Sometimes we get so excited about writing and we are so prolific that all we want to do is publish, publish, publish.
Perhaps you’ve published a book or two and you have several more ready to go. There may also be numerous unfinished book projects on your desk which you are eager to produce. It can become all too overwhelming and confusing for an author who has become a bit addicted to being published.
There are a couple of things that can happen to prolific authors. They are so in love with writing that they can’t stop. And they feel they must justify the time they spend writing by doing something with it other than line their drawers or wallpaper their bathrooms. The most logical solution to a filing cabinet full of manuscripts is publishing. Besides, many writers don’t feel validated unless someone is reading what they wrote.
I must admit that I fit into this scenario to a degree. Thankfully, however, I was blessed with (or I somehow managed to develop) a sense of organization and order where my writing projects are concerned. I have gained an understanding of the importance of focusing rather than approaching publishing using a scattershot method—well, most of the time, anyway…
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the many projects you have piling up on your desk—your memoir, a compilation of poems, a couple of children’s books, a manuscript featuring a play on common words and the outline of a mystery or two—you may need help focusing. Try this:
• Choose the one project that you are most eager to produce. Or choose based on the timeliness of that project, the value of it and/or the potential publishability of it.
• File all other manuscripts away—out of sight. If you get an idea related to one of the other projects, you learn the name of a good illustrator for your children’s book, you come across a piece of info for your nonfiction book, open the file and toss that material in. That’s all. Do not direct any more attention to the other manuscripts than that.
• Proceed to complete the manuscript you chose. Write a book proposal. If this is a nonfiction book, write the proposal as one of your first steps.
• Work hard on your platform for promoting this particular book—yes, while you are writing it and revising it and having it edited.
• Decide which publishing option you will pursue with this project and start researching those companies within that option.
• When you have your ducks in a row, begin contacting the publishers of your choice (or start the self-publishing process). Be sure to study each publishers’ writers’ guidelines and follow them with a query letter first or a book proposal first—whatever the publisher requests.
• Focus your writing desires on the project at hand. You’ll be writing your book proposal (see above), writing a query letter, writing promo copy, etc.
• When you decide it is time to start working on another book project, choose one similar to the first one. Why? Because, it makes more sense to address the same audience rather than trying to reach a whole new one with a new topic/genre.
Are some of you having trouble with this very problem? Let me know how you remedy it. Perhaps this post has given you some ideas for handling it in the future. Let me know:
PLFry620@yahoo.com.
Visit my websites:
http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com