As we all (should) know, David Farland is a widely acclaimed author, best known for his Runelords series. His e-mail subscription, "Daily Kick in the Pants", offers some great insiders when it comes to both the craft and the writing of the writing world. It's a free service, and you can cancel anytime, but why would you? I've been subscribed to him for months now. Here is a "Kick":
David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—How Ready Are You?
After yesterday’s kick on the warnings against self-publishing, I expect that I’ll get a deluge of people asking me to critique their works, hoping to find out if they’re “ready.”
In some cases, I can look at an author and know that they’re ready. Often I’ll see what they’re lacking, and so on. For example, when I first read a chapter by Brandon Sanderson, I went home and told my wife, “I found one” today. When I first read from Dan Wells, I told my wife, “This guy is going to succeed based upon his great ideas.” When Stephenie Meyer turned in her first assignments to me at BYU, I thought, “You know, if this young woman finds something that she passionately wants to write about, she’ll be dangerous.” I could go on with dozens of others, but I think you get my point. Some are obvious, but some authors will surprise you. There are authors whose works I absolutely hate, yet they have an audience.
So how do you know if you’re ready? There’s an easy test:
1) Write a book.
2) Print it off and pass it around to twenty people.
3) Wait for two weeks.
At the end of two weeks, if you have only a few people, say five or six, who have read your book, it’s not holding your audience. If you’ve got a book that has had fifteen or so people who’ve read it with excitement, you’re doing well.
But what you’re really looking for is “pass-along rate.” If at the end of two weeks you have people who are passing the manuscript to friends to read—to sons and daughters and neighbors—then you have a potential hit. If you’ve got thirty or forty readers at the end of two weeks, then you know that your book will have a life.
Hopefully, you’ll soon find an editor or agent who agrees with you, but if you don’t, that’s when you really begin looking at self-publishing.
Glowing comments from other writers in your writing group may not be a strong indication of success. After all, we’re all subconsciously predisposed to like the writings of people that we like personally. What really matters is what people think who’ve never met you, who don’t know you at all, and who don’t really care to know you. You want the opinions of people who just get clobbered by your book, who get taken by surprise, who like it even though they may never have read another book. If you’re getting copious attention from those people, you’re ready to publish!
If this has helped you, why not subscribe? You do have to create an account. So, go to David Farland's website today and get some invaluable writing advice!
Replies