The Nitty Gritties Writing and Money

I think about money a lot. I don't think this will come as a surprise to anyone. I mean, the main character in my series is a thief whose main goal in life is to earn a million gold bounty, so clearly money interests me. Admitting this interest, however, is sort of like admitting I have an embarrassing personal grooming habit, because money is one of the few remaining things you do not talk about in polite society.

The older I get though, the more I realize that this aversion is a huge disservice. Few things can ruin your life faster or more completely than money. This is especially true for writers who, as John Scalzi points out in his own excellent post about writers and money, seem to be unusually and universally bad at dealing with money. This (admittedly anecdotal) failing is further aggravated by the byzantine feast-and-famine nature of writing money combined with the fact that most new writers have no idea what to expect when they sell their first book because, you know, people don't talk about it.

Thankfully, though, this is no longer totally true. While it can still be pretty hard to get an accurate picture of what to expect money-wise as a writer, both in terms of amounts and how money actually comes in (both of which I consider pretty vital information if you're looking to make publishing your new career), a few brave souls have bucked convention by sharing their own experiences. Today I'm throwing my had into the ring as well, so if you've ever wondered about the nitty gritty of just how authors make their money, or if it's possible to make a living writing, keep reading! We're about to talk about the Benjamins (or, you know, your denomination of choice).

Pretties!

First off, in case you didn't see the FB link, the Orbit art department made me some awesome wallpapers out of the new covers! So if you want to invite Eli into your home, you can put one of these bad boys up. Just be sure to count the silver afterward...

(big versions here)

Oh Eli, don't fall!

Also! We have some Miranda and Gin art from the awesomely talented Minna Sundberg (ShadowUmbre on DA)! Because there was a serious lack of ghosthounds up in here.

Full sized version here!

Miranda is serious business even when she's hanging out. You can see the DA post here, so please leave any comments for the artist over there.

Poor Gin looks grumpy, we should have drawn him in a pig. :D

Wasting Time, a clarification

As someone who talks about writing efficiency, I also talk a lot about wasting time. Namely how I use planning to prevent losing time to stupid stuff. Time is limited enough as it is, especially for people who write on the margins of their lives, stealing an hour here or an afternoon there. I always try to emphasize that time is our most precious commodity, the one thing we can never get back, and we should treat it with respect by using it wisely. That said, I got an email tonight that made me realize I should perhaps add a caveat to my general hatred of waste.

When I'm writing, even when I have my plot all planned out, I sometimes I go off course. Something that looked go on paper might not work once I get it into the novel, and as a result I can end up scrapping a paragraph, or a scene, or a whole chapter as I go back and start over on the right track. From an efficiency point of view, this can seem like a horrible waste. That scene is never going to be in the book. The time spent writing it will only bloat my spread sheet, dragging down my words per hour. But even so, I never count backtracking as waste, because every word I write makes me a better writer.

I read once that an author has to write a million words before they know what they're doing. I fully agree, but what that saying leaves out is that no small percentage of those million words will be ones that never make it into the final draft. I have whole or nearly completed books that I spent months of my life working on that will never see the light of day, but even those I refuse to count as wastes or failures, because the stories I tell now are built on a foundation of the words I threw away.

The hardest lesson I've learned so far as a writer is that failure teaches more than success, but only when you stop being scared of failing long enough to start learning from it. After all, the novel that never gets published teaches you to write the one that does. The wrong word makes you find the right one. Cutting, rewriting, doubling back, these are not waste. This is writing, and sometimes it's only by falling on our faces that we find the way forward.

Goals

First off, another big thank you to Stefan at Far Beyond Reality for hosting an omnibus give away! I have the winner's book right here beside my chair, all wrapped up and ready to go. Congratulations again, and don't forget you can still enter Fantasy Book Critic's omnibus giveaway if you haven't won one yet!

Back when I was in high school, my guidance councilor had us do one of those exercises where you write down all your goals for the future and when you want to achieve them. It was supposed to encourage us to make something of ourselves, but most people just goofed off (I recall a great deal of my senior class wanting to be doom lords and world conquerors). But I took the exercise seriously and wrote out this huge and ridiculously detailed road map for the rest of my life, which for some reason ended at 30 (hey, I was 17 at the time, I don't think I believed there was life after 30).

I still have this list. I'm not quite sure why I kept it, it was just one of those things that gets put in a box over and over, and every time you clean you think about throwing it away, but you never do, and then suddenly enough years have passed where it's become this relic from your childhood, so you take really good care of it, etc. etc. Looking back over the list now, I was a pretty ambitious kid. I mean, 2 PhDs by 25? I didn't even write down what they were PhDs for, just PhDs.

So yeah, the ambitions of youth. But the big thing? My huge, end of life goal for the immeasurably distant future of 30? Make a living as a professional fantasy author.

Done.

Today is my 30th birthday. Really, I made my goal three years ago, but it's as true now as it was then, though it still doesn't quite feel real. Even three years on, I get the violent urge to giggle in disbelief every time I realize "Holy shit, I am paying my mortgage with sword fights." But I do. I made it. Life goal, crossed off!

Now, as I enter the uncharted, "Here Be Monsters" part of my life, my biggest concern isn't knowing where I'm going, but what my new goal is. I sold my book, I've published one series and sold another, and I make a living as an author full time. That's pretty much everything on the list. So, now what? What comes after you "make it?"

Oh sure, there are plenty of big, shiny goals after your book hits the shelves: making a national list, becoming a #1 NYT Bestseller, seeing one of my books get made into a movie, winning a Nebula or a Hugo, but all of these are determined by other people. If all it took was hard work and a great idea to become a huge bestseller, then we'd have a lot more of them. I don't want to tie my big new goal to things I can't control, where success or failure has as much to do with luck as effort and talent. So, instead, I've picked something I can control, a milestone no less lofty but completely my own, and it goes like this:

Write 150 books by the time I turn 60.

That's 5 books a year for 30 years. Of course, I get to subtract 8 from that for the books I've already written, but still, 150 books! That's multiple bookshelves of my own work (assuming they're still putting books on shelves in 2042). Is it a ridiculous goal? Of course! But no less crazy or unlikely than getting a book published in the first place. Less, because this goal depends entirely on me. It'll be a lot of work, but I think I can make it. I'm already on track to write six books this year, maybe 7 if I don't get hung up. And if I make it to 60, I'll reevaluate. Maybe I'll set another goal, 300 books by 90!

I've spent most of my thinking life running toward the goal of being an author. I might have made it, but the race isn't over. It can never be over. We always have to have something to run toward, or we stop running. I for one mean to run this thing as hard, as fast, and as well as I can. And that, I think, is a very worthy goal indeed. 

More reviews and Tweet questions #2!

Some really lovely reviews/contests have been coming in!

• Mihir over at Fantasy Book Critic did a great review of Spirit Eater and Spirit's Oath, my Miranda short story! They're also giving away a signed copy of the Omnibus through March 10th, so don't forget to put your name in the hat!
• Tor.com had a great, very in depth review of the omnibus as a whole. In addition, Stefan (author of the Tor review) is giving away ANOTHER copy of the Omnibus on his own (fantastic) review blog, Far Beyond Reality. This give away ends today, though, so hurry over before it's too late!

Also, I have been darting about the internet writing things both about writing and about my own books! Here's a round up: 

• I wrote a post for Orbit all about Nico, so if you want to know more about how the little demonseed came to be, please be sure to check it out!
• I did a guest post for fantasy writing blog Magical Words all about tension, complete with visual aids!
• And I did an interview for Waterworld Mermaids about writing and the Eli series. Very awesome site, so happy they invited me over!

Ok, enough business, let's do some questions!

@Mathew_Braun asks How do you write characters whose experiences and background are different than your own?

This is actually something I struggle a lot with. As I mentioned in my Nico post for Orbit, I had a lot of trouble with Nico because of exactly this reason. Nico is shy, I am emphatically not. She's also quiet, I talk more than Eli (not really, but that apple didn't fall far from the tree, if you get me). The experiences and backgrounds are less trouble for me than the character themselves. Experience and background are really just the stimulus, it's the character's reaction to that stimulus where things get really hairy.

Writing characters who are not only different from me, but different in ways I have trouble understanding, is something I think I'll struggle with for the rest of my life. But it's a good sort of struggle, the growing kind. With Nico, I had to slow down, listen, and do a LOT of rewriting before I got her down. It was a slow, messy approach, but that's the rough part of trying to make your characters people. People tend to be messy, and just like with friends you don't understand, sometimes you've got to slow down and talk to your characters before they'll come clean, or talk at all. In the end, though, you get a diverse and deep cast that can hold you through several books, and that's worth a lot of effort.

Jessi in the email box asks How much control do you have over your covers?

There are two answers to this - a bunch and almost none. My publisher, the ever amazing Orbit Books, actively solicits my input on every part of the Eli books. However, publishers are in business to make money, and while they work with me a lot, in the end, they choose the cover they think will sell the most copies. I'm happy they do this, because I also want to sell many copies so I don't have to go out and get a real job again. The cover they choose might not always be the one I envisioned in my dreams, but it's almost always good, and if I have serious issues, the art department listens and does their best to compromise with me. I've never had a cover I flat out hated (thank god), but I will admit I like the new covers a LOT more than the old ones.

They just look so much more "this is a fantasy series" to me.

Of course, this is just the experience of one publisher and one author. Every house works differently. I've known some authors who were involved every step of the design and others who didn't see their cover until it was up on Amazon. Most authors fall somewhere in the middle, but if you're a new author (or a hope to be new author) and you have strong opinions about your cover, make them clear (in a polite way) right from the start, and then get ready to compromise. 

As the author, you do have some measure of final veto power, and that can be tempting to use, especially if you hate your cover. Before you fire the nuke, though, consider, no one wants your book to do better than your publisher. If they have a cover, they picked it for a reason. They paid money for that cover. Digging in your heels and saying NO helps no one. Instead, try to figure out how the cover can be changed to make it less odious. Publishing is a small town, and no one benefits from burned bridges. 

Well, I hope that was entertaining! As always, if you have a question about Eli/publishing/writing you'd like me to answer, please send it to me via Twitter or through my contact form. I look forward to seeing it!

Thank you for reading, and as always, thank you for helping to make Eli a success!

Yours sincerely,

Rachel

The Legend of Eli Monpress, official launch!!

The omnibus has already been towering over the other books at the bookstore for a while now, but today is the OFFICIAL release date for The Legend of Eli Monpress omnibus! HOORAY! This means that the omnibus is now available for ebook, which most retailers have posted for $9.99. That's crazy awesome, it's like $3 per book!

But ebooks don't really show you how impressively huge this thing is. Let's see this big brick of awesome again, shall we?

I love that picture. It's like Eli's about to get the drop on Eli!

Anyway, for those who are interested I have several things up and about on the interwebs today in celebration, starting with a guest post on Fantasy Book Critic about The Changing World of Eli Monpress! HePore I talk about how Eli's world has changed through the books, including the final two volumes. 

I also have an interview up at The Waterworld Mermaids blog! This is mostly writing related, but I also talk about the Eli books. 

Finally, don't forget that you can still win a signed copy of the Omnibus over at Fantasy Book Critic! The contest is world wide and open until March 10, so go over and put your name in the hat if you haven't already!

On the review front, lots of new reviews are out! 

• Meghan from StellarFour totally made my day with her awesome review of my Eli world novella, Spirit's Oath.
• Pornokitsch reviewed The Spirit Thief along with another thief book, Greatshadow. Thieves are hot these days!
• Book Chick City reviewed Spirit Thief and Spirit Rebellion on audiobook. If you haven't listened to the audio versions of my books by the way, they are completely amazing. Luke Daniels does such a good job with the voices.
• And finally, The Bookbag got all the way through the omnibus and loved it! Yay!

Ok, I think that covers everything! Thanks as always for reading and I really hope you get a chance to pick up The Legend of Eli Monpress. I know I've been kind of crazy about it, but the Omnibus bind up is really, really, REALLY pretty! Eli would totally steal a whole truck full, just sayin.

<3

Rachel

Tweet Questions #1

In an attempt to actually write about things people want to read about (ALWAYS VITAL), I put out a general query yesterday to the Twitterverse (Twitsphere? Twitterland?) soliciting topics to write about. I got so many good ones I've decided to start up a new, semi-regular blog series!

It goes like this: have a question about writing or publishing? Ask me on Twitter (@Rachel_Aaron) or through my site and I'll answer them here on the blog to the best of my ability. And if I can't answer them, I'll do my best to point you at someone who can. It'll be sort of like my NaNoWriMo Thread, but in blog format and not quite so rushed. 

Sound fun? Ok, let's do some questions!

@erchristensen asks: How do you determine whether an idea is worth a short story or novel? Or if it should be abandoned/saved for later?

This is a touchy question for me, and a really, really vital one to nail as early as possible. You don't want to waste time and energy on a story that can't stand to completion. Generally speaking, though, any idea that can make it through my plotting process is one that can take the stress of bookdom. But even earlier than that, when I'm on Step 0 (the "decide if I'm going to write this story" step), I sit down and just think about the story. Am I really excited about it? Does the idea of writing down all kinds of wacky back story make me excited or bored? Do I yack my husband's ear off about it? 

The yacking part is actually the most important. I've learned over the years that staying power the surest indicator of an idea's quality. If a story sticks with you over the long haul, if you find yourself thinking of scenes or imagining character interactions even when you're supposed to be other things, that's the surest sign that you've got a winner.

I should note though that I NEVER completely throw out ideas. I am a story hoarder! Even if a plot/character/world can't stand on its own, you can always cannibalize it later for the good pieces and put them into other works. I actually have a giant Google Doc that's nothing but short descriptions of ideas I want to put into future stories. Creativity is never wasted, you never know when that weird, not quite baked idea will turn out to be just what you need on a future project.

@abhinavjain87 asks: how about character creation or world-building? and @EldritchGirl stays something similar: Maybe help developing other world systems, etc? I'm so bad at that... Eli's world was fully believable & realized

And for the record: Meghan, I don't believe you're bad at anything. <3

I believe character creation and world building are the same animal in different guises. In a really good book, the world itself is a character. It has personality, history, traits, quirks, all that good stuff. Most writing books agree that the most important thing about creating a character is finding out what they want. I totally believe that, but in addition to motivation, I also try to figure out what a character loves, what they hate, what irritates them on a daily basis. This also goes for worlds creation, I try to figure out where the world is going, what are the major problems facing it, and how does the world react. It's kind of silly to think of your world as having a motivation, but I always try to make sure my settings are changing, going places. This could be something as simple as a border war or something as huge as The End Of The World. 

Most important with both worlds and characters though is that they must be internally consistent. This doesn't mean acting predictably, but nothing happens without cause and no one does something for no reason. Novels are just long chains of cause and effect. The first step to creating believable worlds and characters is to understand them inside and out, to know how they react to change and why. Color in their details, get to know them like friends or a favorite place, and then put them in trouble and watch them squirm. When these things all come together, you can't help but end up with something amazing.

Also, and this is a bit of writing voodoo, but I try to hear my character's voices. Lots of times, if I'm having trouble with a character, I'll just sit down and spend some time with them, ask them questions, that sort of thing. This is especially important if the character is very different from myself (like Nico was) and I'm having trouble imagining how they react. Same goes for worlds. If my world feels flat or if I can't think of what should happen, I stop everything and go spend some time in my imaginary places. When I can feel a place like I've been there and hear a character like they're a separate person in my head, I know I've got it right.

And finally, @Oath_Breaker has some general queries: Perhaps brainstorming or simply your opinions on fantasy in general or Dialogue?

See above for my brainstorming :D. As for my ideas about Fantasy as a genre, I'm actually going to cheat and paste over part of my interview with Civilian Reader.

----------

CR: What’s your opinion of the genre as a whole today? How do you see your Legend of Eli Monpress series fitting in with the contemporary fantasy scene?

RA: I think we are living in a golden age of fantasy. Years from now we’ll look back with awe and wonder and talk about how good we had it. Thanks to the blockbuster titles like Harry Potter, Eragon, Twilight, and the Lord of the Rings movies, as well as the phenomenal success of fantasy video games, fantasy is coming out of the back shelves and into the spotlight. Fantasy, dare I say it, is cool right now, and it is staking a big claim in the YA and adult markets. This attention means more books and more publishing houses willing to take chances on new authors and ideas. It is a really, really exciting time to be a fantasy author and a fantasy fan, especially if you like YA fantasy.

To answer the second half of the question, I’m actually not really sure where Eli fits in to this flowering of the genre. The Legend of Eli Monpress isn’t really epic fantasy because of the aforementioned lack of gritty battles and dark heroes, but it’s not pure Pratchett-esque comedy either. One reviewer described the series as feeling more like urban fantasy than a traditional swords and sorcery tale, and I think they hit it on the nose. The Eli books are fast and snarky with modern pacing (no slow grinding epics for me), but at its heart The Legend of Eli Monpress is a story about doing what has to be done even when you REALLY don’t want to do it. So, being a hero, which is a very traditional fantasy theme. I think that’s why the books have had a little trouble catching on, actually. They’re hard to pigeon hole. However, I maintain that if you enjoy the idea of a witty gentleman thief with a glib sense of humor, you’ll probably enjoy The Spirit Thief. If nothing else, the sword fights are killer. I worked really hard on them, and I still consider Josef’s fight with Coriano at the end of Book 1 to be the best fight I ever wrote.
---------

And my opinion now is still pretty much the same!

As for dialogue, I'm actually really bad at explaining how I do it because I don't actually think about it. Dialogue is the easiest thing for me to write. My characters talk a LOT, and I generally have to cut dialogue from my books when they start running off at the mouth. Really, I think the key to good dialogue is good characters. If you have interesting people, they'll say interesting things. Just make sure you say in character, or your characters will all start to sound the same, which is to say, all start to sound like the writer. I do try to keep my dialogue sections as short as possible, though. Talking heads are no fun to watch.

And that's it for Twitter Questions! I hope you enjoyed the answers! If you have a question you'd like me to answer about writing, publishing, Eli, or anything else in the pro-author sphere, feel free to post them on Twitter to @Rachel_Aaron or just send them the old fashioned way through my contact form.

Thank you for reading, and if you see the Eli Omnibus on a shelf, say Hello for me! :D

- Rachel

Yet ANOTHER give away!

Didn't win my Eli giveaway last week? Well, have no fear! The lovely, wonderful people at Fantasy Book Critic are giving some away as well! HOORAY!

These will also be signed and this time the contest is open world wide! So head on over to enter, and say hi to Mihir for me! (He's said such lovely things about my books.)

My Problem With Titles

Last week I finished a new book I'm very, very excited about. It's not an Eli book, but the first book in what I hope will be a new series that, quite frankly, is about nine million miles away from anything I've written before. I call it my abusive boyfriend book, because I gave up on it 3 times while I was writing because I thought things would never work, but in the end, I never could quit it. I always came crawling back, and eventually, by blood, sweat, and keyboard pounding, I finished that sucker.

But unlike an actual abusive relationship, this one had a happy ending. I'm so glad I stuck with it and finished things, because this book feels like a breakthrough for me, writing-wise. Unfortunately, though, as different as this book is from everything else I've written, one of my career long persistent writing problems remains - I have no idea what to call the thing.

This is my eternal problem. See, I have tons of titles and tons of books, but none of them ever seem to be able to match up. Without fail, any novel I finish lacks a name. The Spirit Thief was just The Eli Book until it was time to query agents and I had to call it something. Same with another new book I just sold (but can't talk about yet, sadness). This book is currently The Lola Book (sensing a pattern?).

I'd been casually messing around with possible names for months, but now that the book is done, I've started seriously searching. I have a long list of possibilities already, but nothing sounds right. I can't even explain what I'm looking for, but I'll know it when I find it. And as soon as Google learns how to search for that, they'll have world domination in the bag.

In case you're wondering, this is how I pick titles:
Step 1 - Think of something cool.
Step 2 - Look it up on Amazon, if a book in my genre that came out in the last 5 years (or is super famous) already has this title, go back to Step 1. If title is free, go on to Step 3.
Step 3 - Look it up on Google. If title is already a band name/album name/linked to some tragic affiliation, go back to Step 1. Otherwise, proceed to Step 4.
Step 4 - Yay! A title!

Of course, I can name the book whatever I want, but in the end it's the publisher, not the author, who decides the final title. This is why a title isn't as big a deal as you might think it is, though, if you have an amazing title (Current favorites: Never Knew Another, I Shall Wear Midnight, All The King's Men, John Dies At The End), that can do amazing things. Even so, I like my books to have names. Good names, the sort I can send them out into public with. Shoving a book off into the world wearing nothing but "The {main character name} Book" just feels irresponsible.

But this book, though, this one is special. After all the trouble this little bastard put me through, I don't just want to find it a name, I want to find it a great name. A name that grabs you and won't let you go until you pick up the book to see what it's about. I want a name that sums up everything this book is about in one beautiful phrase...

But that's in my ideal world. Right now, I'd settle for something other than "The Lola Book." I feel like a mom with a tired kid at a department store. "We're buying the first thing that fits, and then we're going home. Don't like it? Well, if you'd told me your name at the beginning, we wouldn't be in this situation, would we, book?"

And book just glares at me with its black and white glare until I give in and go home, nothing purchased. Going to be one of those nights, isn't it, book?

New Writing Post Up At Magical Words

Thanks to the ever amazing Kalayna Price, I've got a guest post up over at the fantasy writing blog Magical Words. It's about story structure, pacing, and figuring out what's wrong with a scene that doesn't want to go anywhere. It might also be about lighting things on fire, though I can't vouch for that. Anyway, I hope you'll check it out, and thank you to Kalayna for letting me butt my nose in!

Also! All contest entries have been mailed except for Busy Woman's! If you're out there, Busy Woman, I never got your info! Please contact me! This book has to go somewhere!

<3
Rachel