Writing is an art but publishing is a business

by Rick Anderson
(Hollywood, FL)

Genre:Mystery/Police Procedural

Writing is an art but publishing is a business--we've all heard this before because it's as valid as "show, don't tell." So why do we--or why do I, at least--tend to want to ignore this? Perhaps the answer can be found in that one word: passion.

We're passionate about that story we've written, or should be anyway. And yet there's that tendency to avoid getting our hands dirty with that awful business aspect of our craft. But we can't avoid it. I wrote "Rivers of Belief" with a passion but the reality is simple--that passion will not be seen by more than a handful of readers unless I passionately market my art.

How? By being a pain in the rear-ends of bookstore owners, wholesalers, distributors, and media editors; by crafting press releases and hiring professional companies to send them to as many outlets as possible; by knocking on the manager's doors at every Borders and Barnes & Noble I see and introducing my book, in an effort to generate interest in my book's potential to the corporate officers who will see that I'm serious about making money from my piece or art--money for me and money for them.

I've done all these things and the sales are beginning to build. But there's more to do. I've been contacting specialty magazines and putting a buzz in editor's ears; "Will you mention my book to your readers," I ask them. I'm arranging for book signings; I'm asking some of Amazon's major reviewers to read my book; I've asked friends to throw a party with some movers and shakers in the hope that among them there might be that one reader who will like my book enough to recommend to a colleague, who in turn will mention it to a friend, who will pass it along to a loved one who loves what you've written.

That's how Tom Clancy became a success. I forget the exact number, but I belief 43 publishers turned down his manuscript for "The Hunt For Red October" until the Naval Institute Press took it on because of its "nautical theme." They printed just 1500 copies. Clancy went out and put as many of those copies as possible in the hands of everyone he could find, and word-of-mouth turned that book into a media feeding frenzy...and yet "Red October" is often derided in creative writing as poorly written, with stereotyped, one-dimensional characters. If this is true, then it only fuels the argument that getting out there and getting your book out is all-important.

That's what I'm doing. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get going; there are some more doors that I need to knock on.

Visit Rivers of Belief.