Isn’t anything like I thought it would be. I suppose I had this romanticized picture in my mind of curling up in front of my computer and turning out, well, stuff. That part has come true. I do write stories. Novels and novellas, too. I truly love that part. There’s nothing better than being lost in the creative process where characters are alive in my head and the other world–the real one–fades into insignificance.
There are all those other parts, though. The ones I really didn’t know much about beforehand. I’ve taught myself to be a better self-editor. I’ve gotten better at researching markets for my stories. Not much point in sending a sci fi short to a market that publishes predominantly horror. Also not much point sending high fantasy to a market that wants an urban slant. I’ve developed more understanding of the romance formula where the romance is the story.
The short story markets are interesting. In many ways it’s like trying to hit a moving target with no feedback. If you send them something that looks a lot like what they publish, they often figure there’s too much sameness in their stories. “Yes, we want sword and sorcery, but we’ve had too many stories with ______________ (fill in the blank). We want something else now. Surprise us.” Sometimes I’m amazed I’ve had as many shorts published as I have. It was how I began my writing career back around 2008. Several webzines, anthologies, and magazines published fourteen of my short stories.
I’ve had a lot of fun writing paranormal romance novellas. Some are shorter, closer to twenty thousand words with other ranging from thirty to as much as fifty. A bit long in the tooth for a novella, but my then-publishers were happy with them. There’s something compelling about alpha males and kickass women who find one another and ride off into the sunset smiling…after they’ve gone through a bunch of angst and trauma.
Whether I’m writing, editing or researching markets, I’m pretty happy all in all. The part of things I am far less fond of is marketing. For one thing I don’t understand it very well. That’s not surprising since practically anything I pick up to read to educate myself says something contradictory. Some books say to develop a social media presence. Others say it doesn’t matter. That dichotomy is true for any marketing strategy including advertising. So, I do FB, Goodreads, and Twitter. I keep up my website and my blog. I try to remember Google+ when I post things.
From what I’ve seen, it seems to me that the publishing industry is like any other. It’s not what you know, or even how well you write. It’s who you know. If you know the right people, doors open. From that perspective, the best strategy is to keep on writing and develop a body of work.
My other epiphany about marketing is this: Every job I’ve ever had has had at least one aspect I didn’t care much for. That aspect was always critical to success. In psychology, it was keeping decent medical records. In mountain climbing, it was packing food. Too much and people complained their packs were too heavy. Too little and people bitched because they were hungry. See where I’m going with this?
I’ll admit to my love/hate relationship with marketing, but it is improving as I do more of it. How about you? What things are critical to success in your business? How do you cope with things that make you feel crazy? Really, I’d like to know.