this woman’s work

I often feel like as a reader, the commercial process of book publishing is sucking out the personality of the writer, and making the books into a common mold, that sucks the individuality out of the books (i.e. the ick-factor of the whole word “momoir” ugh.). I like the story of Dawn, not the story “Two moms: a mother comes to term with the meaning of open adoption” (or whatever gibberish your real story gets transformed into in the publishing world). ..  They become stuffed into some niche. … But, as a reader, I fear that authenticity is being sucked out of books by the publishing process, and they’re slowly killing themselves off. …

I definitely think the publishing world is changing because of the internet and I think it’ll be interesting to see what it changes into. I think writers who can stay on top of that will do better than writers who are firm luddites.

Trying to figure out how to make my writing life work professionally can get pretty challenging but the more I learn about it (stuff like this or this or this) the more prepared I feel to tackle it.

There are lots of good reasons to write a book but none of them is “to earn a living.” From what I can tell, most authors make money doing other things, too. They get grants and fellowships; they teach; they promote themselves; they give workshops; they freelance. These are the ones who make a living from their writing — the rest of ‘em have dayjobs. That is the nature of the beast. It’s hard to make money on a book.

A book does other things for you — it gives you an air of authority about the topic or as a writer; it opens other avenues of opportunity; it lets you (hopefully) nail bigger assignments in your target markets; it sometimes brings those target markets to you.

I want those things and I want to write a book I can be proud of. There are obstacles, obviously, and not all of them are in my control. I can’t help it if an agent dislikes the topic of open adoption or if another one doesn’t want to represent books that end up parenting shelves. I can’t help it that the booksellers will put the book there even if I think it ought to go someplace else. (For the record, I feel absolutely neutral about it being shelved in parenting.) But. I can know these things and plan accordingly. I can know and accept that the publishing world has these limitations and figure out how to work around them or work with them.

Frankly, that part of interests me, too.

At an interview for one of my clients they asked why I liked marketing communications. I told him, “Well, I like manipulating people.” Then I blushed and he laughed. I don’t mean manipulating people with lies but I do mean manipulating people with words to give them my insight, my feelings, my world view. (Or in the case of marketing communications the insight, feelings and world view of my clients.) This is fun wordplay. By the same token, once you know the rules of the publishing world you can either rail against ‘em or knuckle down knowing the rules. Me, I’d rather knuckle down.

Yes, the publishing world is too steeped in stereotypes and too worried about the bottom line and too hung up on genres and elevator speeches and the quick and easy sell. Yes, they manufacture bestsellers (read this fascinating article for more on that) leaving the rest of the booklist out shivering in the cold. Yes, yes, yes. So what? It’s a business.

I want to write a book anyway. If not this book, some other book. (But I really want to write this book.)

I’ve been working on my “what’s next” plan re., marketing this book idea and now what I really need to do is write. (I’m at the fleshing out notes stage.) So that’s what I’ll do but I’ll keep casting here and there as the mood hits.