The Elements of a Writing Career
Writing is just writing. A writing career, however, encompasses so much more than that. Here are the basic elements of a writing career:
Research: Perhaps your character works in a profession that you know nothing about. Or maybe your setting is someplace you’ve never been. Maybe you research floor plans because you have difficulty describing your character’s apartment, or maybe you research hairstyles. Research is not only for the speculatively inclined, ever author of every genre will have to research at some time (or see their writing suffer).
Writing: Writing is, of course, essential part of a writing career. And it is still the most important! So while you are researching, marketing, networking, etc, make sure you remember what this is really all about in the end: Writing!
Editing: Editing is probably the second most important part of writing. Like research, all writers must edit (or see their writing suffer). Even if you are going to hire an editor, you need to edit your own work. This is because editors don’t want to have to fix all of your glaring obvious mistakes that you could have fixed yourself, and also because you don’t want them to. You don’t want an editor to rewrite most of your story for you and most of the time, and editor simply won’t do that. A lot of editors will simply refuse to work with some one whose work is not at a certain level, or offer a different service (usually labeled “mentoring”) for pieces that are really out of shape. In short, your work must be edited, and you can’t just pay some else to do all of that for you.
Marketing: Marketing means getting your book out there! Paid advertisements, your own blog, writing posts for other blogs, even handing out or posting up flyers are all marketing. Marketing might include a book signing or book giveaway, promoting a hashtag or posting links to your book on writing groups. Even if you are traditionally published all writers must market their own book (or see sales suffer).
Networking: Networking means meeting other writers, editors, literary agents, and most importantly, readers. It differs from marketing because you are actually meeting people and becoming friend with them, not just asking them to buy your book. Like all careers, networking is very important for breaking in and making a name for yourself. Blogging, conventions, book clubs, and social media are all useful for networking.
Planning: Planning happens at every stage, and it isn’t only for “planners.” At the writing stage, whether you outline every scene, or simply daydream them, you are preparing yourself for your writing in some way. For research, you have to know what you are looking for to find it! Editing usually has some sort of plan (in what order do you edit, what things do you edit first, when do beta readers see it, etc). Marketing and networking have their own set of plans and research too (who is your audience and how will you attract them, what events or clubs will you participate in to meet new writers, etc)
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