Today, Dave Long is discussing something worthy of your writerly time:
He writes:
Because there's two different "kinds" of books you can sell. One is acceptable and one is looked at askance. And we'll spend the next couple of days talking about these two types of books and the dangers of lifting one too high on a pedestal or demeaning the other. The two types we'll talk about? Books readers know they want. And books they don't know they want.
Jodi Picoult, in an article entitled, "Literary Lust vs. Commercial Cash," in the November/December issue of Writer's Digest, writes, "Some think a writer can have either clout or money---not both. Don't you believe it." Picoult, who makes a good living off her writing details the journey of her literary/commercial career. When a big, fat NY house asked her to sign with them, she asked, "Why couldn't I write books that changed the world . . . and still make enough money to pay my mortgage?"
Interesting question, indeed. I've been looking over my tax records for the past several years, realizing this year I made thousands less than I had in previous years. Thousands. Why? Because I had to pay my way to the states several times for book stuff. I view that as an investment in my career, though now I'm not so sure it has helped. I hope it has.
The question is how do I write in such a way that keeps my literary feet on the ground while helping pay for my kids' education? And in that, will I have to compromise my prose just so I can be a commercial success? Yesterday I received feedback about some novels I'm writing. The tenor seemed to be something like, "Gee, we love her writing, just not the subjects she covers." The editor expressed interest in me if I chose to write something more contemporary. So what did I do? I dug up a contemporary novel I'd written, shot it off to my agent, and said, "Should we try again with this?"
Thankfully, I have an agent with a good head on her shoulders. She responded quickly: "I know you can see the end of contracts again, but remember you have proposals for 5 books out there that are more in your traditional voice. LetÂs give it a month and see where those go." So I sighed. And hemmed. And hawed. She's right. That book represented me trying to force the square peg of my emotionally-driven fiction into the round hole of commercial contemporary. Truth be told, I abandoned that book with only a few thousand words to go. I couldn't bear it. It felt like junior high school when my skinnier-than-Alfalfa body tried out for cheerleading. Not gonna happen, folks.
I got a kind rejection from a big, fat, secular publishing house for one of my emotionally-driven novels. They said something about my lack of sales (which is frustrating since my two novels have only been out six months and two weeks). "Have her sell a few tens of thousands more and we'll look at her," they basically said. But how can that happen? I can't force people to buy my books. (Well, I could, but that might be illegal). I have to be patient, realizing my books are the kinds that folks have to recommend by word of mouth, something that can take years to garner higher sales.
So what to do? Do I write a commercial novel and sell out? I want to write books of my heart, but I also want to generate at least some income as I do that. Blend that all in with the complication that I view writing as a ministry as well and you get a melange of motivations. Jodi Picoult's words help me here:
"Naturally, no one plans to be a hack when they set out to write the Great American Novel, yetdigestiblee reads are the ones that sell best. If you ask me, the trick is to be a commercial writer--but don't sell out. Write for a wide audience, but don't compromise what you write. I'm living proof that you can have your literary cake and eat it commercially, too." (p. 90).
So maybe there's a middle ground here. One where I write the stories that fill my heart, yet appeal to many.
There is much talk these days on the blogosphere about art and Christian writing, where there seem to be commercial camps vs. literary camps. What if the two joined? What if we wrote commercial fiction that appealed to many, but didn't compromise our art in the process? What would that look like? I see someone like Brandilyn Collins walking that line well. She writes bestsellers, and her prose is lovely, lively, and innovative. She's done it, folks. (Aside: today is her 50th birthday; please stop by and wish her a happy one.) Peace Like a River by Leif Enger sold LOTS of books, but the book was so beautifully written, I nearly cried.
As Christian authors and artists, I do believe we have a responsibility to give God our craft in such a way that it costs us something. I remember the Scripture about David wanting to buy a piece of land to offer up sacrifices. Ornan offers to give his land to David for free. 1 Chronicles 21:24 says, "But King David said to Ornan, 'No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.'" Writing should cost us. The beauty of our words should come at a personal price, so that we offer our prose in worship to a holy God. For His pleasure. For His audience.
Yes, I would love to be a commercial success. I understand this is a business. But ultimately, I have to rest on God's sovereignty. He elevates and demotes. He sees all this angst. He created me to write emotionally-driven "words so beautiful they hurt." All I can do is write to the best of my ability, sacrificing for the sake of His calling, do my best to market what I write, and leave the results in His capable hands. It's up to Him (and the buying public to a much lesser degree) whether I become commercially successful.
I may write the books folks don't know they want, but perhaps, perhaps those books are what they need. So today I write, clicking away at the keyboard on another novel, wondering if this one will be successful in the world's eyes, longing for my prose to be successful to the Audience of One.
He writes:
Because there's two different "kinds" of books you can sell. One is acceptable and one is looked at askance. And we'll spend the next couple of days talking about these two types of books and the dangers of lifting one too high on a pedestal or demeaning the other. The two types we'll talk about? Books readers know they want. And books they don't know they want.
Jodi Picoult, in an article entitled, "Literary Lust vs. Commercial Cash," in the November/December issue of Writer's Digest, writes, "Some think a writer can have either clout or money---not both. Don't you believe it." Picoult, who makes a good living off her writing details the journey of her literary/commercial career. When a big, fat NY house asked her to sign with them, she asked, "Why couldn't I write books that changed the world . . . and still make enough money to pay my mortgage?"
Interesting question, indeed. I've been looking over my tax records for the past several years, realizing this year I made thousands less than I had in previous years. Thousands. Why? Because I had to pay my way to the states several times for book stuff. I view that as an investment in my career, though now I'm not so sure it has helped. I hope it has.
The question is how do I write in such a way that keeps my literary feet on the ground while helping pay for my kids' education? And in that, will I have to compromise my prose just so I can be a commercial success? Yesterday I received feedback about some novels I'm writing. The tenor seemed to be something like, "Gee, we love her writing, just not the subjects she covers." The editor expressed interest in me if I chose to write something more contemporary. So what did I do? I dug up a contemporary novel I'd written, shot it off to my agent, and said, "Should we try again with this?"
Thankfully, I have an agent with a good head on her shoulders. She responded quickly: "I know you can see the end of contracts again, but remember you have proposals for 5 books out there that are more in your traditional voice. LetÂs give it a month and see where those go." So I sighed. And hemmed. And hawed. She's right. That book represented me trying to force the square peg of my emotionally-driven fiction into the round hole of commercial contemporary. Truth be told, I abandoned that book with only a few thousand words to go. I couldn't bear it. It felt like junior high school when my skinnier-than-Alfalfa body tried out for cheerleading. Not gonna happen, folks.
I got a kind rejection from a big, fat, secular publishing house for one of my emotionally-driven novels. They said something about my lack of sales (which is frustrating since my two novels have only been out six months and two weeks). "Have her sell a few tens of thousands more and we'll look at her," they basically said. But how can that happen? I can't force people to buy my books. (Well, I could, but that might be illegal). I have to be patient, realizing my books are the kinds that folks have to recommend by word of mouth, something that can take years to garner higher sales.
So what to do? Do I write a commercial novel and sell out? I want to write books of my heart, but I also want to generate at least some income as I do that. Blend that all in with the complication that I view writing as a ministry as well and you get a melange of motivations. Jodi Picoult's words help me here:
"Naturally, no one plans to be a hack when they set out to write the Great American Novel, yetdigestiblee reads are the ones that sell best. If you ask me, the trick is to be a commercial writer--but don't sell out. Write for a wide audience, but don't compromise what you write. I'm living proof that you can have your literary cake and eat it commercially, too." (p. 90).
So maybe there's a middle ground here. One where I write the stories that fill my heart, yet appeal to many.
There is much talk these days on the blogosphere about art and Christian writing, where there seem to be commercial camps vs. literary camps. What if the two joined? What if we wrote commercial fiction that appealed to many, but didn't compromise our art in the process? What would that look like? I see someone like Brandilyn Collins walking that line well. She writes bestsellers, and her prose is lovely, lively, and innovative. She's done it, folks. (Aside: today is her 50th birthday; please stop by and wish her a happy one.) Peace Like a River by Leif Enger sold LOTS of books, but the book was so beautifully written, I nearly cried.
As Christian authors and artists, I do believe we have a responsibility to give God our craft in such a way that it costs us something. I remember the Scripture about David wanting to buy a piece of land to offer up sacrifices. Ornan offers to give his land to David for free. 1 Chronicles 21:24 says, "But King David said to Ornan, 'No, but I will surely buy it for the full price; for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, or offer a burnt offering which costs me nothing.'" Writing should cost us. The beauty of our words should come at a personal price, so that we offer our prose in worship to a holy God. For His pleasure. For His audience.
Yes, I would love to be a commercial success. I understand this is a business. But ultimately, I have to rest on God's sovereignty. He elevates and demotes. He sees all this angst. He created me to write emotionally-driven "words so beautiful they hurt." All I can do is write to the best of my ability, sacrificing for the sake of His calling, do my best to market what I write, and leave the results in His capable hands. It's up to Him (and the buying public to a much lesser degree) whether I become commercially successful.
I may write the books folks don't know they want, but perhaps, perhaps those books are what they need. So today I write, clicking away at the keyboard on another novel, wondering if this one will be successful in the world's eyes, longing for my prose to be successful to the Audience of One.
13 Comments:
"All I can do is write to the best of my ability, sacrificing for the sake of His calling. . . and leave the results in His capable hands. It's up to Him (and the buying public to a much lesser degree) whether I become commercially successful."
You keep pouring your heart out in obedience to His call. That is real success.
So true, Tami. Thanks.
I will pray that God gets your books into the right hands to reach that tipping point -- where people who need what's in the story find it because the right people tell them they should read it.
Great words and a lot to think about. I wish I could figure all this out. Seems to me that you and Lisa Samson (and obviously some others) should constantly hover around the bestseller list.
Keep writing and praying and God will sort it all out. I just wish He worked off email sometimes.
You have described perfectly the unsettled feelings I also have about the marketplace and my books. I kept nodding my head as I read this post. I know this road.
I am reminded of what Lisa Samson asked us at the ACFW conference in her Published, Not Popular class. She said, "Are you closer to Jesus now than you were five years ago? If you are, then you are successful."
I simply must keep sight of how God measures success. It's not the easier of the two roads, by any means, but it leads to where I really want to be.
>Yesterday I received feedback about some novels I'm writing. The tenor seemed to be something like, "Gee, we love her writing, just not the subjects she covers."<
Thank you very much for the kind words, Mary. You are a dearheart.
As to the above quoted line, you just haven't found the right house yet. Remember how many doors were shut to me as I tried to get published for the first time. What's exciting is to look back and see that this was in 1999--only 7 years ago, and what I wrote then (in the suspense arena) that seemed too dark and "out there" now wouldn't cause a blink. Our market continues to change.
As for this line: "Have her sell a few tens of thousands more and we'll look at her," they basically said." Okay, well, I understand the realities of the biz. But truth is, low sales--as long as the content of a book is good, which yours is--are not the fault of the writer. Low sales means low marketing or wrong marketing, and is the fault of the publisher. There are plenty of readers out there who want the kind of books you write. The marketing just hasn't found them yet. Also, for heaven's sake, you have--what? Only your second novel just out? Readership takes a long time to build. You have to just keep putting out book after book. The name gets known, and sales slowly climb. Good grief, you shoulda seen the sales numbers on my first novel (a women's fiction not with Zondervan). Pretty sad.
Again, though, you'll need a publisher who's behind you enough to be willing to ride that out with you and slowly build you. This will probably be a house that's one of the bigger, stronger ones with an established fiction line and with some high-selling fiction authors whose dollars in sales can help fund the seed money put out in marketing to build your sales. That, too, is the reality.
Oh. P.S.--thank you for the birthday plug. I'm half a century old!
Branilyn is so right. I'm not a published author, as you know Mary, but I'm quite familiar with marketing.
You do you and five years from now you will send an email to another author like Brandilyn just did to you.
My comments seems easy. I find myself grappling with which is the best place for my stories to be, since I'm African American. Should I do like my other author friends and write outside of CBA or continue to follow this urging in my spirit that their is a christian publishing house out here that supports African-American authors.
Thank you for sharing your heart and your struggles. I have this romantic notions of starving artists, An American in Paris and the whole bit. But if I'm honest with myself, I want people to read what I write. That's part of the reason I write. To communicate. So how can I communicate in a way "they" can understand? Or that they'll want to understand?
Yep. I have a little spiritual warfare in mine. Just a little! Just selling the idea is fun, I can tell you~ (My frisson, the punctuation mark I use when a period is too lame and an exclamation point too strong.)
And I just read where Maranatha changed her hair. What a trip! Can't wait to see her friend's reaction.
Hang in there~
Mary, thanks for your post. I think about this subject too and appreciate all the comments.
Ultimately, I want to be able to look back on my "career" and say that I wrote my heart out, the most beautiful things I could, because God is a Creator, He is beautiful, and He called me to create in His shadow. Of course, that's not exactly a carefully crafted marketing plan. One day I hope that writing may sustain me financially, but it scares me far more to think about losing the heart of it.
Isn't this one of the reasons we write!
This would make a great post in The Carnival of Cristian Writer's.
http://blogcarnival.com/bc/cprof_550.html
What a great post--both the incorporation of the article, and your own personal struggles. Thanks for sharing.
I enjoyed both of your novels. In fact, I have passed one on to a friend at church who is a foster mom. I thought she could relate to Mara's early years. Honestly, that part saddened me as much as the abuse she later endured. Additionally, this friend's current foster child is a high school girl who is unsaved and has endured that abuse. We are praying that she might read it and it might touch her.
Jodi Picoult is an excellent writer as well, and she has definitely walked that line.
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