Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

N. K. JEMISIN: When you get rejected by a publisher,

you have not failed.

You have actually passed another milestone.

This is a really, really hard business to be in.

You need a support network.

Try and find a workshop.

You don't want to go this alone.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Once you've sold a book, yay.

Congratulations.

It's time to celebrate.

Go out and have a party with your friends

because you've already crossed one

of the big and really, really difficult hurdles that

are necessary to break in as a professional published author.

Yay.

Immediately, you need to start another book.

Congratulations.

Start another book.

And the reason that I say that is

because it's going to take one to three years

for that publisher to get your book out into the world.

And during that time, the publisher

is going to be sending you revisions that they

want you to make, examples of cover art, things like that.

But you might as well go ahead and start

working on the next book because, if you're lucky,

if your book sells well, the publisher is immediately

going to turn around and ask you, okay,

so what else you got?

And if you don't have anything, then you've

missed an opportunity right there.

The other reason that you want to go ahead and start

working on another book is because it'll

take your mind off of the stress of waiting, possibly

three years, for your book to come out.

It's a great way to distract yourself.

It's also a great way to kind of hone your skills

and improve as a writer.

You may want to do a little palate

cleanser, of writing some short fiction during that time.

Short fiction can help you improve your ability

to hook a reader and improve your pacing.

There's a lot of different things

you can do during that significant lengthy period

of waiting for your book to come out.

But the most important thing you can do

is not just sit and rest on your laurels.

Start your next project.

If you decide to write another book that's

in a completely different field, then you

need to understand that if your first book is successful,

the new book isn't going to help you.

The new book means you may need to find

another publisher, maybe even another agent

entirely, in order to get that book out in the world.

There are authors who try to basically create franchises

in multiple genres at the same time.

Sometimes those authors even pick different pen names

to sell those different kinds of books under.

But in a lot of cases, they've got

an agent for one genre and an agent

for another, a publisher for one genre

and a publisher for another.

It just makes your life a little more complicated.

There's no reason why you can't do it.

It's just you need to understand that that's a lot more work.

And you need to understand that if you have written something--

a follow-up book that's not in the same genre,

you've effectively scuttled some momentum by doing

that because you're building up your name and your career

within one existing genre, and by writing something else, that

doesn't help you.

An important thing that you should probably remember

is that you may not sell your first book, in fact,

you probably won't sell your first book.

When I was trying to break in as a debut author,

my first actual book that got me my agent was The Killing Moon.

I tried to publish this book.

My agent sent it around to pretty much every publishing

house in New York.

And it got pretty roundly rejected.

The feedback that I got was great,

but it was a book that was pushing some boundaries

in a lot of ways.

And publishers were hesitant to publish it as my first book.

So during the time, however, that my agent

was sending that book around, I was writing another book.

So this is why I also say that.

A really key thing to remember is

that the average age for a writer

to sell their first novel is somewhere in their 30s.

If you've passed the age of 20 or if you've

passed the age of 30 and you feel

like a failure for not having a book out there,

that makes no sense.

You're perfectly normal.

If you hit 40 or 50 and you don't have a book out there,

you're perfectly normal.

It is entirely possible to create a new career,

and start your career as a brand new debut author,

at the age of 60 or 70.

It's really a question of when you write the right book.

It's not a question of age.

You also need to remember that a lot of the authors that

are extremely popular now, did not sell their first books.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, my first published novel,

was not my first professional novel.

My first professional novel is the one

that got me my agent, The Killing Moon,

so it was really my second professional novel.

But I'd actually been writing novels

throughout my teens and 20-something years.

Most of those were terrible and will never

see the light of day.

But they were-- the first book that I

got published was by no means the first book that I'd ever

written.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Rejection is a huge part of being a writer.

And you need to own that as part of being a writer.

When you get rejected by a publisher, you have not failed.

You have actually passed another milestone.

And that rejection is going to teach you things.

And it will help you improve yourself as a writer.

If you take it well, if you try and learn what you can from it,

if you don't get unprofessional and yell

at the publisher that rejected you, or something like that--

please don't do that, by the way.

That's a great way to kill your career before it ever starts.

And publishers do talk to each other.

But collect those rejections.

Own those rejections as badges--

or badges of courage, if you want to call it that,

or battle scars, if you want to call it that.

When I was a beginning writer, the writing group

that I was in actually celebrated rejections.

Every 50 rejections, we would all go out and have a party.

When we had 100 rejections, we all

decided to go out for drinks.

At 150, I think we hit a strip club.

But I don't know that that's necessarily

the way you want to celebrate.

But celebrate those rejections because they are very much

a part of being a writer.

And they are going to help you become the writer that you

ultimately want to be.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Let's talk a while about short fiction.

When I first started out as an author,

I was writing exclusively novels.

I didn't even read a lot of short fiction.

I just thought of it as a completely different art form.

And it is.

The catch is, that writing short fiction

can be a great way to sort of break

into a novel-writing career.

It's a way to get your name out there and well known.

It's a way to get your name in front of awards committees

and reviewers.

And it can even open some doors to agents and publication.

Now, an important thing to remember

is that these days, short fiction, for the most part,

is not agented.

Most agents will not represent short fiction.

That's simply because there's just not enough money in it

anymore.

Short fiction sales, at best, generally net

you a few hundred dollars--

if you're very lucky, over $1,000.

If you're a professional author who's been in the business

for a while, who's got a lot of name recognition,

then you can command much higher fees.

My short fiction sells for a whole lot more than $1,000

these days.

But that's after many, many years

and a whole lot of awards.

As a debut author, it's going to be a little different for you.

Typically, short fiction sells for what

are considered professional rates within that genre.

Your genre has its own standard of what is

considered a professional rate.

For science fiction and fantasy, go and look at sfwa.org,

and they will tell you what is considered

the professional rate for fiction.

Those rates are normally listed per word,

so it's usually $0.06 a word or $0.05 a word,

something like that.

At the end of writing a short fiction, a piece of fruit

fiction, you tally that up, multiply it times 0.05

and then you can get an idea of what that sale turns out to be.

Now, short fiction is anything less than a novel.

A novel is typically considered, in science fiction and fantasy,

to be 40,000 words and up.

In actual practicality, very few publishers are going to publish

just a 45,000-word novel.

Most of them tend to be in the 90,000- to 200,000-word range,

especially in the fantasy.

They can get a little fat.

But anything that's 40,000 words or below

is a novella, a novelette, or a short story.

And you can sell all of that.

One reason why you might want to spend

some time on short fiction is simply

that it's a lot easier to break in than it is with novels.

As far as markets are concerned-- and by markets,

I mean people who will publish your short fiction--

as far as markets are concerned, short fiction

is an infinitely smaller investment

and so they're much more willing to take risks.

You can be more experimental in your language,

or your narrative, or your style.

You can try and broach subjects that

are maybe a little more controversial than you

would touch in a novel.

And it's more likely to get published in short fiction.

Also, the markets that exist out there for short fiction

are much more varied.

There's print markets.

There's online markets.

There's a lot of audio markets.

Podcast short fiction is kind of the new hot thing these days.

So there's a lot more places to break in, to build a career,

to build a resume.

And that will help you in the long run.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So here's the last few tips and tricks

that will help you become the best writer that you can be.

First and foremost, try and find a workshop.

You don't want to go this alone.

This is a really, really hard business to be in.

You need a support network.

You also need people that will help you improve.

So to create a writing group, you

find other people who are seeking

the same kind of thing you are.

They all want to publish novels or short stories.

They all want to publish in the same genre.

They're all at roughly the same level of career development

that you are.

They're all beginners.

They're sufficiently practiced or skilled,

that reading their work isn't painful.

And they'll be able to evaluate your work better

because they're at the same level as you.

And then you can all grow together.

You may want to consider participating

in a paid training experience.

And formal training is not necessarily in a classroom.

You can do it in a workshop.

You can do it as part of a convention.

Or you can do a full-on MFA program, if you want.

There's no reason why you shouldn't.

But if you choose to do an opportunity where you're

paying for feedback, just understand

that you can still get feedback for free

in a lot of different places.

It's just that you've got to work

a little harder to make sure that it's a good quality

feedback source.

When I first started out, I used a couple

of different online workshops, one of which was paid,

one of which was free.

I learned from both of them.

But I also chose to go to a week-long in-person intensive

workshop called Viable Paradise.

Now, in science fiction and fantasy,

there are several six-week model workshops,

where you go and you just spend your whole summer there.

And you are learning at the side of other potential professional

writers.

You are learning from professional writers,

who come and help you work on your pieces.

You are creating new work over the course of the six weeks.

But that's expensive.

And it means that during those six weeks

you're away from home.

You're away from your job.

There are a lot of costs associated with doing this.

Viable Paradise, for me at the time, I was working.

I had a day job.

I couldn't take six weeks off.

I could take one week off, though.

So I went to a workshop that was a little shorter.

And it gave me pretty much what I needed to break in.

You can get this from going to conventions.

Many science fiction and fantasy conventions

have a writing track, where you can

choose to participate in writing workshops as part of that con.

There's a lot of different ways that you can do it.