The writer's life, it ain't for everyone
John Scalzi linked to an interesting article where Steph Swainston (a fantasy author of certain renown) explained her decision to abandon writing and train to be a chemistry teacher instead.
The piece provides an interesting contrast to the things I've been reading from authors like JA Konrath, who are more enthusiastic about writing than ever, and are embracing the self-publishing model. Although she doesn't mention it and apparently hasn't considered it, Steph Swainston clearly hates everything about the self-publishing model.
One of the benefits of self-publishing extolled by many is that you're not limited to only releasing one book each year. Publishing schedules restrict you to that because they don't want your books to compete against each other. But with the lower price points of self-published ebooks, publishing several books a year leads to greater sales.
Steph says that being forced to produce one book a year prevents her from spending time on her novels. It seems to me that if you're a full-time writer and you can't manage to write one novel a year, then you have problems with time management, motivation, etc. Or perhaps that you shouldn't be a full-time writer, as you're obviously not comfortable with treating writing as a job.
Writers are more and more responsible through their own promotion even when they have traditional publishing contracts. Self-publishing takes this a step further: you're entirely responsible for your own promotion. Most self-published authors have blogs, twitter, facebook, etc. They go on 'blog tours' to get themselves known to other readerships. And this works: I've bought a couple of books by writers I discovered via guest posts and other blog links.
Steph hates doing her own promotion, saying, "it's an author's job to write a book, not do the marketing," and even, "The internet is poison to authors." The latter quote refers to the greater connection between writer and fans that the internet offers, such that fans can influence the direction of your next novel. Many authors regard that as a good thing, Steph Swainton doesn't.
Interestingly, JA Konrath says he does far less promotion these days than he used to. Very few blog tours, very few personal appearances. The reason being that he finds it's more profitable to spend his time writing. Once you've built something of a name for yourself, it may be the case that simply getting more books out there in the marketplace is all you need to do to keep increasing your earnings. If you enjoy getting out there, meeting fans, etc. then that's a different matter of course.
Another of her complaints was that, "I suffer terribly from isolation while writing. I really need a job where I can be around people and learn to speak again." People who don't enjoy their own company, and feel a need to be around others much of the time, probably shouldn't be writers.
Steph's story clearly shows that the author's life certainly isn't for everybody, but I'm not sure that there are any wider points to take from this other than that Steph Swainton has discovered that she doesn't want to be a full-time writer.
The description of her novels has made me curious, though. I may well pick one up."While the Fourlands, on the face of it, might look a wee bit like Middle Earth, and Swainston's winged hero Jant can fly, he also has a nasty little drug habit, wears T-shirts, and reads sports reports in the newspaper."
The piece provides an interesting contrast to the things I've been reading from authors like JA Konrath, who are more enthusiastic about writing than ever, and are embracing the self-publishing model. Although she doesn't mention it and apparently hasn't considered it, Steph Swainston clearly hates everything about the self-publishing model.
One of the benefits of self-publishing extolled by many is that you're not limited to only releasing one book each year. Publishing schedules restrict you to that because they don't want your books to compete against each other. But with the lower price points of self-published ebooks, publishing several books a year leads to greater sales.
Steph says that being forced to produce one book a year prevents her from spending time on her novels. It seems to me that if you're a full-time writer and you can't manage to write one novel a year, then you have problems with time management, motivation, etc. Or perhaps that you shouldn't be a full-time writer, as you're obviously not comfortable with treating writing as a job.
Writers are more and more responsible through their own promotion even when they have traditional publishing contracts. Self-publishing takes this a step further: you're entirely responsible for your own promotion. Most self-published authors have blogs, twitter, facebook, etc. They go on 'blog tours' to get themselves known to other readerships. And this works: I've bought a couple of books by writers I discovered via guest posts and other blog links.
Steph hates doing her own promotion, saying, "it's an author's job to write a book, not do the marketing," and even, "The internet is poison to authors." The latter quote refers to the greater connection between writer and fans that the internet offers, such that fans can influence the direction of your next novel. Many authors regard that as a good thing, Steph Swainton doesn't.
Interestingly, JA Konrath says he does far less promotion these days than he used to. Very few blog tours, very few personal appearances. The reason being that he finds it's more profitable to spend his time writing. Once you've built something of a name for yourself, it may be the case that simply getting more books out there in the marketplace is all you need to do to keep increasing your earnings. If you enjoy getting out there, meeting fans, etc. then that's a different matter of course.
Another of her complaints was that, "I suffer terribly from isolation while writing. I really need a job where I can be around people and learn to speak again." People who don't enjoy their own company, and feel a need to be around others much of the time, probably shouldn't be writers.
Steph's story clearly shows that the author's life certainly isn't for everybody, but I'm not sure that there are any wider points to take from this other than that Steph Swainton has discovered that she doesn't want to be a full-time writer.
The description of her novels has made me curious, though. I may well pick one up."While the Fourlands, on the face of it, might look a wee bit like Middle Earth, and Swainston's winged hero Jant can fly, he also has a nasty little drug habit, wears T-shirts, and reads sports reports in the newspaper."