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This is a true story. Every word.

I had an author who became more and more successful. As her success continued to grow, she turned into a raving prima donna. She had once been liked by everyone; now she was barely tolerated. She didn’t scream or demand things. No, that was not her style. But she let everyone know, in subtle but distinct ways, just how little she thought of us. We were the people who had made her a star, but now we weren’t good enough for her.

That happens. If you are reading this and you think it’s about you, think again. Many authors turn into prima donnas. It’s not unusual. Agents and publishers are used to it. We don’t like it, but we’re used to it.

When it was time to negotiate a new contract for this particular author, she asked if the publisher would pay for her husband to accompany her when she went on tour. Touring may sound glamorous, but it’s hard, and it’s lonely. Still, publishers don’t generally pay for things like spouses joining a tour, and she didn’t really expect them to say yes.

They didn’t. Life went on.

Then, about a year later, I was having a drink with one of the publishing execs and we talked about this author. I reminded her that the author had asked for her husband to go with her on tour. The publisher waved that aside. “Oh, we could have paid for that,” she said. “We just didn’t want to because we can’t stand her.”

What is the moral of this story?

Behaving badly is never a good idea. You may think that you can do whatever you want and be as obnoxious as you want, especially as your career blossoms, but there may be consequences. The publisher will do nothing to hurt the books. They want to make money on the books. But that doesn’t mean they are obliged to make your life easier, especially when you have made their lives difficult.

The moral is to be polite, respectful, and sincere, always. Those things will never let you down. Sure, you can still get mad and demand things and try to get want you want. But do it like a professional adult.

I never want to see something that doesn’t know what it is. On the very first page, tell me what kind of book this is and how many words it has.

1. I have written a commercial science fiction novel about a clan of aliens who take over the earth. It is 32,000 words long.

What is wrong with that picture? Two things:

1. There are no novels that are 32,000 words. You may have written a novella, but this can’t be considered a full-length novel.
2. Aliens taking over the earth is not exactly new. What have you done that is fresh and different?

I do charity critiques every month. I recently read chapters of a critique entry that was quite good, but I couldn’t tell if it was a novel or a memoir. It should tell me on the title page.

TITLE by John Doe

A memoir

That’s all you need, but it matters. A lot. How can I properly evaluate something if I don’t know what it’s supposed to be?? It drives me crazy when I don’t know. Don’t think I am somehow supposed to know because of my expertise. No one knows but you.

I was at a conference and an author was presenting a question to a panel of publishers. She wanted to know if more self-promotion on her part would increase her print run.

They looked confused. They had no idea what she was talking about.

That’s because she was asking a question without using the proper lingo, which made her come across as a rank amateur.

Let’s back up. When a book is about to be published, the sales team goes out to sell it to the accounts. Naturally, they push it as hard as they can. They offer discounts and incentives. They do whatever they can to get that number up. The accounts order what they want, and the books are shipped. The amount that is shipped is often referred to as “what they got out”. The publisher does not send more than what was ordered, because it would just come right back. Booksellers can send back whatever doesn’t sell. Once the books are on the shelves, all kinds of promotion and publicity may occur, and the books will sell however they sell. The amount of books that sell vs. the amount they got out is called the sell-through. If you get out 100,000 books and sell half, you have a 50% sell-through.

The print run refers to how many books are actually printed. They try to keep that close to the real number they will get out, and may print a little more. That decision is made by someone in Operations. The publisher doesn’t know or care what the print run is, because they know it will be based on what they got out. That’s the number they want to know. And even more than that, they care about the sell-through. A strong sell-through is a green light to do more. That is why they would never ship more than what was ordered. A poor sell-through is deadly. For that reason, they may undership what was ordered, hoping for reorders. If they need to go back to press, that is a very positive sign. It shows that things are moving.

So, when someone asks if self-promotion will increase the print run, they are asking the wrong question. A better way to phrase it would be “If I do more self-promotion, is that likely to increase what you get out?” Now you’re talking business.

The answer is that of course more self-promotion may help to sell more books, which is the goal. But trying to connect self-promotion to the print run doesn’t really sound like anything.

Back at that panel, but publishers did eventually figure out what she was asking. But if she had asked the question using the lingo they could understand, it would have been a lot easier and she would sounded much more professional.

 

If you are a writer, there is a good chance you work at home. You probably have your workspace set up and you do your best to write as much as you can. Right?

Not so much. When people know that you work at home, they think that means you are endlessly available. So while you are struggling with getting just the right word for a complex sentence, they think nothing of dropping by to ask about the replacement part for your vacuum cleaner. I never want to talk about vacuum cleaners in the best of times, and certainly not when I’m working.

You could be working diligently, filling up those pages, but it’s going to be hard if you are constantly interrupted. The phone rings. It’s your child’s school asking you to bring snack the next day. A text pops up. The bank is letting you know about a wire transfer. Your sister-in-law wants to know if her anniversary party should be next weekend or the weekend after.
What do all these things have in common?

They are not important when you are working and they are irritating. And ALL of them can wait.

How do you get around this?

Simple. Have set working hours, just like people who work in an office. You work in an office too, even if that office is your kitchen, and you want your work time to be respected. How to resolve this?

Stick to your work hours and demand that everyone else stick to them too. Put your phone in the other room so that you won’t be bothered by it. Out of sight, out of mind. If someone knocks on your door, either don’t answer it or tell them politely but firmly that you are working and cannot be disturbed.

I once had an author who used an answering machine. When people called, this is what they heard: “Hi, this is Martha. I’m writing right now, but if you leave your name and number, I’ll call you right back.” Click. That was it. She demanded respect for her work, and she got it.

Your work time is your work time. Period. Even if you throw out everything you wrote that day, it is still your work and it’s as important as anyone else’s work. Writing is isolating, and it’s hard. It requires serious concentration. Sometimes it is very challenging.

Would you call your spouse, who is a surgeon, in the middle of a difficult operation to ask where the can opener is? No, you wouldn’t. Maybe your spouse is saving a life, and that’s more important. But writing may be saving your life. Isn’t that important too?

If you have written a science fiction romantic thriller, you may have written a hot mess. Publishing falls into different types of books. Ask yourself which area in the bookstore your book will be shelved. If you don’t know, the publisher won’t know either. That’s how it works. You have to know. Study that area, read a lot of books in that area, and know exactly what you’re going for. This can be less true if you write something literary, but even that has to have some kind of draw. There is such a thing as a literary thriller, a literary science fiction novel, and a literary romance (calling all Brontes). But when you mash them all together, it can become a problem. If they don’t know what to call it, they don’t know how to publish it. Why can’t it just be a good novel? Well, it can, if you are really good. But short of that, you’re a lot better off if you know what to call it. Or maybe you wrote something brilliant that crosses boundaries, challenges the old school, and breaks new ground. That’s great and maybe you’ll start a new trend. But in general, know where your book fits into the market. Imagine that you are the publisher. How are you going to publish this book? Is it just “fiction”? Then it might get lost, unless it is brilliant. Brilliance occurs and we all welcome it. There is always a place for excellent writing, clever plots, relatable characters, and vibrant settings. But go easy on yourself.

What is a plot? You think you know what a plot is, but chances are you don’t. I say that because I have seen plenty of good writers who can write wonderful characters, evocative settings, use gorgeous language, and write according to what the market demands. Just one teeny problem. They forget to include an actual plot.

Here is what a plot is not:

It’s not a series of episodes. Episodes do not add up to anything in particular. It’s like a situation comedy that is just that–a situation. Every week they come up with a plot against the situation as a backdrop.

It’s not and then she did this and then she did that. That’s not a plot, it’s a journal.

It’s not the true story of something that actually happened. That’s a biography. If you write about someone who really lived and their life isn’t that interesting because they are never challenged or have something at stake, you don’t have a plot. I once read a novel about the wife of Daniel Boone. It seemed to be a good subject, but then I realized that Mrs. Boone had a dull life. She spend much of it waiting for her husband to appear. He was away for months or years at a time, exploring things. Maybe HE had a plot, but she did not.

Any of those things could be the germ of a plot, if they added one all-important ingredient that will keep us turning those pages. If Mrs. Boone’s life had been beset by a serious challenge–say the man who lives next door is always trying to worm his way into her life and she’s not interested. He wants something she doesn’t want to give.

Let me put it this way.

Let’s say you have a story comprised of scenes or episodes about a mother and son who escape the Nazis during WWII. They go through all kinds of hell–hiding, running, escaping. That is dramatic and real, but it’s episodic. We’re going from one episode to another. But then they become separated and we don’t know how they will survive or if they will ever see each other again. When you add that element, you suddenly have the missing piece—a plot! Now we have something to worry about other than their general survival. No matter how much you may veer into other stories, the overarching story is will they or won’t they ever find each other. Without that question, you have a series of unrelated scenes about what happens to them along the way. Which would you rather read—the unrelated scenes or the one with a plot?

When you apply this principle to just about anything, you have a real story with a real plot. You have a dramatic question that needs to be answered. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be will Susie get a date to the prom. It can be will Ted make it on time to an all-important job interview. It can be will the ant succeed in getting the crumb into the anthole. It can be will the atom merge with another atom to form a molecule. I could go on and on. Make us care. Make us wonder. Make us wait.

This technique is called “tension” or “conflict”. Something has to be at stake. A story without tension is not a story. It’s a ramble.

A good storyteller understands these tools and uses them wisely. It comes more naturally to some than to others, but the good news is that it can be learned. Not right away and not all at once, but if you apply yourself to the craft, it will happen.

Sometimes people lie. They do it right to your face. Writers are not immune to this. Here’s a story about that.

One Monday morning, an author called in distress. She had just returned from a writers conference and had learned that another author had gotten a $2 million contract. The other author was no better than her. Why should that author get that kind of money?? What was she doing wrong? Let me reproduce the conversation:

Me: How do you know she got a $2 million contract?

Her: She said so. She was giving a talk and she mentioned her new $2 million contract.

Me: How many books are on the contract? It could be a lot of books.

Her: I don’t know.

Me: I see. Then how do you know she got that much?

Her: She said so. In front of people. I know her. She’s a nice person. And we have the same publisher.

Me: Have her sales spiked recently? Do you know what her numbers are?

Her: No.

Me: Then how do you know?

Her: She said so!

Me: And everyone believed her.

Silence.

Me: I’ve got an idea. Let me call you back.

We got off the phone. I called my author’s editor. I told her the story. “So and so just got back from a conference and she said that Other So and So got a $2 million contract. Is that true?”

Now, normally, I wouldn’t ask such a question and the editor would not be likely to share that kind of information. But this was so over the top that I felt comfortable doing it. I felt comfortable because I knew that both authors were in the same range sales-wise, and it just didn’t make sense. Because they had the same publisher and wrote in the same genre, the editor would know how they were both selling. What did the editor say?

Well, when she stopped laughing hysterically, she said of course that was not true. She howled “I wish!”

I called my author back and told her I had checked with the publisher and the $2 million claim was not true.

The author was incredulous. “You mean she—she lied?”

Me: That’s about the size of it. The editor thought it was pretty funny, though.

I was glad that I was able to shut that one down quickly. Agents know to brace themselves the Monday morning after a conference because of what their authors might have heard or experienced. There is often a fire that needs to be put out.

What can we learn from this story?

Lying is wrong. But you knew that. Everyone knows that. And yet people do it anyway. They do it all the time. But why is lying bad?

Because it wastes time. The truth is bound to come out, especially in a small business like publishing, and then you will never be trusted. Because it belittles both parties. When someone lies to you and you find out, how does it make you feel? You feel betrayed. That is not the basis of a good relationship.

Why did that author lie, and what did she think it would accomplish? I guess she thought it would make her sound like a big shot. But she was too easily found out and she looked like a fool.

The funny thing about this is that both authors did eventually get to a place where they were worth 7 figures. And I was happy for the one who lied. She was actually a nice lady who made a very foolish mistake. But I always knew. That was a long time ago, and I’m still remembering it today.

 

After doing this work for as long as I have, I can sniff the good ones a mile away. It starts with the quality of the writing. I can tell that in the first sentence. Also, does the opening grab me? Even if it’s not technically perfect, do I want to keep reading?

Example:

1. “Where’s Janie?” Mom looked up and down the beach, shielding her eyes with her hand as the waves crashed to the shore. “She was here just a second ago.”
2. Mom and Janie and Teddy and I were all at the beach. The sun was shining and we were thinking about going into the water.

Which of these openings is better? Example A gives us something to worry about. Example B does not.

It’s really that simple. Experienced agents and editors can usually find out all they need to know from the first page alone. We will keep reading until we know for sure, and that doesn’t take long.

If I encounter a silly spelling mistake or a serious grammatical error on the first page, I am likely to go right to Delete. If you can’t produce a manuscript without mechanical errors, you’re not going to get very far. Check out: “Please read my memoir about pie polar disorder.”

Most manuscripts do not hook me from the start. That’s never a good sign. A good writer can start with a description of a valley or someone’s face and make it interesting and absorbing. But most writers don’t know how to do that. Don’t think you have to start with someone jumping out of an airplane to create tension. It can be any little thing, as long as we want to know more.

The average time I spend on any manuscript is about one minute. If I spent more, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. The good ones tend to jump right off the page, and that’s what I’m looking for.