Making a Living as a Writer: Invaluable Tips from the MacGregor Literary Marketing Seminar

Okay, so last weekend I had the privilege of attending the annual MacLit Marketing seminar in Chicago. It was one day packet full of invaluable and applicable wisdom and I’ll do my best to post the highlights of my takeaway.

First:

If you want to make money as a writer, view your writing as a job, not just a hobby. 

Chip provided an example of a famous writer, I believe it was Cec Murphy, ((CORRECTION: TOM WOLFE)) who literally woke up early every day, put on a three piece suit, left his house, walked to the end of the drive way, turned around, went back inside and sat in his office to write. He would break for lunch and end at the same time every day. It was a priority. It was his job. And he took it seriously. He didn’t just lounge around in his jammies and wait for inspiration to strike. (How many of you know how well that works out!) But he put action to his dreams. Now it doesn’t have to be this regimented, especially for those who require less discipline. But this illustration really resonated with me. Whether part-time or full-time, give your craft the dedication it needs to thrive.

Second:

Start a writing calendar and a writing budget calendar.

Stay on track, establish a routine. In other words, be intentional. Make a plan. Which days can you dedicate to writing, which hours? If you think you’ll just fit it in, you’ll lose ground. And for the budget, if your goal is to make X amount of dollars a year to justify your time spent writing, how many books do you need to write that year to achieve that goal? How many months does it take you to write that book? Crunch the numbers. If you can assign a dollar amount to your weeks or even hours, you’ll start to see the value of your words and the time spent hunched over your art. And your progress will translate into building a career and a livelihood, not just penning a nice story in your spare time.

Third:

Determine your definition of success.

We don’t (and won’t) all need to be New York Time Bestsellers to reach our goals in writing. Our stories

can make an impact on a smaller scale and still serve their purpose. In order to gauge if you are making it as a writer, first decide what it is you need to accomplish to be a success. Maybe you just want to get published. Stay published. Maybe you’d like to hit a certain marker financially, or be able to quit your day job. If it’s not about money, what will help you feel successful in your endeavor? Defining this for yourself can make all the difference in how you view your writing. Your worth. And the cost of your time away from your family and other responsibilities.

Fourth:

No one can market your book like YOU can!

Dedicate two half days a week (dispersed however you like) on marketing. Even before you have a book that might mean blogging, social media interactions (be careful with this one—time suck), researching your audience and where you can reach them, doing reviews, or guest posts ect. The days of the reclusive writer holing up in a lakeside cabin and cranking out bestsellers are gone. With the internet and all the social media connection it is easier than ever to reach your readership. Easier than ever to find your target market. Do the leg work. Pound the pavement. It will pay off.

 

Fifth:

Have a three-legged stool.

If you want writing to be your bread and butter try to have several sources of writing income. For example, in addition to writing your trade length novels, self-publish some novellas that branch off from your stories. Write articles. Visit blogs. The smartest way to make a living with this is to broaden your horizons and have multiple sources of income. Put it on your budget calendar. You get your quarterly advance, you’ll make say...roughly $300 for each article you put out, how much more do you need to sustain a living? Crank out those extra e-books to bridge the gap. Provide an editing service. Schedule a speaking engagement. Get creative. We know it’s in there!

Okay, so those are a few nibbles to get you started. I know it sounds busy, but as much as we have agents helping us plan our careers, and we are at the mercy of the publishers to see our potential, YOU have the power to make or break your success. Decide what your goals are and ….Get crackin’!

Check out Chip's blog for other great tips! here

What marketing ventures have proven successful for you? And how do you measure success in your writing, or in life?

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Amy Leigh Simpson writes Romantic Suspense that is heavy on the romance, unapologetically honest, laced with sass and humor, and full of the unfathomable Grace of God. She is the completely sleep deprived mama to two little tow-headed mischief makers and wife to her very own swoon-worthy hero. Represented by the oh-so-wise and dashing Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary Inc.

What If We Try And Fail?

Photo by Stuart Miles
freedigitalphotos.net

Have you ever not tried something just because you were afraid you might fail? Been there, done that, right? It's normal to fear failure and I can safely say that everyone of you have had that fear.

At church Sunday, the preacher spoke about the parable of the talents from Luke 19. You know the one where the king leaves three of his servants money while he goes away. When the king comes back, two of the servants had used their money to make more money for the king. The third servant was afraid to even invest his money to earn the king interest and buried his money to keep it safe.

Here's the thing...the king didn't want his money back. He wanted productivity. He doesn't want us to keep to ourselves what He has given. He wants us to be bold and brave.

But sometimes being brave is hard. What if we try and fail?

The question of failing shows our misunderstanding. Failure is not really failure. The end result may not look like what we expected, but it is in the trying...the journey...where our success lies. It is what we learn on the journey. It is the truths we uncover in the process.

To play it safe is not safe. It is when we open up completely, giving all of ourselves and pursuing the purpose laid out for us that we find the blessing.

And remember, when we are giving of ourselves and blessing others, we make God smile.

So if you are thinking about beginning a writing career, or if you have been on the writing journey for quite some time, don't be afraid. Just write. Just pour the story of your heart onto the page, knowing that the process is a blessing. A blessing for you and a success to God.

What are you afraid of? What is it that you really fear?

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This post is brought to you by

 Sherrinda Ketchersid

Sherrinda is a minister's wife and mother to three giant sons and one gorgeous daughter. A born and bred Texan, she writes historical romance filled with fun, faith, and forever love.

Keeping a sweet spirit from the sidelines

Some of you went to ACFW and had successful agent and editor appointments, requests for material, and positive feedback on your work.

Others of you attended, but felt that your meetings did not go well. Perhaps you bungled your pitch; maybe the agent wasn’t interested in what you had to offer, or the editor felt your genre was already over-represented at their house. Whatever the case, you came away deflated and feeling the sting of failure.

Still others weren’t able to attend at all. You watched from the sidelines as your friends went and returned, glowing with their successes and accomplishments. Your role has been a cheerleader, and although you’re glad to celebrate with your friends, a deep-down part of you wonders when it will be your turn.

freedigitalphotos.net, image by photostock

For those who fall into the last two categories, this post is for you. How do you keep a sweet spirit when it seems as if everyone is being promoted around you and you’ve been left far behind?

Here are some ideas.

1. Pray a blessing over those who are doing well.

Bless them? Aren’t they the last people in need of your prayers?! They’re already being blessed!

Perhaps, but this exercise has more to do with the state of your spirit than the state of the person you’re praying for.

Praying a blessing over someone else in their time of success is the best way to do spiritual warfare against jealousy. (click to tweet.) The enemy wants you to feel jealous; to compare yourself and feel like you come up short. When you turn this on its head and pray for God to heap blessing on the person you envy, Satan’s attack on your heart loses its power.

So pray, even if – especially if – you don’t feel like it. Pray for those God has blessed, for even more abundance, for favour, for new and better opportunities, for success overflowing.

The more you exercise this sort of spiritual warfare against resistance, the more God will transform your heart, bringing it into line with the words you’re praying, until you forget about yourself and genuinely desire the success of others.

2. Focus on the kingdom picture, not the glory of self.

We say our motivation in writing is to bring glory to God, but nothing tests this assertion like moments when there is no glory for self to be found. (click to tweet.)

Is your heart for God’s kingdom to grow? Meditate on this. Spend time in the word, reminding yourself daily of the bigger picture at stake. All our accomplishments will one day pass away, but God’s kingdom will last forever.

When our heart is in tune with God’s heart, our focus naturally shifts away from ourselves and toward kingdom values. Competition is replaced with teamwork. We’re all working for a common goal, so the success of another is your success, too.

Praise God for any way in which his word goes forth, whether it’s carried by you or someone else. The important thing is God glorified.

freedigitalphotos.net, image by Sura Nualpradid

3. Rest in God’s good plan for your life

Striving ties us up in knots and brings dissatisfaction.

It says, “I don’t trust God to work this out, so I must make it happen on my own.”

And when you can’t make it happen, or things don’t go the way you hoped, you feel depressed and lose your confidence.

Hebrews 10:35 says: “So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you!” (NLT)

This type of confidence doesn’t depend on attending a writer’s conference or having agents and editors request your work.

It’s a confidence rooted in your deep soul-knowledge that God loves you, that he wants his best for you, that he has ordered your steps from before you were born and is daily working out his purposes in your life.

Don’t throw that away to lean on your own striving.

Confident trust brings peace and rest and joy in the journey, no matter what the outward circumstances look like.

Be blessed, take heart and take joy! God has you in the palm of his hand.

 Did ACFW leave you elated or deflated? What is God speaking to you through this experience?

Tweetables:

How to keep a sweet spirit from the sidelines of the writing life: Click to Tweet

Celebrate the success of others without jealousy or comparison - here's how: Click to Tweet

Karen Schravemade lives in Australia. When she's not chasing after her three preschool-age kids, she spends her spare minutes daydreaming about the intricate lives of characters who don't actually exist. Find her on her website and Twitter.

The Reasons We Write

We all have reasons we write, but are they the right reasons?

See what I did there? Okay, tongue twisters aside, today I want to challenge you to some introspection. Let me use myself as an example. The past week or so, the current stage of my writing career has become increasingly clear to me. My manuscript is being reviewed by a couple different publishers I have an uber amount of respect for, and in December, I had a really good perspective about that. Pray about it, be at peace. I trusted that I had spent months crafting this proposal, and that God would lead me and my stories where He would have me. Then for whatever reason, the reality started to dawn on me now that it's January. The possibility of hearing back from publishers is becoming more of a reality. What had been so easy to trust God with suddenly became much more challenging.

Up until now, my approach has been to keep writing and crafting stories until one of them sticks. My philosophy has been that if a traditional publisher is not interested in my manuscript, I am not yet ready for a readership. Now I know that's not necessarily true for everyone, especially genres that are a hard sell in CBA, I have felt like it's true for me. I know God has called me to be a writer. Otherwise I never would have found the courage to follow this dream. So I've sort of always assumed there's a reason for that calling, and the reason is that someday I'll have readers. :) And I really, really hope that is true. I mean, really hope that is true.

But here's the thing. I had this ah-ha moment Sunday morning. At some point, I have conflated the idea of writing books out of obedience God's calling with the idea of someday being a "successful" author. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with dreaming about touching readers' lives, or even being on a bestseller list. These are normal dreams. But the thing is, they are not the same as our calling. The Bible says our calling is "sure." Solid. Stable. Reliable. True. Can I say the same thing about someday hitting the NYT Bestseller List? Simply put, no.

If we aren't careful, traditional ideas of success come to mesh with our confidence in our purpose, so that good news makes us feel assured of our calling and bad news makes us doubt it. Oh, how easy it is to fall into this trap. But friends, we must guard our hearts against this impulse. God is always, always on our side, assuring us onward to complete this task He has put before us. His whispers to our dreams, His guidance, His love is all we can be assured of, but it's also all we need.

Being published does not mean you will be assured of God's purpose in your life.

Likewise, being unpublished does not mean you are doing something "wrong," necessarily.

Success in the eyes of the world, while nice-feeling, is not the same as success in God's eyes. Consider the woman who cleans bathrooms for a living and hums songs of praise under her breath, then consider the business executive who is rude to a child on the way to a meeting. These are extreme examples, but they illustrate the point. For us as writers, it is all-too-easy to consider publishing the ear marker of whether or not we've "made it." But that's really such an illusion. I'll venture to bet that even after we someday get published, we will still battle against feelings of fear and insufficiency, only with different stakes.

And here's where it gets hard. Here is the question I came to on Sunday, and I think it's the only way to really challenge yourself to a true answer about the state of your heart.

If this book gets rejected--if I write another dozen books and they all get rejected--what will keep me going? If I never do get to hold a copy of my own book in my hands, will I grow discouraged enough that I just stop trying?

Suddenly the answer became strikingly clear to me. No, I will not stop writing. Do I want to have a published book? Absolutely. Do I want to be able to tell people I'm an "author" instead of someone whose books are only on Microsoft Word? Yes. Do I feel discouraged when challenges prevent movement into the next stages of my writing career? You bet.

But at the end of the day, these things do not define my calling, and thus, they do not and can not sustain me. These traditional considerations of what defines success are dangerous. There will always be another step and an ever-lurking step of failure. The only way you can escape the discouragement and pressure that comes from these challenges is to cast your perception of success in another place, and really, that place is much more beautiful anyway, tailored for you. The call of God upon your life.

If you're struggling with silence or harsh critiques, I want to encourage you today that these things do not define you or your writing. The only One with that power is the One who has authored your story. He has a plan for each of your days, and He has been leading you all along. Don't give up hope. Don't give up faith. Don't give up your dreams.

Have you ever struggled with feelings of inadequacy? How do you shift your focus to a higher calling?

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Ashley Clark writes romance with southern grace. She's dreamed of being a writer ever since the thumbprint-cookie-days of library story hour. Ashley has an M.A. in English and enjoys teaching literature courses at her local university. She's an active member of ACFW and runs their newcomer's loop. When she's not writing, Ashley's usually busy rescuing stray animals and finding charming new towns. You can find Ashley on her personal blog, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. She is represented by Karen Solem.

What's Up the Street for Next Week?

We closed the week on a encouragement/celebration high!

Throughout the weekend edition, watch for the quotes in bold from Friday's post, were we celebrated how far we've come in our writing!

To me, the most exciting thing about my writing growth is KNOWING that I've learned. ~ Joanne S.

Photo Credit ~ Microsoft Office

If you didn't get a chance to comment Friday, don't worry. Just get on board today and share how far you've come in your writing. And take time to remember and focus not just on everything you still need to learn, but everything you HAVE learned.

Enjoy it! You're only here once. :-)

...I think my most favorite area of growth is in greater peace and trust that God is in control of my writing journey ~Melissa T.

Coming next week...


Monday we welcome guest Naomi Rawlings back to the blog to talk setting...and there will be a book giveaway of her debut novel as well!

Edits are daunting. But on Tuesday, Julia has tips on where to start first.

Sometimes it really is okay to tell. Or so Ashley will tell us on Wednesday. Stop by to learn more about show-don't-tell.

Thursday is Karen's debut blog post! We're excited to have her here with us.

Friday, Cindy continues her know your reader posts.


Sidewalk Talk...


The other achievements are harder to measure, it's more of a feel. I no longer feel in the dark now, and felt at home in Elizabeth Sherrill's Master's Writing Workshop a few weeks ago. ~ Sarah


Krista was interviewed last week by Nicole O'Dell of Choose NOW Radio. You can listen to her story about her journey with baby Annabelle at this link→ (Right hand side, Krista Phillips on Surrender)

We have a winner from Friday's post...Joanne Sher! I've emailed you, so be checking that inbox!

I look at how far my story/plot idea has come, and that makes me happy. I've also gotten a better vision for who I'm targeting with my writing. ~ Lindsay

Have a great week and we'll see you right back here on Monday. :-)

The meaning of Success - By Jen Stephens

Week Three of:

Tips from those who have gone before us

The Meaning of Success

By: Jen Stephens

I’m so delighted to be on The Writers Alley today! Thank you, Krista, for inviting me! I’m feeling a little intimidated, though. These ladies have a ton of great advice (At this point in my own writing I found the July 1st post quite useful!) and I only hope I can add to it!

I recently had the opportunity to speak on the topic of success and thought I would share a few of my ideas with you. According to dictionary.com (a very useful tool for writers), the first definition of success is “the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors”. What does that mean? In my opinion, it basically means when you accomplish any goal no matter how big or how small. If you set a goal to become the next Bill Gates and you achieve it, well, you certainly are successful! On a smaller, more personal level, if you set a goal to lose 5 measly pounds or exercise 5 days a week and you accomplish it, you are still a success.

I sold my Harvest Bay series to Sheaf House, a small (but growing) publisher. The first of which, The Heart’s Journey Home, came out this past February and the second of which, The Heart’s Lullaby, is scheduled to release in March 2011. I didn’t get an advancement for these books and I also had the job of finding endorsers/reviewers which I had to send the galleys to. However, I have an incredible relationship with my publisher who has become more like a mentor and that means more to me than the other perks larger publishing houses offer, especially since I’m a mama to two young girls AND a teacher and between the two something is always bound to come up. Since the book has come out, I’ve received several emails of how they’ve been personally touched by the story. Those letters and the relationships I’ve built in this business are my personal definitions of success.

Can your idea of success change? I believe it can and it can go either way. You may reach your goal and say, “Well, that’s not what I thought it was going to be.” Or you can actively be pursuing your goal and reach a point where you say, “Ya know, this is a pretty cool place right here.” There’s nothing wrong with changing your idea of success as long as it doesn’t change you as a writer, a person, and most importantly a Christian.

I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I hope, though, that I’ve given you something to think about. I want to leave you with the very popular verse from Jeremiah 29:11 NIV. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah wrote this to a group of people who had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar and moved from their native Jerusalem to Babylon. Imagine how lost this group of people must have been, yet the Lord promised them that they will succeed. Be encouraged today. No matter where you are on your road, alley, or sidewalk to publication, trust in the Lord’s promise, believe in the talents He has given you, set your goal . . . and then enjoy your success.

Jen lives in the Nashville, Tennessee, area with her husband and two beautiful daughters. She teaches third grade at a Christian school and is very active with the youth in her church. A member of Middle Tennessee Christian Writers, American Christian Fiction Writers, and Nashville Christian Writers Association, she writes in her “spare” time. Her first novel, The Heart’s Journey Home, released in February 2010. The second book in the Harvest Bay series, The Heart’s Lullaby, is scheduled to release in March 2011.

The Secret to Success

Say you’re standing at the grocery store in the produce section.  A bin of oranges freshly stacked catches your eye.  Anticipation of a delicious treat forces you to grab one of those annoying bags that can’t be opened unless your fingers are moist.  You stand before the bin, study the possibilities then reach for two oranges.  The fruit in your left hand has a bumpy texture, fresh scent, good color, and firm skin. The one in your right passes the same inspection, except it has a small soft spot.  Which orange do you buy?

Our manuscripts go through a similar process.  One could say we stand in a packed room, shoulder to shoulder with other writers.  How can we vie for an editor’s attention?  What can we do to help our manuscript be chosen?

Today’s post will focus on the article.

Editors know their readers; that’s their job.  Amazing issues are passed on to friends who hopefully rush home to subscribe.  As their market fluctuates, editors update writer’s guidelines found on the web and resources like Sally’s Stuart’s Christina Writers’ Market Guide.

I used the guide to offer a children’s story to a magazine.  I followed every instruction in the guideline.  My story had the correct word count, age range, message, dialogue, and action. A grammar person checked for problems, and I read the article out loud to insure flow before stuffing an envelope with an SASE and the manuscript. 

Two months later I received a rejection letter. 

I went to the web site to read previously published articles for the magazine.  Each one had the same components as mine—EXCEPT they were written in the third person while mine was written in the first.

I rewrote the story in the third person, rechecked word count, age range, message, dialogue, action, grammar and flow before resubmitting the article.

One week later I received an email from the editor.  She said she normally didn’t accept anything resubmitted, but this story caught her eye.  She read it over and loved it.  She wanted to use it as the featured story in her special Easter edition.

Thinking back to the oranges in the bin example, the consumer never gives a piece of fruit a second chance.  They look, find one with a good appearance, picks it up and examines it for quality. 

As writers we have an advantage over the orange.  We can read the guidelines, research back issues of a given magazine, and tailor our manuscript to fit the needs of the readers.  When the rules are followed, the likelihood of an editor accepting our article or story increases.

How about you? What success story can you share to encourage us?