Eighty percent not being a jerk

One of many abandoned structures spotted down a gravel road in farm country

I spent the latter half of last week in the little prairie town of Moose Jaw as a guest of the Sakatchewan Festival of Words. Despite Air Canada’s best attempts to lose me in the Calgary stampede, I managed to get there two days after the festival had begun, and partook in a reading and a panel. During Q&As, a lot of questions familiar to many writers were thrown my way—What inspires you? How did you conceptualize this character? Are you a plotter or pantser?—but one struck a chord with me.

What have you learned about surviving in publishing?

This is a loaded request, in that there is no one answer, and the answers differ for every author. In fact, you may receive contradicting advice and both will still be correct. Surviving the long game as an author is no easy feat—just see how many drop out of the publishing game after their first few books (the average number is 3).

I may have published 4 novels with a few more on the way, but let’s be honest—I’m still out here simply surviving like everyone else. So I thought about it for a hot second, then decided that maybe I could give this audience the three biggest lessons I’ve learned.

Reading @ the festival.

Publishing is a business

Everyone in the publishing ecosystem: publishers, agents, editors, publicists, designers, sales reps, booksellers, librarians, etc—they all love books and stories. That’s why they work there! But they still have to pay rent and feed their families. So they get up in the morning and go to this job, which is 9-5 for them, and they make 9-5-type decisions: to meet quotas, to attain career goals, to hedge bets. Many of the business decisions they make will not be in your favour. Not great for you, but it’s often not personal.

I keep this front-of-mind in every dealing. It helps me remember what’s imporant to whoever I’m working with in this ecosystem, as well as what’s important to me. It informs how I negotiate common ground, when to push and when to take a step back. I treat them like the professionals they are, and receive the same respect and courtesy. And just like any business, no matter how much my artist brain just loooves to get in the way, I count any losses I get and pivot into thinking about the next step.

On a publishing panel with authors (from L-R) Amanda Leduc, Wayne Simpson, Kai Cheng Thom and Jason Purcell.

Define success for yourself

There’s a joke that if you ask publishing staff if a book is successful, they couldn’t tell you for sure. That’s because the metrics for measuring a book’s success in-house differs slightly from those the public often employs: advances, bestseller lists, awards, celebrity book clubs, film deals, etc. Therefore, authors may come into publishing expecting things like preorder campaign swag or being sent on book tours, only for their hopes to be dashed. It’s easy to believe one is not successful because one thing or the other did not happen, but I promise you this is far from the truth. Which is why I believe authors are best served going into publishing with their own metrics for success, and keeping those front-of-mind.

My success metrics, for instance, aren’t quite bestseller lists or mega advances (not that I won’t take them if they came along, lol), but things like increasing reach/readership and writing across genres, forms and media. I think it helps to keep your own goals before you. Shoot for the stars, while keeping your eyes on your clipboard. Works wonders, I tell you.

Tree carvings in Crescent Park

Don’t be a jerk

Getting ahead in publishing—or anywhere, really—is 20% hard work and 80% not being a jerk. If an author, aspiring or published, holds an 80/20 rule, it should be that. I learned this the hard way, after following the path of many new authors and throwing a fit whenever things went awry. Everything shaped out much better when I made an effort to be kind, open, and understanding. In fact, a significant part of my success comes from people who have worked or interacted with me in the past recommending me for something (this is how I ended up in Moose Jaw!) So, yeah, surviving in publishing is eighty percent not being a jerk.

When I sign autographs at events, I have readers sign my copy in return!