An Aspiring Author’s Journey

Many years ago, I decided that I wanted to write. As an aspiring author and a lover of live theater, I authored a play – my first work of any real length. It took place in Vietnam during the fall of Saigon, in the final moments of the war. The scene was set as the final escapees were being evacuated from the rooftop of the embassy. The list of those authorized to get on that chopper was short, and the tension was high. It was a 2-person, one-act play and I was lucky enough to have it professionally workshopped in a community theatre event in British Columbia.

Getting Published

I wrote many things after that but I never considered trying to actually get published. It just wasn’t a goal of mine. Perhaps this was because I realized how much time and meticulous effort such an endeavor would absorb. All my life I have held jobs in which I was “all in”. There was simply no time for the emotional commitment I knew I had to make as an author of full length novels. I’m a professional engineer – I was responsible for facilities and critical infrastructure and have always had to be ready for emergencies with a tested playbook, constantly revised and updated. I had to write about highly complex subjects in such a way that more senior, non-technical people would understand what they needed to know and could confidently make a decision based on my syntheses.

In 2014, when I moved over to Bridgewater Associates – the global hedge fund – I was tested even further with their “machine-driven” process management and their relentless drive to rate people against dozens of different attributes in the quest to understand what people are like. Knowing, testing and refining your machines (Bridgewater terminology for your process map and the people driving it) was critically important. Ray Dalio at Bridgewater has pioneered a powerful set of Principles that gave us detailed and specific guidance for how to manage, and how to understand empirically what people are like. In this way, we can predict how they will behave in a given situation. Bridgewater believes in open transparency about almost everything. You learn how others see you – your strengths and weaknesses – and you see proof every day of the truth of that. And they help you to deeply assess personality types of the people you work with.

Powerful stuff, and all of it has helped to shape my point of view in my writing. It’s rounded out my understanding of how people behave, why they behave in certain ways and how to work with that. Many of my characters reflect the flawed nature of human beings. None of my characters are completely evil (well, OK one) and none are completely good (well, maybe one). But people are like that, right?

But all of this is bullshit unless I can actually get my writing read by others. Don’t you think? An aspiring author is one of 2 types of people in this world – you’re either someone who has written something that people are willing to pay for and read, or you aren’t. And that’s the test, isn’t it? It’s perfectly great to say that you write for the love of writing. Many people are like that. And there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that. But if you set out a goal to be published, then as an aspiring author there is no more measurable standard of achievement than sales. Will people buy what you have written?

Getting Published – The Journey of an Aspiring Author

I’m planning to document my journey from Aspiring Author to Published Author.

So yeah. I’m going to see if I’m good enough. And I’m going to try really hard. I’ve taken on-line courses, attended writers’ workshops, I’ve built this website, had many folks read some of my writing, I’ve wrote, re-wrote and re-wrote everything I’ve done. I will be attending more conferences. Most importantly, I have asked for truly honest feedback. I take it all seriously and try very hard to take it objectively. An aspiring author will suffer greatly if ego gets in the way of improvement and I try very, very hard to be aware of this as I accept criticism.

This summer, I will be attending the Writers’ Digest Annual Conference here in Manhattan (so glad I live here) in late August. As a part of the program, I’ll be attending the Pitch Slam event. This is a kind of speed dating for the unpublished: you stand in a big room with a huge group of other aspiring authors, just like yourself, and you wait your turn to speak with an agent who is ostensibly seeking new manuscripts. Formats and times vary from event to event, but this one gives you 90 seconds to make your best pitch for your book, 90 seconds to hear feedback about why your pitch stinks (I’m a forever optimist) and up to 2 minutes to discuss. The agent may ask you to send them a Query (see below) with some or all of your manuscript, which MUST be complete and ready to go.

Then you get the shove to give the next Aspiring Author a crack at the agent that just kicked your ass to next Sunday (hopefully she took your name). On to the next agent to do it all over again. Hopefully better.

I’ve not done this before but I understand that I should expect to speak to 3 to 5 agents. So it should be very interesting. I’ll be honest: I’m not nervous about it at all. Why? Because I know my work is good, and there are scores of agents out there. The desk drawers of many of my favorite authors (probably all of my favorite authors), like BV Larson, Andy Weir, even George R.R Martin are FILLED with letters and emails containing a second paragraph that starts with “I regret…”. Or they got no message at all to put into that drawer. I get it.

So the formal process in getting published starts with finding an agent. Everything I’ve read says “don’t even think about contacting the publishers directly”. So how to get an agent?

Well Pitch Slam is one way. Meet one at a conference and get her interested in your work. Don’t be pushy. Have your elevator speech A-1-A and Ready-to-Go. Here are some helpful pointers I’ve read about along the way:

• Get to the point quickly;
• Develop a logline – a 25 to 30 word sentence that encapsulates your story and leaves your listener wanting more, more, more;
• In the 60 seconds you’ve got left, make sure to mention genre, conflict, stakes, protagonist, market position, word count. No problemo;
• You know that word “Epic”? You’ve heard of it, right? Admit it, it describes your debut novel, doesn’t it? Well, don’t use it. Do. Not. Say. Epic.;

The logline (see above). It’s really, really important. Here’s mine (so far):

#1 – When the world learns that Earth will be destroyed in 700 years, the US President gambles the survival of Humanity for her place in history.

What do you think? Does it do the trick? Do you want more? How about another one:

#2 – In 2025, the world learns that a wandering star is certain to destroy the Earth in 700 years. Three opposing forces driven by politics, science and religion, clash in a desperate struggle to shape humanity’s destiny.

#1 or #2? I can’t decide.

The Query

Back to the agency process thing. When the face-to-face approach doesn’t work, go for the Query. Get the above on one page and get it to your chosen agents. Make sure they are accepting work in your genre and check their website under Submission Guidelines so you give them exactly what they want.

Usually, it’s a one page letter that introduces you, gives the genre, word count and reason for contacting the agent. Paragraph 2, 3 and maybe 4 talk about your plot, including the aforementioned primary characters, stakes, conflict, climax (you don’t have to give the ending away). The last paragraph should describe the comps to your story. What other books are similar? (Trust me, no-one has a truly unique plot. But you can have a unique twist). Let the agent know that you understand the market. Because hey, they need to sell books. Don’t you want them to? Yay, we’re aligned!

Your Story – What is Unique?

My story is about an approaching planet-killing star that will consume the planet 700 years after it is discovered. Planet Killer stories have been done to death. I know that. But my story has a twist. Most every Planet Killer story out there has some form of salvation for the planet. You’ve seen Armageddon, Deep Impact, Asteroid. Earth always wins. Someone’s almost always going to save us. Or maybe Earth loses, but we’ve got only months to deal with it. Or we win/lose to Aliens, or Outbreak, or Zombies or Demons. Or the story takes place in the very far future. Maybe with time travel.

Prometheus is none of these. Earth loses. We’ve got 700 years to figure out what to do. Aliens don’t give a shit about us. Zombies don’t exist (really, they don’t). My whole story depends on you knowing that Earth, as a planet, must lose. It changes the whole mindset of the world’s people. How would civilization evolve over the centuries knowing the exact date of Earth’s demise?

Market Research

Market Research alert: I’ve downloaded and assembled from several sources a file of 987 works involving a threat of Earth’s destruction. I looked at every one of those works on the web (OK some I could eliminate right away) and ranked them against my combination of plot characteristics. Here are my basic elements:

1. Earth Loses, in a big way. Physically destroyed. Like being consumed by a 50 million degree ball of nuclear fire 300,000 times Earth’s size;
2. Humanity has centuries to deal with it;
3. No aliens, no plague, no Kaiju, no zombies (especially no zombies);
4. No warp drive (sorry, we haven’t been able to figure that out);
5. No time travel (because we can’t – you get that, right?);
6. No Post-Apocalyptic setting (OK maybe in 700 years, but we’ve got a long way to go first);
7. The timeline runs over centuries and explores the human evolution over time, posing the question: Would humanity expend blood, treasure, security and the environment today for the sake of distant future generations? How would that attitude evolve as the End of the World approaches?

I haven’t found this combination of factors in any one of the near 1,000 works that I have researched so far. To date, I can tentatively say that my idea combination is unique.

Word Count

As a debut, aspiring author, I realize that word count is vitally important. A Game of Thrones may have come in at 300,000 words, but your debut novel won’t stand a chance if it’s much over 100,000. And that might be pushing it. Although I do understand that science fiction, to accommodate its world building, allows a little more.

You get the basics of my story from the loglines above, right? So the whole series spans 700 years – it’s an EPIC!! – but the books break it down into timelines. Prometheus Blue and its sequel Prometheus Red complete the near future timeline of the series. But they have to stand on their own merits and each has to come in at 100,000 words or less (they do). Maybe, just maybe if I get a following, I can spread my writing wings a bit, AND WRITE AN EPIC but for now, I’m shooting for books with a word count that starts with a “9”.

I’ve also read a lot about successful authors who’ve got the KDP route: Kindle Direct Publishing. BV Larson is a huge proponent of this. I’m not ruling it out. I just want to try the traditional publishing route first.

Conclusion

Anyway, that’s where I am. An aspiring author seeking a book deal. Or two. I’ll continue to post on this topic and let you know how it’s going!

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