’s about more than that. Creating something and letting it out in the world is, and always should be, about the process itself, not the financial reward. The chances are slim that you will ever make a decent buck at this pursuit. If you don’t enjoy the process, then you are guaranteed disappointment. So you must temper your expectations, and keep your time as your own. If all the business does is make you miserable, then you shouldn’t do it. I’ve know many authors who decided they were sacrificing too much, on any or all of these fronts, and they walked away and are happier for it. Good for them. Sacrifice, like suffering, shouldn’t be a key part of the writing life. Only give up what you are willing. 

When the Old Powers Lost the Room

  

The Strait of Hormuz is in the news again.

 

In 1956, another strategically vital waterway became the center of a crisis that exposed how quickly assumptions about power can collide with reality. Britain and France still regarded themselves as great powers with the ability to shape events far beyond their borders. Israel had its own calculations. Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the Suez Canal, threatening Western interests and the assumptions of an imperial order that was already beginning to crumble.

 

There are historical events that become dates, then footnotes, then trivia questions.

 

And then there is Suez.

 

Britain, France, and Israel made a secret agreement.

 

It was clever. It was audacious. It was also the sort of plan that works beautifully until the United States and CIA Director Allen W. Dulles find out about it.

 

That is where THE QUIET EAGLE begins.

 

The fifth novel in The Company Files series takes Walker to Cairo during the Suez Crisis, where he encounters a world in which governments, intelligence services, and individuals are all pursuing different versions of the same thing: control. The problem is that control is an illusion once enough people begin acting on their own calculations.

 

That is what drew me to Suez in the first place.

 

My previous Company Files novel, EYES TO DECEIT, took me to Iran in 1953, and to another moment when an old power confronted the consequences of nationalization. Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh had nationalized Iran’s oil industry, and British and American intelligence responded with Operation AJAX, the covert effort to remove him from power.

 

Three years later, Suez offered another variation on the same underlying problem: Western powers confronting a world in which their ability to dictate terms was becoming increasingly uncertain.

 

The crisis is often remembered as a confrontation over a canal. It was considerably more than that. It was a collision between an Old World order and a new political reality, played out against the machinery of the Cold War. Britain and France were trying to preserve influence they were rapidly losing. Nasser was asserting Egyptian sovereignty and a new kind of Arab nationalism. Israel had security concerns and strategic objectives of its own. Washington and Moscow had interests that did not necessarily coincide with those of their supposed allies.

 

And behind the public story were the intelligence services, where diplomacy becomes calculation and yesterday’s ally can become today’s liability.

 

That makes Suez unusually fertile ground for a spy novel.

 

The connection to the present is not that today’s world is a repetition of 1956. It isn’t. The circumstances are different, the players are different, and the stakes have changed. But the underlying problem remains recognizable: what happens when governments mistake power for control?

 

In THE QUIET EAGLE, Allen Dulles is at the center of that question. Here I have deliberately taken literary license. As I explain in the Afterword, I imagined Dulles setting a personal act of revenge in motion against Britain, France, and Israel because they negotiated the Protocol of Sèvres without his knowledge or input.

 

That motivation is fiction.

 

The world around it is not.

 

The Protocol of Sèvres existed. The secret agreement existed. The Israeli invasion of Sinai happened. Britain and France did intervene. And the extraordinary political consequences that followed helped expose just how far the assumptions of the old European powers had drifted from reality.

 

That distinction—between the historical record and the imaginative space of a novel—is important to me.

 

I don’t write historical espionage to disguise fiction as fact. I write it because History gives Fiction something wonderful: pressure.

 

Put a character in Cairo in 1956 and he doesn’t have to wonder whether the world is changing. He can feel it. Old loyalties are potential liabilities. Intelligence services are pursuing agendas that their own governments don’t entirely understand. People who thought they were important discover that they are expendable.

 

And Walker, characteristically, would rather be somewhere else writing his next screenplay.

 

But beneath the intrigue, THE QUIET EAGLE is interested in something darker: what happens to individuals when great powers begin making decisions in secret and then discover that consequences cannot be kept secret.

 

If Suez seems like history you may know, I invite you to look again.

 

The canal and Cairo provide the premise and setting. The real story is what happens when the people who believe they are running the world discover that they no longer are.

 

THE QUIET EAGLE is fiction.

 

The shadows are real.

Semantic Satiation from James W. Ziskin

Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others' books?)

I always like to thank my beta readers. Sometimes I thank my agent and editor. Not always. I treat acknowledgments differently from the way I do dedications. Those are short and sweet, while acknowledgments are always longer. Not that dedications are easier to write, despite their shorter length.

Like Dietrich, I keep a list of beta readers and people who have helped me in some way so I won’t forget them when the time comes to submit acknowledgments to the publisher. For my latest book, THE PRANK, the list kept growing due to the amount of time I had between finishing the first drafts and final publication. About three years. I’d never been in that situation before, and I sincerely hope I didn’t forget anyone.

Here’s a head-scratcher: I sent the book to a few beta readers who—apparently—didn’t read it. At least I didn’t hear back from them. What to do in that case? It’s perfectly understandable that those readers might not have had the time or they forgot about my request. I’ve done that once or twice, myself. So even if I had no hard feelings at all, I didn’t feel it was appropriate to mention those readers in my acknowledgments.

I like to keep my thanks short. People don’t buy books to read the acknowledgments. They buy books to read the story. Does that sound selfish? Oh, well. Too bad. And while there may be some interest in finding out who helped that story come to be, I don’t believe an author should take more than a page or two to ramble on about it. A sincere expression of thanks should suffice.

As I mentioned above, I have, at times, thanked editors and agents for their support and guidance, but not for every book. Nothing negative, but repeated thanks might start to lose their meaning by the sixth or seventh time. Kind of like semantic satiation (Leon Jakobovits James), that odd way words sound funny and lose their meaning if you repeat them over and over. 

Here’s an example of how I worded my acknowledgments for THE PRANK:

“I received so much valuable feedback from my beta readers. What worked. What didn’t. Where I went too far. Where I didn’t go far enough. Thank you all for your honesty, expertise, encouragement, and common sense. In alphabetical order: (Names redacted.)”

And, due to extra input for language and culture, I wrote the following for Turn to Stone: 

“I’ve made a lifelong study of languages, Italian front and center, and know from experience that there is no substitute for a native speaker’s eye and ear when it comes to editing words, phrases, and references that are not your mother tongue. For that reason, I relied on some wonderful friends for feedback on the Italian usage in this book.” (Names redacted here.)

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Thank

Damn. Now that word has lost all meaning in my head…

*******************************

THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it.”

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

7

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The quietest drama

Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others' books?)

By Dietrich

Sometimes a single paragraph does the job (“Thanks to my editor, my agent, and the usual suspects”), other times acknowledgements want to sprawl across pages. Both can feel right—or wrong—depending on the book and the author.

I keep a running list while I write. Names, specific help, the moment someone said the exact thing that unlocked a piece of the puzzle. When the manuscript is done I sort the people without whom the book wouldn’t exist, and the people who made it better with their encouragement, help and patience.

There is one pitfall. I’ve been with the same publishing house for 14 titles and counting, spanning more than a dozen years. The same core team—editor, publicist, art director, copyeditor—appears over several titles. So, it’s easy for the acknowledgements to sound repetitive, the same phrases recycled until they start to sound obligatory rather than heartfelt. The risk isn’t just boredom for the reader; it’s that the people I’m thanking begin to feel my gratitude is on autopilot. So I look for concrete details each time: the exact note that fixed a structural flaw, the cover concept that finally clicked, the quiet support during a rough patch that no one else saw. 

Freshness keeps it honest.

I usually decide early whether the acknowledgements will be public performance or private gratitude. Some readers treat them as part of the reading experience; others skip straight past. I write them primarily for the people named, secondarily for the curious reader who likes to see the scaffolding.

And yes, I almost always read them in other people’s books. Not for the thank-yous themselves, but out of curiosity. I can learn something deeper about an author, who they credit with hard truths, how they talk about collaboration and so on. Depending on the book, the acknowledgements can seem like the most revealing pages between the covers.

Sometimes they can be funny and inventive too. Here are a few good ones: 

Sue Coletta’s from Cleaved:

A special thank you to all the men and women in law enforcement…

…and Alexandria Taxidermy for the plethora of information about deer antlers. You all went out of your way, and I’m so grateful.

“I spoke with other members of NH Fish & Game, too. You know who you are…thank you for dealing with a crazy crime writer who forgot to mention the deceased was, in fact, fictional when calling in a report of a body in the marsh. That situation could’ve gone a total different way!”

From Christopher Currie’s The Ottoman Motel:

“If it’s possible to fall more in love with someone every day, then that’s what I do.

To my favourite, to the reason I live my life, Leesa Wockner, who, if she reads this, I hope will agree to marry me, despite the number of commas in this sentence.”

And from Nelson DeMille’s Wild Fire”: 

“So, on the off chance that this is helpful, I wish to thank the following people: the Emperor of Japan and the Queen of England for promoting literacy; William S. Cohen, former secretary of defense, for dropping me a note saying he liked my books, as did his boss, Bill Clinton; Bruce Willis, who called me one day and said, “Hey, you’re a good writer”; Albert Einstein, who inspired me to write about nuclear weapons; General George Armstrong Custer, whose brashness at the Little Bighorn taught me a lesson on judgement; Mikhail Gorbachev, whose courageous actions indirectly led to my…”

Thank you...etc.

 

Terry here with our question of the week: Acknowledgements vary between a terse paragraph and pages of prose. How do you manage them? (And do you read them in others’ books?) 

 I think there is something wrong with me. I’m always delighted to offer a hearty thank you to anyone has helped me move forward on my work—or my play, for that matter. But when it comes to writing acknowledgments, I get whatever the finger equivalent of tongue-tied is. Everything I write seems stilted and sounds insincere. Therefore my acknowledgements are always truncated. And when the book comes out I read them in horror as I realize I left out vital people I needed to thank. I keep promising myself I’ll do better, but when the time comes I freeze. 

 What makes me even crazier is that I always read acknowledgements—and I mean always--and am often struck by how warm and personal they are. Here are some examples of ones I chose at random. I wish I could match them. 

“Tempest would not exist if not for my amazing parents…who raised me in a multi-cultural family and took me across the United States, Europe, and India when I was too young to fully appreciate it, but old enough for it to sink in that I was a citizen of the world.” 

                    Gigi Pandian, Under Lock and Skeleton Key

 “From the first line of this book to the very last, I have benefited from the persistence, kindness, cajoling, midnight texts, meals, tough love, downright threats, and utter devotion of my wonderful editor Dan Smetanka.” 

                    Tod Goldberg, Gangster Nation 

 “When I finish writing a book, the first place it goes is to my early readers. They’re unflinchingly honest with their feedback and critiques, and I love them dearly for it.” She goes on to list them. 

                    Claire Booth, A Deadly Turn 

 This next next one is so lovely I would like to write out the entire acknowledgements page , but I’ll pare it down to the first couple of lines: “My heartfelt thanks—and also my deep admiration—to those who work as volunteers with Los Samaritanos and Humane Borders. These are courageous, good-hearted people who risk a great deal to offer assistance to the thousands of refugees crossing the border every year in the hope of finding sanctuary.” 

                    William Kent Krueger, Sulfur Springs 

"A novel is always a collaborative effort. The words are mine but the polishing and molding of the story bears fingerprints of many hands.” 

                    S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears 

 Of course they go on thank a bevy of helpers: early readers, crime-writing organizations, agents, editors, publishers, and those with special knowledge they needed. (For example, Tod Goldberg thanks someone who “provided me insight on certain, shall we say, shady aspects of the casino industry.” 

 But those warm words at the beginning set the tone. 

 Maybe I’ll steal those one of those beginnings when it’s time to write the next acknowledgements. Keep an eye out!

Delusion and Delirium by Poppy Gee

Being part of the literary community is one of the best parts of being a writer.

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

The best part about most jobs are the people - and the writing life is no different. You spend a lot of time alone, so you need to invest time in building literary relationships. This was something I didn't do until a few years ago. Making writerly connections has been one of the best bits about my recent writing journey. 

As for the business of writing, there is no magical formula for a way to wrangle yourself a positive and hopefully lucrative experience in book publishing. There are so many stories of people who succeed and fail, or fail and succeed, or are holding on during a rollercoaster ride of everything in between. 

Here are some ideas on how to get great sales:

1. You could write a series with a smart policeman or a smart journalist as the progagonist. I see writers doing this and getting some longevity out of it - Dinuka McKenzie, Chris Hammer, Ann Cleeves, to name a few.

2. You could write a strange, warped, shocking novella like Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh - a weird and brilliant crime fiction book that was shortlisted for the Booker - the only crime novel ever to do so. 

3. You could write generic crap that seems to sell well. (Sorry! but it's true).

I've always written from the heart and that gives me satisfaction that no matter what happens with book sales etc, I have been honest, and tried my best. 

One thing I would tell my younger writing self is to not listen to the love bombing from people inside the publishing industry. I have an email saved, sent to me in 2013, from a senior US publishing industry figure, who told me I was the next Tim Winton, among other sweet pillow talk that makes a young writer's heart flutter deliriously. They should never say such things. And if I knew better, I would never have listened. When that person slunk away, disappearing like a thief in the night, my feelings were deeply hurt. It sounds silly! But a good lesson learned. 

My key advice to anyone starting out is to find a great writing community. This is vital to being a good writer. They give you oxygen, they are an ecosystem in which you will thrive and survive. Attend events, go to book launches, connect on social media, have fun and be a good literary citizen - before your book gets published. And then, when your book comes out, you'll have a great community to enjoy the experience with. 

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  

Wait For It by Eric Beetner

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

I’ve thought about this a lot over the years. My first book came out in 2009. Far enough away to earn me veteran status, but still feels like yesterday. Since then, I’ve published 35 works and over 120 short stories.

Step one would be to not publish as much.

That first novel I still believe in, but we never should have published it then. That one was co-written with another author who invited me to collaborate with them and I did just to keep writing and I thought it would be fun. It was. We wrote four books together, three of which got published. But we fell into that trap of being young (ish) and eager and we took the first offer given to us with a tiny indie press.

Back then it was so amazing that anyone would want to put out a book, and we didn’t have agents then, that it seemed foolish not to take advantage of the offer. I learned quickly that a bad offer is worse than no offer at all.

What started for me then, I believe, was a growing list of books with zero publicity leading to poor sales numbers which adds up over time and makes me a hard sell to bigger publishers.

The hard lesson learned over the first decade of publishing is that it is not a meritocracy. I believed that hard work would pay off. I wrote more than most people, I organized readings, I volunteered with organizations, I worked hard to promote other authors. I gathered an impressive list of accolades. I finally got that agent. I made friends with many authors both big and small. None of it mattered in the face of small presses unwilling to invest in the books beyond crossed fingers and a bi-monthly social media post.

I wrote whatever people wanted when they came calling. I wrote under other names, in other people’s series. I wrote short, novella-length when powers that be convinced many people that short form was the future (it was not). I listened to friends and colleagues when they told me of new ventures in ebook publishing that would catch fire (they did not).

I wrote shorts for anyone who would take them. I wrote novels and watched as small presses died one after another like it was my own words infecting them with a fatal disease. I’ve had seven publishers go out of business while publishing my work. You read that right - seven. I’ve had a few novels orphaned multiple times. I’ve been kicked in the teeth again and again by this business and I wish I’d had more patience to let the process play out at the start. Do the querying, find an agent, wait for that first deal to be the best deal because you're only a debut author once. 

I guess I’m impatient by nature. I’m prolific because I love writing. I learned the business doesn’t reward that. It’s too much for readers to keep up with at some point. I needed to slow down and not take every offer I was handed.

The temptation was that people were responding to the work. Someone saying they like your book and want to put it out is intoxicating. And it was just sitting there on my hard drive. Why not release it?

I’ve slowed down now. I try to let the process play out. My agent right now has 4 finished manuscripts and I have several that have fallen out of print that I’m waiting on getting back out there because I want to do the books justice this time. I’d hate to think poor publishing has killed some of my best writing. But I can wait.

Through it all I’ve kept on typing and somehow not given up. When I look back at the writers I was coming up with around the time my first novel was published, very few are still in the game. Other bad deals, poor sales, the frustrations of the business all got to them and they faded away. Even writers who had big 5 deals and sold tens of thousands of books eventually hit a wall and saw decline sales, dropped contracts and eventually walked away from ti all. My plan has always been to relentlessly stick around until I wear down readers by just being a constant presence and make them stop fighting it and just read something. Not a solid business strategy.

For my next book, my first with a pen name, I get a do-over. I’m going to try different strategies, different approaches and see what happens. I’m lucky I get that chance.

My Name is Cassandra, and I’ll Be Your Waitress

  

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

 

Hindsight is a dangerous thing. “What If” is the poisonous snake that eats its own tail.

 

But since you asked what I’d do differently in today’s publishing landscape, I’ll murder two comparisons to answer the question. Think of the mythological Cassandra as a writer, and the art of writing as a restaurant.

 

If you don’t know Cassandra, she was the Trojan princess who traded a roll in the hay with Apollo for the gift of prophecy. But because gods are untrustworthy, the gift became a curse: she told the unvarnished truth with devastating accuracy, and nobody believed a word. She even predicted her own assassination. End of story.

 

Now, Take Two.

 

Cassandra is your waitress at a restaurant called The Whodunit. The concept is a mess—part greasy diner, part casual bistro, part chic contemporary cuisine. Like publishing, it is run by the ‘back of the house,’ dictated by an anxious owner and a temperamental chef and a team of caffeine-addled staff.

 

Diners wander in hoping for sustenance and respite from the world. They trust the staff. They have no idea if the Daily Special is twenty-four hours away from salmonella.

 

The real problem? The back of the house doesn’t know what the front of the house wants, and the front of the house doesn’t know until they taste it. Once the restaurant finds success with a handful of dishes, they never change them or the décor. The owner refuses to tempt the gods of commerce. Why mess with what makes the register go CA-CHING!

 

This is why readers see the exact same palette tone for every thriller, the same glossy animal art for cozies, and the same damn font family on every serious ‘literary’ tome.

 

When a diner asks Cassandra for advice, she’ll wrinkle her nose and tell you the dirty truth nobody else will say aloud: once you’ve worked in the kitchen, you’ll never eat there.

 

Agents and acquisitions editors have the knives, but as the writer, you’re the only one who knows how to disassemble a poisonous blowfish without killing the customer. If a dish doesn’t earn its place, it disappears from the menu. And if you’re not welcome at The Whodunit, you can walk.

 

The playwright Ferenc Molnár once said of his career: “First, I did it for my own pleasure. Then I did it for the pleasure of my friends. And now—I do it for money.” Substitute writing for prostitution, and voilà. You could write formula and do it for money or be like a brave and true Cassandra.

 

If I were starting today, Cassandra’s advice would be simple: Nobody knows what will sell. When a trend finally hits, the industry will cram it down the public’s gullet until everyone loses their appetite. Fads live and die.

 

I can’t speak to the side dish called Marketing. I don’t know if TikTok or Insta is worth the heartburn, or if an agent is worth their 15%. Editors aren’t mentors anymore; that work is subcontracted out. The Big Names sell for now, but in this business, you are here today and gone tomorrow. There is no accounting for timing and luck.

 

The only way to stay on the menu is to deliver a dish crafted so well, and with something so inexplicably you, that they can’t replicate it in a test kitchen.

 

Write what you love. Teach yourself to be terrifyingly good at it. As for the rest? Word of mouth is how the best joints survive.