Being rich and famous solves every problem, right? Let’s give that some thought.
1) Once I have my first book published, I’ll be famous and the journey will be downhill from there. We’re tackling two myths here. One, once you are published, it’s not likely you’ll be famous, at least not Billy Graham famous. But as a Christian writer, you may become well known and loved in Christian circles. And that’s more than enough. As far as the downhill journey? Not so. Having the first book published is only the beginning. Your sophomore effort has to prove that the success of your first book wasn’t a fluke. Unless it was. But a career author now has to roll up his sleeves and know that writing books for a living is a job. A real job. One we all hope you enjoy.
2) Once I’m famous, I’ll get more money with each new contract. Maybe, maybe not. The market ebbs and flows. One moment, red-headed zombies are the rage. The next, willowy blonde superwomen. Or maybe red-headed zombies being defeated by willowy blonde superwomen. Just know that the money you receive on each contract is determined by your past and projected future sales. The best option is not to spend money you don’t have, not to count on any money until it’s in your hand, and to be wise with the money you do have. Oh, wait – that’s with any career.
3) Once I’m famous, my troubles will be over. You may have solved your career and money troubles, but you will have new issues to face. Demands will be placed on you by editors, publishers, publicists, and fans. All of these are good weights and markers of success. Just be ready to lace up your running shows for a metaphorical cross country run. We all hope your run will last forever and that the scenery will be beautiful along the way.
4) Once I’m famous, I can write anything I want. You can, but not necessarily for publication. By this time, you should have developed a sense of what you like writing, and what sells. We all hope if you are selling, you like what you’re writing. And to some extent, you probably do, because readers can sense when a writer is having fun and is passionate about a topic. The most ambitious authors don’t stray too far off the path of success, but those who do have a team, including a great agent, to guide the course.
Your turn:
What do you want to accomplish as an author?
What authors do you know who have written successfully in more than one genre? Do you read their books?
The Author’s Life in 39 Easy Steps
My ultimate goal is a writer is to encourage as many people as I can with the message of Christ. I’ve been actively posting on my blog, and almost every week my friends reach out to me and tell me that God used my post to encourage them. There is nothing more of a blessing to me than to use what I love to further God’s kingdom and bring hope to hungry souls. In and of itself, that’s what I want to accomplish as a writer. I’m attempting to make a career out of it now, but first and foremost my desire is to use the gift that God has given me to help other people. The paycheck comes second to that 🙂
Wonderful! God bless you!
I want to tell stories that bring kindred and suppressed emotions of the readers to the surface, stories that will evoke the response, “Wait, this is who I am. And I never even knew it ’til now.”
I want to tell stories that lead people into God’s heart, into God’s love for them, because of and in spite of who they are. That’s why Jesus used parables. A master storyteller, He establishes rapport through cultural context, jabs to the heart, and lets the hearers make their own conclusions.
A current author I like who is successfully cross-genre is Joy Jordan-Lake (Why Jesus Makes Me Nervous and A Tangled Mercy, among others), and yes, once I find an author I like I tend to read through the whole bookshelf, so to speak.
Great comments, Nancy! I’ll have to check out Joy Jordan-Lake’s work.
I’d like gazillions of people to buy my books, making me richer than Croesus, send me fan mail containing marriage proposals and gifting me family heirlooms, and put up statues of me in town squares, airports and bowling alleys.
Well, I’d also like people to realize that at cancer’s grey-granite crossroad of pain and fear, under a coldly lowering sky, the shoots and blossoms of faith, hope and love, if nurtured, will push through the cracks, and their profound delicacy and immense strength will change the world.
Your world, and mine.
Andrew,
I can’t contribute to anything in your first paragraph, but you accomplish the goals of the second paragraph several times a week on this blog, and for that, I thank you.
Linda, I thank YOU. With all my heart, for these kind words.
Understood, brother, but I won’t be sending you a marriage proposal.
I’m just sayin’ …
Awww, Damon…REALLY? 😀
Thanks for always inspiring us, Andrew!
Tamela, it’s an honour to be here. Yoru posts always warm my heart, and give me hope.
I can’t propose, either, my husband would object, Andrew. However, I agree with much of your comedic first paragraph. Your second paragraph, knowing what you are staring down, is breathtaking and inspirational.
Ah, well, Claire. Barbara would look askance as well, which might result in an unscheduled meeting with Jesus.
Andrew, you are hilarious, too. Cracking me up.
Well, Claire, you now the expression, ‘dying of laughter’….
There ya go! What better way?
I am hoping for Rapture … can’t bank on it, but now, that’s my first choice.
Claire, yeah, me too…except that I’d be kind of obligated by training to stay behind, and help those who are hurting.
Barb absolutely HATES this, but someone has to be the last man out. Has to be someone; may as well be me.
Claire, it’s kind of a ‘Man of La Mancha’ thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow
Come the Rapture, if I yet live, I’m heading the other way, to save everyone I can, and comfort those I can’t.
I mean, well, why not?
I have a pretty good feeling we’ll all meet in the air. Well, actually not a feeling, but scriptural.
Man, there is going to be a huge traffic jam. Not. But that shofar is going to be heard around the world.
I looked up how long the twinkling of an eye was. They really did research on it. Quite literally, the twinkling of an eye is so short that unless one is not looking at someone, the disappearance would be instant. About a billionth of a second. A blink is a third of a second. !
I do believe you are somewhat tilted… 😉
‘Tilted’…that’s a good word for it! 🙂
Interesting, the length of an eye’s twinkling! Never knew that…quicker than the Manhattan Project’s ‘two shakes’ of a lamb’s tail’, or ten nanoseconds.
Jesus beats the atomic bomb for speed!
First and foremost, I want my first book contract. :o) Hehe!!
I want to be that writer who tells stories about difficult life-changing events. And when it comes to the emotions of the characters, I want to do it in a realistic way. I want people to know it’s okay and natural to feel out of control when life is crumbling around them. That God understands and won’t turn his back on them.
Oh, and I’d LOVE to make writing my ONLY full-time job.
Keep at it, Sami!
I agree on both counts, Sami 🙂 and making our characters feel pain (not, well okay sort of a writer’s jam, the God complex) that everyone out there in the real world feels.
We can kinda torture our characters to bring out the harshness of a broken world, broken people, and the grace of God throughout it all.
You will make it, Sami!
I don’t want to be rich and famous–how about comfy and welcoming?
I want people to know that friendship with God is personal and possible.
Yes, it is!
Get rich? Hmm, no, that’s not my goal. I want to touch readers with real-to-life stories where my characters have no other choice but to trust God to get them through their situations. I want them to experience the drama and twists that take place and see how my characters grow in their faith and realize God does care and he answers prayer.
Excellent, Loretta!
I’m honestly so encouraged that all of you aren’t in it for the money. Of course, that would be wonderful, and it’s actually necessary (“the laborer deserves his wages”) but that’s not our ultimate goal. We serve a higher purpose than simply increasing our platforms. Thank you all for motivating me to continue writing today!
My prayer since I’ve started my freelance journey has been “Lord, increase my platform to where YOU want me to be.” I pray that for all of you too, that the Lord would grant you success and would increase your platform for HIS glory.
Amen, Elisabeth!
Advancing the kingdom of Christ through teaching, both written and speaking has long been a passion for me. There was a time when I did so as a full-time pastor … now, not so much.
I would love to be able to write and speak full-time, and from those proceeds support myself, my wife, our two cats, my (someday) agent, and various folks at the publishing house.
I don’t know that it is a pipe-dream, but it is certainly a dream.
Notoriety is a delicate thing. Not everyone can handle it. It is like an ego narcotic. But the pneumatikos (spiritual man/woman) should be able to accept notoriety and use it to reflect the glory to Jesus.
One of my favorite quotes is from Randy Alcorn: “The greatest danger of notoriety is you start thinking about you. People then exist to serve you, exactly the opposite of what Christ modeled.”
Great insights, Damon. Thanks for sharing.
Tamela, I will never forget the first time I was recognized by a fan. (Please note that it has also been the only time, so far- she read my Suddenly Single Tips website and recognized my name and picture.) I was so excited, that I asked her for a picture! Her name is Debbie and I had lunch with her that day. (I understand that this could become fattening very quickly!)
What do I want to accomplish? I would like my writing to help others while entertaining them. Having taught college for 12 years now, I have learned that people learn when they’re laughing and/or engaged with the topic. Sharing our passion, like you said in your blog posting, comes through in our writing.
Yes, I have read books from two authors who wrote in more than one genre: Larry Burkett wrote financial books and was a great novelist. Stephen King’s regular genre is not my cup of tea but he’s written a good (though frequently profane) book on how to write. Cussing aside, it was full of great information.
I also loved Stephen King’s book on writing.
His process actually resembles mine pretty closely, though he’s a heck of a lo more productive.
I also love his fiction. It is too bad we have to put up with horror to enjoy it. As I get older and less impressionable, I am able to read more and more of his books, but some of them are still too sad for me.
Misery, by the way, is really a novel about the author’s writing process and about the effects that novels have on readers. I only had to skip one scene when I read it. 🙂
Thinner is a parable about guilt and responsibility.
Hi Jennifer,
I agree with King’s writing voice. Really sucks one in, and he knows when to gently bend the rules while keeping within the boundaries. I have read a lot as well, hate the endings and the gore. Misery was absolutely fantastic. I worked night shift once upon a time and had time to read. In the midst of it, someone put a hand on my shoulder and I believe I jumped from my chair like a jack terrier on crack.
Another one I really enjoyed was Odd Thomas. I believe I read it on a plane and reached the end, blubbering. The fellow next to me was very concerned about my welfare… I handed him the book and said, “I HATE Stephen King.”
I hope he read it and wept.
I’ll have to take a look at Stephen King’s novels!
Tamela,
I would keep to one of the tamer Stephen King books… Misery is not just a horror story, it’s more of ‘this could happen,’ which is why I believe it enthralled me so. His MC spent a lot of time in his head, thinking, just thinking. ‘Oh, Africa!’ which does not translate onto screen.
If you can find the paperback, the cover is a hoot.
My goal as an author is to write compelling stories of how living our faith, even when it might get us killed, can profoundly change the views of those around us and make them hungry for what God has given us. My prayer is that the stories will encourage the faith of someone who already knows Jesus and raise questions in the minds of those who do not.
I know one cross-genre author very well. Carol I.H. Ashby coauthored a definitive treatise on making the semiconductor devices that are at the heart of cell phones, laser pointers, and LED displays. She also writes historical fiction about the intersecting lives of Christians and non-Christians in Roman times, where forgiveness and love can transform even the hardest heart. Both genres deal with light, but of very different kinds.
I know a successful author usually sees a pulse in sales of earlier works with each new release. It works that way with the novels, but as far as I can tell, there’s been no readthrough to increase the sales of the semiconductor book. Would a good agent like yourself have ideas about how to fix that?
Carol —
Resonating message. I put my characters in modern era but their spiritual battles are put into life or death situations (explosion, bullets, harrowing falls) which mirror a spiritual battle/backsliding that the MC(s) must face.
There’s nothing quite like facing death to make you think about what you really believe and why!
When you face death, you have to face life.
LOL — not sure those topics are close enough in audience cross-over to attract the same readers. You never know, though!
One of the guy engineers I used to work with has read and enjoyed all 4 novels. So has his wife. But I don’t think he’s read any of the treatise, so maybe that’s not evidence of readthrough to my cross-genre backlist after all.
Here’s the thing. A LOT of people read fiction. Not everyone is interested in semiconductors (sorry!).
So, under ordinary circumstances, I’d think it would be easier to bring a readership that has loved your nonfiction book over to your fiction, while adding a bunch more readers who just want the story, than it would be to take a bunch of diverse people who loved the story you wrote, and bring them over to a nonfiction book about your area of expertise. People who share your expertise will get that much more out of your fiction because of common interests. But people who loved your story for other reasons might not be drawn to the technical book.
I say that as a reader, not as an industry expert.
I can think of times when I’ve read other things by an author after first reading the author’s fiction. But those were cases where I would have been interested in the nonfiction topic anyway. (C.S. Lewis – apologetics; Stephen King – writing)
Books of business, health, efficiency, “success” or relationship advice generally frustrate and bore me. I might skim them, but I don’t think I would buy one, even if it were written by my favorite novelist. Even a book of spiritual advice has to be awfully darn good before it’s a better spiritual experience for me than a well-written novel.
Think, Tom Clancy and The Hunt for the Red October.
Was enough to get the CIA interested in his writing, too. I think he was questioned at length until he showed them his research. Apparently it was so close, they hired him as a consultant.
A good semiconductor, a good character arc, a plot beyond Brad Thor, and you, too, may be hired by the CIA. 😉
I loved all the spy craft novels ‘back in the day.’ and Tom Clancy topped it off with his >200,000 fiction.
Tom Clancy and John Gresham published his research as a book, Submarine, in 2003. I bought a copy at the library book sale in Portal, AZ in the Chiricahua Mountains when we were on a birdwatching trip to Cave Creek Canyon. Fascinating details about nuclear subs. If anyone wants to write a novel set in a submarine, you really should get a copy.
I turned my Roman-era research into a history website for Romanophiles, teachers, and students where I keep everything PG-13 or less (a bit of a challenge for some Roman topics!). Some of my articles are have broad appeal (crime and punishment, chariot racing), but adoption, citizenship, and the Roman navy get lots of visits, too. And if you ever want to know how the Romans treated indigestion, I have a recipe for the mixture of salts and herbs that they use posted there. I also describe how the Romans fattened snails on milk, in case you want to try it.
Too true, Carol and Tamela. We all face death, one way or another, spiritually, physically, emotionally. Sometimes a wee bit of excitement can bolster the secondary (or primary depending on how the genre is marketed) plot.
The closer we draw to the Lord, the harder the enemy wages a spiritual battle. When Paul describes the armor, his words mean warfare with the ruler of the present age, to guard our hearts. When a character of mine realized she was backsliding, she started getting close to God. Then she gets shot (near the heart). I merge both the primary and secondary plot and pray the words make sense to the genre I am writing for.
Tricky, isn’t it?
So true about the myths. My goal is to write the stories that come into my head and write them to bring glory to the Lord. I ask the Lord to guide my words so that hearts may be touched and lives changed while at the same time they may be refreshed and entertained with some humor and a good love story.
Because of my age, I’m feeling more of an urgency to get my stories written. It’s nice to be recognized after almost 10 years of publication, but it’s not the most important thing. Pleasing my Lord and Savior is priority.
Exactly, Martha!
Amen!
You just mentioned two of my big reasons: God and urgency. When Jesus said the time was short, and harvesters were few, I always thought that no one was willing to speak, few missionaries, His return was imminent (in God’s timing, wishing that no one should perish…).
Years later I wonder if He also wasn’t referring to our individual time on earth. Our time is short. Who knows if we will be here tomorrow? Have we done anything to further the Kingdom? Our willingness to share the Gospel in any venue, teaching, preaching (and um, writing), sharing food, clothes and more, we are called in our very short lives to share.
What do I want to accomplish as an author? Oh my goodness… Like so many here, I want to further God’s kingdom. I want to show God as the real hero in every story. I want to use my words as a net to dip into the waters the lost are drowning in, gently drawing them out. I’d like to use the same words as a soft robe, wrapping up those who know Christ, allowing them to feel His warmth and His touch in a new way as He reaches from the page to hold them. And I’d like to cast my net far and wide, reaching people I may never meet in this lifetime, so all may know they are loved by Him.
I’d like my writing to matter, to last, to live on. Not because I was once a little girl with a big dream to be a published writer and I was just too stubborn to give up, but because I’ve grown up and I want to use every bit of every good God has blessed me with to shine for Him. Simply because I love Him.
And I know, without a doubt, I need a great agent to help me “guide the course.”
Thank you for such a thought provoking post, Tamela! Blessings to you! 🙂
Thank you for your comments and encouragement, Joey!
Hi Tamela,
Good post. As always.
Well, of course I would like to be paid. I won’t lie. But my first reason in 2012 when I started this novel was to compete with my sister in a NanoWrimo contest. I admit it. I am prideful, competitive, and well, ridiculously off the mark. As time passed, I thought, gosh, maybe I could get paid. ha ha ha…
After rewriting the same novel… it became somewhat of an obsession from 2013 to 2014. As the novel changed and progressed I realized that God was shaking me by the shoulders (I was dealing with some issues and not happy thoughts). By 2015, 2016- God has brought me back to the fold (I had become prideful in another endeavor). I seem to struggle with that, hmm. Backsliding, big time.
My critique group was wide and all over the world. Most of my readers didn’t know or had ever read Scripture. A Muslim woman included (she told me later). She has a wide audience both a novelist and playwright.
My hopes and expectations for writing have shifted dramatically. I can’t say that being paid would not be a welcome benefit… okay go back to the first few sentences. Becoming famous, meh, but receiving wages for what I have done would be wonderful. But that the Lord drew me back is major. That He used my words to share in a world without moving my feet, is huge. How humbling and as in the Beatitudes, I have gone through each step over and again.
I pray to continue this as a ministry, God willing. And I mean, GOD WILLING. It’s not about me.
What a great journey, Claire! I appreciate you for sharing.
I want to reply to the first Your Turn question and address and connect point 4). I’ve been focusing on the next step in a writing career instead of long-range accomplishments. Thank you, Tamela, for the new vantage point. Like others, I see money and fame as perks instead of priorities. Isn’t it interesting that the requirement of having a significant platform before getting represented implies pursuit of at least some degree of fame? No wonder we struggle with building platforms–our goals and the necessary processes for reaching them are in conflict! Has platform building been easy for anyone?!
What do I want to accomplish as an author? In a society in which what is true has become almost completely subjective and changeable, I want my books to reach readers with truth–truth about various things, including, but not limited to, the truth about Jesus. The OT verse about bringing up a child in the way he should go is based on a Hebrew word that indicates creating a desire in the child. I want to create and support a desire for truth in my readers, whether straightforwardly presented as information or used as a backdrop for fiction. I want to nurture the desire to be truth-seekers in everything from the mundane to the wall issues.
What I want to accomplish doesn’t appear to fit a good business model for a writer. Probably at least 20 of my non-fiction personal, history, and education articles have been published in professional journals and the Christian and secular popular press, but I’ve never even pitched my children’s picture book showing (the truth about) where cider comes from; or the Christian YA novel that addresses how to deal with not being believed when you tell the truth; my fast-paced speculative Christian novel with (true) settings on three continents; or the action mystery novel in which the protagonist is a young, single woman who has a true-crime adventure based on one I had as a missionary in Chile. I have eight completed books in four genres waiting to be published and read, and have two others in progress. Definitely not one focus–yet the common thread is always truth.
But honestly, the thought of choosing to specialize in one genre and never write in any of the others elicits a paralyzing feeling a lot like grief. Has anyone else struggled with that? (I’ve considered choosing a different nom de plume for each genre, querying different agents and publishers based on specialty, and going with ALL that offer opportunities. I’m guessing that wouldn’t be acceptable. ;-D) My optimum achievement, based on point 4, would be enough success in a genre to then acquire “a team, including a great agent, to guide the course” for branching out. Hmm. The present challenge is determining in which genre(s) and which completed books to pursue that initial success; but now, keeping that Your Turn question in mind will help me focus. Thanks, Tamela!
I recommend pursuing the genre you are most passionate about, and the book that makes you the most excited to get to the computer. It’s possible to have more than one author identity, but be sure to talk to your team of agent(s) and publisher(s) as to how to accomplish that before diving in.
Here is the kind of fame I want:
I want readers who argue about my characters, who hate some of them and love others, who would dress up as them for Halloween. Readers who DEMAND another BOOK!
Because my books are speculative novels about the post-Flood world, I would also like readers to start looking in to the sources I used for my research. (I am one of those people who, after reading a good historical novel, devours any notes at the back to find out what research the novel was based on. )
Crossover authors? Well, C.S. Lewis is the obvious example. I think we all start out reading his children’s stories and then graduate to the space trilogy and his apologetic works and Pilgrim’s Regress. And then, hopefully, we get confident to read the philosophers he references.
Brennan Manning is another one. I haven’t read everything he wrote, but he has The Ragamuffin Gospel and The Book of the Dun Cow, isn’t that right?
What a great post (I think I addressed Linda as you… sorry to both of you!)
When my critique group marked up my work with ‘No, put that back! Stop! (Characte’s Name) You wouldn’t do that as a Christian!’ and ‘I don’t mean to go all Misery on you, but I may have to hunt you down, because she is going the wrong way!’ and my favorite… ‘I didn’t see that coming and I went through a box of Kleenex, then you pulled this one, and I was shocked! Then, oh my gosh. I am not going to forget these characters for a very long time. I couldn’t edit this any longer because I couldn’t stop reading!’
🙂 words of praise. Because, that character reflected my own spiritual battle and loss, and rejoicing. Eventually.
I love when people get involved in a book and characters. Even if/when they don’t like what’s happening, engagement is better than indifference.
How true.
When I pick up a book and reread… by accident, and get 1/3 of the way through, thinking, this sounds vaguely familiar. But by then, the names, the characters, the obstacles, were lost.
I find this a lot in romance. Everyone has to overcome their fear of falling in love again. Or some such. Which is sad, even when the grammar meets perfection, the characters are forgotten. I don’t mean to berate romance only. I find this in other genres as well.
When someone has to overcome their past (which has to be something one can relate to, because everyone has been dumped, so what?), that of abuse, abortion, thieving, drugs, whatever is wrong yet accepted by culture (or some), and the subplot (or main plot)–that’s when we are engaged. Think Shawshank Redemption.
Who hasn’t been accused of something they didn’t do, something they cannot fight? Something that one individual must overcome personally, spiritually, etc., no matter how trivial? I can relate, as can many. A woman suggested vaguely that I stole her pen. Seriously.
Hardly Shawshank! But after being called a thief in the workplace, she found her pen at home. Sigh.
All of you are so awesomely encouraging, and make me understand that I have a lot of work to do. I remember reading where a Bible teacher said “don’t go to the grave still full of everything God has given you.”
I don’t want to be that servant who hid his talent under a rock, but the one that went into the market place and made an increase, and that increase for me is people being fully equipped for every work that God has for them.
And like Jesus rejoiced when His disciples came back after going out and demonstrating that they received what He’d been teaching them, I want to KNOW that He rejoices in me.
I am excited to be releasing my first children’s book this week. I will be launching my website, etc. this weekend, hopefully. I continue to write Christian fiction and hope to have those stories published one day. Writing for children and writing for adults is very special. 🙂
Wow! Exciting news, Melissa! Congratulations!
I’m glad famous authors don’t get followed around by paparazzi like famous people in other fields. But I’d love to know what I write makes a difference in the lives of lots of readers. And making a fortune from my writing would be nice, too. 😉
Thanks Tamela!! I take what you say very personal. It means a lot! Thanks again!
This is days late, I know, but I’m still recovering from a writers conference (a great excuse, don’t you think).
My author goal is to stay productive. I don’t want to waste a minute of the rest of my life, but faithfully press on. At the conference I learned I must re-work my book strategy again. Oh well and thanks God for working with me.
Multiple genre authors? I think I’ve only read fiction authors who also published how-to books on writing. That works fine.