Writing Update Tuesday!
Inevitably if people find out you’re working on a novel (and I’m not necessarily being shy about it be posting internet updates each week) they ask what you’re going to do with it i.e. are you going to publish it?
Well, publishing a book isn’t really up to me. Unless I go with self-publishing (which I have serious reservations about) I am at the hands of literary agents and publishers. The best I can do is write a good story and spend a lot of time querying.
I’m still on the stage of writing a good story. But yes, if I do that, I’ll spend a lot of time querying.
I found an article last week that shed some light on young adult authors and their debut work. The writer did a survey that looked at 48 trade published YA authors to get gather some data for the rest of us going in blind. A few of the conclusions:
- It took about 70% of young adult authors four or more years to publish their first book.
- Half of young adult writers wrote four or more drafts of their story before it was accepted for publication.
- Most young adult authors are rejected by publishers before their manuscript is accepted for publication. In fact, 8.5% receive more than 100 rejections.
- In other words, young adult authors write 4.4 stories (including their sell) on average before their debut payday.
- 50% of published young adult authors made less than $10,000 last year. Only the top 11% made $50,000 or more.
- 73% of young adult novels debuts were published with the help of an agent.
- Twenty-five percent of published young adult authors are rejected over 100 times before signing with an agent.
- A third of authors sell their first story more than six months after signing with an agent.
This confirms what I’ve already known: writing needs to be done for writing’s sake. It is comforting though to expect failure when I get to the beginning of a publishing process. Practice and persistence. And keep my day job.
I haven’t done a good long writing session this week but I’ve managed to write in short bursts, with my minimum of a sentence a day. Here are my last sentences from this past week:
- 4/9: The dad, some days, like today, I think Mason misses too.
- 4/10: Mason comes out of his room as I slip the tray into the oven.
- 4/11: And as an afterthought, “Merry Christmas.”
- 4/12: Give them ten minutes.
- 4/13: He nods to the package on top of the fridge.
- 4/14: There’s an address written on the backside of the note along with a telephone number.
- 4/15: Jules wanted you to have this.
With Love,
Natalie