Tag Archives: Writing Tips

Writing Tips: Writing Accurate Descriptions

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A response to a blog comment, and more.

I need to say that I really can’t thank blog commenters enough for taking the time to write. Not only do they often add useful information beyond what I know — thus adding incredible value to this blog — but they sometimes post questions or comments that get my mind going and give me fodder for new blog posts.

I received such a comment this morning and it prompted me to write a new article for my Writing Tips series.

The Importance of Accurate Descriptions

I touched upon the topic of accurate descriptions in fiction in a post I wrote last month: “Facts in Fiction.” In it, I explained why I thought it was important to get the facts about the “real” parts in fiction correct. I talked about the depth of a fictional world and how it would determine what facts and descriptions needed to be accurate.

My goal in that piece was to urge fiction writers to get the facts straight. Errors, when noticed by readers, can seriously detract from the work. For example, I believe I cited the example of a bestselling author who claimed that when a helicopter was low on fuel, it would be safer to fly lower than higher. This is downright wrong, no matter how you look at it. The author’s reasoning proved he knew nothing about the thought he was putting in a character’s head — a character that should have known better. This absolutely ruined the book for me, making me wonder what else he’d gotten wrong.

You can argue that fiction is fiction and that the writer can make up facts as he goes along. I disagree. My “Facts in Fiction” post explains why, so I won’t repeat it here.

Today’s Question

Today’s question comes from a comment on my recent blog post, “Dan Brown Doesn’t Know Much about Helicopters,” in which I painstakingly (and perhaps nitpickingly) point out a bunch of errors in Brown’s latest literary masterpiece (and yes, that is sarcasm), The Lost Symbol. The errors revolve around the inclusion of a helicopter as a repeating plot component throughout the book. Brown used his descriptive skills to make several claims about helicopters that simply were too far fetched to be believable. (But then again, isn’t that what Dan Brown’s work is all about?) I detailed them for blog readers.

One reader found the post useful. She wrote:

I just wanted to let you know I found this blog immensely helpful as I am writing a chapter in my book that involves a helicopter ride. I must say that I am striving to find new ways to describe the sound a helicopter makes. It’s rather unmistakable when you actually hear it, but to describe it to a reader is much more difficult. I recently wrote… “the deafening drill of the helicopter’s rotors made conversation impossible…” and one of my proof readers balked at the use of the word “drill.” I’d love to hear your comment on that one!

I started to respond in a comment, but the length of the comment soon bloomed into blog post length. So here’s the response.

First, I definitely agree about the word “drill.” Now here are some points to consider:

  • Have you actually heard a helicopter close up? Or at the distances you’re trying to write about? First piece of advice is to go someplace where you’re likely to hear helicopters and listen to them. Then describe what you hear.
  • Does the word “deafening” really apply? I think Dan Brown used that one, too. Deafening is a strong word. Unless the listeners were standing/sitting right outside the helicopter or inside with a door open/off, I don’t think deafening would be accurate. Helicopters are not as loud as people think — unless you’re right up next to them.
  • Lots of folks think it’s the rotors making all that noise. Close up, it’s the engine you mostly hear. Piston engine helicopters sound like airplanes; turbine engine helicopters sound like jet planes. Are you trying to describe the sound of the helicopter’s engine or spinning blades?
  • The tail rotor on many helicopters actually makes more noise than the main rotors. Why? The tail rotor blade tips are sometimes traveling near the speed of sound. Maybe it’s the sound of the tail rotor you want to describe.
  • How fast are the blades spinning? Is the helicopter just winding up? Is it at idle RPM (usually around 70%)? Is it fully spun up to 100% but still sitting on the ground? Preparing to lift off? In flight? There are differences — significant or subtle — in the sound depending on the blade speed and what the helicopter is actually doing.
  • How many blades does the helicopter have? You’re more likely to hear a rhythmic “wop-wop” sound coming out of a large helicopter with a two-bladed system — like an old Huey — than a smaller helicopter with four or five blades — like a Hughes 500C or D.

As you can see, it’s not as easy as asking someone if you can use the phrase “deafening drill” to describe a helicopter’s sound. There are too many variables. And at least three components are making that noise: engine, main rotor, and tail rotor. You need to hear the sound to describe it.

Do Your Homework

As I writer, I’m more bothered by the introduction of stereotypical descriptions — even if they’re not actually cliches — than inaccurate descriptions. Yes, it’s easy to ask a pilot whether a description you’ve written about flying rings true. But it’s lazy (for lack of a better word) to use a stereotype or cliche to describe a sound when you have the ability to hear it for yourself. And its irresponsible, as a writer, to expect a pilot or proofreader to come up with a better descriptive word for you. That’s your job.

If you want to write about the sound of a helicopter, for example, get your butt down to an airport or police helicopter base or medevac base. If you’re writing about a helicopter ride, as this commenter is, go for a helicopter ride.

Talk to the folks at the helicopter base about flying. Be straight with them — tell them you’re a writer and are doing research. (That is what you’re doing, isn’t it?) Let them read a passage or two from your manuscript if you think they can check it for authenticity. Then wait around until a helicopter operates in the area and listen. Get the permission (and possibly an escort) to stand or sit where you need to be to hear the sound as you need to hear it. Record it if you think it’ll help. Make sure you get the right sound for the right phase of flight. After experiencing this, you should be able to accurately describe it.

Do not rely on what you see/hear on television or in the movies. Many sounds are usually added after the fact. I’ve seen clips where the sound of an aircraft didn’t match the type of aircraft being shown. Movies also show helicopters departing almost straight up or landing almost straight down — a pilot will only do this if he must. (Read “The Deadman’s Curve” to learn why.)

Authenticity is Worth the Effort

There’s an added benefit to doing your homework: authenticity now and in the future.

For example, a visit to a helicopter base or ride in a helicopter will give you all kinds of additional details about the helicopter or flight operation. Do people really need to duck when getting out of/into a running helicopter? How is downwash different between an idling helicopter and a helicopter that’s just lifting off or arriving? How strong is the downwash from a hovering helicopter? What does it feel like? How does it smell? What does a turbine helicopter’s engine sound like when first starting up? (Think of your gas barbeque grill and you won’t be far off.) What are the pavement markings like on the helipad or helispot? What’s the pilot wearing? What’s he holding?

These little details will not only add authenticity to what you’re writing now, but they’ll give you plenty of useful material for the next time you need to write about helicopters.

It’s Not Just Helicopters

I’ve used the example of helicopters throughout this post because that’s one of the things I know from experience — and that’s what the question that prompted this post was all about.

But the advice in this post applies to anything that’s outside your realm of knowledge.

You know the age-old advice about writing: Write what you know. Well, you know what you experience. The more research you do — the more things you experience firsthand — the more you know. And the more you can write about accurately and authentically when you need to.

Pro Writing Fundamentals: Contract Negotiation

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Negotiating a book contract without an agent.

Posts in the Pro Writing Fundamentals Series:
• Editors
• Contract Negotiation

Years ago, after reading Robert’s Rules of Writing, I spent some time seriously thinking about writing for a living. I took a few moments, while trapped on a jet speeding toward the east coast, to jot down some topics I wanted to write about for this blog. Contract negotiation is one of them. I wrote and published this post in November 2005, but on reviewing it today, I realized that it would make a good addition to the Pro Writing Fundamentals series I started here a while back. So I’ve refreshed it a bit and republished it.

I should mention here that I’ve been writing for a living since 1990. As of today, I’ve had more than 70 books and literally hundreds of articles published — not including what I write here in this blog. I’ve never had an agent. I’ve done just about all book contract negotiations myself. And, on the whole, I’ve been quite pleased with the results.

Although I’m not a lawyer and can’t advise you on legal matters, I think the information here can help you understand the important aspects of negotiating a book contact for a non-fiction book. Combine this information with some negotiating skills and you should be able to negotiate your own contract.

My First Experiences

I got my first up close and personal look at a book contract back in 1990 or 1991. The contract was for what would become my first book, co-authored with Bernard J. David, The Mac Shareware Emporium.

Neither Bernard nor I were represented by an agent for the book. We’d approached publishers on our own and had gotten a nibble from the first publisher we went to. That deal fell through because of a disagreement over the amount of the advance and we went to one or two other publishers before getting our first contract for review.

Bernard was a relatively seasoned author. He’d worked with John Dvorak on at least one book (Dvorak’s Inside Track to the Mac, which I worked on as a ghostwriter) and I think he had other titles under his belt. All this was new to me, so let Bernard handle the negotiations. But don’t think I wasn’t involved — I certainly was. Bernard proved to be a good teacher, helping me understand the various standard contract clauses and what we could do to get them changed.

This came in handy the following year when it was time for me to negotiate my first book contract on my own. The book was about FileMaker Pro and it was for Sybex. And I saw that many of the contract clauses were the same as they were for our contract with Brady. In fact, over the past 19 or so years, I’ve negotiated very similar contracts with Brady, Sybex, Macmillan, Random House, Peachpit, and McGraw-Hill.

This post will share some of what I learned with you.

Understanding Deal Breakers

First of all, you have to understand that in any contract negotiation — whether it’s for a book publishing deal, the purchase of a house, or a new car loan — there’s something called a deal breaker. A deal breaker is any contract term that the two parties absolutely cannot agree on. For example, you want a $20,000 advance but the publisher will only give a $10,000 advance. (That was the gist to the deal breaker Bernard and I faced in our first negotiation.) Since you can’t agree, the deal will fall apart.

Now here’s a secret: a standard book contract is full of clauses that the publisher is willing to give on. But it also has clauses the publisher will absolutely not give on. Part of your job is to figure out which is which before negotiations begin. The other part is to figure out which clauses you’re willing to live with, so you have something to give up when the negotiations begin.

Right of First Refusal

I can think of only one deal breaker that I can’t live with. It’s called the right of first refusal. You’ll find it in every book contract and, if you’ve got any sense, you’ll have it removed. I’ve never had any trouble getting it removed, either. Which is a good thing, because I won’t sign a contract if that clause is in it.

The right of first refusal clause basically states that the publisher has the right to review and either accept or refuse your next book. Not the one you’re signing a contract for. The one after that.

Well, you might say, that sounds like a good idea. The publisher is already interested in all my future work. How can that clause hurt me?

Here’s how. Say your book does okay and you’re ready to find a publisher for your next book. You submit the proposal or the outline or the sample chapters to your publisher. Your publisher isn’t terribly interested in the book right now, so it goes in some editor’s in box, which may resemble a slush pile. Time goes by. Your idea gets stale. (Or, if you’re writing computer books, the software has already come out and there are already 10 other books about it.) You have a lead on another publisher, but you can’t follow up because…well, you signed a contract with a right of first refusal clause in it.

Or here’s another way that clause can bite you. Suppose your first book is a bestseller (lucky you) and other publishers are courting you, trying to get you interested in signing with them for your next work. They’re offering you a bigger advance and maybe even a higher royalty rate. One of them is a big name publisher and has connections all over the world that will guarantee your work is translated into at least 20 languages. Another one has an incredible marketing machine that’ll get your book in every single bookstore in the country. Meanwhile, the publisher you originally signed with has a limited budget and even more limited marketing capabilities. But you can’t sign with anyone else until that first publisher says no. Do you think it will? When your first work for them was a bestseller?

Copyright

Then there’s the copyright issue. This is usually a publisher deal breaker. They do things one way and aren’t interested in changing them for a relatively unknown writer.

I’ve signed contracts that handled copyright in two different ways. One kind of contract grants me copyright of the work and gives the publisher the exclusive right to publish, market, and distribute the book. The other kind of contract gives the publisher copyright and the exclusive right to publish, market, and distribute the book but copyright reverts to me when the book goes out of print. In either case, other rights (movie rights, electronic publishing rights, etc.) are specified the same as the primary rights.

Now, on the surface, the first kind of contract sounds like a much better deal. After all, you want copyright of your work, right? Well, copyright isn’t worth much if the publisher still has exclusive rights to publish and distribute the work. Those exclusive rights pretty much prevent you from doing anything else with the work until it goes out of print.

I don’t want to give you the idea that this is a bad thing. It just isn’t much better than the other option.

You might be thinking that in the second option, the publisher isn’t likely to give copyright back to the author after the author has signed it away. But the publisher does. All you have to do is keep track of the book and know when it goes out of print. Not sure? Contract the publisher and ask. Once it’s out of print, ask the publisher for copyright. It’ll come to you in the form of a one-page letter that grants you all rights to your own work. I’ve done this with at least a dozen of my old titles and have had no problems.

So although you can gently push this contract clause in an effort to get it the way you really want it, it probably doesn’t matter too much if the publisher won’t budge. You can, after all, use it as an example of where you’re willing to give in, perhaps to get more money.

One more thing…read the rights clause carefully. Make sure you don’t give away any rights that might be worth something in the future, like electronic rights (for computer books, especially), audio rights (for just about any book), or movie rights (for fiction).

Advances

Speaking of money, a book contract also includes the amount of the advance and the royalty rates. The amount of the advance is an indicator of three things: 1) the publisher’s budget, 2) the book’s sales potential, and 3) your value to the project. In that order.

Here’s how advances work. They’re called advances because they’re royalty moneys given to you in advance of actually earning the royalties. They’re supposed to cover your expenses for writing the work and maybe even keep you fed and clothed and under a roof until the project is done. When the book is finished and published, it starts to sell (hopefully). You earn a royalty percentage on the book’s sales. When the royalties exceed the amount of the advance, the book is said to have earned out and you start getting royalty checks.

One good thing about advances is that publishers rarely ask for them back. So if you got a $10,000 advance and the book earned only $8,000 for you, that $2,000 excess is written off (eventually) as a bad business decision by the publisher.

Or, if the book is revised, that $2,000 usually has to be earned out with the next book’s royalties before that book starts to pay.

While I’m thinking of it, this brings up the topic of cross-deductions. Some publishers will lump all your books in a kind of pool and require that royalties cover advances for all books before any more royalties are paid. This is a bad thing and a deal breaker for me. I won’t sign a contract that allows cross deductions with other titles. Sometimes I can even get them to take away cross-deductions for revisions.

Going back to the topic of advances, it’s always a good idea to ask more than they’re offering. But don’t get too demanding about it. Don’t let it be a deal breaker unless you have another publisher waiting in line with a better contract.

Three true advance stories, in brief:

  • Bernard and I lost the first contract for our book because Bernard wanted more than twice as much as the publisher was willing to pay. It took us three months to find another publisher, and we wound up with just a tiny bit more than the original publisher was willing to pay. That first publisher hired someone else to write our book, beat us to market, and with superior marketing, far outsold us. If we’d settled for less, we would have had that bestseller and my writing career would have been off to a better start.
  • Back in 2005, I had to revise a book I really don’t like working on. I’d already decided that I didn’t want to do it. My editor was very eager for me to do it. I decided to see if the publisher would “put their money where their mouth was” and asked for a significantly larger advance than the last revision. The editor said she’d ask for even more. She asked and I got what I asked for. So I did the book.
  • I recently broke off all talks with a small publisher who offered me a contract with a low royalty rate and no advance. The small numbers convinced me of what I suspected: that the publisher didn’t have the ability to turn a decent profit on book sales. If he didn’t have confidence in the book’s sales potential, why should I? I got the impression that writing the book would have been a waste of my time.

I now have a bottom line advance amount for all new books and revisions. If the publisher won’t meet it, I’ll let the deal go. After all, I do this for a living.

But if you’re just starting out, don’t let this be your deal breaker. My first advance (on a solo book) was only $3,000. The good thing about that is that the book earned out quickly and I got royalty checks on a regular basis for the next year and a half.

Royalties

Royalties are stated as a percentage of wholesale sales. Here’s how it works. Suppose you get a 10% royalty on a book that retails for $25. Booksellers normally pay publishers only 40% to 60% of the book’s retail price. For simplicity sake, I usually work with an average of 50%. So take 50% of the book’s $25 price tag to get $12.50. Then apply the 10% royalty to that. The result: $1.25 per book. That might not seem like a lot, but it’s not bad at all if you can sell 20,000 copies.

Now apply that to a $7.99 paperback and you’ll get something like 40¢ per book. Gotta sell a lot of books to make that mortgage payment.

Of course, this is just to get a ballpark figure of what you can expect to earn on each book sold. And remember, returns come in with big, fat minus signs in front of them.

I’ve seen royalty rates range from a terrible 6% to a very generous 20%. The lowest I’ve ever signed for was 8% and that was a tough line to sign. This, remember, is for computer how-to books,which is what I write. Fiction, mass market paperbacks, and other types of books might have different rates. I don’t think you’ll find 20% in too many places. I’m very lucky to have it on a handful of my contracts. You’ll also see different rates for international sales (lower), deep discount sales (lower), and direct sales (higher).

Some publishers work on a sliding scale. The more books that sell, the higher the rate. I’ve never had a contract like this, but I’ve heard of them. I’ve also heard authors complain about them. So if I’m ever faced with a sliding scale, I’ll do what I can to get it removed from the contract.

The way I see it, if it has to do with money, it’s something you should try to negotiate up. Just don’t be surprised if royalty rate is one of the publisher’s deal breakers. I usually have much better luck with advances than royalty rates.

Payment Dates

Payment dates are also in the contract. First, there are the milestone payments for the advance. You see, you don’t usually get the whole advance up front. I think it’s because your publisher doesn’t want you taking the money and running to Las Vegas before you start work. Instead, you get a bit of it on signing and bits of it when you reach various completion milestones: half and finished is popular; so is one-third, two-thirds, done.

In my case, I think milestones are pretty funny. When I’m working on a book, I’m working so darn fast that the milestones are usually due one right after the other. I remember writing one book and having the whole darn thing done before the signing advance arrived. That’s why I usually lobby for as few milestones as possible. Less paperwork. But if your book will take a long time to write and you truly need that advance money for groceries and rent, you may want to have more milestones to ensure more regular payments. It’s up to you. Publishers are usually pretty flexible. Just don’t expect them to give you all the money up front.

Royalties are also paid on schedule. Normally it’s either quarterly or twice a year. The publisher is unlikely to change its accounting system for you, so you’re pretty much stuck with what’s offered. If they try to offer annual royalties, push back a little. That can’t be all they have to offer.

Most of my royalties are paid quarterly, with either two or three months to compile sales figures. This means that if a quarter ends on June 30, you won’t see any money until August 30 (two months later) or September 30 (three months later). This must be a throwback to the old days, before there were computers. What computer book publisher these days really needs three months to count the books sold during the previous quarter? Again, there’s not much you can do about this, so be prepared to live with it.

Indexing

Indexing is something that most publishers expect you, the author, to pay for. And I can tell you from experience that indexing a long book can cost well over $1,000. Normally, the publisher assigns the indexer and pays him or her, then deducts the amount of the payment from your royalties. Of course, if you’ve written a book that doesn’t need an index, there’s no need to worry about this.

Here’s anther little secret: you can often get the publisher to pay for the index. This is like making an extra $1,000 to $2,000 on the book! Remember, a penny saved is a penny earned. But don’t think you’ll get the publisher to give in on this one. I’ve never had any luck getting a publisher to pay for an index on my first book for them; it’s the revisions or other titles I can usually get them to give in on.

The “Who Cares?” Stuff

Some clauses are so unimportant that they’re not even worth worrying yourself about.

For example, one clause, which usually appears near the end of the contract, indicates which state the contract will be governed by. Since the state selected is normally the state in which the publisher has its business (or its legal department), it isn’t likely that the publisher will change it to your state just to make you happy. But then again, do you really care what state governs the contract? It’ll only be an issue if there’s a problem down the road with the contract. Publishers contract with writers all the time. How many contract problems do you think they have? I don’t worry about it.

You Don’t Need an Agent to Negotiate a Book Contract

The important thing to remember is that if you got to the contract stage without an agent, you probably don’t need an agent to get you through the contract stage. Even if an agent can get you a few extra grand on the advance or two percentage points on the royalty rate, is that worth the 15% off the top he’ll get as his fee?

Do this: take the contract’s clauses and split them up into three categories: fine as is, could use changing, must be changed. Then disregard everything in the first category and make notes about the changes you’d like to see — or must see — in the other two categories. Work from there.

And if you find any of this information helpful, please let me know.

Writing Tips: Making the Switch to a Writing Career

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Advice from the trenches.

Nineteen years ago, I left my full-time job as a Senior Financial Analyst for a Fortune 100 corporation to begin a career as a freelance writer.

Some Ancient History

The job I left was a good job. I was in my late 20s, bringing in more than $45K a year. In 1990, that was a pretty good salary. I’d been with the company for two and a half years after five years with the New York City Comptroller’s Office and was on the fast track for upper financial management. If I’d stuck around, I probably would have doubled my salary in two to three years.

But although I was good at what I did and I didn’t mind the work, it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t want to be just another corporate grunt, working 40 to 60 hours a week in an office park 30 miles from home, living for weekends and vacation time. I was tired of wearing suits and heels and pretending that the work I did was important or even meaningful. I was a number cruncher, drawing the conclusions my bosses wanted from numbers we couldn’t change. It was bullshit.

I’d gotten to where I was by going to college — I was the first one in my family to do so — and getting a BBA in accounting. I liked working with numbers and I was good at it. When you’re starting college at 17, what do you know about life or careers? I came from a lower middle class family and all I knew is that I didn’t want to be poor. Accountants made a lot of money, I liked working with numbers. It seemed like the right answer.

Until I got into my junior year at college. That’s when I started to realize that what I did in college would determine what I did for a living when I finished. And I didn’t want to be an accountant. I wanted to be a writer.

I remember calling up my mother and telling her that I wanted to change my major to journalism. I remember her freaking out, telling me I’d never make a living as a writer, that I’d starve. She wanted me to become a CPA. She, like so many mothers out there, wanted her children to succeed in careers she could brag about. “My daughter is a CPA” sounds a lot better than “My daughter is a reporter for Newsday.” (Newsday was the daily newspaper out on Long Island in New York, where we lived at the time.) That’s not to say I planned to write for Newsday, but it was probably what she was thinking.

So I backed down and stuck with accounting. It was a decision I’ve regretted for nearly 30 years.

It was also the last time I listened to my mother.

As you might imagine, in May of 1990, when I called my mother to tell her I was leaving my secure, high-paying job to become a freelance writer, she freaked out. But there really wasn’t anything she could say to stop me.

Don’t Leap before You Look

Now those of you who are reading this might think I was very brave to take this rash step. But it wasn’t rash. It was well thought out and executed.

You see, I didn’t just throw away a career and start scrambling for work. I already had a project lined up. A company I’d done some part-time training for wanted a five day computer course about using computers for auditing. Computers were relatively new at the time and laptops were cutting edge technology. Some of the better funded corporate internal auditing departments — including the one I’d spent two years in — were buying laptops for their staff. The training organization saw a market for a course written by a computer “expert” with a background in auditing. Someone with writing skills. Me.

The course paid $10,000. It wasn’t something I could work on while continuing my full-time job — it was just too intense. My boss wouldn’t give me a leave of absence, so I quit. Simple as that.

But $10,000 certainly wasn’t enough to live on, so I needed to line up other work. I got a job as a per diem instructor for a computer training organization. They called me in when they needed me and paid me by the day. Some weeks I’d get just one day of work. Other weeks I’d get four days. They tried to hire me as a full-timer, but I wanted no part of that.

As I worked on the auditing with computers course and did some per-diem training, I started networking. I got other, better paying contract computer work. I sent out queries and book proposals. I got an assignment as a ghost writer for four chapters of a computer book. I built a relationship with one of the co-authors of that book. Together, we sold another book to another publisher. I sent out other proposals on my own. I got my first solo book contract. I got assignments from computer magazines. I got my own column in one.

All this happened over a period of three years. By then, I was securely entrenched in my new career as a computer how-to writer and trainer. Within two more years of hard work, publishers were coming to me, offering me books.

The point is, I didn’t jump ship without a solid plan that would keep me earning money while I could build my writing career.

I think I was smart. And I think some other people are dumb.

Like my old friend Mary (not her real name). I wrote about her once before in this blog. She always wanted to be a novelist and one day she decided her full-time job was holding her back from succeeding. She quit and spent her days in her apartment, supposedly writing. A year later, she was out of money and deep in debt with her family. Her novel wasn’t done, either. She was forced to go back to work. To my knowledge, she still hasn’t had a novel published.

That’s the dumb way of starting a career as a writer.

Take Things Seriously

I think Mary’s story is a good example of someone who simply isn’t taking a writing career seriously. Unless you’re independently wealthy or have the financial support of someone with a lot of patience, you can’t just throw away a real job to try your hand at writing.

And yes, I did just say “real job.” A real job is a job that pays you money. When I left my real job, I had two other real jobs lined up: the big writing project and the computer training work. Mary had nothing lined up. She just had a vague idea about writing a novel. She didn’t even have any ideas about who would publish it. And in case you don’t realize it, it’s tough to make s living as a novelist unless your work is published so people can buy it.

Of course, nowadays many people don’t have a choice about leaving a real job. Their employers or the economy itself might have made the choice for them. Layoffs and business closings currently have over 15 million Americans out of work. That’s as of now — who knows what the situation might be like in six months or a year? If you’ve always dreamed about starting that writing career and you suddenly find yourself out of a real job and with plenty of time on your hands, this might be the time to start work on that freelance career. In between job hunting exercises — and I certainly don’t suggest that you forget about getting a new real job — start writing.

No matter what your situation is, you need to take a career change seriously. Start by doing some soul searching. Answer the following questions as honestly as possible:

    Writer's Keyboard This is a real writer’s keyboard.
  • Do you have the skills to be a writer? As professional journalist Dan Tynan recently wrote in his blog, “Just because you know how to operate a keyboard doesn’t make you a writer.” I couldn’t have said this any better. Too many typists out there think they’re writers. Get real. Look at your work objectively. Have other people read it — people who will give you objective feedback. If you’re not a writer, you’d better build some skills before you try to make it a career. Unless the topics you write about are in great demand, no editor is going to want to spend time repairing your prose prior to publication.
  • Do you understand the importance of getting your work published? You can’t make money on what you write unless it’s published someplace for people to read. While print publishing appears to be in a slow spiral to death, that’s not your only publishing option. But you do need to find a way to publish that’ll earn you money. The way I see it, your options range from starting your own blog and hoping to get advertising revenues to support you (good luck, especially as online advertising declines) to building a relationship with a traditional print publisher who pays under formal contract by the word, assignment, or book.
  • Do you have the business skills to connect with paying markets? That’s really what it’s all about. You can be the best writer in the world, but unless you can find a match for your work with a publisher willing to pay for it, you’re simply not going to succeed on your own. If you’re trying to write books, that’s when you might consider an agent — and kiss away 10% to 15% of your gross earnings.
  • Do you have a plan for getting started as a writer? If you don’t, can you make one that’ll work? As detailed above, I had a plan. My friend, Mary, didn’t. The plan is one of the reasons I succeeded and she didn’t. (The other reasons may be in this bulleted list.) The plan was reasonable and it required a lot of hard work. I didn’t whine or complain when I got a rejection letter for a book idea. I just developed other ideas and kept trying to sell them. I also didn’t sponge off my future husband or family to get by during the lean times. I always had some kind of work, some kind of revenue source. It simply isn’t fair to your friends or family to build your writing career on their backs.

Right now, real journalism is in serious decline. Who knows what position I’d be in now, if I’d made that major switch in college? Would I have gone into pure journalism and be a victim of the cutbacks we’re seeing today? Or would I have used the writing skills and insights I’d gained during my college education to branch into some other kind of writing?

Perhaps the kind of writing I do now?

Who knows?

I like to think that there will always be a need for talented writers. I like to think that it’s still something that a person can make into a career.

But until you’re able to earn at least half of your income from writing, don’t quit your day job.