GENREALITY

Some simple things to keep in mind:

If the publisher is putting its money at risk to produce and distribute the book, then that is a traditional publisher, regardless of medium (print, eBook, POD).  Thus Who Dares Wins Publisher is a traditional publisher.

If the author is putting her money at risk to produce and distribute the book, then that is self-publishing, whether they do all the work themselves or hire someone else to do it.  The author keeps copyright and use their own ISBN.

If the author is putting her money at risk by paying someone else to produce and distribute the book and that other party also takes a percentage of royalties, then that’s vanity or subsidy publishing.  The publisher uses their ISBN.

The average self and subsidy published book sells around 50 copies.  TOTAL.  Most are purchased by the author and go to family and friends.

Vanity publishing houses that market to authors work on a basic rule of income:  their revenue stream comes from the authors, not readers.  That’s the bottom line.  For example, Lulu’s own CEO said they wanted a million authors selling 100 books each, rather than 100 authors selling a million books each.

These businesses prey on people’s dreams.  Every new author believes they will be the ‘one’ to break out.  And when it doesn’t happen, they rarely make any noise about it, because no one likes advertising failures.  Thus all we hear about are the few successes and not the vastly greater numbers of failures.

If you use Print on Demand, remember it’s a technology.  It produces a trade paperback book, pretty much indistinguishable from a traditional publishers trade book.  It has an advantage in that you can produce one book at a time if need be, keeping your ‘print run’ low.  At Who Dares Wins Publishing we have 100% sell through, because we keep our inventory at a level to anticipate sales based on Internet sales and upcoming speaking engagements.

POD is done through Lightning Source, Inc. (LSI).  They do ‘distribute’ the book.  However, it’s a pull rather than pull system.  In 2007, 4 million books were produced via LSI.

Some things to consider if you hire someone to produce your book:

-Make sure you keep copyright and all rights to the book.  On the flip side, I heard a self-publishing company rep at a conference warn authors a danger of going with a “New York” traditional publisher is they take your copyright forever.  No.  Be careful of all the ‘experts’ especially those who have a vested interest in slanting their information a certain way.

-Make sure there isn’t a clause where that publisher gets a percentage of your advance if you subsequently sell it to a traditional publisher.

-Check out the quality of their production.  At WDWPUB we recently did a book that took almost a week to format correctly.  This also holds true for those who think they can format and upload their books to the various outlets (Kindle, iBookstore, Smashwords, etc etc.) on their own.  To do the formatting, cover, photos, etc, correctly requires the proper equipment, expensive programs, expertise, and time.  Be careful in your contract that there aren’t hidden fees for all that.  This is the reason we don’t charge our authors, but we don’t take books on that we don’t think will sell.  We make money when the author makes money.

-ISBNs have gotten cheaper but they still cost.

-Once more, self-published, vanity-published books RARELY sell more than 100 copies.

-Less than ½ of 1 percent sell more than 500.  The CEO of iUniverse a few years back admitted that 84 titles out of the 17,000 they produced one year sold more than 500.  That’s almost exactly .5%.

-Some companies may not charge you.  Apparently.  But some have clauses requiring you to do other things to make money off you:  make you buy X numbers of copies.  Even take a ‘marketing’ course for a large fee.

-Most companies take on anyone with a checkbook.  At WDWPUB so far we’ve taken on only 2 authors this year.  Both had what was needed:  a great book (both non-fiction) and the ability to market.  Kristen Lamb’s:  We Are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media has been out a few weeks now.  And in production is Amy Shojai’s Caring for Your Aging Cat which is a reprint of a book originally published in 2003 by Penguin.

-Much of what most of these self-publishing companies offer you is boilerplate you can do yourself or things that sound great but are really nothing.  Getting you onto Amazon—anyone can do that.  A marketing package that are some boilerplate announcement sent to the usual suspects and immediately trashed, since they’re sending out thousands of the same thing and there’s nothing different about it.

That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate self-publishing companies out there who will do a quality job on your book.  But even then, the onus of marketing and promotion is on you.

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Many people are expressing dismay at the rapidly changing landscape of publishing.  As writers, we just want to write.

My first book came out in 1991 in hardcover.  I was clueless.  Most writers were and still are.  I’m not even sure there was an internet then.  Joking.  There was, but not like today, and I didn’t get on it until around 1997 or so.  No social media.  There were writers conferences.  If you knew there were writers conferences, which I didn’t.  I did my first conference in 1995 and only found out about it because I was in grad school and someone I knew in the English department knew I had been published and suggested I might present.

I had naïve thoughts my book would immediately make the bestseller list and I’d be famous.  Wrong.  If I’d have known, simply the print run number would had told me there was no way I could make any bestseller list.

For several years I thought I was making royalty off cover price, only to find out it was off what the publisher received which was 50% of cover price.  I also didn’t know royalty should be off cover price, but with this publisher my agent had settled for the other without telling me the difference.

My title was Eyes of the Hammer.  Incredibly dumb.  Meant nothing.  My agent and editor didn’t say a word about it.

I didn’t do a single book-signing.  Since the publisher wasn’t sending me on book tour, why should I do one myself?  Plus, I didn’t want to do booksignings.  I didn’t want to talk to people.

The print run was 10,000 copies hardcover.  Which, actually, was pretty decent.  I had no idea if it was good or bad.  It sold around 7,500.  Which is very good sell-through.  But the publisher switched distributors and I went to the bottom of their list for the sales force.  Over the course of six books I died the slow, agonizing death most mid-list authors do.

Except, of course, I was always a manuscript and a publisher ahead.  That was one thing I did do right.  (Because of all this I eventually wrote Warrior Writer, to educate writers how to be successful authors, along with many other reasons).

My point?  In the good old days, promotion and marketing was as important as they are now.  In fact, I submit, things are better today, because you actually can promote and market as an author much more easily than back than.  You have social media now, which we didn’t have then.

Once I woke up and realized my publishers were doing no promoting or marketing, but were just distributors, I tried just about everything.  Direct mailings, media, articles, contacting every independent bookstore in the country, driving 40,000 miles a year to do booksignings, doing conferences, teaching, etc. etc.  Did any of it work?  No idea.  I’m still making a living writing.

Does social media work?  We’ve switched web site providers over the past few days and updated the site.  Because of that, I couldn’t tweet about our books because the URLs for the pages were changing.  Our Kindle sales dropped 50% during those few days.  Consistently for 3 straight days.  I’m back to tweeting those key hashtags (#Lost, #SDCC for San Diego Comic Con, and other TV shows.)  I anticipate our sales will get back up to where they were.  Our new book, We Are Not Alone: The Writers’ Guide to Social Media is a good resource to learn content and procedure and an example of how publishing is changing.  It would have taken a traditional publisher a year to produce the book.  We did it in two weeks after delivery.

I saw authors 20 years ago who felt all they had to do was write.  While a few of them might have broken out and become huge successes, there are none I met.  Every single author I met in my first 10 years as an author who

a)    Thought they had it made because they were published.

b)   Didn’t think they had to promote.

Is now not published.

eBooks, Social Media, etc. has not changed being an author other than to actually make it easier in some ways, which means it’s still incredibly difficult.

Way back in the days of Faulkner, Hemmingway, the Algonquin Round Table, etc. it was just as hard, but different.  Then you had to schmooze, make contacts, get known.  Gee.  It’s kind of the same now too.

In all these eras you still needed a good book at the base of it all, but on top, all that has changed is the medium.  It’s still an integral part of an author’s job to promote and market.

There were no good old days for authors.  There’s just now.

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CONFLICT:  THE FUEL OF YOUR STORY.

A novel runs on conflict.  The entire book has a core conflict lock between protagonist and antagonist.  They either want the same thing, which is clear conflict since only one can get it; or they want different things, but in trying to get those things, they come into conflict.  The thing each wants, must be a concrete, external object.  It must be very clear when one or the other gets that thing.

There also must be conflict in every scene.  Thus, each scene has its own conflict lock.  The protagonist and antagonist of each scene does not necessarily have to be the book’s protagonist and antagonist.

What exactly is Conflict?

A serious disagreement or argument.  A prolonged armed struggle.  An incompatibility between two opinions, principles or interests. As a verb it means to be incompatible or at variance, clash.

Try to have conflict at two levels in every scene.  What this means if your cops are chasing the bad guys (conflict), they are also arguing with each other (conflict layered on top of conflict).

Your Basic Story Dynamic:

The Protagonist (the character who owns the story) struggles with . . .The Antagonist (the character who if removed will cause the conflict and story to collapse) because both must achieve their concrete, specific . . .Goals (the external, concrete things they are each trying desperately to get, not necessarily the same thing).

The Protagonist:

Must be someone the reader wants to identify and spend time with:  smart, funny, kind, skilled, interesting, different. Consider giving your protagonist an anomaly.  What this means is they have something in their character that doesn’t seem to ‘fit’ who they appear to be.  Russell Crowe in LA Confidential is, in essence, a thug cop used as muscle.  No one thinks he’s very smart.  But from the very beginning of the movie, he goes out of his way to protect women in peril, even when he has no vested interested.  Why?  That why is a hook that keeps you into following his character.  This anomaly gets explained eventually.

Must seem real; flawed, layered, blind spot. Blind spot is covered under character. The protagonist’s blind spot can be fatal flaw, but at least brings about the moment of crisis.

Must be in trouble, usually not random.

Must be introduced as soon as possible, first is preferred.

Must have strong, believable motivation for pursuing her external and specific goal.

We often empathize with a reluctant protagonist.

We must see the spark of redemption in a negative protagonist very quickly.

The protagonist, as she is at the beginning of the book, would fail if thrust into the climactic scene.

Drives the story.

You have one for one main story line.

Does not have to be the hero/heroine or even good.  In Pulitzer Prize Winning, LONESOME DOVE, we all love Augustus McCrae (Gus).  Hell, I named my dog after him. But Woodraw McCall (Call), is the protagonist.  He moves the action of the book, literally, as he pressed the cattle north.  Also, he is present in the beginning of the book and standing there are the end.

If your protagonist fails, this tells you what is at stake.

Is the person on stage in the climactic scene, defeating the . . .

The Antagonist

Must be someone the reader respects (fears):  smart, funny, kind, skilled, interesting, different.

Must seem real; flawed, layered, blind spot.

Must be in trouble.  People tend to forget the antagonist has problems too. Usually, the protagonist.

Must be introduced as soon as possible, even if by proxy.  This one drives people crazy.  But you can’t have an antagonist that suddenly pops in for the climactic scene.  Often, the reader meets your antagonist, but has no clue that’s their role.  Or, you introduce a proxy of the antagonist, or a minion of the antagonist.  Either one introduces the antagonist.

Must have strong, believable motivation for pursuing her external and specific goal.   We might not agree with what they are doing, but at least it makes sense to us, given who the antagonist is as a character.

You have one antagonist.  And the antagonist drives the plot initially because they introduce the problem.

You must do the antagonist’s plan and it should be very good.  This is the fun part of writing.  You get to be a bad guy.

If you remove your antagonist, the plot collapses.  You don’t have a story, because you don’t have a problem.

Should be a single person so the conflict is personal.  People always ask if nature, or society or something else can be the antagonist.

Is the person on stage in the climactic scene, fighting the protagonist because . . .

Their Goals Conflict:

The reader must believe both will lose everything if they don’t defeat the other.

Their goals are difficult to achieve because of external barriers, primarily each other.

Their goals are layered, usually in three ways . . .

Goal Layers:

External:  The concrete object or event the character needs.

Internal:  The identity/value the character is trying to achieve via pursuing the external goal.

Relationship/communal:  The connections the character wants to gain or destroy while in pursuit of the external goal.

People want to achieve their goals because of their . . .

Motivation:

The reason your character needs his or her goal.

Everyone has an agenda.

Every character has a primary motivator; Victor Frankl’s ‘One Thing’.

Some motivations stem from key events in a character’s life.

The reader must believe that your characters believe all will be lost if they don’t achieve their goal.

Motivations, like goals, come in layers that are peeled away as the story escalates in conflict and the character is under more and more pressure.

The motivational layers are all present in the beginning of the story, but the character is often not conscious of the layers.

Thus the motivation and goals shift as the story goes on and we peel away layers. . .

Layers

The example is JT Wilder from DON’T LOOK DOWN.

What do you want?                                                (Wilder:  Laid and paid.)

What do you really want?                                    (Wilder:  Relationship)

No, what do you REALLY want?                        (Wilder:  Relationship with community)

The Central Story Question:

Will the protagonist defeat the antagonist and achieve her goal?

When the reader asks that question, the story begins.

When the reader gets the answer, the story is over.

DON’T LOOK DOWN:  Will Lucy defeat Nash and save herself and her family?

AGNES AND THE HITMAN:  Will Agnes defeat Brenda and keep Two Rivers?

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The reason each of you has to approach pitching somewhat differently as everyone has somewhat different goals

AREA ONE: WINS

What do you want to achieve with your writing?

“Generally in battle, use the normal force to engage; use the extraordinary to win.” Sun Tzu.

We’ll cover “Wins” first, because it’s always best to have a clear direction as you work through the next two areas. Using Who Dares Wins techniques in this area, you’ll begin by specifying goals, then understanding why you want to achieve them, and finish with studying the situation in which you are trying to have success.

We will work on WHAT (goals) you want to achieve. Then examine WHY (intent) you want to change and achieve your goals. Then study the WHERE (environment) where change will occur.

Goals are future oriented. Planning for the future is a cornerstone of Special Forces. A successful individual acts, while the norm is trying to maintain the status quo with your environment. Most people do not have well-defined, clear goals and thus never change. They spend significant time and energy in their lives reacting, instead of acting. Trying to achieve a goal through reaction is a self-defeating approach: you’re allowing your efforts to be dictated by external forces and others’ goals. To avoid this, it’s important that you apply the three tools in this area to your writing, and then you’ll be on the path to succeed the Warrior Writer Way.

Goals Overview

You must have goals that are clearly defined and can be stated in one sentence

You must understand why you’re trying to achieve your goals, what impact they’ll have on your environment, and how your environment affects you.

Overall Goal Problems.

Writers don’t have a career goal.

Writers don’t clearly understand what they want to achieve with their writing.

Writers don’t clearly understand what they want to achieve with their book.

The writer’s morale is low because initiative and expertise aren’t used because of lack of understanding their own intent.

The writer is working in conflict with her own environment and the publishing world.

Goals.

Goals are future oriented.

The normal writer spends his time and energy reacting.

The successful writer spends his time and energy acting.

FORCE ONE: WHAT

Clearly understanding your goals keeps you on target to succeed. As Casey Stengel said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re liable to end up somewhere else.”

Everything we cover in this book works both ways: For you and for your book. So you need to know both your goals and your book’s goals.

The problem many face is that most un-published writers are desperate to just be published. Once published, they’re desperate to sell the next book. Then the next. Thus, most writers don’t have a strategic goal.

Before we get into the details of goals, though, let’s discuss where success comes from. Is it talent? Or is it perseverance? We used to argue this all the time at the Maui Writers Retreat/Conference among the faculty.

There is a word that applies to this question: GRIT.

Science has too long focused on intelligence & talent as determiners of success. And it’s not. The key to success is to set a specific long-term goal and to do whatever it takes until the goal has been achieved. That’s called Grit (defined as courage and resolve; strength of character).

Duckworth did a study in 2008 at West Point: Grit was the determining factor of Beast Barracks success. My plebe squad had five members. Three of them didn’t make it to Christmas the first year. They weren’t bad people, they just didn’t really WANT it. Same in Special Forces training. There are those who go into because they want to wear a green beret. They don’t make it. The ones who make it want to BE a green beret. There are those who want the lifestyle of ‘author’. They never get published. The ones who want to BE an author make it.

Way back in 1869, Stephen Jay Galton wrote a book titled: Hereditary Genius: he found that ‘ability combined with zeal & capacity for hard work’ trumps talent.

Woody Allen says “80% of success is showing up.” Again and again.

Do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?

Successful people have a growth mindset. The problem with many ‘talented’ people is that they know they are talented; they think that they already know everything they need to know. So they never adapt and change and grow. A growth mindset person believes they can always learn more.

The Hierarchy of Goals

Overall Writing Goal. (Strategic)

Book goal. (Tactical)

Business goal (Tactical)

Shorter range/daily goals (Tactical)

So let’s talk about your strategic writing goal. It can be anything, but it’s important that you lock it down. Some broad examples:

I will be a NY Times best-selling thriller author in five years.

I will write my memoir for my grandchildren in the next three months.

I write part-time simply because it is a hobby and spend an hour a day on it.

I want to be published within 2 years by a major, traditional press.

I will have my book in print within 2 months via self-publishing.

I will write a book that will help people with —– and spend the next three years using it to bolster and complement my speaking career.

The Importance of Your Strategic Goal:

It starts your creative and practical process.

It determines your tactical goals.

Remembering it keeps you focused.

It is the core of your work regime.

It is the core of your marketing campaign.

All tactical goals must align with it in the hierarchy.

Tactical Goals.

The key to exactly knowing your strategic goal is that every tactical goal that follows is designed to support it. Thus, everyone’s path will be different based on having different strategic goals. Everything that you are getting in this book is filtered through your specific strategic goal. When you go to a writers’ conference, everything you hear is also filtered through your strategic goal. So two people attending the same session are going to walk out with two different impressions, each filtered through their point of view, which is shaped by their strategic goal.

What I have seen—and experienced—is that most writers do their first book blindly and don’t have a plan beyond finishing it and trying to sell it. Most writers spend too much time and effort trying to sell their first book, rather than moving on to a second and third manuscript. Rarely does a first manuscript sell. Most published authors I know sold somewhere around number two or three. At a daily level, many writers don’t have a plan for writing every day.

When you state your goals, they should be done in one sentence. The sentence should have a positive verb that indicates the action you want to use to achieve your goal. The verb must indicate an action you control—to an extent. In publishing, you control the writing and the way you approach the business. Beyond that, the publishing gods are fickle. I will become a NY Times Bestselling author in five years seems a bit lofty. But here’s the bottom line: if that’s what you want to achieve, then state it. And then develop a plan to do it. This greatly increases you odds of achieving the goal than the hit-or-miss method. I have listened to many successful authors and many of them set out with lofty goals, and then busted their butt to achieve those goals. As you will see shortly, once you have that strategic goal, it changes everything you do, because everything you do has to support that goal.

Your goal should have an external, visible outcome. Just as in your novel your character’s goal should be something concrete and external, so should yours.

You should have a time lock for achieving the goal, unless time is of no consequence to you. For most of us, time is the most valuable asset we have.

KEEP IT POSITIVE- A NEGATIVE GOAL ACCEPTS DEFEAT

Here’s another thing about stating your goal: Putting it out there, verbally and in writing, is a form of making a commitment. I know many writers get some static from those around them about all the time and money they invest in writing when they are unpublished and there seems to be no payback. If all those around you see is you sitting in front of a computer staring into space and then going off to conferences, they might start to question what you are doing. Letting others know your goal is committing you to trying to achieve it and also lets others know you’re serious about what you are trying to achieve. Then showing your tactical goals such as how much time you allocate each day to writing, attending conferences, taking workshops, etc. will make sense in terms of the framework of the larger, long-term goal.

It also puts pressure on you to stick to your goals. I know many people who are afraid to clearly state their goals because by not doing so, they can slack off day after day. Also, some are afraid to state goals because they fear ridicule.

In 1987 Jim Carrey was 25 years old and a struggling comic. He drove his Toyota up Mulholland Drive in LA. Overlooking the city he wrote himself a check for $10 million. He dated it 1995 and noted it was “for acting services rendered”.

He was wrong. In 1995, his price for a movie was $20 million.

Things to consider when trying to figure out your goal:

Did anyone else achieve this goal (write this kind of book; have this type of career)? You are not the first one trying to achieve the goal. When I asked Susan Wiggs for some career advice the first thing she said she did was study authors who had achieved what she wanted to: she cited Nora Roberts and Suzanne Brockman among other. Was that shooting high? Yes. Did she do it? Her last mass-market paperback debuted at #1 on the NY Times list.

What do you fear doing? (Often this is exactly what we must do). I have often found that many writers are afraid of writing about the things closest to them. Which means they are afraid to write their passion. Why didn’t Johnny Cash walk in and sing his own song right from the start? I submit that he was afraid that his own music wasn’t good enough. More importantly, and dangerous, it was too close to some raw emotions boiling inside of him.

Questions to ask to get to one sentence:

What do I want to do?

Why do I want to do it?

Why should anyone else want to do it? (History & Research)

What is the most important thing I want to achieve?

How will I know when I have achieved my goal? What will have happened?

(The one sentence is the What, not the How.)

How have others defined it?

How long did it take others to achieve this goal?

What was your original goal when you began writing? The good news is you had one. The bad news is you might well have forgotten it. That original goal is key. It is usually the spark of inspiration. It is the foundation of you as a writer, the seed, from which all else comes. It is your Strategic Original Idea.

A question that always comes up at conferences is: “What’s hot?”

Who cares?

I’m not saying you should ignore the market. Indeed, you have to study and follow the market, because it’s the business. However, there is such a time lag in publishing that what’s hot now, might not be hot three years from now (year to write book, year to sell it, year in production).

That timeline is changing, but so far, not for traditional publishers. But for innovative publishers, we can have a book up in a day on electronic platforms. But I doubt you can write a book in a day based on what’s hot.

Writing about something you don’t care about, but are doing simply to try and ride the latest vampire/steampunk/lawyer/serial killer wave, will show up in the writing.

You don’t control the market. Sometimes you hit things at the right times, sometimes you aren’t lucky. I wrote a suspense novel (Bodyguard of Lies) with two female leads: one an assassin, the other a housewife. I received no interest in it during the 90s. Now female leads in a thriller are hot.

My vampire book (Area 51 Nosferatu) came out before vampires were hot.

Right now, I’m writing historical fiction with the first book covering 1840 until the battle of Shiloh in the Civil War. I was working on it for a while before someone pointed out to me that 2011 is the 150^th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War. I’m hoping that’s a lucky break, but I didn’t plan that. I’m writing this book because I’m passionate about it. What that timing does do, though, is make me realize I’ve got to get it to my agent by the end of January so we can have hope of marketing it with the 150 tag attached as a marketing plus.

Once you know what your strategic goal is and what you want to write, you have to decide what type of publishing medium will support that goal.

Do you want a major, traditional publisher?

Do you want to self-publish?

Do you want to vanity publish?

Do you want a regional, prestige publisher?

Do you want to go e-book and POD?

The key is which medium will support the strategic goal. Frankly, you aren’t going to hit the NY Times Best-seller list by anything other than by a traditional publisher. That might change in the future, but that’s the reality right now. And my bottom line on self/vanity publishing for fiction is: fughetaboutit. As we used to say in the Bronx. Yes, I know you hear that random success story. In 2004 there were 1.2 million titles available. 950,000 sold less than 99 copies. The vast majority of those were self/vanity published. I think there will be many new, niche publishers, springing up. I’m bringing to life one of them myself. But I also know, like new restaurants and new novels, 95% of these new ventures will fail.

The Hierarchy of Goals Example:

Overall Writing Goal. (Strategic)

Book goal. (Tactical)

Business goal (Tactical)

Shorter range/daily goals (Tactical)

Strategic Goal

I will be a New York Times best-selling author within five years.

Tactical Goal (Book)

I will write a unique thriller, in the vein of James Rollins, but different because of ????, in the next six months.

I will be researching and outlining the second book in the series.

I will research and come up with the idea for the third book in the series.

Tactical Goal (Business)

My thriller will be the first of three similar thrillers featuring the same protagonist, an ex- Navy SEAL, Harvard educated, anthropologist with one arm who secretly cross-dresses.

Every week I will research and make a list of five agents interested in this genre.

I will attend a writers’ conference this month where there is an author who has what I want and attend every session I can. I will not stalk her, but I will try to talk socially to her given the opportunity, which I will make by NOT hiding in my room, but spending every available minute in workshops and in the conference area.

I will attend a writers’ conference in four months where there will be agents that represent my type of novel to get feedback from them. Ditto for the stalking.

I will follow the publishing business to see what the trends are.

Tactical Goal (Shorter Range)

I will get up an hour earlier every day to write.

I will stay up an hour later every night to write.

I will write five pages a day. Every day.

I will have a draft done in ten weeks.

I will rewrite the draft for plot, for character, for symbols, for subplots.

As I rewrite, I will write my query letter and synopsis.

I will continue to rewrite my query letter and synopsis until they are the best I can make them.

The Hierarchy of Goals Must Be Aligned.

This is your responsibility, not your agent’s or editor’s. If goals are not aligned, there is inherent conflict and wasted time and energy. Awareness and honesty are key. In the example above, I mentioned three books. In the last lesson, I’ll discuss a career plan involving three books that Susan Wiggs shared with me when I asked her for help.

You have ONE strategic goal as a writer. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be working on only one thing. In fact, as you’ll see later when we discuss Catastrophe Planning, you probably should be working on more than one thing. The key each day is to remember where your primary focus is.

First, quality is better than quantity. That’s a maxim of Warrior Writer, because it’s a maxim of Special Forces.

So when I watch something like Nanowrimo or #writegoal on twitter, I think it’s good that people are on task and producing, but am also concerned about the quality of the material.

I can’t write more than one piece of fiction at a time. I can’t cross the creative wires. However, I am very prolific because my work schedule looks like this on any given day:

Priority #1: My fiction work in progress.

Priority #2: My non-fiction work in progress. I find writing non-fiction very different than fiction. So the wires don’t cross.

Priority #3: Working on getting Who Dares Wins Publishing off the ground.

Priority #4: Working on new concepts for fiction and non-fiction

Priority #5: Lining up workshops for the future and keeping one’s already scheduled on target.

Priority #6: Running my businesses. ie keeping track of taxes, expenses, etc.

Priority #7: Marketing and sales. Keeping up on social media, blogs, etc.

There’s more I do, but if you add it up, it’s a lot. So I suggest everyone needs to make a list of priorities and that not only makes you prolific, but on target to achieve what you really want. Because #1 priority is your strategic goal.

The key to success as a writer is focusing on that strategic goal every single day as you accomplish your tactical goals.

Special Forces Selection & Assessment thought: Take your eyes off the price and put them on the prize. (well, not literally.)

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When I teach my Warrior Writer presentation (Denver 10 Oct; Orlando 20 Oct; New Jersey RWA pre-conference 21 Oct; Houston RWA 13 Nov and workshop here on Whidbey, WA on 31 Oct—hey, if I don’t tell you who will?) the first film clip I show is from the movie Walk The Line.  Here’s the dialogue below and an excerpt from my book Warrior Writer.  It’s the scene where Johnny Cash has a one-on-one with a producer (agent).  I also have audio of this here.

Early in the movie Walk The Line, Johnny Cash and his two band-mates go for an audition. I recommend watching the movie and focusing on that scene. Here is the dialogue, with my comments in parentheses:

Johnny Cash singing a cover of an old gospel song—within 15 seconds he is halted:

Producer (read agent): Hold on. Hold on. I hate to interrupt… but do you guys got something else? I ‘m sorry. I can’t market gospel (read generic vampire novel, clichéd thriller, whatever). No more.

Johnny Cash: So that’s it?

Producer: I don’t record material (rep a book) that doesn’t sell, Mr. Cash… and gospel (a book like that) like that doesn’t sell.

Johnny Cash: Was it the gospel or the way I sing it? (was it the book or the writing?)

Producer: Both.

Johnny Cash: Well, what’s wrong with the way I sing it?

Producer: I don’t believe you.

Johnny Cash: You saying I don’t believe in God?

Bandmate: J.R., come on, let’s go.

Johnny Cash: No. I want to understand. I mean, we come down here, we play for a minute… and he tells me I don’t believe in God.

Producer: We’ve already heard that song a hundred times… just like that, just like how you sang it.

Johnny Cash: Well, you didn’t let us bring it home. (you didn’t get to my hook, climactic scene, whatever)

Producer: Bring… bring it home? All right, let’s bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you were lying out in that gutter dying… and you had time to sing one song (write one book), huh, one song… people would remember before you’re dirt… one song that would let God know what you felt about your time here on earth… one song that would sum you up… you telling me that’s the song you’d sing? That same Jimmie Davis tune we hear on the radio all day? About your peace within and how it’s real and how you’re gonna shout it? Or would you sing something different? Something real, something you felt? Because I’m telling you right now… that’s the kind of song people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain’t got nothing to do with believing in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believing in yourself.

Johnny Cash: Well, I’ve got a couple songs I wrote in the Air Force. You got anything against the Air Force?

Producer: No.

Johnny Cash: I do.

Bandmate: J.R., whatever you’re about to play… we ain’t never heard it.

Within fifteen seconds of singing the song he wrote, the producer knows he is looking at a star.

What did Johnny Cash Do?

He tried even though the odds of rejection were high. We hear the scary statistics all the time about the slush pile. You can’t let that stop you. There are people who won’t query because they’re afraid of rejection. In essence, they’ve just rejected themselves. I heard a very weird statistic: 90% of people who have a one-on-one with an agent at a conference and are requested to send in their material, never do. There are many reasons for this, but the #1 barrier is fear. Why even do the one-on-one if you are never going to follow through?

Johnny Cash walked in the door even though he was afraid. We’re going to discuss fear a lot in this book. We’re also going to discuss ways you can overcome fears.

He went even though his wife didn’t think he had it. There is a scene earlier where he and his band-mates are on the porch playing and Cash’s wife storms off and locks herself in the bathroom. She tells him he’s wasting his time and he needs to get a ‘real job’. Some of us have heard the same thing, haven’t we?

He stayed after being rejected. Most people think rejection is the end. It’s actually a beginning. Use rejection as motivation. Rejection is an inevitable part of a writer’s life. I just got a rejection last week from a publisher with whom I’ve sold over a million books.

He stayed. He got hit with a double rejection: not only was the song not good, his singing wasn’t good. How would you feel if someone told you not only was the book not good, your writing wasn’t either?

Even though he was angry, he was respectful. I just sent the editor who rejected me a polite thank you email for taking her time to look at the material.

He asked questions. I watch people pitch agents at conferences and many rarely ask questions. They’re so focused on pitching, they aren’t using the time as a valuable learning experience. When Cash asked what was wrong, he got a response that allowed him to focus. In that email, I not only thanked the editor for her time, I asked a couple of questions that might give me a way to try a different approach.

He listened. Earlier this year I got some other rejections on a different manuscript. Looking back, I remember my agent making a comment when I was first talking about the idea. I didn’t listen carefully enough to what she was really saying, because in retrospect, what every editor said in the rejection letter was what she had said two years ago. We’re going to cover communication in Force Seven. Listening for the real message is a key skill successful people have.

He used his PLATFORM and tried again. We’re always hearing the buzzword Platform. A lot of people feel they don’t have one. You do. If you watch the movie, note the look on Cash’s face when he’s singing the gospel song about his “Peace Within”. He’s not peaceful. He’s angry. That’s his character arc in the movie: finding peace within. So when he finally sings the song he wrote, he’s singing an angry song. Because his platform right then is anger: over the death of his brother; the fact his father blamed him for it; and he hated his time in the Air Force, being away from his girlfriend (and losing her). Basically, he used his real self and mined his emotions. That’s your platform.

He conquered his FEAR. He not only walked in, he stayed, he succeeded.

He CHANGED. He walked in with one plan, but when it didn’t work, he quickly changed that plan.

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