On Workshops and Wetware

This past Friday I attended a workshop presented by April Eberhardt and Susan Bearman entitled “Pathways to Publication.”  It was a very interesting workshop, presenting the “current” view of the ever-changing publication landscape as lived by two professionals. There was quite an eclectic group gathered in the conference room of Chicago’s University Center, representing essentially all stages of the production process and most of the phases of a literary career.

I have to say that while I had discovered a lot of the subject material on my own, I still found both the presentation and discussion useful. If you have an opportunity to attend a talk by one of these two women, I highly recommend the opportunity – they are both enthusiastic about their subjects, and energetic and engaging in delivery. Susan is an author as well as a marketing communications specialist, and April an agent with a list of clients at varying levels of the writing process.

My Primary Takeaways 

My primary takeaways from the conference were, in many ways, things I already knew. I am not a published author, nor am I particularly experienced at writing salable fiction, but I am (if I can toot my own horn here) excellent at researching topics and distilling the knowledge down to the salient points. Along these lines, I have done a lot of reading about writing and publication and have read points on all sides of the issue.

I tend not to write about publication and my opinions on the “right” or “wrong” way for two fairly simple reasons:

1. I am not yet published
2. I’d rather write than write about writing

There are hundreds of thousands of words out there about the various ways to get published, and they all boil down into the following categories:

• Individuals who firmly believe that traditional publishing is the only way forward, and any who disagree are heartless blasphemers who will never shake the negative stigma of the self publisher
• Individuals who firmly believe that indie publishing is the only way forward, and any who disagree are heartless blasphemers who will never earn even a tenth of their self-published peers
• Individuals (and, most likely, the truth) who lie somewhere in between these two extremes

I use religious terminology in the above because in many cases that is the style that is taken by these blog posts and various discussions – absolutes thrown out with aplomb by individuals wholly dedicated to their particular cause, and god help the poor sap who dares to express a contrary opinion.

These people are not to be taken seriously. At least, not by me. They are informed by their own success, and thus may be biased towards what has worked for them. That is not to say that they don’t have any useful information, but arguments and opinions should always be taken with a grain of salt.

And ultimately, that was my key takeaway from the workshop. There is no right path. There are different paths, suited to different individuals, with different goals. Some people may want to make a living from their writing. An exceedingly small percentage of those people may achieve that goal. Some may only want the cachet of the title “Published Author,” and a small percentage may achieve that goal. Note the repetition of the phrase “small percentage” – the only true reality is that thousands and thousands and thousands of books are produced each year, and only a small number of those obtain publishing deals, let alone any kind of cultural relevance.

So in the end, this is what I gathered (right or wrong) from my time at the workshop:

• Know your goal – am I looking to hit it big, or do I want the respect of a published writer, or do I simply want to create something that will live after I have died?
• Plan your path forwards – what are measurable steps I can take towards that goal? How much will the options available to me cost me in time and/or money? How do I know when my goal has been achieved?
• Do not dismiss any options until you are absolutely sure that they are not viable – the numbers game is already heavily weighted against me, would dismissing an entire market vertical help?
• Finally, make your own conclusions – the only person with all the data on my situation is me, not an opinionated blogger or a pretentious literary critic, so why should their passion inform my decision if their reasons aren’t applicable?

The Fringe-Benefits, and Why I Will Never Be a Politician 

As any experienced conference attendee will tell you, the knowledge presented is only half of the reason for attending the event. If the knowledge was the only important thing, we could just download the PDF and go on our merry way as newly-enlightened writers. The other half of every conference, expo, convention, party, box social, et cetera, is the social aspect.

When I was a young college student getting ready to make my way in the “professional” world, I had a strong aversion to networking. I was earning a degree in Computer Science, which is based heavily in mathematics. In math, you are right or you are wrong, and there is no real room for in-betweens – that’s what statistics and probability are for. As I of course knew everything possible to know about the world at that age, I firmly asserted that I had no need of networking with potential colleagues. That kind of glad-handing may be necessary for business people and politicians, but I was a programmer. I just had to be the best programmer, and bam – job time for me. I envisioned myself living in a world of true merit, where the most talented were rewarded and the bull-shitters would be exposed and shamed.

We were all so naïve, once.

Some people say that money makes the world go ‘round. However, behind that money is a directing hand. This essentially means that the hand driving the money is just as important to the angular momentum of our planet as the money is itself. Thus, there are two paths to having an effect on the world:

• Have lots and lots of money at your disposal
• Connect with enough people with similar goals and work together to achieve what you need

Now this is a simplistic view of the world dedicated to show one fact: the only people who can afford to ignore the social side of the world are people with the fiscal resources to do so. Want to advance in your career? See and be seen. It is not enough to be damn good at what you do – that will get you local notoriety and aplomb, sure. If you want to make it big, though, you have to advertise. Be your own salesperson. Know your upsides and down, and emphasize the up while diminishing the down. Talk to people. Connect. Network. Make friends and find colleagues.

And this is where I fail. I like to describe myself as a quiet person. I have few social skills of which I am aware, and my sarcastic and self-deprecating nature can be off-putting to some people. On top of this, I have… while not exactly a fear of social interaction, I certainly have some sort of mental block against it. I rarely feel confident when introducing myself, and I’m by no means a people-person. To put it simply, I’m not an aloof ass – I’m just shy.

This is an issue that has plagued me for a while, and this past Friday it more or less reached a tipping point. I’m not great at networking (I even forgot to have new business cards made, as I am no longer a graduate student in computer graphics), and I tend to hang back by myself in a crowd. Here I am with a room full of people who can prove great people to know and potentially build a long-term correspondence with, and outside of a few smiles I only really talk to the people who approach me directly. A fantastic opportunity somewhat wasted.

In computer programming we see three phases of every solution: the hardware, with all the lights and sounds, that makes the program run; the software, with the thousands of lines of code, that makes the computer do what you want; and the wetware, with the hair and the appetites and the sporting team affiliations, that directs the entire process. Like far too many computer programmers over time I have focused a large portion of my attention on the two former, and not nearly enough on the latter.

And that’s probably my ultimate take-away from the workshop on Friday. Somehow I need to learn to be a people person, because even though I might be able to tell n interesting tale, nobody will read it if they don’t know who I am.

Long ramble, complete. Shutting down for now

Concrete Coding Corner - Productivity and Project Metrics

Project Management and You

As a programmer, one of the major things I spend my time talking about is how to measure productivity at work. Indeed, an entire field - project management - exists explicitly for this purpose. The ostensible purpose of this field is to provide metrics and milestones for business owners of projects, so that they have an idea of where a given project stands at any point in time. Of course, the cynic in me cannot help but point out the obvious: the entire field of project management is oriented around proving that a given individual, at any particular moment, is actually performing work. Project managers request task breakdowns, status updates, demos - all of the hallmarks needed to show that progress is being made, but it all boils down to the same thing: programming is essentially a black box for everyone but the programmer, and those without an understanding of programming sometimes need additional information to understand exactly what's going on.

You can couch it in all the business language you like, but the ultimate goal is to manage employees who develop software. Some organizations do so benevolently - using missed goals and milestones as learning opportunities as points of improvement. Others do so maliciously - using missed goals as a hammer to beat a programmer into extra hours in the pursuit of some arbitrary deliverable. Like most programmers, I've experienced both ends of the spectrum. Ultimately this is neither good nor bad - the use of project management techniques, like a weapon, is as benevolent as the intent of the wielder.

Hidden Benefits

One thing I've noticed, though is that while I may rail against the arbitrary metrics used to measure performance from time to time, there are indeed concrete benefits to these techniques when applied outside of the software engineering realm - particularly related to creative endeavors. Ultimately, I'd argue the major reason that many personal projects fail for many individuals (and they do fail - if New Year's Resolutions were written on paper, the entire world would be covered in the crumpled dreams of millions of resolvers) is that they simply lack means to measure progress. Self improvement, for example, is only useful in the chance that it actually produces improvement. 

Take an aspiring runner - given the lack of any information or motivation, the individual needs to decide on their own whether or not the activity of running is producing an effect. They need a metric - a means of measuring progress. Most of the time, the only metric available by default is the uncertain metric of how our bodies feel at any given point at time. This can be a good metric, particularly when working towards fitness goals, but it is also inherently flawed in that "body feel" can be influenced by any number of factors. A bad sleeping position produces a pulled muscle, and all of a sudden your progress metric is thrown off by an unrelated issue. Most people, with enough of these false indicators, will eventually give up on their goal. If they can't measure progress, then they can't see that their efforts are actually paying off.

Metrics

The source of the problem is in producing objective metrics - metrics that rely not upon an arbitrary element of the situation, but that focus on concrete results. One example is in practicing a musical instrument. In my spare time I play brass instruments, and in order to achieve quality tone and technique a brass player needs to spend hours practicing. However, with brass playing it is also very easy to slide once you reach a certain ability level - you find that you can put out a moderate level of adequate performance and that this adequacy, while not particularly impressive, is sufficient. The primary way to advance past mere adequacy is to work on fundamentals - sets of exercise that are equivalent to strength and agility training for brass players. These fundamentals are vital to building proper technique and muscle mass for endurance, but they are also extremely boring (and in some cases, borderline painful). After several practice sessions that seemingly fail to improve this adequacy, it is far too easy to write off the activity of fundamental practice altogether and focus exclusively on the music. We've identified a similar problem to that of the programmer. Our goal is concrete - become an amazing player - but the means by which we have to measure our progress are inexact. We're relying on inadequate body feel and the ephemeral concepts of a "good sound" - something that can be hard to identify without outside observation.

This is the issue faced by project managers when overseeing programming projects. Programming, to them, is a black box. On the surface, all they have is the equivalent of body feel - they have assurances from the programmer that everything is on track, or problem reports as they arise during development. These end up giving false indicators. The project managers, as a result, focus on goals that can be measured objectively in order to give them a more uncluttered view into the progress of a project. While this work seems arbitrary to the programmer (and in some ways it is, as from a certain perspective the need for this information is birthed from an inherent distrust between individuals - else there would be no need for assurances that work is actually occurring), it gives the project manager an objective view of the project and mollifies their concerns.

Application of Metrics

The end point of all of this is that project management principles are not exclusive to programming projects in the workplace. One solution to the body feel problem, which I have found successful, is in breaking the goal down into objective measures. For my brass playing, I developed a spreadsheet system. Along the top of the spreadsheet I put down metronome markings, starting at 60 BPM and increasing to 208 BPM (an arbitrary choice on my part that represented "very fast"). Down the side of the spreadsheet, I listed chromatic tones - C, C#, D, D#, E, and so on. I then printed out about twenty of these sheets, and assigned a sheet to every fundamental exercise: one sheet for lip slurs, one sheet for tonguing exercises, one for Clarke technical study #3, one for chromatic studies, and so on. 

This gave me a grid of concrete milestones - objective goals that I could check off as a list. As I would complete the requirements for a goal, I would write the date in the corresponding cell. For example, if I completed the F# Clarke Study at 140 BPM on February 2nd, I would write "2/2" in the corresponding spreadsheet cell. Over the course of several days of practice I would slowly fill in the spreadsheet with dates, and after a while it was possible to see progress very clearly. Where before I would easily get frustrated practicing technical exercises, reaching that wall where the fingers only want to fumble and the lip feels stiff and unworkable, with the new system I could look down at my spreadsheet and see that I had already completed three cells for the day, and feel confident in moving on. 

It took away the human tendency to focus on the negative - the problems faced as I worked on a particular exercise could dampen my mood very easily - and instead highlighted the positive. I could look back on my spreadsheet at any time and see the period of time where I couldn't perform the current exercise faster than 60 BPM, and realize that the troubles I'm facing at 120 BPM are a mark of progress rather than purely  a source of frustration. I was able to measure my progress based on where I had come from, rather than where I was headed. I was celebrating the mile I ran continuously, rather than lamenting my inability to complete a marathon. The marathon would come, just as surely as completion of the current exercise would come.

Metrics and Writing

Most writers debate this technique without knowing they are doing so by focusing on word count. Some writers proudly claim they only complete 500 words a day, but those 500 words are rock-solid. Other writers pound out 2,000 or more words in a day and are pleased with their progress, leaving rewriting for later (in the interest of full disclosure: I typed at a rate of 2,083 words per day when completing my first novel, with a high water mark of 10,000 words in a single day. I obviously fell into the latter category). The issue faced is that while word count is indeed an objective metric for writing, any individual can quickly tell that it is in no way indicative of quality. This tells us one thing: our metric is inadequate. We have found an objective measure, but not the right objective measure.

Of course the blogosphere constantly debates the issue of quality versus quantity, but ultimately we end up coming back to the same issue: what are the fundamentals for a writer? What is a way we can work on these fundamentals objectively in order to produce measurable progress that results in increased quality? We have critiquing, which despite the attempt at objectivity is almost entirely subjective. We have editing, which suffers from the writer's blind eye when working on their own pieces and suffers from the subjective perceptions of an external editor when performed by an outside party.

This is something that has been on my mind lately, and I'd argue that it's a concern of every writer. How do we know that what we write is actually good? Are we practicing the right things? Is there an objective measure of "good" or "bad" when it comes to art? I have my own ideas, but I am open to suggestions. Until then I am left with an imperfect metric of word count goals, which I pursue with vigor.

The contest has come to an end, but the journey is just beginning

Today, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award announced the 25 semifinalists. Unfortunately, yours truly was not among them. I wish the winners the best of luck - I am sure they are all fine examples of the art, and will see great success.

As for me, I learned a lot during this process. I'm not really upset or irritated that I wasn't selected - on the contrary, I was honestly surprised to have made it as far as I did. Being selected as one of the top 500 entries out of 10,000 submitted is an honor I'm still not certain I'm worthy of, and the forthcoming Publisher's Weekly review - whether it is positive or negative - is simply icing on the cake. The fact that this is my first novel - indeed the first work I've written that is longer than 15,000 words - is just something I am immensely proud of.

Sorry if the previous paragraph sounds like bragging - it's honestly not intended that way. I just never expected to make it as far as I did.

Now, where do we go from here?

Let's talk about a couple things: the things I learned from this contest, and what I plan to do with it.

On Reviews

Firstly, I'll probably keep obsessively refreshing my reviews page in createspace. While my position as a quarter-finalist warrants me a Publisher's Weekly review, it hasn't actually been posted yet. On top of that is the fact that the review is not required to be a good review. There's no such thing as bad press in many cases, but I can't say I'm looking forward to being excoriated by one of the gatekeepers of the publishing world.

That being said, I also earned two reviews from Amazon "expert" reviewers. I mean no disrespect by the quotation marks - I've simply heard them referred to by a number of terms, and I'm unsure what exactly brought them to the rank of expert. There were two, both of which contributed to the decision to move my book onward to the quarterfinals. Both reviewers praised my writing style - one called my writing style "gripping," while the other described the writing as "strong". At that point the two reviews diverged. One claimed that my ability to seamlessly move the viewpoint between the character's internal dialog and the actual events was excellent, while the other said that they found it jarring in places. One said that he disliked my main character based on his word choices, while the other described my main character as "dynamic."

Probably the most troubling part of one review was when one reviewer stated their "disinterest in the science fiction portion of the novel." I have yet to determine if this is due to the reviewer's dislike of science fiction as a genre, or whether I just did not present enough science fiction elements fast enough. If it's the former (which I am led to believe based upon my reading of how the ABNA process works), then I question the system Amazon has put into place for this contest. Maybe it was just a fluke, but it's a disconcerting one.

In either case, I wish I had the opportunity to thank both of my reviewers. I gleaned a lot from the brief reviews they left, and I will apply it to my future writing.

Moving Forward

My conclusion after this contest is that, barring a horrid review from Publisher's Weekly, my book just might be ready for marketing. I've been pondering what to do with my writing for a while now. I have a stable day job that pays very well, so I'm not looking to make a living on my writing just yet. Granted that's one of the end goals - to do what I want, essentially, for a living - but the process I plan on taking isn't necessarily driven by publication as any kind of hard benchmark. If my novel isn't worthy of the world, I have no problem writing another (and another and another) until I get it right. Or until I've saturated the market.

I already have a sequel written for the novel I submitted to this contest - Majestic - as I feel that I had places to take the story that the first novel didn't adequately explore. This novel hasn't been edited (or even read yet), but I already have ideas for others in a different series. Aside from that I've been dabbling in short story and scene writing (which you can see on this blog), just generally building my skills. I look at writing like programming - you can spend hours and days and years tightening the project down, but after a while you just need to get it out the door and move on to something else.

On Self Publishing versus Traditional Publishing

There is endless debate online about self publishing versus traditional publishing, and it ultimately boils down to this: If you self publish, your royalties for each book you sell will be higher on average, but the perception of your quality will be lower, as will your out-of-pocket expense. If you traditionally publish, you get the cachet of the the published author and better publicity, but you run the risk of not earning as much in royalties.

Personally, I see merits in both approaches. Self-publishing gets you feedback and income now, but removes the barriers to entry. There are a lot of bad books out there - poorly edited, poorly thought out, poorly formatted - that people throw up just to be able to say "I'm an author, you can buy my book here." These books bring down the perception of self publishing as a whole, and actively harm the community. Honestly, these books are the single biggest argument against self-publishing for me. Although I need to be honest and admit to myself that there is a good chance that my book also falls into that category.

Traditional publishing, on the other hand, has the gatekeepers. You need to find an agent, who will request edits, who will sell to a publisher, who will request edits, who will print the book and sell to bookstores. Then you need to participate in marketing with variable support from your publisher, who may be loathe to take risks on a neophyte author with no proven sales record. In the end you have your book in a bookstore, but you're taking on a lot of the process than authors have traditionally done in the past.

So which is important to me - getting it out there, or getting the respect?

My Approach

My primary consideration is that  I recognize that I'm trying to build a brand. After a while, if no one has heard of me, no one will buy my books if I ever end up published. So here's my naive plan to get the ball rolling:

1. Start the query process. Get my book out and in front of agents, and see if I can get one to bite.
2. After twelve months, if I have not received any substantive indicator of progress, pursue the self-publishing route.

This is the plan I start today, with my first official query later this evening. I've a number of reasons for choosing this approach, but they can be summarized as follows:

• Some writers see romanticism in amassing years worth of rejections before finally getting that one "yes" they need. I don't really see the point in this, myself.
• In some ways, being proliferate can trump being unknown. Having things out and selling builds my name, and builds evidence behind me that I have something of worth to offer the reading world.
• Ultimately, I'm writing for myself. If other people think my books are publication worthy, that's great! However, I don't plan on truly defining my success as a writer on my publication status. As such, I'm not really in the mood to beat my head against a brick wall, hoping I break my way through after enough strikes.

So what do you think? Am I making a good choice, or taking the first steps down the path of folly?

Progress galore, and where I'm planning on going

So I have some good news to report, and something aside from a theme story to post. As of 2-26-13, the first draft of Majestic - a sequel to my novel Marvelous - has been completed! 52,000 words over 26 days - that's a rate of just around 2,000 a day (the word count is approximate). Obviously some days were less, and some more - for the first couple weeks I average 4k per day on business days. I usually write on the train, when I'm not teaching classes online, and I find that the built-in three hours a day I spend commuting really gives me time to pump out some words - if I can make myself write, that is. For now, I'm going to let it sit on the back burner while I unwind. Well, that and actually read it. I know a couple people who have been bugging me to get a look at it.

Of course, the interesting thing for me was that Marvelous hasn't even been published yet, and here I am writing a sequel. It seems to me that this would make the success of the second book inextricably tied up with that of the first. That's really had me thinking a lot about what I want to do with these books. There are two real options available, it seems - traditional publishing, and self publishing.

Traditional publishing, like it or not, provides an author with the reputation of a published writer. Someone else has purchased the work, vetted it, and put it on sale. My original goal with writing was really just to see what came of it, and ultimately see if my skills are "good enough" for the world at large. A traditional publisher does this through a clearly defined path, and though the royalties for all but the top dozen or so authors are not as great as you'd think, it can still provide a steady income as a second job.

Self publishing is kind of an end run around traditional publishers. There are other bloggers (such as J.A. Konrath and Chuck Wendig) who have delved into the numbers and come up on the side of self-publishing. And they do very well for themselves. However, taking a look at the community as a whole you get a sense that while indeed there is a wide variety of motivations among people who choose to self publish, there are still just a few primary motivations. Some people self-publish because they have enough of a name where it makes them more money with the higher royalty agreements you see for self-published ebooks. Others self-publish because they feel like their work was cast aside prematurely by the traditional publishing world, and that if they got it in front of customers it would take off. But perceptions of both classes are impacted by the overall stigma of self-publishing, and they aren't helped by the simple fact that there are a lot of very bad self-published books out there.

Which, as my rambling winds down, brings me back to what I was originally trying to write about - what I'm going to do with the book. Marvelous is tied up in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for the moment, until I get definitive feedback and earn an exit from the contest. I'm trying not to be too optimistic about my chances, but based on the agreement I signed when I submitted I need to let the contest run its course. At that point I will start submitting to agents. As a new author I have no cachet and no name recognition, meaning I'll end up in a lot of slush piles. However, I really don't intend to do this forever. I have a busy day job and a part time job that also eats up a not-inconsiderate amount of time, and honestly after a while I'll just be beating a dead horse. So my current plan is to try and obtain representation for a year - until June, 2014 - at which point if I have seen no progress I'll self publish the duology as ebooks.

Of course if I meet success or feel overall better about the submission process as I go through it I may make alterations to this approach, but this is my current plan. Hopefully by the time next June comes around I'll have a couple more books under my belt (I have some ideas on the back burner that I'm starting to flesh out).

Have any of you written a novel and had it published, traditionally or otherwise? What are your thoughts?