Month: November 2024

Show, Don’t Tell

My first thought is that what I’m about to say is a rather universal experience, or at least universal for those of us who cling so tightly to the identity of “writer”. Maybe I’m hoping the experience is universal so I feel less alone in my white-knuckled grip.

I think sometimes I’m haunted by the image of a blank page. I read a really good line in a book, I stare off into the distance like some character in a single-camera mockumentary who’s just heard something ridiculous or foreshadowing, I picture what it would be like to have written something that invokes such feeling. I see myself opening a fresh Word document on my laptop, I feel the potential, I get butterflies thinking of marring the white space with Calibri letters.

I flick my eyes back to the book in my hands and keep reading.

The blinking cursor on the page alerting me of where to begin, telling me to just start, sometimes feels like the ever-present proverbial devil and angel weighing on me, whether they’re clipping my wings or stabilising my feet on the ground depends on the day. The consistent flashing feels a bit like desperation, like the blank space’s need to have words etched across it rivals my unflinching need to do the etching.

I see the white page on days when there’s nothing to watch on any of the 90 streaming services I pay for just in case, when none of those books on my to-read shelf are talking to me. I swear to God there are times I can hear it whispering, having outsourced its convincing to those aforementioned celestial shoulder-dwelling creatures.

In some ways, there are worse things to be haunted by than the presence of your yearning dressed up as a cartoon ghost, if that white sheet is actually just a blank page. A constant reminder of your capacity to construct worlds and establish character dynamics and depict humanity feels somewhat freeing, feels like a gentle shove in the direction of doing something just because, just because you can, just because you love it. At the very least, it brings a whole new meaning to ghostwriter.

The irony of writing about how hard I find it to write, to take the words from my head and let them take up space, to put words to paper, is not lost on me. Is writing this the gateway I’ve been searching for, the avenue that is set to break through the dam walls that are preventing me from writing? If I keep writing about not writing, that still counts, right?

Maybe the next step is to change the language. Less “I want to be a writer”, more “I want to write”. Maybe the change really is show, don’t tell, and the answer has been right in front of me the whole time.

Maybe next time I write to you, I’ll have something better to say than to wax poetic about the difficulty level of convincing myself to write.

Maybe I’ll just write.

Sheridan Harris
Editing Intern

Writer Beware

Recently, Ballarat-based self-publisher, Shawline Publishing, collapsed amid rumours of impropriety. Various news outlets, such as the Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC, and the Ballarat Courier, have written stories about it.

It’s a cautionary tale about this side of the industry – that predators are lurking, just waiting to take advantage of prospective authors.

As writers, we share the same dream: we love writing, we have a passion for telling our stories, and we’d be ecstatic if we could get our book into the world.

Unfortunately, at this stage, inexperienced authors who don’t know much about the industry, who are naturally trusting, expect guidance, and freely invest trust, are vulnerable.

This is the briefest overview of how the industry works:

• Traditional publishing: a publisher signs you to a contract. They oversee production and pay for all of it, but get the bulk of the return. You’d typically get about 7% – 10% (per book), and possibly an advance (usually a small sum in Australia). For many, being published traditionally comes with validation and marquee.
  
  
• Self-publishing: you pay for all of it and hire an author-service provider to oversee production for the services you need. While self-publishing was heavily stigmatised once upon a time, many inexperienced and experienced authors alike are now pursuing it as a viable alternative.
  
  
• Partnership publishing: like self-publishing, but the publisher claims to go 50/50 with you on expenses and royalties. You think, Well, 50% is much better than 7% – what a great deal! It’s doubtful partnership publishers invest a single cent into expenses.

Busybird’s mother hen, Blaise, used to say if you’re paying even just one dollar for publishing, you’re self-publishing, so you should keep 100% of the royalties, and keep 100% of the rights.

She was right.

There are legitimate stakeholders who may cut into your pie later – like distributors or bookstores – but as far as the publishing component goes, if you’re paying, you should keep EVERYTHING.

If the self-publisher is making any claims on royalties and/or rights, run.

Run as fast as you can.

We’ve heard horror stories about various self-publishers from authors who’ve been burned.

The thing is many of these places will talk a good game. They’ll tell you they love your work, that the market needs a book like yours, and that your book will be successful.

Let’s break this down:

• Do they love your work? Well, maybe. But ask salient questions to ensure they’ve read it. Lots of these people will talk in generalities. We had one author come to us two years ago to ask about publishing. We read several chapters and gave him an honest assessment. Another self-publisher waxed lyrical about it, so he went with them. Take a guess who that was.
  
  
• The market needs a book like yours. It might, if they’re reading the market correctly. But that doesn’t guarantee sales. Think about just how many books are published – go look in a bookstore, or at an online retailer. Somebody thought the market needed every one of those books. Now, how many of those books would be blowout successful? A handful?
  
  
• Your book will be successful. Nobody can guarantee this. The market’s full of books that people thought would be successful, but which sold moderately, under-performed, or outright bombed, or which might’ve went through numerous rejections (e.g. twelve publishers rejected Harry Potter), only to be successful later. It shows you how fallible these evaluations are.

There’s no formula to this. If there was, big multinational publishers with huge marketing teams would orchestrate success after success after success, but they don’t.

They can’t.

We’re at the whim of so many things we have no control over, such as trends, tastes, and timing. You might write a great book about werewolves, but unfortunately something else with werewolves came out a month earlier, so the market’s satiated. Or you might have a campy spy thriller, but a real war has shifted consumer appetites.

Again, as Blaise would say, treat your writing career as a business. There are shysters just looking to take advantage of you. Ask questions. Any legitimate author-service provider will be happy to answer them. The others? They’ll talk slick, and it might sound great superficially, but there won’t be much substance. As much as we love flattery and praise, this is the time to shelve ego and to think ruthlessly.

You deserve the best. Don’t let somebody take that away from you.

We’re also always happy to answer questions.