Writers and the truth in writing

"...given what seems like an endless stream of spectacular literary hoaxes and other transgressions over the last 20 or 30 years, it seems appropriate for writers from time to time to stand up and preach the value of a practical truth: There are standards of reliability in fiction and non-fiction, and it helps us all when writers adhere to them, and it hurts us all when they fall to the wayside. ...

When you learn that a story or anecdote in a literary work is not true, you begin to doubt everything in that work. And when you learn that a work has been debunked as untrue or unreliable, you begin to doubt the truthfulness of every author and the reliability of every text — an effect that is caustic to any culture."

Thus, writers ought to follow these simple guidelines:

"1. Any degree of fabrication turns a story from non-fiction into fiction, which must be labeled as such. (A person cannot be a little pregnant, nor a story a little fictional.)

2. The writer, by definition, may distort reality by subtraction (the way a photo is cropped), but is never allowed to distort by adding material to non-fiction that the writer knows did not happen."

Read More: http://www.poynter.org/how-tos/newsgathering-storytelling/writing-tools/181176/why-nonfiction-writers-should-take-a-vow-of-chastity/

###END OF POST###
www.SPYWRITER.com

When does a novelist retire?

"The fact is that authors seldom retire. Many don’t want to; others couldn’t afford to. So they keep going till death drags them from their desk or they lose their marbles, whichever fate strikes earlier. Unfortunately they may find that while they still have their marbles, they no longer have a public, those who used to buy their books having already suffered one of these fates, or having simply stopped reading new books – even new books from old authors. Losing their public, they are likely, quite understandably, to lose their publisher too. This may grieve, but not entirely surprise, them; it began to seem likely when they discovered a couple of books back that their new editor was a decade or two younger than their own middle-aged children.

“We used to live on royalties,” Anthony Burgess once said to me, “but now we live on advances.” This was true in his time, but now the advances are shrinking, and the royalties disappearing. So they go on working, but do so, if they are honest, in the knowledge that what they are writing in their old age is not near as good as the best of the books they wrote thirty or forty years ago. This is sad but not surprising. They no longer have either the physical or mental energy that used to drive them on. Moreover they have probably exhausted their material, and any new material they happen on may be thinner than the old stuff.

Occasionally they pick up a novel they wrote long ago, and read it with surprise, admiration, and then pain. And then they think: “Fielding and Jane Austen and all the Brontës were already dead at the age I was when I wrote that – and so they didn’t have to find matter for a new novel in their sixties, seventies, eighties…”

More: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/allanmassie/100061155/novelists-used-to-die-young-now-they-must-confront-and-write-throughout-their-old-age/



### END OF POST ###
www.SPYWRITER.com

Do writers make good money?

Does writing pay? How much do writers make? Are they filthy rich?

Hmm. Writers make money, some make tons, most need day jobs to pay a streetcar fare to deposit their royalty checks.

Below is everything you ever wanted to know about the wallet of your favorite author. I am using data from 2004 because that was the year of my debut novel's publication.

1,200,000 titles were published in 2004:

• 10 titles sold 1,000,000 + copies each


• 22 titles sold 500,000-999,999 copies each


• 64 titles sold 250,000-499,999 copies each


• 324 titles sold 100,000-249,999 copies each


• 767 titles sold 50,000-99,999 copies ("my" category)


• 23,047 titles sold 5,000-49,999 copies each


• 67,008 titles sold 1,000-4,999 copies each


• 202,938 titles sold 100-999 copies each


• 948,005 titles sold 99 or less copies each

I should add that most sales occur within the first few weeks/months following publication.

What does this mean in terms of dollars? First you need to understand how this works. A writer does not sell a soul, or an arm and a leg, but nonetheless one should know that it is important for her, and every other writer out there to be paid adequately. Publishers offer an advance and royalties. Advance is always paid against royalties, in other words: royalties will be paid only when the publisher recoups the advance from sales. Advances range from as little as $1,000, most hover around or below $5,000, some pay $10,000 and few pay more. Royalties range from 4-12%. Realistically one can hope for 8%, and should fight to the death to receive it. Anything below is scandalous.

Now that you have these figures you can see clearly that the vast majority, 98% of writers, cannot possibly make a living off of writing - unless they are Joan Collins and receive millions in advances for books that never get published...

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Worst part of writing a novel

Some writers say the hardest part of writing a novel is starting it.

Not for me.

I do not start until the words, the plot, the characters, all that amounts to a book begins to spill over and cannot be contained.

Starting is easy: I have no choice but to write, I cannot stop it, and so it goes - first draft, second, third and so on. Then comes the point when the creative work is over. At that point I find that all I do is the technical, the polishing, the mundane. That's when I get tired of the novel. That's when I just want to throw it to hell, or I wish it was a team work - one person for the creative part and another to polish it, to bring it to that publishable state.

I think my second novel could use that extra once over, my editor seems to agree, but I am just so tired of it. I don't want to go back to it. I should. I will, but not until the current (3rd) novel is finished.

I have two mundane tasks ahead of me: polishing Novel Nr 2 and Novel Nr 3.

Ergh.

Rejection, rejection, rejection...

Recently, several writers asked me for some tricks or miracle ways that would help them find a literary agent and to publish their first novels. Each one of them already received upwards of 100 rejections to query letters.

There's good news and there's bad news.

The good: you've received only 100 rejections.

The bad: expect more.

Sadly, that is the reality of the post 1990s publishing market consolidation: a handful of key people where there was plenty.

Folks, you do not need an agent to get published (my example proves it), but it is becoming a Catch 22: more and more publishers will not accept anything from writers directly - submissions and queries must come from known literary agencies.

Trouble is... agents consider writers their worst enemy. Why? Because majority of writers do not make enough money to make the effort of selling their works worth while. What an agent wants is a Tom Clancy, someone who manufactures mega sellers so they can sit back and cash in cheques for nothing.

Imagine this scenario: an employer calls you and offers you a job - basically to cash in a cheque. What do you do?

Now look at it this way: you (the employer) offer a literary agent to sell your book and receive a cut from sale. What is an agent's reply? Some will send a bitchy reply to never-ever bother them again. Many will blacklist your IP / email address. Majority will ignore you (it makes no difference whether you query by email or snail mail, except that you will save money by emailing because despite assurances that all mail is responded to if an SASE is included - it is simply not so.)

Folks, there is no miracle way. Query, query, query... When an agent does not reply or when you receive a rejection without any explanation (95% of rejections) and you can't figure out why :

1. re-send you query again after some weeks


2. try another person from the same company


3. change your subject line


4. re-write your query / synopsis - concentrate on different aspects of your novel (make it sound more gory, or sexy, or political, or controversial, or change the genre it falls under...)

Finally, if you are only considering sending out your first query letters let me give you this advice: expect to receive rejections. Trust me, it will be that much easier to bear when you know they will be coming. They will be coming.

Start emailing literary agencies or publishers