Jane Friedman: Not an art or science, The Business of Being a Writer

HALLIE EPHRON: Jane Friedman has a well earned reputation as a publishing industry guru with expertise in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. I try not to miss reading anything she puts out there because she's so smart and doen't mince words.

In one of her latest missives, she declared with typical tartness:

"I don’t believe that 'cream rises to the top' in the writing world."

She was on the war path against the notion that for writers, art is polluted by business concerns. She argues that while some writers are fortunate enough not to have to think about making a living wage, the rest of us need a sustainable business model that doesn't include the expectation of a six- (or even four- or five-) figure advance every year or so.

In other words, making a living as a writer doesn't just happen.
She speaks from experience:

"I learned early on that if I wanted to make a living from my writing, I’d have to learn to balance the art and the business."

That's what her new book is about: THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WRITER.
In it she exhorts the rest of us to stop being so precious about m-o-n-e-y --

"To break out of the unproductive silence about what we earn and how the industry works. We have to be more transparent about what writing pays, and how it pays, and that it takes time and an informed strategy to make it pay. We may all hope that serious art speaks for itself, and once in a while that may work for the Franzens of the world, but it doesn’t work for most of us. Educate yourself on the business, and learn how to make the system work for you."

In response, Jane provides a strategic, high-level look at how writers can establish a lifelong writing career.

The book is simply terrific. I only wish it had been around when I was inventing my own business model which has been a combination or publishing fiction, nonfiction, and magazine pieces, along with speaking and teaching gigs. Ever grateful that I had a thirty-year career and a wage-earning husband and, like industrious ants, we'd socked away our pennies before I took the plunge.

She addresses questions like the age-old:  

• Do I need a day job? (It depends.) 
• Can't I just write and leave marketing and promoting to the publisher? (No.)

Her answers are bracing. Yes, marketing is now part of the writer's job, but that's is nothing new:

"During the Renaissance, Erasmus organized a network of agents across Europe to actively distribute his works and collect his rewards. Mark Twain’s most successful work was sold by traveling salesmen going door to door—at a time when this form of marketing was considered extremely impolite.  And everyone knows how Charles Dickens released his work in multiple formats, modified his stories based on audience feedback, and masterfully used the serial to garner attention and publicity."

The book also has solid, smart advice on the nitty gritty of getting a book published. Just for example, here are the chapters that form the middle of the book.

 9. Book Publishing: Figuring Out Where Your Book Fits

10. Understanding Literary Agents

11. Researching Agents and Publishers

12. Book Queries and Synopses

13. The Nonfiction Book Proposal

14. Working with Your Publisher

15. Self-Publishing

16. Publishing Short Stories, Personal Essays, or Poetry

17. Traditional Freelance Writing

18. Online Writing and Blogging

But the final sections have information you're not going to find in the average writing book. For example:

23. Starting a Freelance Career
25. Teaching and Online Education
26. Contests, Prizes, Grants, Fellowships
27. Crowdfunding and Donations
28. Memberships, Subscriptions, and Paywalls

I'm so happy to welcome Jane and her new book to Jungle Red. She'll be dropping by this afternoon to answer questions, so FIRE AWAY!

I met JANE FRIEDMAN when she was an editor at Writers Digest Books and I was writing my Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel for them. She was young and savvy, and in just a few years rocketed from editor to senior editor to publisher. She's now a widely respected publishing consultant, one of the most savvy people anywhere in the world about the REAL world of publishing. And about writers and writing and what it takes to succeed.

You can meet her at writing conferences where she's often invited to give the keynote, read her blog https://www.janefriedman.com/blog/ (where you can subscribe to her newsletter), subscribe to The Hot Sheet https://hotsheetpub.com a newsletter for authors that distills what's happening in the publishing industry for authors. Her new book, The Business of Being a Writer, is being published by University of Chicago Press.