Blogger: Rachelle Gardner
Recently I had lunch with two writers, one published and the other not yet, but close. The most impressive thing about these two women is that they’ve each written more than a dozen books. Because of that, I think they both have strong writing careers ahead of them.
I work with a lot of first-time authors, because that’s part of what I love to do. But something I’m learning is that we may be doing you a disservice if we contract you when you’ve only written one book. Yes, writing that book was a huge accomplishment. And if your very first book garnered positive attention from editors and/or agents, that’s even more of an accomplishment. It’s terrific!
But it might not be enough. The hard truth is that it takes more than one book to really know “how to be a writer.” So if you get contracted after that one book, over which you slaved for years, and then you’re under the gun to produce another book on a deadline, what’s going to happen? You might have a difficult time.
If you’ve got that one book in the can, and you’ve edited and revised until you’re blue in the face, and for whatever reason it’s not selling, you might want to just stop. Set it aside and write another book.
Don’t feel like you’re giving up. Don’t get depressed about the one that didn’t sell. Keep writing. The only thing that’s going to make you a better writer, and possibly transform you into a publishable writer, is to write more books. Any editor will tell you that no matter how fabulous an author’s first book is, it’s rather scary signing a contract with someone who’s never written more than the one.
Keep writing!
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Rachelle,
Your advice in this article about writing another book makes perfect sense to me. Even some current bestselling authors had to write a number of books before their work caught on in the market and began to sell. I recall John Sloan at Zondervan years ago telling me about Lee Strobel who is a bestselling author now–but at first was not. Lee kept writing books and Zondervan kept publishing them until they all caught on and began to sell. It’s a story not often told and yet needs to be. Thank you.
Terry
author of 10 Publishing Myths, Insights Every Author Needs to Succeed
Book #1 is packed away for the time being, flaws and all. Book #2 is taking shape. Thus far, Book #2 is a far more cooperative child.
This sobering advice awakened a memory of Richard Hugo’s statement (quoted in “The Christian Imagination”): “The hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems.” That has held true for me–even across genres. No previous writing has been wasted. So reassuring!
Yes, there is another book
lives in the heart of me,
but I am on dilemna’s hook;
’tis that, or poetry.
With sonnets I’ve been reaching hearts,
or so it has been said;
if down another road I start,
would that grace go dead?
Is it I divine aright
God’s purpose for my words?
All too soon, my final fight,
last clash of cancer’s swords;
when fall the final stinging blows,
what will He say of how I chose?
I don’t understand how any writer could develop writer’s block after having one or two books published. I’m always coming up with story ideas. I currently have three novels in the works as well as a novella. I keep switching up between them. My goal is to get one of them completed by fall. I also have at least six other novels sketched out, partly plotted out so I’m ready to go. I just don’t have enough hours in the day to work on all of them.
This is the first time I’ve read this concept, but I like it. It makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing.
I think creativity begets creativity. As soon as I wrote my first book, I couldn’t stop seeing ideas everywhere. It was like I’d uncorked the bottle!
I find NaNoWriMo very helpful for this. It is fun and forces me to write without my editor hat on as well as gets me writing another book. Even if I already have 5 or 8 manuscripts that I really should be editing, penning another book is so good for your writer’s muscles!