Writing Career Success Depends on Secret-ish Knowledge

Why I share advice to make a fairer world +Meeting Today!

Happy Holidays!

December meeting Info

Google Calendar Event

Authors Meeting

Monday, December 23 · 6:00 – 7:00pm

Video call link

Updates:

📢Shoutout to

Dobes

and

James Buchanan

at

Gifted Underachievers

for their recently-published interview with me! It got me thinking about stuff like why I have this group, so I’ve written some more organized thoughts on why this group exists below.

📢Since this is the last meeting of the year, let’s make our beginning-of-meeting discussion about the year behind and the year ahead! What was your 2024 goal, and did you accomplish it…or do you even remember what it was? And what is your 2025 goal?

Regarding resolutions, most people don’t remember them, but I write it as a reminder in my Google Calendar. (And, looking at it now, I most certainly did not meet that resolution.)

Resources:

💰 There is another session of

Narratively

’s The Insider's Guide to Writing Personal Statements and Applying for Grants & Residencies

💰I found another grant for people writing nonfic nonmem books in the humanities from the National Endowment for the Humanities called the Public Scholars grant. I’ve added it to my spreadsheet of recommended grants.

$30-60k
OK to not have a trad contract yet
Due in August

💰Here’s a reminder that the National Endowment for the Arts also has writing grants. Last year, it was only for poetry, but this year, it is for prose.

$50k (Previously $25k)
Due March 12

NOTE: there are plenty more on that spreadsheet that I have shared in the past, but I may not always remind readers about them.

🧑‍💻Secrets of Landing a Book Deal
Webinar by Science Writers of New York
Jan 6

🧑‍💻Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Applications open
$85,000
9.5 months in Boston/Cambridge, MA
OK to pitch book proposals but not to work on books
People who have completed a 4-months-or-longer fellowship in the last 2 years are ineligible

Some of the family cats during Christmas! Mew (in tie), Thunder (tortie), Dr. Cuddles (gorgeous orange fluff), Mr. Darcy (tuxedo)

FEATURE:
Why I made this group:
Sharing resources to build careers and increase fairness

The world isn’t fair, but we can make it fairer.

Instances of unfairness in careers, competitions etc. stick in my brain for a long time. When I was in high school track, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get into college track. No one would tell me anything of use about getting my scores in front of recruiters, no matter who I called or emailed or what I Googled. The only advice I heard was “it’s hard.”

Track scores and PR’s (personal records) are fairly objective—who ran the fastest or jumped the highest or scored the most points? There are numbers for that. So, if there is any central place for reporting those, it would be simple for recruiters to figure out who they should be offering placement and/or scholarships to. One day I saw my charismatic coach talking to a college coach about a colleague’s PR, casually chatting on the bleachers at Arcadia, and the college offered her admission to the school on the spot.

That was great for her, and her PR was great—there’s no getting around that—but why the heck didn’t the college coach look at everyone’s scores? Why does a track career depend at all on who is chatting with whom after warmups?

Later, I recall trying so hard to find out how to get scholarships for grad school, asking everyone, Googling incessantly, but no one would tell me anything that was true. Went on a few wild goose chases because of the nonsense and outright lies I was told, even. It seemed the rule was that the people who already have the most financial support from their families get the best scholarships because they are the ones whose parents have the knowledge, attitude, and supportiveness to tell them the magic words that gets them scholarships. (The magic words are, “I can’t afford tuition that high” or something similar. It doesn’t make any sense because how does anyone know what they can afford when almost everyone can get loans, but no one knows their future earnings? I had $600 in my bank account, how much could I “afford?” But now that you know the magic words, please don’t ever pay sticker price for private schools.)

So, I figured when I was starting the book project, a lot of my financial and career success would be driven by gatekept information, whisper networks, secrets, and privileged connections. That’s not fair.

To some extent, the book-writing world is both fair and unfair. The amount of money and sales you get for your book is tied to how good and marketable your book is, both of which are on you, the author. Seems fair to me. Capitalism, baby.

And your book’s success is also tied to things beyond your reasonable control, like the trends in the year your book finally comes out, things happening at the publishing house, or in the industry, etc. That’s not exactly fair, but, eh, that’s life.

I’m not bothered if you fail to get a contract, grant, scholarship, residency, or other opportunity because you weren’t the ideal candidate or because there wasn’t enough money for it. C’est la vie, failure is just a part of the creative life.

But I am surprised at the amount of information about book-writing and publishing (especially trad) that is irrelevant, misleading, or wrong. It’s not fair that you are likely to make some bad decisions because so much of the useful and important stuff new authors need is hard to find, even hidden or distorted. I’m surprised that publishers and agents almost never tell anyone about grants, so that’s a secret hack that only some authors know about—a hack that more than doubled my book-related income pre-publication.

Part of the reason I started this community was to mitigate that unfairness. I want everyone who might benefit from this knowledge to have access to it. I don’t want you to be poor, or to sacrifice things you didn’t need to sacrifice, to give up on writing, or to shelve important writing projects because you didn’t know about something that could have saved you.

So, I made this group to document resources on crafting, editing, funding, and publishing your book. I figured if I’m spending all this time collecting info, resources, and advice for my book, why not share it with others?

Writing a book is such a big project that I had to learn so much new stuff; it’s like I made a whole cake, and I only want a slice—I don’t want to throw the rest away; I want to share it with you. (It's not a perfect metaphor because a cake does run out, whereas ANBIP can and should be shared with anyone likely to benefit.)

(I am also considering making some sort of digital product like a course or website that takes readers through the entire process of producing a book in a sustainable and profitable way, with a focus on resources, processes, and project management, but without much on craft, other than pointing to some highly-recommended books, courses, and other resources that can help with that part. Let me know if you’re aware of any grant or program that might support something like that, if that product already exists for nonfic nonmem, or if you have any other feedback about that!)

If any of this has helped you, I encourage you to pay it forward to others in your community! Whenever I meet someone who I think would qualify for a grant, I make sure they at least know about it so they can apply. I’ve given some talks about writing as a career, and I always have multiple slides about money. You can do the same!

That’s all for now, hope to see you tonight!