Why even I cannot read your work or write your book for you

Inspired by:

• A Fabulous Love Letter to Readers (I totally agree with every point.)
• Scalzi on Asking Favors of Writers (Again I also agree.)
• Lee Goldberg chimes in

So how long did it take me to get asked to read other people’s work? My senior year in high school. You know what credits I had to my name then? I’d won 4th place in a state essay contest my freshman year. I got “published” with Poetry.com my sophomore year (yes, I know it’s a scam now. I figured it out as soon as they asked me to buy something, but my teachers didn’t know and touted it) and my junior year I wrote one of the plays the drama club performed that year (it was a overly dramatic story of a girl who commits suicide to escape her family, which could have been interesting if her family was like horrible or something) and I’d won first place, and a subsequent publication, in a WKU writing contest where I’d written a Roman-style fairytale…in Latin. I’m actually proud of that one.

But anyway, once people realized it wasn’t a passing trend, or something I did in the secret of my bedroom (I did all my best teen writing while not paying attention in math class. I loved those days where half the class is missing or just before a holiday because then I could get ten, or even twelve whole pages done!) I was dubbed the “serious” writer and then people started asking me to read their work. So I did. It was mostly poetry. To this day I cringe a little bit when I hear “I write poetry.” (Readers of BookLove will notice that I have read poetry books for BookLove, but I sampled them before agreeing to review them, and I warned the writers/publishers that I was extremely picky about the poetry I actually liked.)

Of course my response to all the requests was to write gory, off the wall horror so that people left me the hell alone. (I still have the critique I got in my college creative writing class that said i should be hospitalized for writing what I did.) People stopped asking for advice, in part because I went through what is technically called “Some heavy shit”.

When I re-entered the writing scene, slowly in 2003, but full on in 2005, I was largely dismissed, largely ignored.

But as soon as I sold BloodWalker to Read By Dawn I started hearing it again. So yes, even with my publication history of negligible worth (I mean, it’s worth a lot to me, but to readers? I’m still pretty much an unknown) I have gotten all those writing questions. So let’s tackle them now, shall we?

1. How much did it cost you to publish Rot?

It didn’t. Nothing. Unless you count promo materials which I designed and chose to buy myself. but I did not pay a cent for the editing, cover, art or publication of Rot. Skullvines is a small publisher, but they are a good publisher. They don’t charge any fees, or require me to buy my own books or anything like that. Rot was edited a lot. It was gone over several times by two editors plus myself. And I paid nothing.

They pay me (and they pay me a very nice royalty rate).

2. I have this idea I thought you might want to write…

No, no I don’t. No offense to you or your idea, but I already have a lot of them, and my ideas I get to write as I want. I don’t have to worry about writing it the way you would want me too. I’m an independent, contrary person. I don’t want to do it your way, I want to do it my way.

Plus, I don’t even have time to write everything I want. I have five books plotted out in the Bloodwalker series. I have three other multi-book series I’d like to write. Not to mention four novellas planned in my free erotica series, Deepdale Acres. And short stories? Oh, short stories. I have two notebooks of short story and novella ideas. And I get more all the time. I don’t have time to write all my own books, much less yours.

Plus I’m also still trying to market and sell my own stuff. I have three books at or near salable level I have over 20 short stories I’m trying to sell and I write news ones all the time. I hope to have the first draft of a fourth book by the end of the year.

So if you want me to write your story for you, you’re going to have to pay me to make up for the time and energy I’d be taking away from my career and my family.

3. Can you hook me up with your editor/agent/publisher?

Again no. First, I don’t have an agent. My editor doesn’t ask for my opinions on books because he has enough on his plate already. Same with my publisher.

And let me tell you something, I have been referred to agents by two authors who like my work, and have been referred directly to a publisher once. And none of them accepted my work. I deeply appreciated the referrals. It means so much to me that those people liked my work enough to speak up for it. But I did not ask for them, the authors offered. I certainly did not demand them. And it did not get me ahead, except in once case where the agent read the whole manuscript before rejecting instead of just a sample.

There is no secret handshake, people. You can have an award winning author recommend you and your writing, your story, still has to stand on its own merit. The only level where being friends with the publisher is the primary reason you get published is a level you do not want to be published at.

4. Can you read this story I’m working on…

There is one way to get me to read your book–BookLove. I have recently pulled away from critting because I was not finding what I needed from those I was working with. There are a few exceptions to this rule, people who I know well enough that I know I won’t find angry tirades about myself online, I won’t be wasting my time reading their work, and most importantly I won’t find myself in legal trouble because I tried to do something nice for them.

If you aren’t familiar with it already you need to read about the fan kerfuffle with Marion Zimmerman Bradley. Long story short, some fan fiction writer took advantage of Bradley’s love of fan fiction to threaten to sue Bradley for plagiarism, and in the end Bradley’s publisher dropped a book Bradley was writing to avoid any chances of a messy lawsuit. The fan fic author caused Bradley, the rightful owner of the characters involved, to lose out on years of work, and the money another book would have brought her.

And other authors have been threatened by “fans” as well. Look at Stephanie Meyer and JK Rowling. Look at all the people who have crawled out of the woodwork claiming plagiarism. It would be much, much worse for these authors, legally, if they had, out of kindness, agreed to read a book, only to discover it was close to the book they were working on. Then they’d have to face possibly getting sued, definitely getting trashed, and potentially haveing to trash the book they were working on if they read that story.

I don’t know about you, but I just can’t afford to take that chance. Not time wise, not money wise and not sanity wise.

Now, I am not typical in that I run BookLove, a review site. So yeah, it’s possible that you can get me to read your work, but under the BookLove rules. Those rules are:

• Finished books only, though I do accept self published books.
• Genres that I read only.
• Ask first. I reserve the right to say no.
• You aren’t getting a critique, you are getting a review. Not everyone has been happy with my reviews, not everyone I’ve read deserves a good one. I do not send you the review for approval. I don’t care about your approval. Reviews are for my readers, for the readers of the sites I review for, and for the buying public. They are not for you. They are to help a potential reader decide if your work is worth the money or not.

So if you want to take your chances, then feel free. But don’t say I didn’t warn you, and if this becomes a problem then my writing, my books and my stories are more important to me than BookLove reviews.