Following my somewhat pessimistic post on Five Things That Don’t Happen When You Become a Published Author, here are a few things I’ve noticed that do happen when you become a published author.
1. Strangers will be strangely deferential to you. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met in the past year whose eyes lit up when they discovered I had written a novel published by a real, live, New York publisher. The quality of what you’ve written is irrelevant. They’re just fascinated to meet someone with a publishing contract, and suddenly you’re the most interesting person in the room. I’ve had a million conversations that go something like this:
Them (eyes expressing boredom): So what do you do?
Me: I’m a novelist and a web programmer.
Them (eyes expressing polite skepticism): A novelist, huh? Gotten anything published yet?
Me: Yes, my first book was published last summer by Prometheus Books.
Them (eyes suddenly ablaze): REALLY? Wow, what’s it called? Can I buy it in the stores? Is it on Amazon?
Me: It’s called Infoquake. You can find it in the science fiction section, and it’s on Amazon.
Them (eyes edging back part way towards skepticism): Oh, I don’t read science fiction. But I’ll have to tell my 12-year-old nephew, I’m sure he’ll love it!
2. You will suddenly become “the writing expert” to your friends and relatives. Several people have approached me since Infoquake‘s release and asked for my advice on getting their magnum opus published. It seems like 10% of the population has an unpublished novel sitting at home somewhere, 33% of the population has a partially finished novel sitting at home somewhere, and 90% of the world has a sister, friend, or cousin with one of the above.
The problem, of course, is that some of these books by friends and acquaintances clearly aren’t good enough for publication. You are now in a very, very awkward position. And so most authors have a story about how they tried to offer a would-be novelist some good advice, only to be roundly rebuffed.
3. You’ll have mixed feelings about what you’ve written. Most days, I’m pretty damn confident that Infoquake is a quality read. But there are plenty of times when I’ve picked up the book and flipped it open at random, only to find something that made me cringe. Like the other day, when I noticed a dialog where everyone kept talking in italics, because they had so many things to say that they just had to emphasize. On days like that, I feel like the only thing that got my book on the shelf at all was sheer persistence.
On the other hand, there have been plenty of days where I’ve had my mood bolstered by something positive that someone wrote about my book. Why, Barnes & Noble called me “the love child of Donald Trump and Vernor Vinge”! Ian McDonald said I should win the Philip K. Dick Award! SFFWorld said “the genre might not be quite the same after this book”! I’ve found that the compliments have stayed with me much longer than the disses.
4. Self-published authors will look to you for validation. You’ll likely find yourself in strange conversations with people who have published a book through a vanity press on wicca/shamanism/vampire erotica/extreme feminism/martial arts/military history. They’ll want to pal around with you in an effort to prove to themselves that they’re “part of the club.” Now, I certainly don’t mind dispensing advice and trading marketing tips, and I struggled long enough myself that I try not to make judgments about their books sight unseen. But sometimes I get the feeling that they’re not interested in what I have to say; it’s all about them, them, them.
One example: a few months ago, a self-published Irish wiccan priestess I met in Starbucks kept trying to push marketing tips on me. She asked if I was on the web yet, and told me I should really try searching for my name on Google. Another example: I chatted recently with an acquaintance from college who published a book of infantilism erotica with a specialty press. (That’s “diaper porn,” to the rest of us.) He kept saying things like “from one published author to another,” “us published writers,” and “in our business.”
5. You’ll have accomplished something that nobody can take away from you. Ever since I was a kid writing superhero stories for my brother, I’ve had the ambition of being a published author. Ever since I started college in 1989, I’ve been toiling away at some work of fiction or other. And finally, in June of 2006, I opened up a carton that arrived on my doorstep and saw a stack of snazzy trade paperbacks with my name on the cover.
It almost doesn’t matter what the critics or the readers say after that (though I must say that I’ve been pretty lucky on that score). You’re a published author, part of an exclusive group, and you won’t be going to your grave asking yourself What If.