Warning: I'm opinionated. I'm sorry if any of my answers are controversial, this is just how I see things!
How can I become a writer?
Ah, the age old question. I don't think it's possible to finish a book (let alone publish one in any format) and not get this question in some form. It would be easy to throw around some of the more common quips authors give as answers to this question like "believe in yourself," but I really think there are a few pieces of practical advice all writers should know.
First, figure out your priorities. Do you want to be a writer or an author?
Do you want to write because you find it calming and inspiring but you *never* want to show it to anyone else or you don't plan to publish? If that's the case, do whatever you want. You're a writer, writing because you love and adore the work but don't plan to make it a career. Some of my most powerful work will never be published because I didn't think about rules or marketing when I wrote: I just wrote what I was feeling. The pieces are jumbled and probably wouldn't make a ton of sense to anyone but me, but the pieces are full of emotion and power I can't channel without throwing the rulebook out the window. I've learned more about myself as a woman and human being through my writing and characters than I have any other way. That's magical.
If you want to be an author, however, someone who writes not just for the love of the work but because you want to make money, you'll have to be more disciplined. Write and *finish* work on a regular basis. Learn to work on a deadline and on commission. Accept criticism. Throw your pride out the window because you will, undoubtedly, work on projects or through sections of books you don't want to do. Write *every day.* The more you write, the easier it becomes. Wonder how some authors can finish a book in a month or write 10,000 words in a day? Practice. Being an author is a job. Some people can't retain their love of writing when it becomes work, some can't.
As an author, you will most likely have to pursue jobs. Keep a regular blog. (Oh, the hypocrisy in that statement... ;D ) Ask to be a guest blogger on other sites. If you're a more technical writer (or need the cash, because technical and nonfiction writing projects are way more plentiful and pay a lot more than creative ones) you'll have to apply for work or even call local companies and see if they need web content writers or writers to create market copy. Anything that gets your work out to the public is good. It isn't easy to make money writing and it's even harder to make a living. Being an author isn't passive work. It's hard and underpaid. But if you really love it, you can make it work.
What advice do you have for people who want be working authors?
Embrace the red pen. Seriously. If you have a "this book is my baby and all edits and changes are the devil!!!" attitude, you won't get published. You're not perfect. Your first draft is *never* perfect. Join a writer's group that will give you honest feedback. If someone reads your book and can only gush about it, take the boost to your ego but don't rely on that person as a proofreader. Find someone that will nitpick. Love it when you get a page back covered in ink. This is how you grow as an author and how you make your work the best it can be.
Stop being so shy. Working authors have to been marketers. You're selling yourself and your skills in whatever field you choose to pursue. You have to reach out to people and tell them over and over again about your books. You have to drive people to buy and convince reviewers to care. You have to be actively working every day to get your name and work out to the public and help people realize that you're even there. This means, for example, tailoring your work to what will get you buzz (or at the very least finding what it is about your work that will make people care.) This means turning your stand alone novel into a series because series sell better or putting it aside until you have a popular enough name that you can release a single book and still sell it. This means sometimes compromising your imagination and ego to make money. And that's okay. Once you're making a living you can get more experimental. Or you can be a writer and get a day job that will pay the bills.
Finally (but arguably most importantly) WRITE. There are tons of people who love the idea or writing and they'll think about it and create characters and tell little stories and develop and research but they never actually sit down and write. The cure for this isn't complicated, but it's the hardest part about being an author: sit down every night and write. Give yourself a word count you have to meet every day. You might have to bribe yourself. You might have to turn off the radio, TV or phone. If you're like me, you might have to unplug the internet (I'm so easy to distract.) But you have to do it.
What are the different ways to get published?
Here are the major ways to get a book published:
Self Publishing:
Self-publishing is just what it sounds like: you publish the book yourself. The first draft of my first book was bound together by Kinkos and I hand sold them at local bookstores. There used to be (and still is in a lot of ways) a stigma to self publishing because anyone can do it. There's a lot of really bad writing self published every day and, because of publishing costs, self published books tend to cost a lot more than the little paperbacks you can find at your local bookstore. But there's also a lot of good work created this way.
You can also use a self-published book to attract a bigger publisher. It's VERY rare that this happens, but it can (I'm an example of it). You have to be super outgoing to make it happen, though. Selling a dozen books to your friends won't impress a publisher. They'll be looking for thousands of books sold in a pretty short timeframe. The publisher will want to lower the risk that your book will be a dud.
I'm a big advocate for ebooks when you're considering self publishing. Ebooks are booming and, in general, the major sites don't care who the publisher is. I don't know any other way a new author can get a book on Amazon for $2.99 *and* still make a 70% royalty than through ebooks. Sites like Amazon have made it possible for people who have never been published by a major press to make a living through selling books. It still takes a lot of work and marketing. It's not easy. You'll have to put up a lot of content to make it truly profitable. But as someone who has not only been published but has worked nearly every job in the publishing industry, I've never turned a profit like I have self publishing my ebooks.
Vanity Press:
I'll say right off the bat I'm not a fan of vanity presses (publishing houses where you have to pay to be published). They fire off a million scam alerts in my brain, and not just because I was scammed by an agent before getting involved with a real publishing house. I personally feel that if you want to pay all your own publishing costs, you should have the freedom to design and price your work yourself, which you can't do through most vanity presses.
In general, you shouldn't have to pay a publisher or an agent to take you on as a client. Reputable publishers and agents make their money from selling your books, not being paid up front (that's a good way to spot a scam, btw: never agree to pay your own publishing costs.)
As you can tell, I'm not really the one to ask about seriously publishing through a vanity press. Sorry!
Independent Press:
I like indie (independent) presses (I worked at one for three years!) but they can be a ton of work. Independent presses are smaller than mainstream presses and usually have a little less public clout. They come with very definite pros and cons (as do mainstream presses.)
Pros:
You usually get a lot more control over your book design and more personalized attention.
You usually make a much higher royalty (think around 15%) than with a mainstream press.
They're more accepting of books that aren't currently "hot" and are more timeless.
They're usually easier to get work published through. (Though, again, it's still really hard.)
They're definitely better for publishing poetry, artbooks and other books that are rarely picked up by mainstream presses anymore.
Less likely to have your book put out of print.
Cons:
You have to do a lot more of your own legwork. Marketing budgets will be low.
You probably won't become a bestseller. And that's okay.
You probably won't get an advance.
Your books will cost more.
Your books will probably not get into chain bookstores unless you personally get them placed.
Mainstream presses:
What most authors consider the end goal: getting published by a mainstream press. This is where nearly all the bragging rights exist. It's insanely hard to get picked up by a major press (and it's nearly impossible without an agent) but it comes with some very serious cons.
Pros:
You will probably make an advance.
You're more likely to get a marketing budget/tour/media attention.
Bragging rights and it looks better on resumes.
Lower book costs and more of a chance at getting into chain stores.
If you hit, you're more likely to hit hard. Being a best seller at a major press is the best way to make big money as a fiction writer.
Cons:
In most presses, if your book sales don't make back your advance, you have to pay the press back. This means you may not cut a royalty check for years if ever.
Less personalized attention.
Most major presses don't let you approve your edits or even your book cover.
Tiny royalty. You generally make around 4% of your sales.
If your books don't sell really well, you're very likely to be backlisted or put out of print quickly.
I can't seem to finish my book. What do I do?
Besides my advice above about actually sitting and just finishing, I think the biggest problem I run into when other people can't finish books is the editing process. Don't let yourself get so wrapped up in editing that you never finish.
My best advice: write the whole book. Don't skip over tricky parts or jump around in the plot. (If you skip over all the parts you don't like, you'll lose all your drive when you finish the "fun" parts.) Don't let yourself go back to edit. Accept that first drafts always stink and just WRITE IT. When you're done, you can begin the editing process but by then you'll already know where the story is going, how you want the characters to develop and the rules of the world you've created and it will be a lot easier to edit.
If it's just good old fashioned writer's block (which, in a lot of ways, I don't believe in as an excuse to delay your work. As a working writer, you just have to turn on "this is a job" mode and tough it out) switch up genres or mediums for a time. Take a break from your fiction novel to write a poem or watch a movie. Put the short story on hold to paint or write a song. By radically changing your focus for a time, you can come back to the work that was giving you problems with fresh eyes and, if you're lucky, something about the new medium will have inspired you enough that you can figure out what's missing in your book that's causing the block in the first place.
Do you use outlines?
When I was younger, the stories were just there and I sat and wrote them. As an adult editing those stories, I realize they needed a lot of help. But the creative process was easier and I didn't need outlines. Now I use basic outlines for all my novels. If I know my characters and the story I want to tell really well, the outline may be as simple as a list of major scenes in the order I want them to occur. On the other end of the spectrum are books I'm commissioned to write, which I may feel little inspiration for. I do detailed outlines for those as well as character write ups.
The most critical thing for me is to know my characters really well before i start writing. I have tons of backstories written that will never see the light of day (at least without serious editing) because I wanted to flesh out the character and learn more about the way he or she responds in various situations. If you know your character well enough, the plot kind of writes itself because you know what the character would and wouldn't do in any given situation. This means your original outline may change, but that's okay. It makes the writing fun.
You're a big advocate for LGBT causes. Why aren't any of your characters gay?
Some of my characters are gay (and lesbian, bisexual, even a couple who I consider asexual... Aine comes to mind, LOL!) but, in the Areane series in particular, the romantic lives of those characters didn't apply to the plot of the book. I thoroughly believe that who a person loves or is attracted to should be seen as just a normal, natural part of life. No one is just gay or just a lesbian. It's not a physical trait you can see as they walk past. If the sexual life of the character doesn't affect the plot of my book, it won't come up. None of my fantasy worlds will ever view an LGBT character as different or shameful, so there'd be no gossip about it. That doesn't mean I'll never have an LGBT character as a main character. It just hasn't happened yet :)
Also, particularly for the Areane books, sexuality doesn't really play a huge part in the series. There's romance, sure, but no sex. It's implied sometimes (anyone who thinks, for example, that Brianne or Boy were virgins when they were introduced to the series are nuts) but that's not the point of the book series. Romance in the Areane books is mostly sweet, romantic and often tense. Not erotic. I won't force an LGBT-positive plotline into a book just to make a political statement. If it happens, I won't hide it and will treat it like I would any other romance in the book. But I want all of my characters to be whole and 3-dimensional. Romance is an element in my books, not the whole point of a character's being.
You've published books so... you're like super rich now, right?
That question gets the biggest "LOL" ever. In fact, it's nigh on making me ROFL. No, I'm not rich. In fact, I'd probably be considered pretty poor. Having a book published in no way guarantees you money. In fact, depending on how much time you put into writing your book and the publishing process, you may end up losing money.
Look at those royalty rates I posted in the types of publishers question again. Take a good, long look. 4% of your $6.99 novel is 28 cents per book. That means, if you get a $25,000 advance, you'll have to sell just over 89,000 books before you even get a royalty check. Those numbers shift around when you go through other publishing mediums, but the idea remains: it's tough making money publishing books. You put in a lot of time for very little money. Most authors have day jobs to survive. But if you love it, it's worth it. The written word changes hearts and minds, transports us to different worlds and helps us better understand and experience other people's lives.
Being an author isn't for the shy or meek. It's not for anyone who can't focus or has no self discipline. But if it really speaks to you, if you can't imagine going a day without writing something, without creating, then it's worth the trouble.
