Serenity J. Banks
Hi. My name is Serenity. I’m a reader, writer, and editor of horror and dark fiction. I don’t really expect to become a best-seller, but I do expect to earn some success with my fiction in the course of my lifetime. And I have spent the last few years focusing on developing useful, transferable skills, like graphic design and social media strategies, in part for just this reason. Please allow me a few minutes of your time, and I’ll explain why.
The costs are always the first hurdle. For example, a good, solid, university-level Photoshop course might well cost an easy grand or so. But there are student loans and education grants and corporate training allowances and other continuing education resources that might be available to help cover that investment. And it’s an investment that pays for itself—over and over and over again—with every inevitable business need that calls for some graphic design work.
Yes, I said business need. Unless you’re just content to enthrall yourself—and maybe your friends and family members—with your prose and fancy, then writing is a business. If you intend to build an audience, get your name out there, gain recognition as an established author, and earn royalties or direct sales… writing is a business.
And it helps to view it in terms of business. What does one do to get a business off the ground? One engages in business training and learning opportunities. One gains the skills necessary to run a successful business.
I cannot stress enough the value I find in broadening my personal talents, skills, and capabilities beyond the silo of writing, revising, and editing. Obviously, those skills are the foundation of the writing business, but those skills focus exclusively on the wording elements—only a single department of the business. The business of writing encompasses so much more than the mere writing of words. Producing and selling a novel involves writing, editing, formatting, layout, design, copywriting, publishing, packaging, distribution, shipping, networking, marketing, advertising, promotion, public relations, communications, and finally—with a little bit of luck—sales.
The more of those things you can add to your professional repertoire—the more of those languages you can learn—the more successful you can become as a businessperson, and the more valuable you can become as an author.
Yeah, I know, this is the part where you roll your eyes and want to skip on to the next link. But don’t. Okay? If you wish to make an income from your writing… if you aspire to eventually make fiction writing your livelihood… then don’t ignore the business side of things.
Of course, I know most of us hate this part. I know we writers tend to hate crossing over to the “dark side” of sales and commercialization. We hate viewing our art and expression as a packaged product. We hate the onus of having to learn about a bunch of boring business stuff that doesn’t interest us at all when all we want to do is sit down and write our hearts out for the rest of our lives. Most of all, we hate turning these children of our creation over to be bastardized by the processes of marketing and promotion.
And that is exactly why we fiction writers must actively seek and obtain business-focused opportunities that support our professional development. That is exactly why we must position ourselves for a seat at the table in every step of the concept-to-creation process—and beyond. That is exactly why we must cultivate the technical skills and the business acumen to become participating movers and shakers in the ultimate success of our work. That is why we must gain exactly those skills that do not come naturally to us. We must become a reserve of one-man armies who are capable of pulling off the whole show by ourselves, step by step—even if we do have people to do that stuff for us.
Why? Because we writers no longer have the luxury of remaining content, believing our publishers and agents will take care of all that business stuff on our behalf. They have other clients to take care of, too, you know. And if you don’t know how to handle the business of your writing, how will you know if the publishers and agents are covering all the bases? How will you know if you’re being railroaded into an inadequate marketing plan or getting short-changed on your royalties?
No, I do not advocate that writers should try to tell publishers and agents how to run their businesses. Goodness, no. I advocate that writers should become valuable partners in their own businesses of writing fiction. I advocate that writers should pull their own weight.
We must seek always to build upon and enhance our professional skills and abilities. We are our own hot-ticket items, and we must engage in a process of continuous improvement, so we can become the comprehensive package deals that blow the socks off our competitors. We must elevate our efforts around our work to professional-grade standards and bottom-line expectations. We must learn to leverage our work as a profession—not as a craft.
If, that is, we wish for our work to gain recognition as a profession. If we’re happy to simply dabble over a common hobby, then, by all means, skip on to the next link.
For quite some time, I was content to treat my fiction writing as a hobby. I didn’t think of it in those terms, but that’s the way I treated it. I was content to write in my spare time. I was content to send off a submission here and there, content to wait passively for a rejection slip or an acceptance letter. I was content to leave the business stuff to the publishers and agents who knew the business… and I was content to wait for someone to discover me.
I’m not content anymore. I’m tired of the passive approach.
I will continue to utilize traditional channels to their fullest, but I will no longer take a reactive stance toward my work. I endeavor to become an active champion of my writing business, and I hope you’ll consider embarking on your own targeted charge toward building a profession from this craft.
This is where all that technology and strategy and marketing training comes into effect. The stories are written, revised, and edited. It’s time to flip the switch. It’s time to change shifts. It’s time to give the writer the day off and bring in the marketing director. We must take an objective look at this product and determine the most effective means of making it sell.
Yes, I said it. That’s just what it is: it’s a product. It has to be. That might sound like a hell of a turn-off, but if we want to sell it, we must make it sellable. Just set aside the ego for a few minutes. No diva syndrome beyond this point. Average consumers do not consciously set out to buy abstract pieces of our souls. Not until we’ve first built our personal brands and engendered customer loyalty to the point that they know and trust what they’re buying from us. In order to influence our own business success, we must become active players in the future of our product.
There are no better salespeople for this product. We created it, and we developed it, and we know it inside and out. We love it, and we are passionate about it. Good salespeople use their passion. Good salespeople believe in their products, and they use their passion to make their buyers believe in their products.
This way of thinking did not come naturally to me. Like I said, I used to just wait by the mailbox or the inbox and hope my big publishing contract was on its way, so I could keep on writing and let someone else sell me for me. It took me a lot of years to make the connections that I’m sharing with you right now, and I’m sharing them because I wish someone would have made these connections for me a long, long time ago.
Throughout my professional writing and editing career, I have taken correspondence courses in copywriting and nonfiction writing and business writing and technical writing. I have taken Web design and online communications courses through corporate training opportunities. I have taken English and journalism classes through my local community college, and I have taken graphic design and illustration courses through an accredited online university. I have attended more seminars than I can count, learning about everything from Microsoft Excel to Adobe Dreamweaver to Adobe InDesign, from public speaking to media law to leadership and managerial skills. I have read more articles, studies, and books on technology and eCommerce and social media and online marketing than I would ever care to revisit. I am soon to complete a(nother) degree program in Business Communications, this time with a concentration in Marketing & Sales.
Here’s the thing: only a few years ago, I had zero interest in any of these subjects. Zilch. I just wanted to write stories.
Somewhere along the line, though, I grudgingly acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, that crash course in copywriting might help me write better query letters. I hated it at first—it was dull and boring and held nothing of interest to me—and I was right. It helped. So I tried a few other things. I worked on a few other areas of improvement. It helped. I began to actively seek out learning opportunities through which I could confront my professional weaknesses head-on, one at a time. And it helped.
And you know what? I don’t hate it anymore. After a while, after I started seeing results—after I watched my efforts and strategies come together more easily, after my campaigns began to progressively get better and better—it started to be fun. It’s fun to get good at new things.
Let me tell you something else I’ve learned: a lot of these skills are transferable. A lot of these new talents find their ways into my fiction writing. And it helps. Marketing is based on effective communication and persuasive writing skills, after all. Tell me persuasive writing and storytelling don’t go hand in hand.
Again, it was only throughout recent years that I began to clearly see the connections as these professional pieces started to fall into place around my personal aspirations as a fiction writer. It took me a while to see those connections because I wasn’t focusing my professional development around my fiction. I was focusing my professional development around my full-time jobs in the newspaper, trade magazine, and online media fields. I was cultivating that professional development a little bit here and there, over time, as I needed it for the positions I held. I didn’t apply that professional development toward a direct strategy for my fiction writing. Now I do.
It took a while for that light bulb to go on in my head and bring my attention to the fact that every bit of my professional development over the course of my career has overlapped and benefited my fiction writing. Now that I see the connections, I see how I can continue to build my professional presence—my talents, skills, and capabilities—to directly enhance and influence my business of writing horror and dark fiction. I wish I saw these synergies years ago, back when I began to pursue publication of my fiction for real.
Now I do see those connections, and anyone can do it at any time. You can do it. You can start right now.
But only if you want to see horror and dark fiction in terms of a profession for yourself. Only if you want to leverage your business of writing to new levels. Only if you want to take an active role in your business success.
And I venture to guess you must feel something about that idea resonating in you right now, or you probably would have skipped on to the next link a long time ago.
