What's the Next Level and Who Can Take You There?

A stone staircase with narrow, carved railings.
Via

Hi friends,

I frequently see, in my query inbox and questions posted around the internet, authors looking for someone to take them to "the next level." Often, it's a self-published author who didn't find the success they wanted and now seek someone to help with marketing and "getting the word out" about their books. Maybe they want to go from self-pub to trad pub or hybrid. Sometimes I'll see an agented author (or recently unagented author) asking around for names of agents who can take them to "the next level," meaning a bigger advance, a fancier publisher, higher sales, and appearances on best seller lists. Sometimes it's just someone who can sell their next book in the face of a disappointing track record, when they've struck out with their former agent and editor. Wanting more is normal. Wanting success is normal. Needing help is normal. Going out and trying to get it is normal and good, too. But that path to "the next level" is never just one step, and it's never just one person who can get you there.

Of course we want someone to swoop in and fix things for us. We want someone to tell us what agents to query. We want an expert to fix our query letter and tell us the very best time to send it so we'll hear back right away. We want an editor who will tell us everything that's wrong with our manuscripts so we can make them right and then to know the best cover, the best copy, the best pub date, the best marketing plan. We want to know what preorder campaign will lead to the most sales and thus get us on the best sellers list. We want to know what to post that will get the most reposts, subscribers, followers. There's a path we think exists, from bow to target, and if we knock our arrow just right, we'll hit a bullseye the first time.

None of that is true. There isn't one path. There aren't even any routes–we clear the trail anew each time. And there aren't any levels either, for that matter. You do not start out on level 1 with your debut, which affords you X advance and Y coverage and Z sales, and then for your next book, you get a higher advance and more coverage and at least the same if not more sales. (In fact, most of the time, second books sell fewer copies than first ones.) This isn't the stairway of publishing. It's not even Donkey Kong, where you're jumping over barrels and running from apes on your way to victory at the top.

So, what is it? Maybe publishing is a Nascar race. Everyone's got a car, but everyone has a different budget, a different mechanic, a different driver. We all start roughly at the same time, but someone people have a better position than us. Some get a flat right away. Sometimes the pit crew messes things up. Sometimes someone else crashes into you or you hit a wall. We all go around and around, jockeying for position. Someone crosses the finish line first, and sometimes that is the fastest driver. Sometimes it's the richest team. Sometimes it's the last man standing. (Ok, I have exhausted my scant knowledge of Nascar.) It doesn't matter what metaphor we use here; it just matters how we think about our own journeys in writing and publishing. And we should just be thinking about our own journeys, not anyone else's. Are you driving your own car, or someone else's?

I had a wonderful lunch with a client yesterday and we were talking long term goals and strategies. I found myself saying several times, "yeah, we'll see what it looks like when we get there." That's generally how I approach long term planning when it comes to publishing–assessing the goal and the obstacles as they come–but I stopped and thought for a minute if that's the best way to go about it. Should I not be setting lofty goals, so we have something to aim for? Does it mean I lack vision? Should we make an ambitious plans and swing for the fences?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think I do have lofty goals. I do have grand visions for my clients. I just can't personally deliver on those grand visions by myself. I want all my clients to hit the best sellers list, but I cannot put their name there. I cannot personally point at specific people and compel them to purchase a book in such a way that maximizes an author's chance to get on a list. I cannot go to an editor and say "I promised my client we would sell this book so I need you to buy it for at least $50,000." I mean, if I could, I would! But I can't, so I don't make those promises to clients. I focus more on what we can do together to have the best chance for all that, and then it's up to the universe and the publishers and the internet and the bookstore buyers and the reading public to tell us what they think. Those are the people who can take an author to the next level–readers. And talking to them and thinking about them does more for an author's career than the single best query letter in all the land.

I want to go to the next level, too. The way I think that happens, though, is way down here on the page. On how the story talks to the reader and how the reader finds the story. On where the page and reader meet and who's pulling whom forward. On what a reader wants to tell their friend about the last great book they read. (OMG I JUST FINISHED JONATHAN STRANGE AND MR. NORRELL AND I AM BEREFT THAT IT'S OVER!!!!) The next level is whatever I'm going to read next that tops (how could it????) or doesn't whatever I read last.

Who takes you to the next level? Readers. How to you reach them? By writing your story in a way that invites them in instead of shuts them out or ignores them all together. How do you find them? By being out in the writing world, however you can be.


I'm teaching a webinar this week with Writer's Digest! Sign up here to join the live discussion of the Publishing & Writing Myths That are Getting in the Way of Your Success on Thursday October 23rd at 1pm ET! Sign up now to get access to the recording if you can't make it, but those who join live will have a chance for Q&As!


OXOXOXOOX,

Kate