Submissions are a business

I'm doing a talk on pitching your fiction in a week's time for Portsmouth Bookfest, my local literary festival.  I'll be talking about the usual things, starting with not submitting your first draft the moment you've finished it.  Some new, keen, writers still do that, and it usually leads to a swift, soul-crushing rejection.

I will be talking about the idea of publishing being a business.  It's hard for some writers to get their heads around this at first.  We may have spent years working on our first novel, but publishers aren't  interested in any of that.  They don't care if it took you ten years to write.

When we sell a book or story to a publisher it ceases to be a part of our heart.  When a publisher buys  our work, that work becomes a product.  It takes its place on the shelves with dozens of other products, all shouting for the reader's attention.

I once upset a hobby writer at a writing group I briefly chaired enough for him to stop attending.  I said that books become products when publishers buy them.  His book would be marketed like a tin of beans.  He violently objected to me describing his masterpiece in that way.

You probably won't be surprised to learn that he self-published the book.  It was full of errors, and he was surprised that the print on demand firm he used hadn't corrected them.  This man was a true amateur writer.

But if you're serious about getting published you have to be a pro.  You have to turn submitting into a business.  This means not getting too attached to any one piece of work, and being willing to abandon it when everybody tells you it isn't working.  And yes, that probably means the novel you've been working on for ten years will get junked.  Or at least, totally rewritten.

Turning submissions into a business means keeping good records of what you've sent where.  It means checking submission requirements for every story you send.  Is it the right length, the right subject, the right file format.  Does it fit the magazine?

Then there's growing the thick skin you'll need to deal with the rejections, re-editing your work, keeping your belief in yourself and your work.  And always writing something new while the previous project is out on submission.  Any writer serious about making a living from their writing needs to do all of these things, constantly.

Submitting really is a business, but to a successful published author all of writing is a business.  What keep us going is the dreams of bestsellerdom.  For if we become some successful, then we can influence the business.  And that must be the sweetest reward.