Confessions of a small press author/editor, Part the First

[catherineldf]

Assuming I am motivated to write a Part the Second.
I just came home from attending a class at The Loft Literary Center (http://www.loft.org/) on what agents look for in a first novel, taught by a literary fiction agent. It was a perfectly fine class - well organized and presented, with a reasonable list of resources. On the downside, she had some issues getting the whole genre thing, apart from mysteries, which as we all know possess literary merit well beyond that of sf/f, horror, romance or anything else apart from...literary fiction. The Minnesota Book Awards have this same problem--forget being in the finals, let along winning, unless you're a mystery author. It's fascinating in its annoying and I-don't-write-mysteries-so-why-should-I-care-or-support-these-awards? sort of way.
But I digress.
So I run into sundry author pals from different parts of my life as one does at these things, and the first question I am asked is "What novel are you looking for an agent to rep?" A perfectly reasonable question considering I'm about 45k words into one novel and 20k into another, plus having 2 more outlined and started. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not agent hunting at the moment.
I've had 2 short story collections out with 2 presses so far (Torquere and Lethe) and will have the antho I'm editing out with Lethe released this year, for a total of 3 books with my name on the cover. Another antho with Lethe is a possibility and the re-release of my first collection, now out of print, is a probability. In addition,I have had stories published with Cleis, Alyson, Circlet, Seal, Thunder's Mouth, Constable and Robins, Carroll and Graf, Meisha Merlin, Haworth, Vehicule and Blue Moon, not to mention sundry presses and e-zines no longer up and running, for a grand total of something like 60 or so published stories. I've been in 6 volumes of Cleis' Best Lesbian Erotica series, 2 volumes of Best New Erotica and 3 volumes of Alyson's various "Best of" books, plus having one story final for the Spectrum Award and another story make it to the recommended list of Best of the Rest: Small Press Science Fiction and Fantasy. By many standards, I'm a wildly successful medium/small press author.
What that really means: I do a lot of readings, I travel to out of town conferences when I can afford to, I do a lot of panels, I blog and in short spend a lot of time tap dancing about in front of people in hopes of building up a fan base/readership/selling a few more books. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But every sale counts, every positive review counts, every new reader counts and every award nomination counts because there is no ad budget and no travel budget. Everything has to be fought for and celebrated or agonized over.
In return, I get a lot of say in what my books look like. I know how they get produced and how and where they sell. I don't have to change my name every 3 books because the last few titles didn't speak to your average B&N shopper. And, most importantly, I get to write what I want. I'm not locked into any strange formulas ("there has to be a sex scene every 6 paragraphs and it must include a reference to the color blue") and I can take risks with my work.
On the downside, I'm missing my shot at the writerly Holy Grail: quitting the day job to live off my writing.
How many writers do I know who've done that? Ten or twelve off the top of my head. How many have done this without the full financial/health insurance support of a spouse or partner? More like 3. The average writing income, based on one novel or a whole lot of articles per year, supposedly comes in at about $4000-$6000 US, and that's considered pretty good. Most professional writers don't make that much. Can you support yourself, let alone any other family members you may be responsible for, on this amount?
The ones who do manage to support themselves primarily by writing often also teach or do workshops, write in multiple genres under different names and have some other income generating project on the side.
And while these are not exactly unknown or invisible pieces of info, I'm still asked when I'm going to quit my day job and whether or not my publisher is sending me on tour. Sigh.
It is a remarkably durable mythology that no amount of information or good sense seems to correct, particularly within genre fiction. Is it a possibility? Perhaps. Will having an agent definitely sell any novel I crank out? Maybe, maybe not. Will having that agent sell one of my novels enable me to quit my day job? In the absence of a graphic novel, movie rights and a Broadway musical or at the very least a Pulitzer, probably not. Does it mean that I'll never go looking for an agent to rep one of my books? Of course not.
Perhaps a better question would be: have you found a successful way to juggle all the elements of your life such that you can carve out enough writing time to produce the work you love? Possible answers include: if not, can I help? If so, that's terrific! I hope it continues.

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting post - I have one moan is that you need paragraph breaks - its all one lump of text and hard to read online.

So far, for the record - I've made less than the figure you mention, and if I DO go fulltime it will have be under my dad's financial protection.

I haven't (in my small genre window) seen that an agent helps - I have a few author friends who have agents but because they are in a small genre, the agent seems to do (or achieves) nothing.

I've been deliberating whether I should try and get and agent now but I rather feel that - I've sold two novels, three novellas and over 20 short stories on my own merit. I feel rather pissed off that - if I got an agent NOW they would benefit for all the hard work I've put in.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

It depends on what you're writing. For mainstream romance, sf/f, etc., most of the big houses won't look at unagented manuscripts. So it buys you entry, sometimes. For erotica that isn't romantic or isn't het, I don't think having an agent is that useful. Most of the bigger name authors I know only use their agents for certain kinds of novels, not others. There's also the novelty factor to consider. New authors (as in the kind without books out) have no track record, but that also means that the publisher can't tell upfront that they only sold 200 copies of their last book.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if it was worth getting one after the fact to sell Transgressions on to other places - but perhaps the publisher will do that - I need to be brave and start asking questions!

:)

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Generally they take a book on as the whole package but there may be exceptions out there. Check out Cecilia's post below for a perspective from the agented. :-)

[sacchig.livejournal.com]

Must be something in this spring air--I've just been indulging in rather melancholy contemplation of just how small a literary pond I write/edit in, and how unlikely that is to change. Especially since I feel no enthusiasm for writing the kind of thing publishers think the dwindling "mainstream" of readers will buy.

But I also know that I'm lucky to get published at all. I'd be even luckier if I could actually get paid all I'm owed.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Yowch! That doesn't sound good at all. :-(
I'm down one check but not any more than that right now. Speaking of mainstream writing, the agent who taught the class was pretty enraptured with a 500 page novel, written in some form of free verse, about ritual abuse. Who do you know that would read such a thing for anything short of dissertation research? Ye gods! She also mentioned that one of her big award-winning clients, published by one of the big houses with a publicity budget, netted a grand total of 885 sales. I had one of those "I could do that on my own, I believe. What would I need you for?" But that rules out the glory and all.:-)

[thaedeus.livejournal.com]

Funny how mystery is considered "more literary" than SF/F and other genre fiction.
I don't get it.

Impressive list of publications! I am still at 0, but I write mostly in the "everyone dies" genre.

I see a lot of parallels between writing fiction and writing music (I do both). And I wonder
if something similar will happen with publishing fiction as is happening with music right
now.

The music industry is a large dinosaur, and a lot of us are directly marketing our work to
our listeners. Granted it is not easy to make money doing it, but we can cut out the middle
man, and create our art exactly as we wish.

I wonder if writers will eventually implement some sort of subscription service, where the
readers pay a nominal monthly/yearly fee to subscribe to "Catherine." And automatically receive
news and fiction as it gets finished.

I don't exactly know the answer, but things are changing.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

It requires, quite frankly, going bugfuck insane. I'm doing it: I pull down just under 40K a year, and I'm writing 12-15 books a year: the vast majority are ghost written for other people. How much of my work is mine?

Less than 10%.

People I know who live solely off fiction sell between 3-6 novels every year, all genre. That's the model I'm taking on: I can't keep doing what I'm doing. After five years of this, I'm so burnt out I cannot even tell you.

It can be done. It can even be done without a great deal of talent, I am proof positive of that. But oh what a cost it comes at. (And this is not snarky or ill-intentioned: the cost of writing full time and having a family depending on you is tremendous)

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have the utmost respect for you for doing it. And I disagree on the talent point. :-)
I was still toying with the idea a few years back but between needing to subsidize and eventually support other family members and what I actually make from my writing, it's unlikely to become an economic reality. I think it's true for the vast majority of pro writers, so it's kind of interesting how the whole "I sold my first book (or story, in some cases), now I can quit my day job!" thing is as durable as it is.
Part of me will always hope it happens, of course but not until the money's there. Kinda like the whole what would I do if I won the lottery game.
Huge hugs of encouragement sent your way. I do hope this year brings good and successful writing projects (preferably your own) to both of us.

[ceciliatan.livejournal.com]

Hear hear. In what's now 14 years as a full time freelancer, I can say there were perhaps three years where my writing & editing made my living. The other eleven years have been that mixture of writing in multiple genres, editing for others, teaching classes, doing massage, teaching tae kwon do, etc. etc. etc... and of course relying on my partner who is in a more lucrative business (computers) than I am.

Writing in multiple genres is like maintaining multiple careers, too. It's not like I can just lump it all under "writing." The overhead of going to conventions, maintaining contacts with editors, joining associations, building name recognition, etc... all that stuff has to be done separately for each genre and there's no cost savings on volume, sadly.

I do have an agent--she chases down a lot of the anthology deals and she's been great about bringing me various projects, and thankfully she works in many different genres. It's been a very good relationship, but she is the 3rd agent I've had. The first one strung me along for 3 years and never did squat, the second one sold a book for me right away (like in the first 2 weeks of our relationship), and then never did squat again after that, until she finally dropped me as a client because she said she was getting out of representing fiction writers because there was no money in fiction. (Duh!) Meanwhile, the agent I'm with now has brought nonfiction projects to me to fill my time while we wait on editors who are slow to buy fiction, but not every agent is like that, and I know she's not like that with all her clients. Thank goodness I have her to chase down money owed from publishers like Avalon/Blue Moon, though. God, I nearly went insane over how lax they were in paying for the anthologies we did with them. Almost always a whole year late paying me, and about two years late paying most of the contributors. From talking to other people who did books with them, it sounds like if she hadn't nagged regularly, it would have been three years to possibly never. Gah.

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

It is an amazing juggling act. And kudos to you for having made it work pretty well for you. It's hard enough being a writer let alone editor and publisher. :-)

excellent post!

[evilroygato.livejournal.com]

I really liked this post...and let me just mention that you doing everything you do and slogging away at something you love is totally an inspiration to me. Your hard work to achieve what you believe in has always been an inspiration to me, actually.

But since I don't know a lot about what it is to be a small press author, and the HUGE uphill battle that it is, it was nice to read some of the details. Hang in there.

Like thaedeus said previously, I think the way of things is changing slowly...I think people are starting to learn ways of working outside the giant-box-corporate way of publishing (music and writing and art), and I think it's a really good thing.

Re: excellent post!

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-)
I must admit, I'm less optimistic about it as it pertains to writing. The book world is still quite rigid and publishing professionals, writers included, buy into the mythology with much more enthusiasm than many musicians or artists do. The quickest way to get yourself taken less seriously is to say "I published my own book." And I'm not seeing a sea change on that yet, "Chicken Soup" books notwithstanding.

[jean-roberta.livejournal.com]

I'm still trying to find my way around: building "name-brand" recognition (aha! this story looks like a genuine Jean Roberta - might even be worth $50 U.S.) or doing self-promo without feeling like a complete idiot. I'm also still wrestling with my love of various genres, i.e. if I were rich enough not to be moved by the profit motive, I would want to write non-fiction, drama and poetry (now far in my past) as well as fiction. I'm wondering if these dilemmas might be related.
I've been wondering if my new column on the website of Erotica Readers and Writers, which goes live on July 1, will accomplish anything other than give me another soapbox, parallel to this one. (Maybe not, based on the awestruck silence which greeted my announcement, several posts back.)
I've tried posting excerpts to several romance-flavored Yahoo groups at the urging of a publisher (who also has 3 loops I was urged to join), and even in a short time, it started driving me berserk. I could sincerely take an interest in other writers' blurbs and excerpts if there were fewer of them and/or if I didn't have a day job, any other commitments or a need for sleep. And I can't expect anyone to read my blurbs/excerpts/free stories, etc. if I won't read theirs. As it is, the din of writers promoting their work to other writers reminds me of the stack of competing resumes I had to sift through once in a hiring capacity. Everyone (according to themselves) was a "self-starter" who could "think outside the box" (and their fluent use of cliche demonstrated this talent) with a "proven track record" and competence as a "team player" (further signs of unconventionality). Feh.
I still want to put more time into researching a non-fiction book project I thought up several years ago, but am terrified of having to start over from scratch trying to get something published in a genre where I am completely unknown. I can well believe that CB's writing life could drive weaker minds into the loony bin (praying for her/your continued sanity & wit).

[catherineldf.livejournal.com]

Well, based on my experience writing for ERWA, probably not, alas. I can't say I noticed any great movement in my career as a result but it makes one more nice line on the resume. But I do hope it goes well for you. And congrats!
You have articles out as well as nonsmut reviews and you could use those as leverage for the nonfiction project. I understand the competition is less painful over on the nf side and that it often pays much better so I'd say if it calls you, give it whirl. :-)

[jean-roberta.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And you've reminded me that I know of a fiction market that might not be familiar to anyone here. I'll post on that. Stay tuned.