How hard is it to write a book

[tidlywinksthebarbershop]

Tell me your struggles everything

@Witchend thanks, that's interesting to hear how it worked for you.

When I start writing again (I'm ill at the moment) I'll give it a go.

Thanks again for the tips!

In truth, I haven’t found it difficult but haven’t really gone a traditional route. When I was writing my first, I was rejected by two publishers because it didn’t fit with their markets.
My daughter pointed out I was enjoying writing it, so I should count it as a hobby during lockdown and not fret about publication. One of the rejections told me it was well written and to invest in the artist and writers yearbook to find the right publishing house and guide my approach to them. It worked.
I met with them in about March and then was offered a contract for a book series. All four titles are currently with graphic designer and should be published in January/February 2021.
It wasn’t difficult writing them at all, it was fun. Then again they were non-fiction and in an area I know very well.

Currently, I am talking with another publisher about a semi-biographical fiction book. The MD of the house advised me not to go via an agent for a number of reasons. His advice was to get a foothold with the editors directly as, on the whole, publishers preferred not to work through agents. This is one of the biggest U.K. publishers, so I trust his view.
No idea whether it will go anywhere, but it’s just writing down a story really. It’s changed a bit as I get further in, but basically the storyline was in my head before I started committing to paper.

I certainly haven’t had to make much in the way of changes to the four non-fiction titles. The copy editor is pickup typos and standardising grammar.

My guess is that if it’s not fun or interesting to write, it probably doesn’t have much reader appeal. That is a guess though as it’s all very new to me. I’ve never done a course and didn’t do English above A level. I like words though and writing (albeit a very different type of writing) is an integral part of my substantive role.

His advice was to get a foothold with the editors directly as, on the whole, publishers preferred not to work through agents. This is one of the biggest U.K. publishers, so I trust his view.

That makes no sense. Most editors won't even read anything that hasn't been submitted via an agent who has pre-vetted the MS and decided that it's saleable and which editors would be interested. You get the occasional open submission or a reputable indie who will accept unagented fiction submissions, but that's not the norm.

Academic or technical publishing is different, obviously -- my agent doesn't represent my academic writing, just my fiction, and for my academic work I have a direct relationship with my publisher, who commissioned a book and the two series I'm general editor of.

I certainly haven’t had to make much in the way of changes to the four non-fiction titles. The copy editor is pickup typos and standardising grammar.

That's standard for academic/technical copy-editing. Having your novel edited can be more like 'Get rid of the subplot set in the past and write an entirely new section to fill that space, cut the dialect, which really isn't working, fix the saggy middle by taking out the big dinner party scene, the villain needs more backstory, oh, and rewrite the entire thing in third person'.

Made sense to me - it's being looked at simultaneously by three publishers - the one who talked to me and two he knows who deal in that market.

The one who advised me was from one of five largest UK publishers. I can only say what my experience has been. Might well be rejected, I know, but seemed as easy as going via an agent.

The yearbook was a game changer in terms of finding the right people to talk to for both professional non-fiction and fiction.

My problem is reigning my ideas in. I have a plot outline but my characters wander off and start all sorts of sub-plots of their own volition. Then I forget who is getting up to what. I need more focus, organisation and discipline. And a better memory. I'm losing the plot. Literally.

@youkiddingme have you tried writing faster? Even if it's shit, just get it all out. Sometimes I'll write a second book at the same time as my main one and only do 1k a day on it and I struggle with that too. It's much easier to remember something you wrote that happened 5 days ago than 30 days ago.

Thanks for the suggestion @themental, I do write as much as I can daily but perhaps I should have said I have memory problems due to brain damage, so I suppose trying to write is a bit ambitious maybe overly so, but I'm enjoying having a go.

The level of difficulty depends on the individual person.

I for one, find it pretty difficult. It is not because I don’t have ideas that I am passionate about or that I am not a good enough writer. The problem is that I have too many ideas floating around in my head. I start one idea and have the desire to start a new idea before the first was completed.

@CherryPavlova how on earth are books you wrote in lockdown being published in the new year? Publishing schedules are incredibly long and this just couldn't be the case.

Also the thing about publishers not wanting to work with agents is absolute bullshit! For anyone reading and wanting to be traditionally published, you need an agent.

BahHumPug. Thanks for such a nice post. Shows how well informed you aren’t.
The series was due for publication about now but delayed slightly due to lockdown. I agreed the cover design this week, have the necessary endorsements and we’re on target for end of January for all four to be released with two in pipeline. It was direct submission to the publisher- the third I approached as first two weren’t in right field. I’ve no reason to doubt the publisher.

The other project is fiction. I met virtually for a drink with the ex MD of HC’s, who had kindly agreed to read first couple of chapters to determine whether it ‘had legs’. His advice was not to go through an agent as they are an unnecessary percentage. He agreed it did have legs and will put it before a couple of appropriate editors when I’ve done a bit more. It’s harder than non-fiction, so may take longer to complete.
I’ve no reason to doubt his expertise either. Not only was he the MD of a large publishing house, but his ex wife is half of a very well known psychological thriller author. She concurs that it isn’t necessary to have an agent to start with. I can see no reason why they’d give poor advice.

BahHumPug very happy to send you a link to the first four when they’re available to purchase. I think the main text is likely to sell for around £37 - worth every penny, so I’d encourage a purchase.
Then you can let me have your address to forward a slice of humble pie.

MY husband doesn’t have an agent either and he has a contract with John Catt. Most of those I know personally who have written books don’t have agents.

Depends what sort of book I should think. I work in Critical Care and I intend to write a book about Covid 19. In fact I've already started on Wuhan and the initial wave. The trick , and its not easy, is to make it readable. To prompt the reader to turn the next page.

Lol ok sure, classic publishing model to release all at once 😂 £37 a totally normal and reasonable price point too. A good old round number of six books confirmed no less, without a sales track! Of course!

@BahHumPug

Lol ok sure, classic publishing model to release all at once 😂 £37 a totally normal and reasonable price point too. A good old round number of six books confirmed no less, without a sales track! Of course!

Hah. Bitterness and cynicism are such unattractive traits, don’t you think? Blinkers and lack of peripheral vision because of blinkers is so limiting.

Do you take your humble pie with cream?

I don’t fix the prices. Main text around the £37 mark, others will vary in price. I don’t get that, obviously. I’m on 9% to start with and increased percentage of higher sales numbers reached.

Only four in January. I’ve barely started the other two.

Trust me, I ain't bitter. I'm an actual writer 😂

Cynical when it comes to your claims? 100%. Which publisher releases FOUR books by the same (unknown) author all at once?

Also my agent got me much higher than 9% 😇

CherryPavlova is the same poster who got busted posting photos of "her house" which turned out to be photos stolen from the website of a hotel in France. Who has posted a thousand and one outlandish claims about her extraordinary perfect fairytale life, involving being simultaneously at the very top of half a dozen different A-list careers, while running a perfect fairtytale village, raising an indeterminate number of children who are all prima ballerina-medical students who have never for a second been anything less than perfectly behaved, being best friends with any number of celebrities and world leaders, etc. etc.

Cherry claiming that she started writing as a hobby during lockdown and within a matter of months wrote and published four-five books through a major publisher without an agent (during the same time period she's previously claimed to have been a member of Boris Johnson's COVID taskforce and one of the first people in the UK to have tested positive for COVID) isn't even the most outlandish claim she's made.

I earn a living as a writer and am represented by Curtis Brown and published by Random House. Not a single word of any of Cherry's posts here represent the reality of how the publishing industry works and there are major errors in her posts like confusing graphic designers with illustrators. Literally any writer or anyone who works in publishing will say the same.

Round of applause for @PizzzaExpressWoking, who speaks the absolute truth 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Read with interest. In my day job I am an editor at an indie publisher and we take a mix of agented and non-agented material (non fiction). We can occasionally turn things around fast from being commissioned but even then the shortest time would still be upwards of 8 months. Normally a year plus. Publishing has sales cycles.

@PizzzaExpressWoking

CherryPavlova is the same poster who got busted posting photos of "her house" which turned out to be photos stolen from the website of a hotel in France. Who has posted a thousand and one outlandish claims about her extraordinary perfect fairytale life, involving being simultaneously at the very top of half a dozen different A-list careers, while running a perfect fairtytale village, raising an indeterminate number of children who are all prima ballerina-medical students who have never for a second been anything less than perfectly behaved, being best friends with any number of celebrities and world leaders, etc. etc.

Cherry claiming that she started writing as a hobby during lockdown and within a matter of months wrote and published four-five books through a major publisher without an agent (during the same time period she's previously claimed to have been a member of Boris Johnson's COVID taskforce and one of the first people in the UK to have tested positive for COVID) isn't even the most outlandish claim she's made.

I earn a living as a writer and am represented by Curtis Brown and published by Random House. Not a single word of any of Cherry's posts here represent the reality of how the publishing industry works and there are major errors in her posts like confusing graphic designers with illustrators. Literally any writer or anyone who works in publishing will say the same.

Mind, with a life like that she maybe should write fiction...

What book has an RRP of £37 unless it’s an academic or professional book?

I’m an author with one of the big five publishers in the U.K. and U.S. I know a lot of authors. I don’t know a single one without an agent.

I found the first draft of my first book quite easy to write. I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I aimed to simply write a book to see if I could do it; I thought of it as practise and I carved out time every day to write. I do find that when you start a book, you’re filled with energy and enthusiasm and can get a lot done but the pace, for me anyway, does slow and I get very bogged down around the 40,000 word mark - too far in to give up, too far from the end to see a light ahead!

For a first draft, the key is to just keep going to the end. When you have that done, editing is far easier. I really rate Stephen King’s On Writing which is very insightful into the writing process and full of useful advice. I don’t write in a similar style or genre to King at all but I still go back to this guide every time I write for a refresher and it’s invaluable. For advice on how to structure a really compelling plot, I’d thoroughly recommend Save The Cat! It helped me through my second novel when I suffered very much from the ‘difficult second novel’ curse.

Writing once I had a book deal actually became much harder. Then I knew that someone was definitely going to read it, I had deadlines and I had pressure. But the only way to write a book is one word at a time. You have to keep showing up and keep writing. Switch off the critical voice in your head that tells you it’s crap and just write. My mantra is always ‘I can fix it in the edit’. Often, the bits I think are the worst when I’m writing them are a lot better than I remember when I come back to them later.

Writing is a craft. It takes practise. Find a group of supportive writer buddies if you can - look for FB groups or on Twitter and find motivation and solidarity to keep going.

The more you read, the better a writer you will be. When I’m writing a novel, I prefer to read outside my genre so that I don’t constantly compare myself. Reading widely gives you an innate understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

Every writer suffers crises of confidence and thinks about throwing in the towel at various points in the writing process. First drafts are very hard but I promise it gets a lot easier once you’re through that stage. Good luck!

sorry but the cherrypavlova take down is hilarious!