This post written by founder and managing Editor, Callie Stoker
I had the privilege of meeting the brilliant Michael Stackpole at Salt Lake City’s Quills 2019 Writing Conference. Best known for his Star Wars X-Wing book series, he’s been in the publishing biz for enough time to have seen how the path to get published has shifted its advice through the years. Should we start out by writing short stories and get published in magazines? Win contests? Get an agent? Self-publish?
In all his years, he admits there are several ways to “get there”, however, there are a few principles that have not changed. You can bet that I pulled out my phone and furiously took notes as he listed all six.
1. Write well
Duh, right? But as an editor, I love hearing this advice at the top. Your writing is your product. If you aren’t putting your efforts here first, then what do you plan to sell?
2. Write better
Same giddy reaction. Keep working on that craft! If you’ve done all you can do to develop your writing on your own, get involved in your local writing community, go to writing conferences, hire a writing coach or editor (insert shameless plug here). The better you write, the better the product you create to sell.
3. Writers are not your competition
As you enter the local writing community in order to work on your craft, you may find that some writers think publishing and creating is a zero-sum game. Michael Stackpole vehemently disagrees. Another’s success is not taking anything away from you. He also reminded us that the writing community is small and being a dick will ruin your career long before your worst book review will.
4. Write from your heart. Do business from your brain.
Another bit of advice that made me want to shout “Hallelujah!” Creators sell themselves far too short in this area. When you become an author, your writing is your product and you are the boss and CEO of your career. Stackpole recommends releasing ourselves from a feeling of desperation when we talk to agents and editors. We should interview them as much as they do before choosing to work together. If an agent isn’t working toward your best interests, fire them. Speak up. Be smart.
5. This business has a lot of good and bad luck.
You can do all the above steps right and things can still not happen for you. Stackpole shared how again and again he’s seen how luck (both good and bad) plays a huge part in “getting there”. He shared the story of Edgar Rice Burroughs. If you don’t know the name, you will at least have heard of his books: he created Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. He was writing during the age when pulp fiction was on the rise. He jumped on the bandwagon and was quoted for saying:
“…if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines.”
The timing was just right, luck was on his side and his stories took off.
At the same time, another writer named Arthur Cheney Train, a lawyer, was writing his own brand of pulpy fiction that just didn’t catch the same fire. It would take another decade for him to find his niche by writing law fiction (the John Grisham of his day) centered around a justice-driven lawyer named Ephraim Tutt.
6. Never Give Up
The best part of the Burroughs vs. Train story above is that Train didn’t give up after not finding success right off, and Stackpole continues Train’s story by connecting it with his own. Stackpole’s grandfather was a lawyer with a large personal library, and Train’s story of Tutt would be the inspiration for his grandfather and later himself that when pulled from the family shelf made him believe: “you can be a writer.”
A few years ago I met George R. R. Martin. He starting writing when he was nineteen. When did Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones) get attention? In Martin’s sixties! He commented that if he’d given up in his thirties or forties no one would have blamed him, but then we wouldn’t have John Snow and Tyrion Lannister, and he would have missed the unpredictable luck part of publishing.
Where on this list are you? The specifics of publishing may change, but focusing on your craft, being good to others, allowing for things out of your control, and never giving up will always work in your favor.