Yesterday, I went to a Harvard Alumin talk on 'making a living in the book writing businss'. It is part of a series of talks, the first was about writing on the side of your everyday life, the second was about publishing and this one for those people that actually want to make a living out of it. I clearly missed all the past ones, as I missed most things in the last 12 months, but as part of my rediscovery of my values, I decided this was something I wanted to go to. It was 3 doors down, there is not much closer it could get.
I want to get my notes out but th tube is jammed, so I need to write out of recolllection. This is weak at times but either that or probably another 6 months without touching this blog. I have not written since Paris, that was a long haul. I blame T, as I have been emailing things I would potentially have written down, so she is using up my inspirarion. But maybe one day those thoughts will make their way here as well. But back to the talk. I want to pass the key takeaways from each speaker without even knowing who they were before, so no bias.
Mildred is an agent, former management consultant, and she was fearless at keeping it very real. She started by saying people always speak about the ones that make it rather than those that don't. So she read out some quotes from rejection letters from publishers. What a way to start. She did however speak about her published author and how he got published after having been rejected by all publishers. Luck played its part, and FOMO, which is by far a way too familiar term for me. It made sense. There are so many people writing well in the world, why do some make it really... Like in everything, the platform around you is key. And many times, what you do other than writing. Figure out why you want to write a book - but not for money or fame. Mildrd runs a diversified portfolio including book authors, screenplay or tv show writers. She is more of a creative agent. Made sense to me. She runs it like a business and advises authors to make the same.
Then came Marti, the absolute opposite, in love with writing and potentially not that balanced published author who says it does not matter who buys her book, as long as it is a good book. I guess most people would react to that by saying 'now you can say that', given she is a published auhor for many books and Julia Roberts was a main character in the one she sold the film rights to. Yes, you can make money, but you can also go five years without making any either. Don't try and be famous by writing a book, go be famous and then write about it. Most likely you will still not make a living out of it, but rather from what you originally did. She gave good practical advice on what to do, again reinforcing the importance of having a platform. Her budhist advice is to approach it with beginners mind - look at all of it as if you are a child with excitement about the novelty. I liked the way she explained why the number of books sold does not matter, though it is arguable. She describes the number of buyers as an external value of the book, and the book value should not be about others. And claimed her best book ever had terrible reviews and readership. The argument is that once you finish a book and put it out there, the book is no longer yours. You have to enjoy the process of writing to be in the business.
Richard closed the stage with his refreshing and contrasting Oxford accent. He started with the concept of 'making a living' - how do you define that? If that is Belgravia square and fancy holidays writing should be what you do on top of the hedge fund day job... Awesome. But if you live a year off a tent in South Africa whle doing charity and writing your novel than anyone can afford it. I found him interestingly charming and he went on to give us a flavour of erotic writing in response to a review saying he wrote like a 90 year old nun. My favourite tip was how you should avoid writing in a computer - you will write more than you should and you will have a tendency to correct your original thought into polished language very often, which alters a lot of the creativity. Alongside Marti he also made the point that you need to define what a great book is for you - and have joy in doing so.
His finishing touch was part of the reason I had attended. Multimedia books are in nascent stage and he is publishing them with music ams interactive images. If you want to stop reading, press a button so someone reads out for you. Why do current ebooks need to be so dull anyway. He also allows for user interaction and questions to the author. He now knows who is reading his books, a phenomena the publishing industry was never quite able to grasp. I will look for more of it.
Broad, inspiring, funny and full of content. Harvard style talk I must admit.
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