Hi Dave,
My girlfriend writes fantasy novels and is one of a very few in
Australia doing well enough to make it her full time career. Advice for
writing fiction is quite different to non fiction but some of it is
relevant. I'll try and paraphrase some of the stuff I have heard her telling
other aspiring writers.
1. Start writing. Get used to trying to turn the thoughts in your head into
sentences on paper. As others have already noted there will be a lot of
rewriting anyway, so you may as well start now. Practice, practice,
practice.
2. Have a read through similar books. I guess James Herriot's "vet" series
is the most obvious example, but try and find other anecdotal books to see
how they link the various anecdotes together. You will have your own writing
style, but it is the way the books are set up that will be useful.
3. Writing groups can be useful, but only if they understand what you are
doing. Have a look for groups that deal with non-fiction or personal
history. Participating in the criticism of other people's work can be just
as helpful as having your own criticized. You'll get a better feel for what
works and what doesn't. Friends and family can give worthwhile criticism but
may not be really good at finding flaws.
When you are getting near the end you need to decide how to publish it.
There are three choices: self publish, vanity press, commercial publisher.
Self publishing means paying a printer to print a stack of copies of your
book and then trying to sell them yourself. The printer just prints from a
file you give him, so you'll probably need to hire an editor and a layout
editor/designer to get to that point. Many publishing companies hire out the
editing and layout to freelancers nowadays, so you won't necessarily be
working with amateurs or students. The big drawback is that once the books
are printed you are own your own in terms of selling and distributing them.
Vanity press means evil leeches who take your raw manuscript and a lot of
your money and turn it into a raw book fit only for giving away. Sometimes
they pretend to be legitimate publishers but sooner or later they are asking
you for money on one pretext or another.
Rule 1 of publishing. Never, ever, pay agents or publishers. An agent should
get their income from a cut of your royalties while a publisher should be
getting their money through sales of your book.
A commercial publisher is a company large or small that will publish and
distribute your book. If you sign a contract with them you should get a
small advance on sales and if they manage to sell enough to cover the
advance then you'll eventually get more royalties. If they don't sell enough
to cover the advance that is their loss and you don't need to pay it back.
These companies will have websites which should spell out their submission
rules. Read the rules carefully.
The choice boils down to self publish or look for a commercial publisher.
Self publishing will give you a book in your hand but you will be spending
your own money to do it. Unless you also enjoy promoting your book you will
probably end up with a lot of boxes of unsold books cluttering up your
garage. It probably works best for esoteric interests that people are
actively searching for rather than books that are just read for pleasure.
The problem with commercial publishing is that you somehow need to convince
them to publish your book. There is a long hard road here, especially
without an agent, but luck is a big part too. Publishing goes through
fashions and if your book turns up at the right time then you could get a
contract.
Hope some of this helps,
Paul
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