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    You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing)
    You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing)
    You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing)
    Ebook139 pages3 hours

    You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing)

    By Peter M. Ball

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    About this ebook

    Sick of people offering easy answers about writing and publishing? You Don't Want To Be Published goes straight for the hard answers and keeps digging.

    There are plenty of books that tell you how to get published, but very few that focus on how to build a career. You Don't Want to Be Published features sixteen essays focused on the mindset and psychology that lie at the heart of being a long-term writer: learning to treat your business like business, building a network that will help you succeed, setting smarter goals, and dealing with the realities of making your living through your words.

    Most importantly, it asks you to accept one counter-intuitive fact: you don't really want to be published. What you really want happens after your book comes out--and learning to focus on those desires will help you build a longer, more satisfying career as a writer.

    As the former manager of the Australian Writers Marketplace and Australia's GenreCon writers conference, Peter M. Ball draws on his own experience as a speculative fiction writer in addition the lessons learned by talking to hundreds of other writers at every level of success and experience. His advice is blunt, honest, and personal—aimed directly at some of the biggest mistakes he's seen writers make while building their career.

    If you're sick of people offering up easy answers, then settle in for some straight talk about the hard, complicated stuff that lies at the heart of the writing business.

    Essays featured in this book include:

    • The Nine Business Mantras of a Cranky Writer
    • You Don't Want To Be Published
    • Focus on the Mountain, Not the Map
    • Writing, Budgeting, and Shame
    • Let's Be Clear: I Know Fuck-All About Writing and Publishing (and That Helps)
    • How To Process Writing Advice: Use What Works
    • How To Process Writing Advice: Diversify Your Sources
    • There Is Nothing Surprising About A Writer Getting Rejected (Even JK Rowling)
    • 5 Reasons Rejection Letters Are Actually Awesome
    • Yes, You Are Wasting Your Time As A Writer
    • The First Rule of Write Club
    • The Incredible Sucker-Punch Of Success
    • Networking Tips For Reclusive, Introverted Writer-Types
    • How To Get The Most Out Of An SF Convention As An (Introverted) Emerging Writer
    • Al Snow's Advice For Writers
    • Patreon, Tools, Tactics, & Strategy
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrain Jar Press
    Release dateMar 6, 2018
    ISBN9780648176114
    You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing)
    Author

    Peter M. Ball

    Peter M Ball is the author of more than fifty short stories and six novellas, along with essays, RPG material, articles, and poetry. His short stories and non-fiction have appeared in venues such as Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Shimmer, Dragon Magazine, Writing Queensland, and Apex Magazine, and has been included in several Year’s Best anthologies. He’s previously taught creative writing at Griffith University and the Queensland Writers Centre, spent five years as the manager of the Australian Writers Marketplace, and convenes the biennial GenreCon writing conference in Brisbane, Australia.

    Read more from Peter M. Ball

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      Book preview

      You Don't Want to Be Published (And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing) - Peter M. Ball

      You Don't Want To Be Published

      You Don't Want To Be Published

      And Other Things Nobody Tells You When You First Start Writing

      Peter M. Ball

      Brain Jar Press

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed within are either products of the authors imagination or are being portrayed fictitiously.

      Copyright © 2018 by Peter M Ball

      All rights reserved.

      A Brain Jar Press Book

      www.brainjarpress.com

      ISBN 9781790373550

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      PSST! READ THIS BEFORE YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK…

      If you’re reading this as a free sample, debating whether you want to pick up the ebook, let me offer you two alternatives:

      You can get this book for free by signing up to the Notes From The Brain Jar newsletter, where I offer regular behind-the-scenes glimpses of my process as a writer and publisher: SIGN UP HERE.

      You can find the original posts in their original form on my website, www.petermball.com, where I talk about the craft and business of writing alongside other topics.

      The paid version of this book is offered as a convenience for folks who aren’t fans of newsletters or don’t have the time to search blog archives.

      If that’s not you, step away from the free sample and avail yourself to the options above.

      - Peter M. Ball

      Contents

      An Introduction, or Why I Hell Am I Listening To This Guy?

      The Nine Business Mantras Of A Cranky Writer

      You Don’t Want To Be Published

      Focus On the Mountain, Not the Map

      Writing, Budgeting, and Shame

      Lets Be Clear: I Know Fuck-All About Writing And Publishing (And That Means I Know A Lot)

      How To Process Publishing Advice, Part One: Use What Works

      How To Process Writing Advice, Part Two: Diversity Your Sources

      There Is Nothing Surprising About A Writer Getting Rejected (Even J.K. Rowling)

      5 Reasons Rejection Letters Are Actually Awesome

      Yes, You Are Wasting Your Time As A Writer

      The First Rule of Write Club

      The Incredible Sucker-Punch of Success

      Networking Tips for Reclusive, Introverted Writer-Types

      How To Get the Most Out Of An SF Con As An (Introverted) Emerging Writer

      Al Snow’s Advice For SF Writers

      Patreon, Tools, Tactics, and Strategy

      Want to know more about writing and publishing?

      About the Author

      An Introduction, or Why I Hell Am I Listening To This Guy?

      Three things you’ll want to know before we go on.

      First, there’s a bunch of essays about being a writer in the pages that follow, but very little of it is specifically about the craft of writing. Folks who are looking for information about how to write a story or a novel are pretty well serviced with books, blogs, and workshops. Writers talk craft the way most people breathe, because it’s easier and considerably more fun for everyone than dealing with the minutia of running their business.

      Given my background I tend to spend more time on the other half of being a writer: building a career; figuring out the next step once the story or book is done. The shit that’s a lot more complicated than actually putting words on paper, because there’s all this mythology and muddled-headed thinking about being creative and being a successful writer that gets in the way of doing a good job.

      Second: I swear a lot in these essays, and I mean a whole fucking lot. For some people that’s a dealbreaker, so I give you fair warning up front. If you’re upset by swearing that’s occurred thus far, things will only get worse.

      Finally, a short introduction for those who are unfamiliar with my work.

      My name is Peter M. Ball, and I’ve spent the bulk of my adult life either writing for a living or working jobs where I taught people how to write or navigate the field of publishing and get their work out there.

      Over the years I’ve taught writing courses for universities and writers centers, convened four installments of the GenreCon writers conference here in Australia, spent five years managing the Australian Writers Marketplace for the Queensland Writers Centre, and published a whole lot of short stories, poems, articles, gaming books, and novellas. I’ve been a paid blogger, a copy writer, and a very grouchy mentor.

      In recent years, I’ve started taking the things I talked about at work and transforming them into essays, blog posts, and articles. Some of those posts were pretty widely shared by writers, agents, or editors who are a considerably bigger deal than I am, which often convinces people I know a few things about this gig.

      Despite all of this, you probably haven’t heard of me. That’s how this writing gig goes sometimes. Not every writer becomes a household name, even if they’ve been making their career out of words for nearly twenty years (although, I’ll admit, some of those years were hard years, and it would have been smarter to find another gig).

      While I know a few things and share my thoughts and experiences pretty freely, I’m not a guru by any stretch. What I offer here is the best advice I have on some very complicated subjects, but they’re often things to think about carefully rather than step-by-step guides telling you everything you need to know.

      Treat me as the one-true-expert at your goddamned peril, is what I’m saying, but this is true of every damn writer who offers you advice. There are lots of ways to write, and there are lots of ways to have a writing career. No advice is one-size-fits-all, especially these days.

      Both writing and publishing is a very different businesses than they were when I started out. I expect they’ll have changed even more by the time I stop banging out words. This means we’re in a very strange time for folks who talk about writing and publishing, because there’s multiple viable paths for people looking to achieve their goals.

      In this environment, good advice gets you working in the industry as it is, but great advice builds your capacity to understand why it works even after the industry has changed.

      If I’m honest, this book is one of those changes in action: the sixteen essays included here got their start on my blog, Man Vs. Bear, although some of them were reprinted or adapted into magazine articles after they were posted. I’ve collected them together because some regular readers requested an easy reference for some of the frequently-visited posts, and modern technology makes it easy to provide that.

      The entries have been copy-edited to correct mistakes and rewritten to account for the fact that this is book, rather than a blog, but links to the originals are included if you’d like to check them out or add questions to the comment threads. In addition, I’ve added a post-script to every entry, a little 2018 Commentary that provides additional context or extra thoughts to the topic du jour.

      With that, let’s get on with things. The good stuff awaits, and there’s writing to be done.

      Peter M. Ball

      January 9, 2018

      The Nine Business Mantras Of A Cranky Writer

      Originally posted July 27, 2014

      So here’s the thing: I spend the vast majority of my daylight hours talking to aspiring writers about what they’d like to achieve and how they can get there. This is one of the things that comes with the territory when you work at a place like Queensland Writers Centre, and it’s pretty sweet gig. You get to meet up-and-coming writers as they’re getting their shit together and help them along the way; you get to meet older, established writers and glean what you can from their experience. You get to talk to the absolutely raw rookies, the people who have just decided I want to be a writer and want to know what they should do next.

      When I answer questions at work, I’m polite and enthusiastic and eager to give you the best answer I can. I do that ’cause that’s what work-Peter does.

      This isn’t written by the guy that’s politely answers your queries if you call us at the centre. No, this is written by the guy who actually does the hard yards of sitting down and writing stuff; the grumpy-as-shit professional who spends the other half of the day trying to earn some extra cash out of his writing.

      Look, the cranky writer snarls, this writing shit isn’t that difficult. I can tell you everything you need to know with nine fucking rules. Just read those and go away; I’ve got a deadline looming.

      If you ask me about writing outside of work, and I’m inclined to help you, odds are the cranky writer is whose advice you’re going to get. They’re a list of mantras I find myself muttering during the particularly bad days at work, or when people who are close friends ask about writing.

      Consider them rules to live by, if you’re planning on being writer who wants to earn money from their work.

      MANTRA ONE: I WILL TREAT MY FUCKING BUSINESS LIKE A BUSINESS

      Somewhere along the line we convinced ourselves that publishing was a business and writing was a calling, which excused aspiring writers from ever having to put a moment’s thought into how they should handle their careers. It’s like we bought into the idea that publishers and agents handled all the business shit, while writers traipsed along sunlit meadows waiting for the muse to bequeath genius upon them.

      Fuck that shit.

      Writing is a business. The number of people I’ve seen make expensive fucking mistakes because they don’t realize that is staggering. It never occurs to them that they should read their contracts, let alone negotiate the terms on a short story or article; or they mistake getting

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