I sent out a spring newsletter this week to welcome new followers and let them know about updates in my writing. One of the themes of this blog has been to share experiences in the writing community/ those circling the publishing industry, people who are supposed to help writers develop their craft. This is an area where minority authors have struggled with unsupportive response, so it is an opportunity to compare notes about what passes for acceptable behavior. That's the context for this post about a new path for me. Three years ago, I finished my first novel, which was on point for marketability, but I had been so removed from creative writing for so long, I did not have any support network, was not in touch with anyone else in the writing field or publishing, or anyone to support polishing that novel. I spent the past several years networking with online events to help rebuild/ build up those relationships. It has produced some good results, but been an incredibly painful process in the kinds of encounters I've had involving meltdowns and personal attacks. Coming from the business world, we communicate in business very objectively. You have to work on a project to achieve a goal, and it's collaborative and everyone has different skillsets, with expectation of competency at them, but the contrast in reactions to that communication among this population has been incredible, and not in a good way. I have worked up two other novels, and started them, and considered my path to publication. My finished novel is taking time to develop some background information, and the narrative voice. I have used short stories to work on a lot of the writing practice I want to apply to the novel. However, three years ago when it would have stood out, the market is so flooded, not with books that are like it, but so over saturated, that it would not stand out in the way it would have three years ago. That leads me to consider waiting to publish it until after the trends subside. There's also a level of strangeness to some of the creative content being produced like overcomplicated multiverse things that do not bother to edit out too many ideas. Come backs for nostalgia purposes, or people who were raised on content from the 70s and 80s that bring back twentieth century vibes I never had an affinity to when I lived in the twentieth century. On the other hand, I have been starting from scratch as a fiction writer, under a pen name, to separate and protect my professional brand, and give me the creative freedom to pursue ideas. In three years of networking, I met one agent with maturity and professionalism to recognise my professional platform and respond appropriately. However, in the past six years, there is a particular area of experience I have literally written the book on in terms of game changing influence and comprehensive expertise. For several months there has been an inkling in my head that I perhaps should therefore put that all into a book format. There is six years of content, so the book should write itself, and the challenge is organising and structuring that content. The additional challenge is that I recognise I am not a non-fiction writer. Some people in my network have spent decades training in journalism and non-fiction, and I learned when I was 18 that it's ok not to be good at everything, and to be good at what you are good at, and recognise that other people develop skill sets you would not compete with due to the level of time and development invested in their expertise. Fiction requires creativity and imagination, which I have in spades. I never run out of story ideas. Non-fiction requires research, style manuals, and citations, just to start. Therefore, I plan this non-fiction project as my intellectual property and having done the work for six years to formulate the argument, hypothesis and conclusion. Plus, I already have proof of concept for the success of what I propose as my conclusion.
The next step is to start. Where do you even start with a non-fiction proposal? Well, that's the question I asked myself, so I found an experienced editor who had written non-fiction books with overlapping themes. This was my first experience that drew this huge contrast with these bizarre experiences I described in the fiction world. Mature responses, professionalism, and respect in communication with me about how to develop the idea. The "genre" of the non-fiction is political/ current-events. The next thing I did was spend a day on Publisher's Marketplace. I have a business mentor who has no idea how the publishing industry works, so that's something I can explain to her in business terms. The book is the product. The book proposal is describing the product development. I am making the business case for capital investment into product development, manufacturing, distribution and sales and marketing to scale and sell the product. That was my approach to Publisher's Marketplace - market research. I pulled up deals from the past 15 months in the non-fiction political/ current-events segment. My initial goal was to get an overview of who is involved? Who are the agents? What books are being written? How many books on related topics to mine - this is really important for my next steps, which I will get to. Next, I started looking at deal size. How much are publishers paying for books in this category? What scope are the books getting larger deals? (also noting gender of deal size, but taking into account not just gender, but quality and scope of the project. Meaning, just because a woman gets paid less, has she presented a book proposal with the same level of ambition and scope as the book that was valued higher?) I mentioned using this data as I came back to how to develop my book, remember? Here's how that worked. I noticed a lot of the books on similar themes were from a certain type of writer, at least a certain position in terms of political leaning, and that is something I took note of. I knew that clearly my ideas have more success based on proof, but how do I describe that, and how do I communicate that my position in addressing this topic is a) the bigger scope that I see are valued higher and b) stands out from a lot of the same kinds of voices? If you don't know me that well by now, I am aggressive, so once I had that target locked in, that told me what hard hitting pitch I needed to sit down and write to describe the kind of book I needed to write to sell it's hypothetical success based value. THAT presented the answer I needed to how the book needed to be structured. First, it gave me an understanding of what I needed to incorporate in developing the proposal to match the description I'd written. Second, it helped start shaping the structure that was also going to align with the book I had described given the kind of content I had already developed.
One thought I have had is that writing a non-fiction book under my professional name then helps me come back to my fiction writing without the same level of "but who are you?" I have been going rounds about agencies. I thought originally that I should seek out an agency that can handle a non-fiction book of this magnatude well, but continue to represent me as a ficiton writer. However, after doing my market research, I also know which agencies can sell high value non fiction books in this category. One of them happens to be someone who is an alum from my university with friends in common, and a potentially aligned position which would be interested in how I stand out from the other similar voices on the topic. We've already made contact and he is interested in seeing my proposal. As someone with anxiety, having options always helps as a coping mechanism. Perhaps an agency to sell a non-fiction book well for that book deal is worthwhile and then finding a new agent to come back to a career in fiction? Those are ideas I am considering in my head.
Finding a cowriter is tricky, feels tricky. I have a friend whose second non-fiction book has become a NYT bestseller, and provides a model for how I want my book to be written and the market response I've seen first hand how readers respond to that writer making a complex issue accessible. I come from a business world, and I am insecure that established writers who have taken that path might not want to partner with someone going through their first book, despite the content being provided for them. I understand a question of creative inspiration coming from themselves and writing their own opinions instead of writing the perspective my experience brings. Undoubtedly there will be some trial and error involved in my experience that seasoned writers might not feel a responsibility for, but on the other hand, I bring business and marketing experience that might benefit someone coming up through writing not having as much knowledge about those parts of the industry objectively. At this point, I will have to rely on agents and publishers to offer recommendations, but finding the right fit seems a bit overwhelming a challenge to face ahead.
