John Klima, editor of Electric Velocipede, writes on Tor.com about a first-novel survey conducted by author Jim Hines. Excerpts: Fantasy novelist Jim C. Hines was thinking about how writers break into the business, and in February of 2010, he decided to go out and create a survey of how authors made their first novel sale. ...Read the whole thing, as well as Hines' study itself. Although I found the points Klima noted fascinating, others also leapt out at me. More than half of the respondents had no prior connections to their agent or publisher, and the average time between when they began writing and eventually landed their first book deal was 11.6 years. Ever catch yourself mawkishly bemoaning your lack of relationships in the industry or how long you've written without much success? I have in moments of weakness. Seems that thinking is flawed. In the end, we get to the publishing houses the same we get to Carnegie Hall -- practice, practice, practice.
Part of why he was thinking about these things was that when he was trying to break into the field in the 1990s he got a lot of different advice, often advice that was in contention. I found Hines' survey completely fascinating. I liked how it picked apart some of the commonly held mindsets about how to break into the business. Like what? Like:• Of 246 authors, 116 sold their first novel with zero short fiction salesAnd of course, there's a lot more at the link above. I point out the three examples above because the first one refutes the advice I always give (i.e. write short fiction first), the second refutes the idea that you can self-publish yourself and then resell to a publisher for wild success, and the third, well the third is really interesting.
• [O]nly 1 author out of 246 self-published their book and went on to sell that book to a professional publisher
• 58 authors sold the first novel they wrote
(Picture: CC 2010 by ChernobylBob)
11 comments:
Hmm. Fascinating stuff. Not sure yet what I think, but it's got me thinking and that's good.
It's worth pondering over. Hines got a pretty good sample size, too, so the results should be close to representative (although caveats abound, I'm sure).
Well, the first point doesn't actually refute anything. Though 47% didn't write any short fiction before their first published novel, there are a remaining 77% of writers who wrote a full novel before they had another published. This means that AT LEAST 30% of all those surveyed have done both things: write a full novel and write short stories on their way to getting a book published. And though only 23% "sold the first novel they wrote," that sample doesn't exclude authors who wrote short stories (as it may be that 100% wrote short stories before their first published novel).
Anyway, when 1/3 of all respondents have successfully published a novel but writing both a novel AND short stories, it's a pretty significant amount, statistically. I'd still say it's good advice.
I agree that too much could be made of these numbers, but, to build off what you said, Tony...
116 (47%) published with no previous short fiction. Therefore, 130 (53%) published with some previous short fiction.
58 authors (24%) published with no previous novels. Therefore, 188 (76%) authors published with at least one previous novel.
Out of the 188 who wrote a novel, it's conceivable that 116 did not write a short story. That means that at least 72 of them did write a story. So, 29% or I can give you the 30%.
I don't really feel like running any stats to get p value, but if we grant that 30% is a significant number, I'm not sure that 24% is going to be insignificant. (Again, it could be; I'm not doing the tests.)
So what you have is...
At least 30% of the authors surveyed wrote a book and a short story.
But 24% did not write any other novel, and may also have not written any short stories.
Those numbers are far, far closer than conventional wisdom would have us believe. I think that's encouraging and amazing.
I mean, I don't think it refutes something, because I don't think I've ever been told that a writer needs to write one junk novel and then try to get published. Everyone would like to believe that their first novel would be a success. This says that your first novel only has a 1 in 4 chance but...
Holy cow! A 1 in 4 chance?
See, to me, that's pretty exciting news for new writers.
And frankly without a statistical test, I'm not sure that at 47:53 there's a significant difference between having written and not having written short fiction. And that definitely flies in the face of conventional writing class wisdom.
It would be cool to do some testing and see if there's a significant correlation in that 30% you talked about, but it could also be a statistical coincidence.
I think writing short stories first was a mistake in retrospect. I could have learned how to write just as easily by trying a novel. Now I am locked into the other-and I think the two are quite different.
Nevets and Tony,
Darn it, I forgot you guys were like statistics geniuses. Now I'm gonna have to break out my textbook from two semesters ago.
Patti,
They do require different skill sets, don't they? Not to say that I particularly have any piece of either.
Fascinating.
Jim Hines, btw, is an author well worth reading. I've hit on his fairy-tale princess stories, and they are unique. Imagine Charlie's Angels, written by Robert Ludlum at his best, but starring fairy-tale princesses with Pixar, rather than Disney, levels of character depth and complexity. (That is to say, the characters are complex and realistic enough to fascinate, and have darker flaws than you'd expect. But they're not so complex that the book turns into a bellybutton novel; no matter how dark things get they keep pushing forward with the swashbuckling and intrigue.)
Hey, that sounds like pretty good stuff. Another author to add to the list ...
Intriguing post. I like seeing numbers. I do think that with things changing in the publishing arena that some of the measurements have to be weighed beyond the numbers (although in fairness he did assess affects within the most recent five years as well.)
The publishing industry is screwy right now, isn't it? I'm afraid I may have to break down and buy one of those newfangled e-readers before long.
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