Happy New Year

Okay, I may be the worst, most inconsistent blogger of all time, but the very least I can do is wish you all a Happy New Year.

There. That didn’t take long. And it was sincere!

Life on the Pioneer Trail

I am not the first to travel this road, but all of us crowding the self-pub trail today are certainly among the first. It’s exciting – and confusing – because none of us really knows what to expect. Some of us will reach Oregon, and others will die of cholera while crossing the plains. Metaphorically speaking, of course. And some who reach Oregon will hate it and wish they’d never left Ohio — but I imagine those folks will be few.

Being a pioneer involves, as it always has, a certain amount of risk. And, at least initially, ridicule. There are always people who will warn you not to make the attempt, and promise that you’ll be sorry if you do this crazy thing. I hung back for years, thinking I was better off where I was, hoping that a miracle would happen and Signet would reissue, say, The Fortune Hunter. Because wasn’t I better off hoping for that, however unlikely it was, rather than asking for my rights back and eliminating that delicious possibility forever?

Well. I may have hung back for a while, but I finally made the leap. Early this month, I received the rights back to my entire backlist — with the exception of my first book, The Nobody, which Signet plans to re-release as an e-book in July of 2012. This development derailed my progress on the Wicked Cool sequel (temporarily, I trust!) while I feverishly cleaned and formatted and spruced up my old manuscripts. Now they’re out, for better or worse … my self-published darlings, the books of my heart.

And now is when I wish somebody had built a paved road and put up a few signs. Instead, there’s a dusty, faintly-marked trail with an awful lot of fellow travelers crowding around on it, arguing about which route is best. Alas, not enough writers have gone before us to show us a sure-fire way to get where we want to go. It’s a safe bet that some of us are going to miss our timing and get snowed in at Donner Pass, and some of us are going to wander into Death Valley while seeking a shortcut. At this point, you honestly can’t tell which of us at Point A is among the group that will reach Point B.

Do this, do that, do some other thing … no matter what you hear advocated, there is always someone out there warning you that it’s the exact wrong way to go. “Get out on social media and hype your books.” “No, no, that just irritates people!” “Offer some of your books for free.” “No, no, that completely backfires — people don’t value what they can get for free!” And so on.

I hope the dust settles soon, because it’s awfully hard to see.

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I’m sure there’s a better way to do this

Someday, I am going to learn all about blogging. (Should have done that before I began, eh?) I know there are ways to link my blog to other people’s blogs, but I’m not only unsure how to do this, I suspect that there is some sort of protocol — a secret handshake or other ritual — required before one takes such a step. So, since I don’t know how else to do it, I’m going to paste links to a couple of blogs I have been featured on lately:

Romance Novel News (they interviewed me about self-publishing, but if you’re already reading this blog you’re probably heartily sick of the subject) and Heroes & Heartbreakers, who posted an absolutely lovely article about my work called “The Return of Diane Farr.”

Okay, I’m diving back into my writing cave now. For all of you who were expecting a sequel to Wicked Cool prior to Halloween, all I can say is … believe me, I’m disappointed too. Augh!!

Wow. Just … wow.

I went through this blog tonight, assigning “categories” to my posts. (Because, let’s face it, there’s always some super-urgent chore like that demanding my attention and preventing me from writing.) And I came across one I’d titled “The Truth About E-Books.”

I couldn’t assign a category to it because I couldn’t remember what it said. So I read it.

And that was my “Wow. Just … wow.” moment.

My contention, in that blog post, was that e-books are for amateurs and hobbyists. That print publishing is the way to go, if you can. Which is why e-books are for amateurs and hobbyists — you know, the ones who can’t get published by a “real” publisher.

It’s hard to believe I wrote that less than a year ago.

How quickly things change in this business!

The Adventure Continues

This whole self-pubbing adventure is pretty amazing. I think I may have mentioned that my expectations were low at the start, but since my expectations were honestly low — as opposed to, you know, trying to fake myself out when actually my hopes were high — I have been honestly, and pleasantly, surprised.

For those of you keeping score at home, I have given up fretting about Amazon reviews. For one thing, Wicked Cool has now garnered so many five-star reviews that I can afford to breathe easily. For another, it is ridiculous to stew over things one can’t control.

This is an excellent adage, by the way, and I wish I applied it universally. I don’t, however. I still compulsively check my sales numbers, and mentally set “goals” that must rank among the stupidest goals ever set by any human being, anywhere. Because there is nothing, NOTHING, nothing whatsoever, that I can do to move those sales numbers! So why am I muttering to myself, “If I can just sell X before midnight …” As if I were a sales clerk working on commission. The sales clerk, one assumes, is surrounded by customers with whom s/he can actually interact, and might, therefore, be able to influence whether something is purchased or not. An author, sitting alone in her pajamas, staring at a computer screen? Not so much. You’re fairly helpless in that situation. No, get real, you’re completely helpless. And yet you keep thinking, “*&$!@, only X in the past hour! I’ll never make it!” and mentally reviewing what time it is in New York or Denver or Honolulu, trying to decide whether it’s reasonable to expect anybody to buy teen paranormal fiction at 2:16 a.m.

Somebody please tell me this is normal.

Dude, Where’s My Sequel?

I’m working on it, okay? Don’t rush me.

Seriously, I’d love to blame my on-again, off-again blogging efforts on the fact that I’m writing a sequel to Wicked Cool, but the truth is, I’m just a lazy blogger.

I’m also a painfully slow writer. And I really, REALLY want to have Scary Cool out in time for Halloween. So what little writing time I have, I am devoting to the book. Understandably, I hope.

I’ll check in when I can, though. I promise.

The Truth About Amazon Reviews

It has come to my attention that savvy consumers view 5-star reviews on Amazon with suspicion. Not reviews of vacuum cleaners or cameras, mind you. But book reviews? Nowadays, a 5-star review of a book you’ve never heard of is (I am told) assumed to be a plant.

In a world where anyone can publish and anyone can review, it’s expected that authors are, naturally, bludgeoning their friends and relations into posting rave reviews on Amazon. And they do! The abuse of Amazon’s customer review system by hyperactive, anxious authors, desperate to compete in an ocean of content where most books sink without a ripple, is so well-known that the trick is no longer effective. (Is it fair to call it a “trick”-? Aw, heck. For purposes of this blog post, let’s call it a trick.)

The problem is, sometimes a 5-star review of a book you have otherwise never heard of is genuine. The reader not only read the book, but loved it. How is a would-be book buyer to discern the difference between puffery and honest enthusiasm?

Do you, Gentle Reader, have a system of weighing customer reviews that winnows the wheat from the chaff? If you do, please share it with us.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that WICKED COOL received a 1-star review last week. This is always painful to an author — but it doesn’t, you know, ruin your life or anything. Your voice is not going to connect with everyone. Some people can’t stand Shakespeare. That doesn’t mean Shakespeare sucks. I don’t care who you are, or how well you write, some readers are not going to “get” you. That’s just the way it is in this business. I am grateful that my 5-star reviews outnumber my 1-star reviews, but this was certainly not the first 1-star review I have received. Just the first for this book.

What gave me pause this time around was that a Facebook friend clued me in to The Awful Truth: ALL my other reviews were 5-star reviews. So when the 1-star review popped up, in a lot of people’s minds it instantly negated all seven of the other reviews. (And, apparently, the professionals quoted under “Editorial Reviews.”) The experienced Amazon consumer would, based on the picture currently presented, assume that all seven of the 5-star reviews were posted by my mother. And the 1-star review was the only “honest” review.

Wow. What a catastrophe.

I am hereby going on the record and coming clean about those eight WICKED COOL reviews. I am personally acquainted with one, but only one, of the people who posted a 5-star review. Three more, however, are very kind and interested internet friends. So four of the really good reviews you can, perhaps, dismiss. (If you must.) The other three? I have no idea who those people are.

I also have no idea who the 1-star reviewer is, unfortunately.

I’ll tell you why I care: 9 times out of 10, I choose the books I buy based on customer reviews. So the idea that people are going to dismiss ALL the good reviews of  WICKED COOL and only believe the bad is turning me pale.

What to Expect when you E-Pub

I have never understood how books find readers.

If you are a reader, you probably pictured it the other way round: readers finding books. But as an author, I’m here to tell you, books find readers. They reach out to you with their attention-grabbing cover art, their carefully-chosen titles, even (eventually) the author’s name — once the author has sold enough books. In the world of print publishing, sometimes the author’s name is, itself, chosen to attract you. Julia Quinn, for example, invented her pen name to place her books on the shelf next to Amanda Quick, an already-established author writing in her sub-genre. It worked so well that newer authors now vie for the honor of being shelved next to Julia Quinn. And so on.

It helped, of course, that Julia Quinn’s books were terrific. But I digress.

More thought, preparation and money goes into crafting the look and feel of a book than readers can possibly imagine. Cover artists are routinely paid more than authors. Marketing people argue and brainstorm for hours, I am told, figuring out how to ensure that this particular book reaches its audience — the people who, all unwittingly, are destined to enjoy it most. However true the adage may be that you can’t judge a book by its cover, you do. We all do. And it is an important part of a publisher’s job to design and market each book in such a way that it efficiently telegraphs its essence at a glance. How do they do this?

I don’t know.

Publishers do not hawk books the same way other businesses hawk toothpaste, beer, or automobiles. Because you, Gentle Reader, would not buy a book based on an advertisement you saw on TV or in a magazine. You buy the books your friends urge you to read, or — better yet — you wander the aisles of a bookstore or library until some lucky book catches your eye and your interest. You pause. Pick it up. Turn it over and read the back cover copy (over which many people have sweated, unseen and unsung). Based on what you see there, perhaps you open the book and glance at the first paragraph. And then you either return the book to the shelf or … and this is the moment for which so many, from the author to the clerk behind the counter, have labored and longed … kismet. You fall in love.

It’s a mysterious, and oddly intimate, process. We have a relationship with the books we read. Reading them requires a commitment — first of money, then of time, an even more precious commodity. Buying a book is a very big deal.

So now we come to the brave new world of e-publishing. No wonder traditional publishers are flummoxed. And authors even more so! In the old days — you know, two or three years ago — all an author had to do was write a book and hand it over, then get out of the way. Now the last thing they want you to do is get out of the way. Quite the contrary. Your publisher now wants you to help market the book. Probably because (I suspect) they no longer know how. The old tricks don’t work in e-publishing. There are no shelves of carefully-grouped, alphabetized authors labeled ROMANCE, WESTERNS, CLASSICS, GENL FICTION. There is a website.

Oh, dear. Better have the author pitch in.

Market the book! What a disaster. I am among the majority of authors, I think, who not only have no clue how to market a book, but actually shudder at the prospect. My circle of family and friends is numerically limited, after all. If each and every one of them bought a copy — or even two — I’d still have no hope of hitting the NYT list. So what’s the point of badgering them? For heaven’s sake, let me leave them alone. And if you don’t mean for me to hawk the darn thing to my friends and family, what on earth are you asking me to do? Go door to door? Rent a sound truck? Hand out flyers in airports? And if I did, why would total strangers listen or care??

No, indeed, the entire prospect is repulsive. Please do not ask me to market my books. I’d rather not sell any books at all. In fact, I’m going to hide under my desk and refuse to answer the phone. Somebody else go out and market my books, please. Not me.

But a funny thing happened while I was cowering beneath the desk. People started buying Wicked Cool.

Quick recap: Cerridwen Press released Wicked Cool in May of last year as an e-book. The rights reverted to me at the end of December, and I brought it out through CreateSpace in a nice, glossy print-on-demand version. I forget what Cerridwen Press charged, but it was more than I wished they would. And CreateSpace has rules to guarantee that they don’t lose money when they print and ship books (and pay the author a royalty). So, basically, my friends and family (and a few others, I admit) have been shelling out $8 to $12 for Wicked Cool.

Along about  March of this year, I released a Kindle version — you know, in the spirit of “why not?” It was absurdly easy. Since Amazon and CreateSpace are linked, I was able to use the cover art from the print edition. The most difficult part of the experience was deciding what to charge. A very kind friend on Facebook urged me to sell it for the lowest possible price. The lowest price Amazon would let me set was 99 cents.

I thought long and hard about that. Did I really want to sell a book — a work that took years of my life — for 99 cents?! My friend assured me that yes, that’s exactly what I wanted to do. (During this conversation, I believe the name “Amanda Hocking” was bandied about.) Apparently 99 cents is what people nowadays expect to pay for things. And (my friend explained) it is such a low price that readers who have never heard of you will roll the dice and buy your book. Because, after all, it’s only 99 cents. That’s throwaway money.

My objections to this ridiculously-low price were twofold. One was the obvious — it hurt my pride to sell one of my darlings for throwaway money. The other was, all the people I really cared about on Planet Earth who were going to buy my book had already bought it, and they had paid a heckuva lot more than 99 cents. So I cringed at the thought of insulting them by suddenly offering Wicked Cool to the masses for so much less than they had paid.

My compromise? I decided to wait until the anniversary of the book’s initial release. Once the book has been out for a year (I reasoned), it wouldn’t be so bad to drop the price. Since I’m working on a sequel, I thought it might even be good marketing strategy. Not that I actually have a marketing strategy, or know beans about marketing, but hey, any strategy is better than none. Maybe.

So there the book sat: Available, but unheralded. It was March. I let it lie there, quietly, in the corner of Amazon’s Kindle store, thinking it could gather dust while I waited for May. Not that I had a plan for May, really, apart from finally confessing to my near and dear that I had done this. Maybe adding it to my email signature. Announcing it to a few folks on Facebook. That’s about the extent of my marketing muscle.

The first week it was available, six people bought it. I figured the few people I had mentioned it to had sought it out. Although six seemed a little high.

The next week, three more copies were sold. Then four, then three again, then six. By this time, I felt puzzled. Gratified, you know, but puzzled. How on earth were these people finding it?? I supposed there must be a coterie of people who noodle around Amazon the way people used to noodle around bookstores. I found this amusing, but heartening. Sure, this particular bookstore had over ten million books on the shelves, but with so many customers, apparently even my humble offering was sparking a certain amount of interest. I pictured my sales like background radiation on a Geiger counter: sput. Sput-sput. Sput.

When six people bought it the next week, it still seemed random to me — it didn’t occur to me that my numbers had, you know, suddenly doubled. But the next week, fifteen copies sold. And that caught my attention. Fifteen?! I was flabbergasted. This must be how Amanda Hocking felt, I realized, dazed. There was no earthly reason why fifteen people should have suddenly purchased my book.

Oh, wait a minute. Now it was May, the anniversary month I’d been waiting for. Time to “launch.” (Insert hollow laughter.) So I mentioned it on Facebook. That’s all I’ve done so far; no Twitter campaign, no blogathon (whatever that is), no change to my email signature yet — just a single Facebook mention. And I think — though I can’t be sure — that two people from Facebook bought it. Just two.

Then I checked my sales figures for this week. They have quadrupled. Oh, wait — I just checked them again. More than quadrupled. People are buying Wicked Cool at an unsustainable rate, surely, but good heavens — I am going to receive actual royalties from this thing.

Is it a fluke? Or worse, a joke? Has Amazon made an accounting error? What on earth is going on?? I rushed to Google, as I always do when I need answers. Nope, no new reviews. No discernible buzz. No overnight outpouring on any Googleable message boards.

So what should you expect when you e-pub? I thought I knew the answer to that one: Nothing. I still think it’s best to expect nothing. Anything you get is gravy — that’s Rule No. 1 when writing a book, and always has been. They used to tell you to write for the love of it, expecting nothing, because there was no guarantee that it would get published. Now you have the power to guarantee that much all by yourself. It’s the sales you can’t control.

How do books find readers? How do readers find books? I still don’t know. I may never know. It remains as mysterious, and as fascinating, as True Love. People manage to find books the way they manage to find marriage partners. We stumble through life toward Destiny, until Destiny overtakes us. We wander through the bookstore, or click idly through Amazon, or whatever the heck we do, and then … suddenly … ahh. There it is. Our next read.

It’s just weird.

Note: Wicked Cool sold thousands of copies that summer and made me a believer. I apologize to anyone I called an “amateur” in The Truth About E-books.

Oops, I forgot

A couple of kind friends have pointed out to me that I promised I would blog about it when Wicked Cool was finally available in print. And then, um, I didn’t.

Oops.

Okay, everybody — it’s out! And available here: Wicked Cool by Diane Farr

CreateSpace is affiliated with Amazon.com, so you can also order it here if you prefer: Wicked Cool at Amazon

Thanks for asking, and thanks for reminding me, Diana and Bethany!

The Seven Habits of Has-Beens

(First published January 2011 in the ROMANCE WRITERS’ REPORT)

Please forgive the rather sensational title. We all know that, in this business, there’s no such thing as a “Has-Been.” Anyone who has rung the bell is perfectly capable of ringing it again.

That being said, a few of us have been swinging mightily on the rope for some time now, with no corresponding carillon breaking out overhead. And amid the deafening silence, doubts creep in. It’s impossible not to wonder: Am I a Has-Been?

I hope this question is not keeping you awake at night. If your career is humming along quite nicely, thank you, you have my permission to skim this article. I will not even take it amiss if you pat yourself on the back and move on. But if you are still climbing the path to publication, or have newly arrived, you may find it useful. In a cautionary way.

I am addressing RWA members who fall into neither of those categories. They are neither newbies, nor are they “humming along.” They form a lonely, neglected subset of RWA’s membership: the “Once-Successful Authors.”

These authors are not unsuccessful. They are PAN members. Some were RITA nominees in the not-so-distant past. Some may have even won that coveted statuette and doubtless polish it daily to remind themselves of their glory days.

But the glory days have come and gone.

Once-Successful Authors attend conferences with a rather forced air of nonchalance, greeting their successful friends with strained smiles. They look … hungry. Some of them seem bewildered and depressed. Others are raucous, defiant and devil-may-care. None of them are fooling anybody. They once were in, and now, for whatever reason, they’re out. And everybody knows it.

Do not blame these authors if they seem to be in a state of denial. It’s difficult to gauge whether you are, in fact, a Has-Been. You may be experiencing a mere bump in the road. Perhaps you will quickly resume your meteoric rise. Everyone knows that if a Once-Successful Author is brilliant—and lucky—the glory days return. Many of the Once-Successful Authors you saw smiling through gritted teeth at the last RWA will recover their aplomb by the next conference. But some of them won’t.

Because some of them are Has-Beens. And, absent a miracle, they will never get published again.

If you suspect that you may be a Has-Been—or if you wish to avoid becoming one—check yourself for these seven habits. It only takes one or two of them to derail your career. If you have all seven habits, congratulations! You must be a terrific writer. Otherwise, no one would have published you in the first place.

GREED

Are your advances inadequate? Are they so low, in fact, that they are practically insulting? Patience, grasshopper.  If you have been underpaid for your masterpieces, your books will quickly earn out and bring you mucho dinero down the road. You will also get another contract, because your numbers will look really, really good.

And if this doesn’t happen—if your books do not earn out quickly, or at all— alas, grasshopper, you were wrong about the value of your work, and your stingy publisher was right.

This is a bitter pill to swallow, so you will still (probably) blame your publisher. And you may be justified in doing so, for any number of reasons. The Powers That Be may have given you a print run so tiny that it was mathematically impossible for your book to earn out. They may have given you a hideous cover, and/or priced the book wrong, and/or misinformed the market about the nature of your book, thus ensuring that it was inadequately ordered and improperly shelved. And if your publisher has, in fact, underpaid you, stupidly shot itself in the foot, robbed itself—and you—of a surefire bestseller, and sabotaged your career? Still I caution you: patience.

Your author friends will tell you that a big advance would have forced the publisher to support your book. Under this theory, your wonderful book went down in flames because your advance was small. Well, maybe. But a big advance can also be a career-killer. We all know authors who received enviable advances for books that were respectably received—good books, books that sold well—but “respectable” and “well” won’t get you another contract if your advance was “enviable.” So beware.

I know you feel restless and resentful. You would dearly love to jump ship and write for that publisher your author friends rave about, the one with the clear career path and the fabulous, supportive editors and the terrific marketing. Nevertheless, don’t abandon the ship you are on unless you actually see that other ship off the starboard bow, signaling you. And even then, wear a life jacket.

And a wet suit. Because it’s mighty cold down in those waters, if you jump off one ship and fail to land in the other.

LAZINESS

Do you wait for inspiration to strike … and wait and wait and wait? Has-Beens (and authors on their way to becoming Has-Beens) often tell themselves that they work better under pressure. They play “chicken” with deadlines, never rolling up their sleeves until it’s all-but-impossible to finish the work on time. They fritter their lives away on Facebook and twitter them away on, well, Twitter. They make excuses. They read instead of write, and call it research. Watch TV instead of write, and call it research. Garden instead of write, and call it recharging their batteries. Blog instead of write, and call it building a platform. They do anything, anything, other than write. And in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter what they call these various distractions, because they have no product to sell.

If you recognize yourself in this pattern, what’s really paralyzing you may not be laziness, per se. You may be blocked with fear—fear of success or fear of failure; it really doesn’t matter. Fear is fear. Or you may be suffering depression. It would be cruel to chide you if your palms sweat at the thought of writing. That’s not laziness. But if the behavior is the same, the result will be the same: no product.

The bottom line: If you don’t find a way through whatever is standing between you and that keyboard, your career will founder.

RUDENESS

This habit really shines at RWA’s national conference. The other rude things you’ve done this year—the snarky phone messages to your editor, the snarkier emails to your agent, that time you stood up your writer friend because you had a better invitation from a more famous writer friend—that’s small potatoes. Put you in a hotel with two thousand compatriots and you can really go to town. You can cut ahead of people in line. “Save” the elevator. Monopolize conversations. Complain about all the walking. Complain about the schedule. Complain about the food. Complain, complain, complain. Wear perfume, because since nobody else is wearing perfume, your little ol’ perfume can’t possibly hurt. When the stack of free books has dwindled to a handful, take two anyway, because if other people wanted one they should have shown up earlier. Then choose a moment to look around a huge room teeming with writers and wonder (aloud): “Why are there so many fat people here?” (Because writing is a sedentary occupation, you nasty little …!! – But I digress.)

You’ll be the talk of the conference. And isn’t that really what RWA is for?

No, seriously, you need to get a handle on this career-killing habit. Don’t alienate people who can make or break you in this business, or your star will fizzle out, and fizzle fast.

BLABBING

Gosh, it’s fun to be “in the know.” Once-Successful Authors know a lot of things. Even if you are on the very fringes of publishing, you can easily find writer friends who are farther out of the loop than you are. Sometimes you can actually be useful to these other writers, act as a mentor and so forth—but isn’t it more fun to just, well, gossip? They’ll hang on your every syllable as you relate the juicy details of your editor’s messy divorce or your agent’s gall bladder disease. Be sure to tell them who just got fired, and why, over at Publisher X. Remember, you’re talking to nobodies. It’ll never get back to your editor, or your agent, or the poor soul who just got fired at Publisher X (but is about to become a mover and shaker over at Publisher Y). They’ll never know that you spread tales about them or laughed at their misfortune. Right?

Riiiiight.

UNRELIABILITY

Has-Beens make promises they do not keep. They are late for appointments. They are slow to respond to emails. They forget to call back. They miss deadlines.

They let people down.

If you are new to the world of publishing, your agent and editor may chalk it up to inexperience and help you find your feet. But once your unreliability becomes identified as a habit, watch out. Your agent probably has other clients, clients who do not embarrass him. Clients for whom she does not have to apologize or make excuses. Your agent has a career of his/her own, and a reputation to maintain in the industry, and your bad habit may be dragging your agent down. Meanwhile, your editor will quickly weary of the chaos that follows in your wake as your unreliability forces other projects to be juggled and rejuggled.

Don’t embarrass your agent. Don’t inconvenience your editor. Each time you do, you will be pushed farther and farther outside their circle of trust.

PRIDE

Everybody knows how hard it is to get published. When you reach that pinnacle, it may go to your head. This is a delightful sensation, and at first people will tolerate your giddy boasting because it’s kind of cute. Also because they hope to be there someday (or have been there themselves) and trust that others will tolerate it when it’s their turn.

Just don’t let it become a habit.

Yes, you rock. Yes, your work is fabulous and you are receiving fan mail and your family is proud of you and your friends throw parties for you and on and on and on. Some of the fan mail is gratifyingly gushy. You have touched the hearts of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of readers. You have comforted the grieving, lifted deep depressions, ministered to the dying and the sad and the anxious and the bored. But you’d better get over yourself, because a lot of other romance writers have stood where you’re standing. The ones who got right back to work are still standing there. The ones who rested on their laurels? Well, they’re probably Has-Beens.

INGRATITUDE

It’s no secret that an attitude of gratitude is key to earthly happiness. Yet somehow, in our careers, we fail to perceive its importance. In fact, we are suspicious of it. Nobody wants to be a pushover. If you are thankful for whatever you receive, won’t you receive less?

Maybe so. Maybe not. Niceness can get you pretty far in life. Publishing houses may be faceless monoliths, but they are run by people. Your manuscripts will be read by individuals. Decisions on whether to buy your manuscript—or not—will be made by individuals. Don’t these people deserve your thanks? They are investing their time and effort and a lot of careful thought. Even if they say no, don’t you want them to feel a sense of regret as they turn you down? Thank them. Show a little appreciation.

This is not rocket science, folks. Be somebody that other people want to work with. Be an author that editors wish they could buy. Yes, this is largely dependent on the work you submit, but people are only human. All things being equal—and remember, judgments about art are subjective, so all things are never equal—they will want to choose a manuscript written by a nice person instead of a manuscript written by a person who is a pain in the neck. Which is why, if you are habitually a pain in the neck, you may be already be a Has-Been.

So there you have it. The Seven Habits: Greed, Laziness, Rudeness, Blabbing, Unreliability, Pride and Ingratitude. Everyone probably exhibits these unpleasant traits from time to time, but if you do a little soul-searching and discover that one or two (or more) are becoming habits of yours, I urge you to take a few deep, calming breaths and reassess your priorities.

How badly do you want this writing career? You’ve put an awful lot into it. Why sabotage it with your own careless habits?

Some of the seven habits run in packs. Rudeness, for example, is often paired with Blabbing. Laziness and Unreliability go hand-in-hand. The trick is to ferret out these nasty little career-killers and nip them in the bud.

The first step in curing any bad habit is to recognize that it is a habit. Once you are on the look-out for it, you’ll catch yourself in the act—repeatedly, much to your chagrin. Do not despair. An awareness of what you are doing is an irritating, but necessary, part of the cure. Now that you are aware of the pattern in yourself, you will consciously begin to correct it as it occurs. Eventually you will correct it before it occurs. And finally, it will stop occurring—or at least will stop habitually occurring. (Remember, these are human traits that everyone exhibits occasionally.)

Good luck, and get going! And one final word: if you never find yourself at the top again, you should still hold your head high and smile. Because it’s still better to be a Has-Been than a Never-Was.