Lean Publishing

What do you get when you distill modern book business through the structure of tech startups? You get Lean Publishing, a means by which a writer can look at book production as a profit-building exercise. You won't find any writing tips or methods for overcoming writer's block in this manifesto. Peter Armstrong has produced a plan that puts people with an idea on the same path of Angry Birds, rather than the traditional route of finding a literary agent.

Every problem looks like a problem with the pipes when you ask a plumber, and Lean Publishing is much the same case. Armstrong's background is in a web development and architecture start-up, so fixing the problem of developing a profitable book, of course, looks like something to be solved the web start-up way. Many of the terms and ideas sound very foreign to somebody who has no connection to that world, but there is one advantage to the language of VC start-ups. "Creatives" are the people for whom the start-up system was built, and the methods for navigating a start-up are suited towards directing creative people through business minefields. There's a reason that much of the internet was created by art majors who quickly hired a CFO once checks started coming in: a creative founder needs that sort of help to reach a profitable end.

As such, the people who can benefit the most from Lean Publishing are the people stuck on the traditional publishing path. The process requires giving up the usual process of getting words onto paper, and introduces the scary idea of making ideas available to readers (and the competition) before the text is complete. The Blooker Prize was a bit ahead of its time in recognizing that a worthy book could come from the web. The success of Julie and Julia, the 2006 Blooker winner, should have inspired more in that direction, but taking that route to publishing lacked the roadmap to such success. Lean Publishing hopes to brandish a machete and clear that road, blazing a new path to long-form writing success through the methods that built the internet into what it is today.

(Via.)

Be an Author, in 5 Difficult Steps

After the wise advice earlier today, I found this tale of woe and pain. Writer Robert Brockway published his book Everything is Going to Kill Everybody after following his Five Incredibly Difficult Steps to become an author. I'm at step 3, "Doing an Assload of Research". Brockway's article has taught me a truism that had never occurred to me, yet seems to make so much sense: LeVar Burton is a dirty motherfucking liar.

Tips To Write a Book

You may already know that the reason my blogs have suffered for the past 18 months is because I'm writing a book. I don't have much to say about it just yet, because I've done a lot of research, but I don't exactly know what it's about yet. Some days I freak out over that fact, afraid that I cannot actually write something until I already have it all figured out, but I do my best to keep on track. The best thing lately that lets me stay on track is to hear about how many successul authors get their books written. They pretty much all boil down to: write even if it sucks, freakouts are normal, and books take a really long time to write do don't give up.

History Vs. Historical Fiction

I have been researching a historical event for some time now, and I think I can make a book of it. However, I was having trouble coming up with a way to do it: do I write a non-fiction book using truthful historical facts, or do I turn it into a historical novel where I can make a better, but untruthful, narrative? Guy Vanderhaeghe has an essay on how history and fiction fit together, which has given me more to think about.

Bad Sex In Fiction, 2008

The results are in: John Updike has been titled the Laureate of bad sex writing, and author Rachel Johnson picked up the grand prize for having composed the absolute worst description of a sexual encounter during the past year at the Bad Sex In Fiction awards, courtesy the UK's The Literary Review. The award, of course, is all in good fun — anything can sound lame if taken out of context — and this years' winner, Shire Hell, quite clearly identifies itself as satire, so the amount of earnest effort put in doesn't seem to count for or against you. Johnson at least has the ability to fall back on the assertion that she was trying to write amusing sex. I don't know what excuse Updike has.

Neal Stephenson And Writing

The Onion AV Club has an informational interview with Neal Stephenson, author of some of the heaviest — both literally and figuratively — science fiction novels in recent years. While none of it is earth-shaking, he talks more about the research and tasks of writing than the writing itself. It's refreshingly job-like, unlike the reliance of authors on announcing their unbridled creativity. I will say I don't particularly like Stephenson's work; I've read Zodiac and The Diamond Age, both of which start promising but end with whimpers. His description of his prepatory work may explain that. Neither of the two I've read are advertised as crowning achievements, so I may have to try on the copy of Snow Crash that's on my shelf and see if it is any better.

NaNoWriMo Is Here!

As with most years, I spend the run-up to November 1st trying to come up with something to do for the celebration, but usually take a pass. It's National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to laymen like us. You've already missed your first eleven hours: starting at 12:01am today, you start writing about 1,700 words a day, until you've got a manuscript. No, it's not a finished book, and nobody's paying you for it, but it's the most important step in getting to a finished book or being published. Everyone talks about the story they've got knocking around in their head, and how someday, someway, it's going to be published and it'll be a big seller. Problem is, your list looks like something out of South Park:

1. Desire to write novel
   
2. (to be figured out later)
   
3. Profit!

Fortunately for procrastinators like you, NaNoWriMo forces Step 2 to be started: actually writing the damn thing. You're not going to have a publisher-ready manuscript when you're done, but it will be something you can work with. At that point, if you're just so happy to be done that you want to show it off, upload it to LuLu, mail it in to the Blooker, serialize it online, get it out there. Or, maybe it'll spur you into motion and you'll discover, hey, this really is a book, and you'll find yourself a trustworthy editor who'll hone the edges and make it ready to go to an agent or publisher. You can't get that far unless you start Step 2. If there were ever a day to do it, today is that day. Don't be like me: open Wordpad, get yourself started, and make this 10th NaNoWriMo the one that gets you moving!

12-Word Novels

On The Media, an NPR program I, regretfully, rarely have the chance to listen to, had an excellent contest: write an entire novel in 12 words. A NaNoWriMo project looks like a library of encyclopedias compared to these brief stories. My favorite:

"My sister had written Father's obituary. He is survived by one daughter."
By Brenda J. Wolfe.

You can also see many, many other submissions in the contest's discussion area.

How To Write A Book

Berkun offers some straight-forward statements on book writing: it's just writing, and as long as you're not trying to be a millionaire or get a big contract, getting published isn't that big of a deal, either. The devil's in the details, of course: self-publishing needs the proper steps, small publishers aren't always the nicest to their authors, and the mechanics of putting a book together can be tedious.

What's lost in Berkun's post is that people who want to be a writer actually need to produce a manuscript. This is a distinct difference -- a book is ink-and-paper, a manuscript is the writer's words. Writers need to be encouraged to write a manuscript. Once that's done, then worry about getting the book published. Amateur writers get ahead of themselves, concentrating on the book's sales and production, even before they write a thing. Most published writers have their manuscript done long before they think about publishing it...and some manuscripts, completely written and edited, end up in a drawer and don't ever see the light. Writers write -- get that done first. Don't even bother with the 'how to get published!' books at Barnes & Noble. Learn how to write, and the publishing part will come easier. Publishers hate nothing more than an author who can't write worth a damn, regardless if you follow the 15 Easy Steps To Getting Published book to a tee. The most common tip from a published writer is "write something every day," but amateurs wonder, "isn't that wasting time -- when do I start writing my book, then?" The answer: the writing every day IS a book. Maybe it won't ever be published, maybe it won't come out on paper in book form, but it's words. That's Berkun's most important point: "A book is just a bunch of writing." Write without intentions, and a book will appear. If a book is just a bunch of writing, you need a bunch of writing first. A house is just a pile of boards, a computer is just a bunch of circuit boards, a car is just a bunch of metal and plastic. None become what they are unless someone puts them together.