On Accepting Advice
Dear Readers: I’m slowly but surely recovering from 2023! So much progress. I’m still grieving, but my mother’s estate is settled and I can see the floor to my office. I realized it was my day to blog on The Stiletto Gang so I pulled up an article I wrote in 2016. Funny, the position I took back then is the same position I hold today. After reading, please tell me what you think. Do you avoid prologues, and how much time do you devote to marketing? ~ Donnell
“No enemy is worse than bad advice.” – Sophocles
Every once in a while people offer advice that really works. E.g., Look both ways before crossing the street, read warning labels on products and exercise three to five times a week to maintain a healthy weight. Those kinds of input I can use and appreciate. But some of the advice I’ve received of late leaves me shaking my head.
Two weekends ago I attended my local library’s workshop in which a marketing guru offered authors and aspiring authors’ advice for today’s market. She said the days that authors sit alone in their offices and devote long hours to writing are gone. As a matter of fact, she added, authors should be focused ten percent on writing the book and ninety percent to its marketing. “Twenty-four/eight,” she insisted. “Market your book twenty-four/eight.”
This weekend I attended the Pikes Peak Writers Conference where the age-old subject of prologues came up again. An editor told the audience how much he hates prologues and that he skips right over them. Once again people who had paid good money to attend wrote furiously in their notebooks, most likely taking this man’s words to heart and perpetuating this controversy further. While I was thinking of Sandra Brown’s Envy or Robert Crais’s Two Minute Rule and two of the best prologues I’ve ever read in commercial fiction.
There’s a lot of lousy, subjective advice floating around out there—what’s more the experts are touting it. If I have to devote ninety percent to marketing my books, I might as well hang it up right now. I didn’t get into this writing gig to market my wares like a gypsy in a caravan, I got into writing to tell my stories—to sit in my office alone a lot more than ten percent.
New York Times Bestselling Author Robert Crais once told me, “Sure you can write a prologue, just don’t write a bad one.” If a book needs a prologue, it needs a prologue, and how a few paragraphs at the start of a book can cause such a vitriolic response is beyond me.
So because there’s so much misinformation and bad advice out there coming from people I should otherwise respect and rely on, I’ve decided to break down the ways I will accept advice in the future. One, if it doesn’t make sense, I will completely disregard it, and two, if it doesn’t save my life, I will refer back to rule number one.
About the Author:
Leaving international thrillers to the world travelers, Donnell Ann Bell concentrates on suspense that might happen in her neck of the woods – writing SUSPENSE TOO CLOSE TO HOME. She is co-owner of Crimescenewriter, an online group, in which law enforcement, forensic experts, and a multitude of related professionals assist authors in getting those pesky facts straight in our novels. To learn more or to sign up for her newsletter contact her at www.donnellannbell.com
Glad you are catching up with yourself (and your grief). Like your two rules. They do still resonate.
Thanks, Debra. That means so much. Sending New Year’s hugs 😉
Donnell, in the world of publishing, there are a myriad of self-proclaimed “experts” out there who are trying to make a buck off authors by purporting to offer “advice” on how to become a successful author. Then, as you said, others parrot that “advice” and eventually it becomes gospel. As P.T. Barnum said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And as Ben Franklin said, “A fool and his money is soon parted.”
Unbelievably well said, Lois.
Donnell, losing a mother is like having the earth crack open beneath your feet. You survive minute by minute and eventually day by day until the miracle of being able to think of her and actually smile. She is part of you, always.
As to your observations, I hardily agree. I know writing is a business (or can be) and everyone has to decide how much time devote to the business side, (and whether they need it to be successful to feed themselves or their family), but I read a wonderful piece that seemed to speak to my soul.
“I think if I could go back in time and give myself a message, it would to reiterate that my value as an artist doesn’t come from how much I create [or, I add, how “successful” I am.] I think that mindset is yoked to capitalism. Being an artist is about how and why you touch peoples’ lives, even if it’s one person. Even if that’s yourself, in the process of art making.”–Amanda Gorma
T.K. So true about our mothers and that void that is left. I grew up in the era of “Names of fools are like their places, always seen in public places.” If an introverted person hears that quote often enough, it’s so easy to stay in one’s shell. Being a writer is the ultimate safe space until the decision is made to venture forth. Thanks for your lovely post.
I’ve never been big on listening to rule keepers. Some of the most interesting books I’ve read are by writers who know when and where to push the envelope.
That’s the truth, Gay. I have a dear author friend who says, “What rules?” More importantly, I think is important to learn said rules and make a conscious decision when to break them.