Prairie Den: Alison Lake

In sales and writing when you sit back and enjoy your successes you don’t get paid. Making calls, networking, and selling your products (yourself and your writing) are the only ways to get published.

If anyone asked me several years ago how I would feel to have a book written and on its way to getting published, I’d say that would be like winning the lottery. That day is today, and I do feel that way. I am excited I could write and complete a project that someone else is paying to produce and distribute. Yet each writing project, once completed, is soon followed by another. I feel a driving need to keep producing, looking, researching, and querying.

Part of this drive may be insecurity and an attempt to keep up. I wonder: in the writing world, does one ever stop feeling like an amateur? At what point do you sit back and say, I am there? Maybe never. If you are like me you work feverishly at times to maintain sanity and keep your mind producing and learning. I give myself breaks too, and come back excited to write.

I would love to reach a stage where people call me with work. That may never happen. Selling and marketing one’s writing can be really fun, an aspect of the job that is a nice break from writing. Frankly marketing feeds the ego. Positive feedback to your own work boosts self-esteem like little else.

I think marketing and querying editors also helps me to ‘thicken my skin’, as much as I dislike that analogy. I find it unpleasant and suggestive of a leathery reptile, but the image is still appropriate. As writers, the less we agonize over setbacks, the more time and strength we have to move forward. I strongly believe any writing activity, be it writing itself or something connected, is beneficial to one’s professional and personal development even with no published outcome. Marketing just raises the odds your writing will get out there and reach other eyes.

I will always put as much effort as I can into promotion, but at the same time I dream that editors will call me rather than the reverse. If that ever happens, you will be the first to know. Imagine how time spent pitching to editors could be spent writing more articles and books.

I have also learned that simply scoring a book contract and eventually publication of your work does not always guarantee much money or notoriety. I am looking for that bestselling book idea that suits my background. Meanwhile, like magazine articles, books serve as portfolios for what you can do. The more books you publish, the greater chance of getting another contract and bigger advance. With your first books, publishers look closely at sales when considering you for another book deal.

Above all, these conditions aside, I am grateful every day to have the ability and desire to write. Writing is an effective way of both communicating and dealing with your own life. I cannot imagine anything else I would rather do as a lifetime career. So now, it’s on to the next book and article idea. I’d better get to work before someone else beats me to it.

Alison Lake writes for magazines and newspapers. Her second book, Living Off Balance, is due out in fall 2005.