Vlog: 5 Myths About Authoring

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions when it comes to writing books and getting published. Today I'm dispelling five of them.

RELATED LINKS: 

• On Writing and Income (vlog)
• 5 Publishing Myths That Need to Stop
• 5 Writing Myths
• Do You Need Connections to Get Published? (vlog)
• On Finding Time to Write

What publishing myths have you heard?

Twitter-sized bites: 

"You need connections to get published" and other myths @Ava_Jae thinks can go die in a fire. #vlog (Click to tweet) 

Author @Ava_Jae dispels 5 publishing myths in today's vlog. Have you heard these? (Click to tweet)

5 Publishing Myths That Need to Stop

Photo credit: Abee5 on Flickr

Every once in a while, I’ll hear someone make a blanket statement about writing or the publishing industry. Sometimes it’s a disillusioned writer, sometimes it’s someone trying to sound in the know to their unknowing friends, but one way or another there are some publishing myths floating around that I’d like to stuff into a plastic vat and dissolve in acid. At least, here.

So without further ado, here are five publishing myths that I personally think need to be destroyed:

1. You can only get published if you have connections. If you believe this even for a second, I highly recommend you get a Twitter account and start following some agents ASAP. Agents find new authors through cold querying all the time—that is, writers they’ve never interacted with who submitted to their slush pile. Do connections sometimes help? Sure, I suppose, if you have any. But by and large, most writers starting out don’t have any, and it is absolutely not a requirement to finding success as a writer. 


2. Self or traditional publishing is the only way to fame and riches. Repeat after me: there isn’t ONE correct answer for everyone. Self-publishing is not the right choice for everyone. Traditional publishing is not the right choice for everyone. Some people just want to see their book on the shelf when they walk into Barnes & Noble—and they’re not stupid for going the traditional route to meet that dream. Some people want to have much more control over the process and higher royalties—and they’re not stupid for going the self-publishing route to meet that dream.
   
   Honestly, there are so many methods and options out there for writers, and we should be celebrating those opportunities, regardless of whether or not you intend to use them.
   
   Also, if you’re looking for fame and riches, you’re in the wrong profession. Write because you love to write and because you want to create stories regardless of how much money you may or may not make. But don’t expect to get rich doing it, because while it does very occasionally happen, it’s certainly not the norm. 


3. Anyone can write a book about a popular topic and become insta-rich. No.
   
   Whenever I hear someone say something along these lines, it’s an automatic sign to me that they know absolutely nothing about the publishing industry. Those so-called overnight success, hugely successful authors we hear so much about are about as rare as lottery winners—and they certainly didn’t find their success by jumping on a bandwagon (or overnight, for that matter).
   
   The thing that non-publishing people often don’t realize is that it takes years for a book to go from first draft to traditionally published. Even after a contract is signed and a book is officially going to be published, it often takes two (or even more) years before the book hits the shelf. So to imply that writers can look at what’s uber-popular, crank out a book like nothing and make millions is pretty erroneous on several counts. And that’s not even considering how difficult it is to write a polished book. So there’s that. 


4. YA novels are inferior to Adult novels. This one will never cease to make me angry. Ever.
   
   I’m not saying that if you don’t like YA that something’s wrong with you, but what I am saying is that judging an entire category based off preconceptions or a single book that you heard about once (or hell, even a single book that you read and hated once) is wrong. YA authors have brought some of the most powerful, emotional, beautiful, exciting books I’ve ever read. And just because they’re written with teens in mind doesn’t mean that adults can’t enjoy them or that they’re somehow not worth as much as a book written for an adult audience. 


5. Authors make so much money, it doesn’t matter if I illegally download their book for free. This is probably one of the few things that’ll make me rage more than the previous point. I wrote a whole post about why this is so beyond not true here, but the short version is this: most writers don’t make a lot of money to begin with, and pirating is the equivalent of taking money out of their paychecks. Money that they need for bills and food and everything else. So stop, ok? 

What do you think? Do you have any publishing myths you’d add to the list? 

Twitter-sized bites: 

Writer @Ava_Jae shares 5 publishing myths she believes need to stop. Do you agree? (Click to tweet)  

"You can only get published if you have connections" and four other publishing myths that need to stop. (Click to tweet) 

5 Writing Myths

Photo credit: Johan Larsson on Flickr

Not too long ago I wrote two posts covering ten writing truths that I thought were important to discuss broken up into bite-sized part one and part two posts.

Today I’d like to talk about the opposite end of the spectrum—the myths that many of us, especially early in our writing careers, have probably fallen for or perhaps are even still tempted to believe. These myths are created by Hollywood, by too much news coverage of the exceptions, by well-intentioned hopes, overly-optimistic dreams and inexperience.

But these myths are just that—myths—and although they sound nice on paper, the sooner we accept that they aren’t real, the better.

The Writing Myths:

1. The overnight success story. Nathan Bransford wrote a really fantastic post covering this myth much more succinctly than I could, but the overnight success stories that you hear about all so very often are largely lies. Writing a book takes time—months, sometimes years—and chances are the first book that you publish won’t be the first book you ever write (more on that later). It takes time to hone your craft, to learn the ins and outs of writing, to develop your voice and learn how to write a solid plot and then learn the proper way to market it all when you’ve finished. J.K. Rowling spent years planning out and writing Harry Potter and received dozens of rejections before getting published. Amanda Hocking also spent years building her craft and receiving rejection letters before making it big in the self-publishing world. The list goes on, but in short, don’t believe the overnight success story.

2. Your debut novel = your first novel. No.

I mentioned this in first bullet, but nine out of ten times, your first novel will not be your debut novel. Debut is a tricky word, because it sounds like it’d be your first novel ever and when publishers announce an author’s “first” novel, it often sounds like it’s the first one the author has ever written but with few exceptions, that’s largely not the case. “Debut novel” means the first novel that you’ve ever gotten published. It’s your debut into the world of published writers—it’s usually not the first novel you’ve ever written. Chances are the first and second and maybe even third and fourth novels you’ve ever written are going to be sitting in a drawer somewhere when you get your “first” book published. It varies from writer to writer, but it usually takes more than a single manuscript to really hone your novel-writing skills.

3. All the author needs to do is write a book. That’s a nice thought—but not quite. Authors write books, then edit, then rewrite, then edit more, then they market their books—whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter or tumblr or book tours or YouTube—all the while working on the next book, and reading other books, and trying not to entirely disappear from the social media world while buried under a heap of editor notes.

And that’s not even getting into just how difficult it is to write a book in the first place.

4. Authors do everything alone.  Rachelle Gardner wrote a fantastic post on the help that traditionally published authors receive, but in short, traditionally published or not, authors absolutely do not do everything alone. We get help from readers and editors and book designers and agents and marketing specialists and copyeditors because it takes a lot more than just one person to write a book and get it out there. Writers can’t do everything alone, and the great part is that we don’t need to. There are others out there willing and able to help—we just have to go out there and find them.

5. After publishing one book, money starts raining on the author. I think most of us know this isn’t true, but especially nowadays I think it’s important we accept this one.

Yes, there are always exceptions—we’ve all heard about the debut authors who start off with a bang and immediately jump into the New York Times Bestsellers list, with a very nice advance sitting in their bank account. It happens.

But by and large, it doesn’t happen. In today’s world, advances are shrinking and publishers are more careful. An author’s career (regardless of how successful they were with their debut) isn’t based on just one novel—it’s a combination of every novel they ever publish and for most of us, it’ll be a slow climb. There’s a reason so many authors have a second (and sometimes third) job, and it’s not just because they’re bored sitting at home.

Writing takes time. Publishing takes time. Making a living off of writing usually takes a lot of time.

So those are my five writing myths. What would you add to the list?