Last Author Standing

I’m not here to tell you how to write a book. You’re doing this already. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be perusing this website or reading this article.

I want to tell you why you should keep writing—or not.

If you fit the criteria set below, novelist will be your profession.

You write because you have more than one story inside of you.

This is not to say that having just one story is a bad thing. Margaret Mitchell wrote only one book—Gone With the Wind; as did Harper Lee, with To Kill a Mockingbird. (Nope, sorry, Go Tell a Watchman doesn’t count since she never wanted it published anyway. Sometimes a publisher’s greed will leave their authors spinning in their graves).

Mitchell was the bestselling authors of her generation and the next, whereas Lee was the most revered. But in today’s publishing universe, an agent will expect you to have more tales to tell, as well any editor willing to invest her time and effort in making you a success. You see, their reputations are built on their writers. The one hit wonder is not necessarily the equivalent of the tech world’s unicorn. That old chestnut still stands: publish or perish.

You write because you love telling stories.

A writer is not made. A writer is born. Classrooms, mentors, or workshops may be where she has learned the skills to weave the fabric of her novels, but her stories flow from her heart. No one can stop you from writing. You will only cease when either your mind, body, or soul no longer exists.

And, finally, you write because it is your profession.

Not everyone makes money in her chosen field. Silicon Valley is littered with couch-surfing coders and baristas who last great idea garnered just enough seed money to fail.

Well, writers fail too. But they don’t stop writing. And they don’t cease their endeavors to get published, even if it means self-publishing—after having their books edited and their books’ covers professionally designed.

Three of the most successful authors I know—“mid-listers” in New York publishing parlance—were practically destitute before they went this route. They never questioned their writing skills. Instead, they took the reins on the business end of their profession and never looked back.

Well, so can you.

Now for a big reality check: the ongoing task of promoting our books and building our audiences is always part of the job. No one will do it for you. No one can do it better than you.

Why? Because you are your books.

You are your brand.

You’ll have to be one if you’re to be the last author standing; amongst the rarified few writers who, year after year, actually earn a livable wage doing what they must do:

Gift the world a few satisfying stories.

You feel you can’t meet these mandates? That’s perfectly fine. Believe me, it’s okay to write as a hobby. I have several friends who do so without any compulsion to be published or to make money at it. They have no burning desire to see their novels on their local bookstore’s shelf or on a subpage within Amazon. They pay their bills in other ways.

They are the Emily Dickinsons of their time.

Not me. I live in an expensive city: San Francisco. I love to travel. I love theater, museums, and symphonies. I like eating out occasionally. I love showering my kids with gifts.

I love surprising my readers with another story.

I will always be the last author standing.

Will you?

***

Josie Brown is the author of thirty-one novels: 17 in her Housewife Assassin series; 8 in her Totlandia series; 2 in her True Hollywood Lies series (Hollywood Whore and Hollywood Hunk; and four standalone novels: The Candidate (political thriller); The Baby Planner; and Secret Lives of Husbands and Wives, which was optioned by producer Jerry Bruckheimer for television.

Her latest novel is The Housewife Assassin Gets Lucky, co-written with Deborah Coonts; a great way to have their two heroines could finally play together.

Find out more about her on her Website https://josiebrown.com/

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/JosieBrownCA

About THE HOUSEWIFE ASSASIN GETS LUCKY

When two hot, haute heroines team up to solve a murder, neither can afford to be fashionably late.

No one expected to find a dead girl in the Royal Suite at the Babylon’s posh London club. Who would kill her? And why?

With little to go on and no friends to rely on, Lucky O’Toole, the Babylon’s Chief Problem Solver, is dispatched to…well, to solve the problem.

But she needs to be in Paris. Her fiancé—and, worse, his mother—are counting on her presence at a party in her honor in seventy-two hours, more or less. With a personal-life time-bomb ticking, Lucky hopes for a quick solution.

A mystery woman, seen leaving the Royal Suite just before the girl’s body is discovered, attracts Lucky’s attention. She has to be the key…

On loan to the CIA, assassin Donna Stone Craig and her crack black-ops team have stepped into a viper’s nest. First, they darn near get out-bid and overwhelmed at an auction to acquire a vintage purse hiding some critical intel its lining. Then a very important source Donna is to meet at the Babylon London Club winds up dead. And the young woman’s intel—bearing incredible global consequences—is encrypted. She was the only one who could give Donna the cipher, and she’s dead. Surely someone else would know. But, who?

It’s easy to see why Acme’s prime suspect is the tall brunette who acts like she owns the place. Lucky O’Toole shows up at the wrong time, and in the wrong place.

But before Donna and Lucky can find the right answers, they’ll need to overcome their reservations, and resolve their differences. But can they learn to trust each other before the real killer gets away?

They have to. Their lives—and world peace—depend on it.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips