Things I Would Have Done Differently: Advice To Novelists

By Rachel Kaufman on November 19, 2009 12:34 PM

Everyone’s NaNoWriMo wrapping up OK? Other aspiring novelists working on drafts of anything right now? (Seriously, if you are and you’re blogging/tweeting the experience, feel free to self-promote yourself, because we WILL read you. Honest.)

John Gilstrap, author of the bestselling thriller Nathan’s Run, wrote recently about the things he’s learned as an author.

Highlights:

I don’t regret a moment of it, but looking back on that experience versus where I am now in the pantheon of writers, there are a few things I would do differently if I could climb into my Way-Back machine and fine-tune the past.

I would insist on a multi-book deal. I was in the driver’s seat in those days, and my agent at the time pressed hard for a one-book deal (hardcover only) with HarperCollins, and we auctioned off the paperback rights separately to Warner Books. I agreed, of course, because I didn’t know any better, but in retrospect, that was a mistake. …

I would not trust the marketing and publicity departments. After the rock-star treatment I enjoyed during Nathan’s Run’s publishing cycle, I foolishly assumed that such was the rule for all books. I would write the novels, and the publisher would promote them. Wow, was that not true. By the time I caught on, way too many horses had already fled the barn.

I would network more and make myself shamelessly visible….I knew nothing about the writers conference circuit until after Nathan’s Run had been on the shelves for months….I hit the circuit pretty hard for At All Costs, but not so much for the succeeding two. By the time Six Minutes to Freedom came outâ€”my nonfiction bookâ€”I figured that with the real star of the book still alive and on the speaker’s circuit, no one would be all that interested in hearing from the author. That was a mistake. I allowed myself to disappear from my fan base, and to lose touch with far too many friends. Never again.