5 Things I Wished I Knew Before I Published My First Book
By Catherine McKenzie | February 23, 2014 |
photo by Flickr’s jacilluch
When Therese asked me to contribute to WU’s “inside publishing” month I was excited. Because I’ve always wanted a forum to expose the dark underbelly of the publishing industry House of Cards style—murder, and mayhem, and plotting… Kidding. Well, maybe not about the plotting… (terrible pun!) There’s no dark underbelly to the publishing industry. Well, okay, there is, just like there is in any industry, but exposure’s not really my thing. I went into publishing wide-eyed and innocent, and while I couldn’t call myself that anymore, I still need my editor to remind me what the difference is between the “on-sale” date and the “in-store” date and the “publishing” date, along with a whole host of other things that would bore you to death.
But publishing does have its rules and regulations and complications—again, just like any industry—and there are a few things I wish I knew before I started along the path.
So, here are The Top Five Things I Wish I Knew Before I Published My First Book.
- Publishing Can Be A Full-Time Job. Don’t Let It Be. I’m fond of saying that I took my fun hobby of writing books (I work full time as an attorney) and turned it into a second job. And while this is a quip, it’s one with a deep truth to it. There are so many steps to getting a novel out into the world after you get your book deal or decide to self-publish (and a million other steps once it is out in the world) that it can easily take up all your time. All your writing time, anyway. The important thing is: not to let it. Your job is to write books. While the rest of it is important and necessary, you need to continue to make writing a priority so you can get that second book done. And so on. Doing that is hard. It takes discipline. But that’s how you got your first book done, right? So you know how to do it and you can do it again.
- Promoting A Novel Can Be A Full-Time Job. Don’t Let It Be. This is very much related to the point above. Having a website, a blog, a Twitter feed, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Stumbler (I just made that last one up (I think), but I like it! Dibs.) can take up all of your time. The polar vortex is made up. The Internet vortex is a very real phenomenon. Do not get sucked into it or you will never accomplish what you need to do: write your next book. Here’s a tip. Limit all book promotion etc. to one hour a day. Have a running list of things you need to do and work at it like a job, but one you can do in an hour a day (this sounds like a late-night infomercial but it’s important, and possible). If you limit your online presence to things that you’re good at (not everyone can blog or be good at Twitter but everyone can be good at something online) and use tools like scheduled posts, you can avoid the pitfall of The Book That Never Got Written Because The Internet Ate It.
- You Are Running A Small Business. Treat It That Way. Even though we’re artists (we are artists, right?) that doesn’t mean your book business isn’t your book business. Whether you go indie or traditional publishing doesn’t change this (it just means you have a partner in your small business if you go traditional). This means lots of things—you should treat it like a business as much as you can, it can be precarious, it can be exhilarating—but mostly, to me, it means that no one will care about your business as much as you do. Of course my publishers care (a lot) if my books do well and they want to help them do so. But I’m the one who’s going to notice if my book’s sold out on Amazon, or if a link isn’t working on my website or if the promotion someone was supposed to run didn’t run on the day it was supposed to etc. It’s a hard balance to strike: being the squeaky wheel that calls these things to your publisher’s attention v. being that annoying author who takes up too much space. But ultimately, your name is the one on the front cover of your book, right? That’s you out there. And your Inc. (oh, another terrible pun!) is yours.
- You Are Never Going to Know Everything You Want To Know. I’ve often thought that there should be a boot camp for authors once they know they are going to be published (again, this would apply to both kinds of publishing). There are books out there (What To Do Before Your Book Launch being a good example), but like in many things, there’s nothing like experience, and every publisher has its own set of rules and regulations. For example, when my first book, Spin, came out, I didn’t know it was okay to ask to see the marketing plan for the book—in truth, it didn’t really occur to me that there would be one. Positive side: an amazingly pleasant surprise when I found a huge pile of my books on a front table next to Audrey Niffenegger’s latest book. That being said, four books in, I know there are things I can ask and things I can’t. I’ve accepted that even if I ran my own publishing company, there would be things I didn’t know the answer to (just exactly how each bestseller lists work, for instance.). But figuring out those boundaries can be hard, though important.
- Don’t Forget to Celebrate. Perhaps it’s just my personality, but I’ve found over the years that I often don’t celebrate milestones in the book business like I should. I think part of it has to do with the process. If, say, you got your book deal (yeah!) and a month later you were at your book launch (woohoo!) it would be easy to keep the celebration going. But in reality there’s often a long, long time between those two events. In between there’s lots of little cool things that happen—seeing the cover, getting your first pass pages, getting your first reviews—but there’s a lot of work too. By the time the book actually comes out into the world, it can seem like it’s just one more small step in the big process. But hey, you’ve published a book! And whether it’s going to be read by millions or just your immediate family, that’s something.
Authors, what do you wish you knew before you were published? The floor is yours.
A graduate of McGill University in History and Law, Catherine McKenzie practices law in Montreal, where she was born and raised. An avid skier and runner, Catherine is the author of 11 bestselling novels, including HIDDEN, THE GOOD LIAR, I’LL NEVER TELL and YOU CAN’T CATCH ME. Her most recent novel, SIX WEEKS TO LIVE, releases in Canada April 20 and the US May 4, 2021.
Wonderful list!! I do forget about the celebrating part sometimes and tend to slough it off when I do remember. Have to be better about that, because I know it’s all worth celebrating.
This is a great list. The one thing I wish I had known was how important a network of other writers would be. I remember writing my first book and feeling so alone. When I connected with other writers, both online and in person, I felt like someone had my back and understood my impulsive urges to get up in the middle of the night or whip out a pen and scratch an idea on a napkin in a restaurant (when my husband thought I was losing my mind).
This is a great article. Thank you so much.
Oo- thank you for the down-to-earth informative text, McKenzie. I like to consider myself a red pill (The Matrix) type of person, but there are moments where the blue pill has come in handy. I will remember your sound message.
Thank you, Catherine, for the firm reminder of how easy it is to allow oneself to get so caught up in promotional activities that it becomes impossible to actually find time to write. And I appreciate your simple solution – don’t let that happen.
Great insightful suggestions for all of us. Thank you. I concur about the internet vortex sucking you in. It’s so easy to spend hours and hours doing it and it doesn’t have to nor will it help write that next novel. I used to spend 3 to 4 hours a day at social marketing and now it’s about one hour. You don’t want to end up hating social marketing because it’s killing your time for writing. It can be fun. And, yeah, the need for celebrating is a great idea!
I love practical stuff like this! I wish I’d known my life wouldn’t change very much, and that’s a good thing, because I am living the life I dreamed of.
Thank you for this article! I’ve been slowly coming to these realizations but you’ve just accelerated the process. The next book matters more than anything else, but somehow the ancillary activities get in the way.
“Promoting A Novel Can Be A Full-Time Job. Don’t Let It Be.”
Yes. It really can eat up every free minute, and it all seems so reasonable at the time. But we do have to remember to write! Thank you for this smart post, Catherine!
Yes, and we spectators love all of the time you spend promoting and talking with us. Sometimes we’re like leeches. We’ll suck you dry and try and squeeze water from your empty rock. When you’re all empty we’ll wonder why you haven’t written anything, and then we’ll express our need for more of your writing, because we forget you’re human with needs of your own. Oh yeah! Gimme gimme more, gimme more, gimme gimme gimme.
You may want to stumble over to : https://www.stumbleupon.com/
mziskjr beat me to telling you about stumbleupon ;)
I love hearing about the seedy underbelly of publishing from those who have gone before! I feel it’s helpful to know what’s on the horizon (okay, so I HOPE it’s on my horizon…)
Good article. I like the “boot camp” idea. :)
BTW, the “Polar Vortex” is not made up. It is a meteorological term that has been in existence since the late 1800’s. They also exist on other planets within the solar system.
Great post! I think the biggest mistake writers make is not treating this like a business. Treating it as a hobby means that’s all it’ll ever be.
Thank you for this post. My book comes out next year, and I’m pretty anxious about the time marketing will take away from writing. I try to watch other authors to see how they’re doing it, but this article helps so much to put it all in perspective. An hour a day? I can do that. There is, by the way, something like the boot camp you’re describing. It’s at authorems.com and it’s called Creating a Book Launch Plan. I’m signed up to take it in March.
You are one PUNNY lady, Catherine. I especially like your suggestion of keep the promoting to ONE hour per day + focusing on the things you do best, rather than trying to be all things to all people. I’m doubly impressed you’re doing all this you’re practicing law.
What do I wish I had known before…? That’s a loaded question. My instantaneous reply would be “everything.” After I thought for a second though, I decided that maybe it was good I knew nothing. I might have felt so overwhelmed I wouldn’t have given up before I published. Plus, I’m more of a learn as I go type of person.
I’m just now writing a first book, but I’ve often wondered how authors handle everything. You’ve make some great suggestions that make it clearer how this can be done. I’ve taken notes to refer back to in future. Your points are given with a lot of common sensen and from experience. Thank you for sharing them.
Solid list: all ways to keep writing (and enjoying it) while giving just enough time to everything else. That’s beyond vital, since the “everything else” might sabotage us, and it WILL take over if we get careless.
I especially like the idea of limiting the promotion to an hour a day. I think part of that is learning our options and then picking a major method or two that we know we can keep doing, for months or years– momentum matters, while flitting around different tools barely makes a ripple. (I chose “be Twitter-witty,” and found it’s not as easy for me to sustain that, especially when I’m always afraid to mention my book too soon in a conversation.)
But we need that balance. No planning or promotion works as well as getting more writing out there– and most of all, we can’t let anything distract us from how we write because we WANT to be writing.
What I great post. My only objection is the number of full-time jobs this is going to take for a book that took years to write and only immediate family will read. Ouch.
Nice overview. As I’m on the brink of getting my work out, it’s nice to hear about the pitfalls, the ones that interfere with writing. Best of luck on your work.
[…] headline to her post, “5 Things I Wished I Knew Before I Published My First Book,” reeled me in. If l learned one thing from her experiences, I would be a little better armed for […]
Hi Catherine! Coming across your article a little late (overcrowded inbox), but so glad I did. Everything you wrote about addressed the very concerns I have been dealing with since my book was published.
I’m an Indie author, wearing all the hats, and have been obsessed with online presence and marketing of the book – so much so, ‘the internet is eating’ my sequel. The 1-hour a day rule is truly helpful advice. I need to get back to writing!
One other important note you mentioned, the actual publishing of the book. On the day the physical copy got delivered to my house, friends and family congratulated me, but my attention quickly shifted to get busy selling. I feel a bit robbed by the lack of pomp and circumstance, so I will try to take the time to celebrate my achievement!
Thanks Again!