by Doug Lewars
My experience with authors is that they’re a pretty supportive lot. This is not always the case. I remember reading comments in a group by one author who refused to have much to do with others. Her argument was that her time was limited and spending it with other authors was sub-optimal. Maybe someone like Stephen King or JK Rowling doesn’t benefit to any great extent from working with others but I believe in general it’s a good idea.
First is the sharing of information. People have different experiences. One can always learn something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be explicitly about writing but a small nugget of information filed away may be useful in a story someday. For example, I learned quite by accident that if you plan to take action against someone in small claims court, you can save money and have good results by using paralegals. I have no plans to go to small claims court but it’s good to know. Even if I don’t need this advice, it’s possible that someday one of my characters will.
Another advantage is that my strengths might well be different from someone else’s. There’s a woman in the writers’ group to which I belong who is also serious about her work. We trade stories back and forth for editing purposes. The things she spots in mine are things I never would have noticed. I can read a paragraph and think it sounds pretty good. She can suggest changing just a couple of words and it goes from good to excellent. In her work she sometimes uses words that aren’t English which works up to a point, but I can assist in pointing out where a reader might get lost when she goes a bit too far. Together I think we’re both better off.
Lessons learned the hard way can be shared so that others may avoid pitfalls. Today I learned that heads-down writing concentration might be an asset when writing a complex scene but it’s not a good idea if you happen to have a pot boiling on the stove and an aversion to eating charred carrots. In addition, shared experiences can help avoid disappointments. When I uploaded my first book to Smashwords and successfully got it through their formatting process I was excited to think that dozens, possibly hundreds of individuals would see and enjoy it. Well that certainly didn’t happen. I had two or possibly three readers and I was a bit disappointed until I realized that there are hundreds of thousands of books on that one platform and the probability of me being noticed was extremely small. Since then I’ve been able to let those in my writers’ group know of my experience so that their own expectations aren’t set too high with the release of their first masterpiece. Sure they have hope. Everyone does. But while they might be a bit disappointed they won’t be devastated. Plus they fully understand the importance of marketing.
There are also some social benefits from cooperating with others – particularly in writing groups. Interactions on social media are good but there’s nothing like meeting with other individuals who share a common interest not to mention common frustrations. In addition, some writers – well, me for example – have a tendency to spend a bit too much time behind a computer screen and meeting others in a cooperative environment serves to force one to physically get up, leave the computer and discover that there’s an actual world out there that extends beyond the imagination.
It is, however, impossible to ignore the fact that there is an element of competition to pretty much everything in this world. Financial resources for authors are limited and growing more so every year. Here in Ontario, Canada, average author remuneration is slightly less than 1/3 of what would be made working a 40 hour week at minimum wage. But I doubt that even that tells the whole story. I think there are a few quite successful authors and large numbers who earn next to nothing. It’s probably a good thing we enjoy what we do. Publishers need to make money, have limited resources and will have to back that subset of books they feel will do well. Making list is a definite challenge and simply entails being better at any number of things – not only writing but marketing and selling as well.
Competition is not necessarily bad. It’s possible to learn a great deal from those works that make it to the top. Presumably it’s quite satisfying to win any of the major literary awards although I certainly can’t state that from experience.
There is much to be said for both competition and cooperation; however, from my perspective, I have had more satisfying experiences working closely with other authors and learning from them than trying to strive against them.
Guest post contributed by Doug Lewars. Doug is not necessarily over the hill but he’s certainly approaching the summit. He enjoys writing, reading, fishing and sweets of all sorts. He has published ten books on Smashwords.com.
This was a very helpful article. Thank you very much.
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My personal favorite book of all times tells me that iron sharpens iron. If you’re a writer, who better to learn new tricks or what you’re doing wrong than a fellow writer. If I had that attitude I’d certainly never amounted to anything as a sys admin, Police officer, detective, soldier . . . Well, you get the idea.
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Another helpful article. I am not very social at all. I find people and there day to day whining difficult. However, I am fascinated with people who have depth. There are not to many of them I know. So many are just caught in fear and worry. ☕️
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This has been a very helpful article. I agree, the competition is there, but that does not necessarily mean that we, as authors, are fighting in the same arena. You may be writing fiction, but what kind of fiction? Perhaps we could be different niches…
I agree, the writing craft can benefit from sharing information, and helping each other out. I have learned most of my writing skills from authors and writers who were kind enough to share their knowledge. I have yet to find authors who will give some constructive criticism, but I’m sure I’ll stumble upon one if I start searching.
Writers, are by nature, reclusive, but that does not mean that we should be stabbing at each other at the slightest opportunity. Hahaha…
Have a nice day.
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Reblogged this on Kim's Musings.
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I have to agree. I sometimes avoid the interaction of other authors because I know that they will be dead-on correct when they point out weak spots in my writing. As a writer, you never want to hear any negatives, but those critiques are so very helpful and necessary. It’s all part of the learning process–writers never master the craft–there is no end to improving any aspect of your writing. The learning never stops. Take all comments and suggestions with a grain of salt, but pay careful attention to something that really tweaks your senses, and just might be a problem. When I get three or more complaints on the same topic, then I really start revising my thinking about improving something that slipped by me.
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Reblogged this on adaratrosclair.
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Reblogged this on Plaisted Publishing House and commented:
Working together as Authors…or not?
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Nobody makes it big doing it alone. Even the biggest sports stars and business people have teams, coaches, or mentors guiding them and helping them out. So for a writer to think they can make it alone, that to me, is shooting yourself in the foot. There’s so many ways we can all work together, here’s just three ways.
– Create a joint Facebook group based on your genre and all of you post content to it, along with the odd post when any of you have a book coming out. The bigger the audience you create the more people you can sell your books to.
– Create a podcast together, again based either on writing or your genre, and share the workload of creating content and building a joint audience for yourselves.
– Get together and create a box set of books, and share in the workload of promoting it to get it into as many people’s hands as you can. The more everyone works together the more everyone wins.
Any of the above would work. Does it take time to all of those things? Yes. Are most writers willing to put in the work? No. End of the day you can either see your fellow author as someone you’ll have to fight with for a piece of the pie, or as someone that can help you reach levels and audiences you can’t alone.
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