Simon Whaley’s Business of Writing: June 2023
Welcome to my June newsletter (and at least, this month, I’ve managed to sneak it in while it is still June!).
I can’t believe we’re halfway through the year already. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the nights are drawing in—it will soon be Christmas! And actually, in my head, it nearly is because I’m currently working on articles for the November issues of a couple of magazines.
Tailored to Perfection
Earlier this week, I was interviewing a man who is the sixth generation of his family to run their bespoke tailoring service. I’ve been commissioned by a quarterly publication to chat to him and his colleagues about how his industry works and how little it has changed since his family business started in 1885.
Of course, visiting a business that makes handmade, bespoke suits, jackets, and coats meant I felt completely under-dressed for the occasion! But as they explained the process of how such sartorial clothing is made, I realised how much planning and preparation goes into making a fine garment.
I came away feeling that bespoke tailors are like the plotters of the publishing world. They spend a lot of time with their clients determining what the garment will be used for, and how frequently it will be used. That determines the choice of cloth. (One farmer required a new overcoat for daily wear, so it’ll be made from the durable Harris Tweed.)
Then, of course, the tailors undertake the measurements, often gathering anything between 25 and 30 of them, trying to cover every angle of possible movement the garment will have to endure.
From here, the measurements are transposed onto brown paper, with extra margins added, just in case. Then, they’re cut out and used as templates for marking up the cloth in chalk. Once everything has been transferred across, the material is cut, and everything is tacked together using loose stitching, creating the core shell of the garment.
The client is invited back in for another fitting, where the tailors make minor adjustments, checking every measurement to ensure its accuracy, before the garment is then sewn together properly.
All this preparation—measuring and considering all the angles, drafting, allowing extra margins for safety, loosely tacking everything together to get a feel for the shape—is how authors who plan their projects work.
Many will spend weeks, if not months, outlining their basic structure, considering everything from every angle, or viewpoint, to ensure the shape and structure of their book is solid. Only when they know they’ve got it right do they get on with the detailed writing, or sewing together the final garment.
But what if you’re like me—a discovery writer—someone who might have a rough outline of where we want our book to go, but not know the details? Does that make our work less professional?
Of course not.
Professionalism is an attitude. It’s the end product that is important.
The tailors told me that it can take between 70 and 80 hours to make a bespoke suit. (If only we could write books in that time!) But of that, the customer might only witness three or four of those hours (fittings vary in length depending upon what the client is ordering and how complicated the design is). The clients don’t see every stitch, or whether a mistake is made, and the work redone. All they care about is the finished product.
As writers, we’re all individuals. There’s no right or wrong way for us to work. There’s simply our way of working. As long as we finish what we set out to achieve, and it’s the best we can make it, our readers will be happy.
As the business owner said to me at the end of my visit, “I love it when the job is complete, and I’m holding the finished garment in my hands. There’s a real sense of achievement. There’s something tangible as a result of my hard work.”
All authors can identify with that. Nothing beats that feeling when you hold your book in your hand for the first time.
Be Businesslike
You can’t blame me for reminding you that writing is a business, no matter what kind of writing you do. It doesn’t matter if you write articles to give you a bit of extra spending money—you have to complete with the full-time professionals earning a living from their writing, so you’ve got to be businesslike in your approach, too.
And, as every self-published author understands, if you’re going to self-publish a book, readers expect your book to be as professionally produced as any of those published by a traditional publisher.
So, I found it interesting when I asked Lisa Highton from the Jenny Brown Associates Literary Agency (for my Ask The Agent column in Writing Magazine) for her top tips for writers who were looking to approach agents. In her answer, she focussed on the business-side of things.
“My top tips are:
What is your book about? Do you know? Can you sum it up? Because if you can’t …
Do your homework. Be aware of the market and what else is being published—if your book were published, where would it sit in a bookshop, aside from ‘new releases’?
Publishing is famously a business of opinions, but it IS a business.
Read, read, read.
Get your writing posse together, writing friends who can support, nurture, comfort and, I hope, celebrate.
Be brave—every agent/editor/publisher/reader is just waiting for that something special; it might be yours.”
Lisa Highton
Piracy Panic
Something many writers worry about is having their work pirated. Immediately, they’re concerned about the loss of sales, especially if it is a book. However, as I discovered when a fellow writer got in touch with me about a site she’d come across that looked dodgy, often pirate websites are not what they first seem to be.
You can read more about this in my article on Medium (as a subscriber to my newsletter, this link gives you free access).
And if ever you find an article you’ve published online suddenly appear on another website without your permission, check out this feature here, which explains what I did when this happened to me.
Upcoming workshops
Well, I’m off to the Evesham Literary Festival on Sunday to deliver my Creative Non-Fiction workshop. Sadly, it’s now full, so there are no spaces left.
But there may still be time to book into the Swanwick Summer Writers School, where I’m running three workshops on Wednesday 9th August: two on travel writing and one on photography for writers.
Until next time, keeeeeeeeeep writing!
Best wishes,
Simon