WRITING IS A JOB

My guest is Lisa Brackmann. Her Debut book will be available June, 2010, from Soho Press. Be on the lookout, I will be reviewing this book for the blog soon.


Lisa is a friend and she's like the fifth friend of mine that received a contract this past year. It's been quite an eye opener to watch all the work that Lisa and other friends have had to do after they've sold the book. I hear about it from them all in varying degrees.


Why do I say that? Simple. Most writers are focused exclusively on the work involved in writing the story, editing and polishing the manuscript. Then they embark on the querying process and creating the right query letter. Looking for an agent and publisher. Granted, there is a lot of work involved in this part of the process. Somehow, you get the idea this is the brunt of the work. Once you sell, it's just a matter of waiting for the book to be released. Oh so wrong.


One of the benefits of having friends selling their books is seeing another aspect of work involved and just as hard, but in a different way, as the creating and selling it that book. Wow. If you think it's easy street after the sale, think again. It's a lot of hard work.


Lisa explains what it's been like for her.



A few years ago, back when I first seriously started writing novels, I came across Stephen Pressman’s book “The War of Art.” Pressman talks a lot about overcoming resistance and facing your creative fears, but for me what really resonated was one simple principle: writing is a job. The first rule of a job is, you show up. Whether you feel like it or not.

For whatever reason, viewing my writing this way was a huge breakthrough for me. It wasn’t about waiting for a Muse, or having to be in the mood. It was about putting my butt in the chair, opening up the document and doing the work. Discipline alone could nourish talent and inspiration. I liked that.

Seeing my writing as a job to do, while perhaps not the most glamorous or inspirational perspective, certainly has come in handy on the road to publication.

Last summer, my novel, ROCK PAPER TIGER , was acquired by Soho Press , for Spring/Summer 2010 publication. That is actually a pretty fast turnaround in the publishing world, and it meant that I had a lot of things to do in a fairly short amount of time, with lots of deadlines.

Acquisition and publication processes vary greatly from house to house, so some of my experiences may not apply to every situation. But I hope to give you a sense of what your job, as an author will be like, once you score that publishing deal and have signed your shiny new contract.

Generally you will have editorial revisions, requests for changes concerning story and character. Sometimes these come in the form of an editorial letter, where the concerns and suggestions are outlined. Without going too much into the specifics of my experience, I’ll just say that my editor was awesome and this was not a huge deal for me (for which I am seriously thankful).

At the same time, you’ll have to deal with a number of “housekeeping” issues – things that have to be done that are not directly connected to writing and revising.

The wonderful publicist at Soho (excuse me if I run out of superlatives, but everyone I have dealt with there has been fantastic) told me the single most important thing an author can do in terms of publicity is to have an easily findable web presence. That means a website that comes up when people search your name and the name of your book(s). So, mine is lisabrackmann.com , and in addition, Rock Paper Tiger permanently redirects to the page about the novel on my website (try it! You’ll see!).

Unless you are a web/graphic designer or someone with a lot of talent for design, I strongly recommend that you bite the bullet and hire a pro to design your site. Yes, it costs some money. But you’re going to need tax write-offs anyway, and a professional-looking website signals that you are a professional author. Which, once you sign a contract, you are.

Show the world that you’re a pro. It’s worth it.

Likewise…you’ll have to get an author photo. Yes, you really will. Even if, like me, you are a fairly publicity-shy sort of person. It Must Be Done.

Again, while you may not need to hire a professional photographer (I did, and I’m glad), your photo needs to have a certain amount of polish – in other words, a good portrait, not a casual shot of you and the kids and the dogs and/or cats. Think about your genre too. What sort of “look” helps promote what you are writing?

You will need a short bio.

While I was never asked to write a synopsis (and for that I am extremely grateful!), at many houses, you will be. I definitely have needed blurbs – thankfully I’ve been generally been able to use variations on my original query.

You might be asked to fill out an author survey. Again, this varies a lot from house to house. The purpose of the survey is to identify potential markets for your book and to provide information that will help Publicity and Marketing sell it. Any authors you can compare your work to, whose readers might like yours? What are the most original features of your book? Who might you be able to enlist to review or publicize it? Are there conventions or conferences that might be relevant? In what cities do you have particularly good networks?

You may be asked for a list of authors who would be appropriate to blurb your work, including authors you might actually know and can personally ask.

I found the Author Survey to be one of the toughest things I did. It forced me to think of my book in ways that don’t come naturally to me (I’m notorious for writing stuff that doesn’t quite fit neatly into genre categories).

Meanwhile, what about that book you wrote? You did your editorial revisions, the MS has been officially “delivered and accepted” (which you love, because that means you get Part 2 of your advance!). So you’re done, right?

Uh, no.

Here’s another instance where different houses have different processes. In my case, I next worked on a line edit. This involved minor editorial changes (clarifications, fact checks, fixing awkward prose) and copy edits. After that, the copy editor did another pass.

Then come the galley proofs.

This is kind of exciting, because the “galleys” are the typeset version of your book – what your book will look like when it’s published. But it’s also a challenge, at least for me – by this point, I had read the book so many times, I worried about my ability to catch mistakes. I strongly recommend that you come up with a careful system of checks and double-checks, because this really is your last chance to fix problems and make small adjustments in the text.

(Well, sort of. In my case, a proof-reader did an additional pass and had a few questions, plus I had a little issue that I just had to address. Again, procedures differ; your mileage may vary!)

Finally, your book is off to Production. Does that mean you’re done?

Well, I’m not.

I’m just a little over two months away from my publication date. I’ve had letters and essays to write for various promotional efforts. Bookstore events to calendar (and I guess I’d better start thinking about what I actually might say when I get there!). Interviews to conduct, conventions to attend, blog posts to write. Like this one!

So, yes. Being a professional author is a lot of work. It’s a job. And like any job, there are deadlines, and tasks that are kind of a pain in the butt.



But you know what? It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

ROCK PAPER TIGER:

Iraq vet Ellie McEnroe is down and out in China, trying to lose herself in the alien worlds of performance artists and online gamers. When a chance encounter with a Uighur fugitive drops her down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, Ellie must decide who to trust among the artists, dealers, collectors and operatives claiming to be on her side – in particular, a mysterious organization operating within a popular online game.

“Few writers would be up to the challenge of blending the worlds of urban China , Iraq , and a virtual online kingdom–but Lisa Brackmann wildly succeeds. Prepare to taste the smog, smell the noodles, and rub the Beijing dust between your fingers. Rock Paper Tiger is a fresh and vigorous work that vividly captures the roller coaster that is life in modern China .” –Eliot Pattison, THE SKULL MANTRA

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Lisa Brackmann has worked as an executive at a major motion picture studio, an issues researcher in a presidential campaign, and the singer/songwriter/bassist in an LA rock band. She still takes pride in her karaoke-ready repertoire of bad pop hits and an embarrassing number of show tunes. A southern California native, she lives in Venice CA and spends a lot of time in Beijing, China. Her three cats wish she’d stay put.

Blog: Papertigertail

A Writer's Journey To Publication

I’m happy to welcome my friend and debut author, Lisa Brackmann, to Over Coffee. We’re part of the famous, or infamous, depending upon your opinion at the time, Writin’ Wombats. I’ve watched many of our group receive contracts for publication, including Lisa.

I know the road to publication isn’t easy. Most writers are so focused on getting published, they rarely think beyond that. What happens when you get an agent? What happens once the book is sold? We think we work hard on our novels prior to publication, but what about after?

Lisa shares a bit of her journey to publication with us. Some of this was previously published on her blog, The Paper Tiger. Lisa also agreed to answer some of my questions which you will find at the end of the article.

Writing a novel is a lot of work. Okay, I've known that for a while. I've written a few. This last one, the one that got me an agent and then a deal, took so much time and effort that I'd joke it was written in dog years. And that it was trying to kill me, I was pretty sure. That last bit might not have been a joke.


The part that I'd only previously known on an intellectual level is that getting published is also a lot of work. I mean, this should be obvious, and I sort of knew it, but until I went through it, I didn't actually know it.


All of the sudden, you're getting paid for your work. And people are depending on you. Your agent. Your editor. Your PR person. An entire infrastructure. You've signed a contract, and you have to deliver, quality work, on time. There are hard deadlines. Publication schedules. Catalogs for the upcoming season. I think that's the first time I really absorbed that the whole thing was real, when I downloaded Soho's catalog, read all of the book descriptions, the author bios. Wow, I thought. I'm going to be in one of these. Me and my book. Shit.


There's the book itself. Editorial revisions. Line edits. A galley proof yet to come. And then there's everything else that comes with being an author in the modern world. A bio. Photos. A new website. Marketing ideas. Where am I known? Who do I know? How can I help my own chances of success?

It's that whole notion of thinking of yourself and your work as a product, as a brand. Most of us writer types are introverts, and we can all fulminate against this cultural trend of marketing uber alles (and I have), but this is the reality. It's a part of our job, as authors. And if there's one thing this whole experience has brought home to me, it's that being a published author is a job.

Well, duh, right? And I've taken that sort of workman's approach to my writing in general for the past few years. A writing book I've often recommended to people suffering from creative blocks is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art. It's a little repetitive and has its metaphysical aspects which may or may not be helpful to a lot of people. But one of the basic messages I appreciated very much is, you have to think of your creative work as a job. Meaning, you can't wait around for the Muses to inspire you. Because what's the first rule of a job? You show up. Whether you're inspired or not. Whether you want to or not. Eventually that kind of discipline rewards you with productive output.

It worked for me, anyway. I'm not one of these writers who has to write, who churns out thousands of words at a sitting. It takes a lot of effort for me, a lot of the time. Ultimately I'm happier when I'm writing than when I'm not writing, so I make myself do it, whether I feel like it or not.You can carry over a lot of other things from thinking of your writing as a job.

You have to work with other people. At times you have to put aside your ego and listen to what others have to say about your work and accept their criticism. You have to distinguish between trivialities and the things that really matter to the integrity of your work.

This experience has given me new sympathy for publishers—and agents—and the reluctance they might have to take on debut authors. Though I think if you write a good book, it's pretty clear that you have some discipline, still, there's always that risk that a new novelist isn't going to be able to work to deadline, or work and play well with others, that she might be a big pain in the ass, and not worth the investment of time and money. Because that's the other thing you need to understand, if you don't know this already: agents and publishers are making a significant investment in you, of their own time and potential income.

Me, I take a lot of pride in my craftsmanship, and as I've gone through this process, I've realized that I also take a lot of pride in doing a good job. In getting the work done right, on time, or even ahead of schedule. This is a job that I really enjoy. One where I show up. One that I might even be good at. I like that.

• How long you've been writing with the view to getting published?
  

I've always taken my writing really seriously, but it's hard for me to determine when I became serious about being published. Early on I wrote some prose mostly for fun that got me some publishing interest, but I was too embarrassed to follow through with it. For a long time I focused on screenplays and teleplays, but they were pretty idiosyncratic and strange for the most part. Even though I'd tell myself I wanted that career, I wondered about my seeming inability to make the necessary compromises in what I was writing to have it (the one time I did a screenplay project for hire, I really didn't enjoy the process very much).

I then wrote a novel for fun, just as a way to keep my writing chops up, while I focused on that spec screenplay that was going to earn me six figures. I found out that I really liked writing novels way more than spec screenplays, so I kept going with that. I actually had some publishing interest in that book as well, but I always figured it was a serious long-shot (500 pages long! Sort of unclassifiable, semi-steam punk speculative fiction without any elves or dwarves!), and I gave up on subbing that when the editor who had liked it somewhat eventually passed. So ROCK PAPER TIGER was the first novel I wrote where from the beginning I had getting published in mind. And then, of course, the early drafts turned out weird and unclassifiable!

• How long were you shopping for an agent. Did you get many rejections before Nathan Bransford took you on?

It felt like forever, but it really wasn't that long. I think I had five or six passes before I tried Nathan Bransford of Curtis Brown. But I was already pretty discouraged. The responses I'd gotten from agents (when I got personalized responses) were contradictory, and I was convinced that I'd written yet another unclassifiable, unsalable, weird book.

I only tried Nathan because, when I was about to throw the book in a metaphoric drawer, one of the members of my writing group suggested I try him - "He has a blog, and he likes novels set in foreign countries." I did my research on what he was looking for - something which I strongly urge anyone who is querying agents to do rather than just sending out queries en masse - pounded out a new query letter over a rather large glass of wine, and sent it off.

• Once you were accepted by him, what did you have to go through to strike the deal?

Nathan felt that my book had a lot of potential but needed some revisions before it was ready for submission. He had a direction in mind and offered to reconsider the MS if I wanted to rewrite along those lines. I agreed with his critique - he really echoed things that I'd suspected but couldn't see as clearly as I needed to do the work on my own. So I did a series of rewrites with feedback from Nathan, who in addition to his agenting savvy is a great editor. By the time we got to a certain point in the process, when it became clear that I could get the book where it needed to be, he offered me representation.

I know that some writers might be wary of doing so much work with no guarantee of a contract at the end, but I think this was a really great way for both of us to test out the author/agent relationship and see how we worked together. Believe me, you want to have a good working relationship with your agent when you go through revisions and then the submission and publication process! And I'm sure that agents feel the same way about the writers they sign. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

• How did working with an agent change your perspective of publishing?

Working with Nathan and then being signed by him and Curtis Brown was life-changing for me. I do not exaggerate, corny as it sounds. I felt validated for my writing in a way that I hadn't before. Here's someone whose job depends on recognizing talent and whose income depends on making smart choices about who he signs.

For me, long accustomed to writing stuff that was too eccentric to sell, it was a huge confidence booster, and another big step in being able to separate myself from my work, to see it as a product, not some deep reflection of my soul or what have you. That may sound a little crass, but it's absolutely necessary to have that attitude to work as a professional author. You have to learn how to accept criticism without it taking it so personally.

• I know you love things Chinese. You've been learning the language, you've visited China many times. How much influence has your studies of/love of China influence your writing of Rock Paper Tiger?

Well, most of the book is set in contemporary China. That was a sort of commercial calculation on my part - I knew that people are interested in China, and that not that many American fiction writers have used modern China as a setting. I felt that I had the familiarity to write it with some authority.

China is a fascinating place it's a lot of fun to drop in some of the surreal details that are a part of the daily scenery there. (as an aside, I look for those details in any location I set a book - I'm planning a California road trip novel at some point, and believe me, there's plenty of surrealism here to go around!)

• Can you tell me a bit about the story itself?

Iraq war vet Ellie Cooper is down and out in Beijing, trying to lose herself in the alien worlds of performance artists and online gamers. When a chance encounter with a Uighur fugitive drops her down a rabbit hole of conspiracies, Ellie must decide whom to trust among the artists, dealers, collectors and operatives claiming to be on her side – in particular, a mysterious organization operating within a popular online game.

• When will Rock Paper Tiger be released?

June 2010, by Soho Press - who have been an absolute pleasure to work with. My editor, Katie Herman, did an amazing job on my book - and the care they've taken with things like the cover - have I mentioned how much I love the cover? - it's been a great experience. Also one that has really changed my perspective on what being a professional novelist is all about. Which is pretty much the topic of my post!

• Lisa, thank you for taking the time to answer a few of my questions. I loved your article. It makes sense and gives an insider's view of what happens once you've been sold as well as choices you have to make for your career as a novelist.

I wish you the very best with this book and can't wait until I can read it!

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Lisa Brackmann has worked as an executive at a major motion picture studio, an issues researcher in a presidential campaign, and as the singer/songwriter/bassist in an LA rock band. She's lived and traveled extensively in China. A southern California native, Brackmann currently splits her time between Venice, California and Beijing, China.

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