Blogger KRISTI HOLL is the author of 35 books, including WRITER'S FIRST AID.

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October 16, 2009

conferenceA year ago, I urged you to sign up for the free Muse Online Writer’s Conference. It’s been running this week, October 12-18, and my brain is over-stuffed at the moment. (Next time I won’t sign up for 28 different workshops!)

I’ve attended lectures on voice, overcoming creative blocks, writing tight, plot points and tension, enjoyed Q & A with agents and editors, pitched my middle-grade novel to an agent and got a “go ahead,” and so much more. Forums contain lecture notes and assignments, plus postings of lessons with feedback. The handouts were especially good, and I have a small binder full.

It was also especially helpful to me this year for health reasons to be able to sit in my good office chair, sleep in my own bed, eat my own food, and get up and walk around when necessary. I Skyped with a writer friend a couple of times this week (who was also “attending” the conference via her computer.) Discussing some of the workshops was helpful.

Don’t Miss Out!

It’s been a full week, and admittedly I got behind on the assignments. Next year, if I’m lucky enough to get one of the 1,000+ spots available, I will have to be more selective. I was, admittedly, like a kid in a candy store–where the chocolate was all free!

There are so many wonderful things about the Muse conference, and directors Lea Schizas and Carolyn Howard-Johnson are to be commended for the tremendous amount of work they’ve done to give writers this chance.  I’ll let you know when it’s time to sign up for next year’s conference. You don’t want to miss this opportunity.

March 30, 2009

aAfter mentioning a five-year dry publishing period last week (Do You Get Rejected?), I received several emails asking what I did during that time to stay financially afloat and keep on writing.

A Previous Recession

When my book career began in the 80’s, I had five or six relatively easy years with my editor Gail at Atheneum. We did eleven hardcovers together before Gail lost her job in a corporate take-over and downsizing. The publishing industry then was a lot like it is today.

At that time, I got two manuscripts back. Within six months, all my books went out of print– so there was almost no royalty income then. My last two books in a Christian series were not published either. (I found out much later that this happened to a lot of writers.) This horror was followed by five years of no new books, sending out proposals, rewriting proposals, writing queries, and spending a ton on postage and photocopying costs when I was making zilch on my book writing. (There was no online writing then, no email submissions, etc.)

Getting Out of the Slump

Then in a bookstore I found a book called Making It On Your Own: Surviving and Thriving on the Ups and Downs of Being Your Own Boss by Paul and Sarah Edwards. In the marketing section, a statement leaped off the page. This one piece of advice jump-started my disappearing career. “You need to experiment until you discover what particular combination of your skills and abilities at what price will be valuable to what group of people within the current economic realities.”

It said to experiment, so I tried different things to see what might work. The following year I wrote a story for an anthology, entered several contests, did some short manuscripts for children’s magazines, wrote some writers’ articles. I created a new workshop on revision and did eighteen months’ of school visits with it.

Time to Evaluate

The next step recommended by the book was  to use the 80/20 Principle on your experiments. So I sat down with paper and pencil and analyzed: “What 20% of my work has generated 80% of my income?” In other words, what strategies had worked for me? Where should I be putting the bulk of my energy to survive this financial writing slump?

Well, I had bombed on contests and all fifteen short stories; I did sell the story to the anthology; my fastest response and most money, though, came from writing articles for magazines and doing the revision workshop. More than 80% of my income was coming from that 20% of my work.  So (while I contintued to write my middle-grade fiction novels) I concentrated on those two things to pay the bills.

Down the Road…

During that time, some nonfiction articles became a series for Children’s Writer, which turned into ideas for “Support Room” articles when I became the Institute’s first web editor. A few years later, those ideas sparked my book, Writer’s First Aid, as well as several articles for the SCBWI Bulletin.

The slump eventually ended, as it will again for writers struggling in the current recession. After five years of selling no books, I sold four of my middle-grade novels in one year. If I had quit writing my fiction during that recession, I would have had nothing to sell when publishers started buying again.

So during this slump, I plan to do the same thing: find ways to stay afloat to pay some bills, but also keep writing middle-grade fiction and studying and learning. This too shall pass.

June 23, 2008

Most of us are too busy trying to juggle our writing, day jobs and families to think much about a career planning strategy. We’re focused on trying to either break in or keep up with contract deadlines. I got a jolt today by a lengthy (and excellent) post by agent Chip MacGregor that made me realize how important it was to have a career plan–and review it often. If you’re fortunate enough to have Chip for an agent, he goes through these career planning steps with you. He was kind enough to outline his method, though, for anyone who wants to see it. Even without an agent, I’d suggest tackling these questions and strategies on your own.

In Chip’s own words: My contention is that some agents pay lip service to “helping authors with career planning,” but many don’t really have a method for doing that. (From the look of it, “career planning” to many agents is defined as “having a book contract.”) I have a background in organizational development — the study of how organizations grow and change over time. And during my doctoral program at the University of Oregon (Go Ducks!), I served as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Career Planning and Placement Office. That experience allowed me the opportunity to apply the principles of organizational theory to the real-world setting of those in the arts who are trying to make a living.

Chip talks with his clients to discover answers to the following points–and many others: Who is the author–what’s her message, her platform, and her experience with the media? What are the author’s significant life events and accomplishments, strengths, gifts, and burdens? What’s important to the author? How does he define success? What does she need to change? What do they want t0 accomplish? Chip talks with his clients about personal organization. Every author needs a TIME to write, a PLACE to write, and a GOAL that he or she is writing toward. Do they have a plan in place? Do they have a writing calendar, so they know what and when they are working on each project? He encourages authors to create a budgeting calendar. (See his blog for the steps on how to create one.) Then Chip and his client make an actual writing plan for the next two years and the next five years that matches up with their life purpose. Does it maximize their strengths? Is their spouse in agreement with it all?
What’s the point of all this discussion with a client? According to Chip: These things all work together to create a career map for an author. Various documents are derived from this information — a writing calendar, a budget, a wish list, maybe a statement of purpose. But my goal isn’t to get an author to write some grand purpose statement — my goal is to help an author create a workable plan he or she can use to move forward in the career. I aim to keep writers results-focused.

The second half of Chip’s blog talked about making a writing budget–the nuts and bolts of figuring out how much income you need, where it’s going to come from (all possible sources,) and what to do to get it. You’ll want to study this too.

Even though I went through a branding course and made a budget and wrote down goals eighteen months ago, I need to go through Chip’s questions in writing again and see where I am–and if I’m still headed in the right direction. We can take career detours without meaning to–and at such a pace that we barely notice. Answering the career planning questions can help you get back on track if you’ve veered off. I was accustomed to my budget needing constant revision, but I hadn’t realized my career plan probably needed updating too.

Does your plan need revision too (meaning anything from tweaking it up a notch to a major overhaul in time and attitude)? What parts do you find most challenging in creating such a plan? Are you able to follow through on your plans? That’s where the rubber meets the road!
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