Dressed to impress

You are NOT a Writer

You’re not.

Choices to be made; self or traditional publishing, high advance or no advance, online marketing or bookstore hustling, accept or deny royalty rates, Amazon or Apple, ebooks or print, three book deal or no book deal, agent or no agent, book tour or no tour,  All of the above. None of the above.

In the moments when these decisions arise, writers tend to address them through their natural, creative thought processes. For most, that means with their dominant right brains (left vs right brained explained) . But these are the exact moments you should not think like a writer, because right then, you’re not.

No matter the thousands of hours you’ve spent perfecting your craft or the genius ideas gestating in your brain. You are not an artist, poet, novelist or thinker. You are not creative, you are not a literary genius or dumbass. You are not a writer.

You are a financial assassin who dabbles in words. You are a deadly ninja with a B&N discount card. You are a mindless automaton focused on only one thing. Profit.

What I am trying to say here is this. When it comes to business interactions with the publishing industry, be as cold-hearted and self serving as possible because the industry is. Every contract you sign, every right you hand over, every rate you accept is designed to pacify you and make the industry profit to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Countless lawyers, accountants, actuaries (who all make more money than you do) work tirelessly to create contracts so complex you need an agent to translate and which ensure that you and your work (products) create revenue for publishers at the lowest possible cost (advances, royalties etc.).

There are great people on Wall Street and banks and hedge funds fulfill important economic functions. Somehow though, they end up screwing the American people every time. Maybe they don’t mean too, but they do. So it is with publishing and writers.

So you take your calculators and your Katanas, your bank statements and your shuriken, your bills and your sniper rifles and focus every atom of your being on maximizing the financial benefit of every interaction with the industry. We are all not in this together (you and fellow writers are in it together…maybe). If you end up costing some publisher some extra revenue or you assault their bottom lines with red ink , remember one thing; it’s not personal, it’s business.

Before you go off into the wild brandishing your analytical, profit driven minds, please remember that this financially vicious version of you should only ever come out when it comes to business. In every other moment when you are before the empty page, you are only one thing.  A writer.

Related Posts:

1. Dear Writer: You Need an Editor
2. Are Authors Stabbing Publishers in the Back?
3. A Reformed Publishing Industry: What Does It Look Like?
4. Ten Reasons to Get to Know and Get Involved in the Publishing Industry
5. Criticizing the Publishing Industry: Ground Rules