How to Be an Author: The Business of Being a Writer in Australia

by Georgia Richter, Deborah Hunn

If you dream of being published, this book will teach you the nuts and bolts of what it means to be an author. In a friendly, informative and practical way, Georgia Richter and Deborah Hunn share all you need to know about inspiration and research, preparing to submit to a publisher, creating an author brand, legal, ethical and moral considerations, pitching, effective social media and much more. Practical advice and top tips from Liz Byrski, Alan Carter, Nandi Chinna, Tim Coronel, Amanda Curtin, Daniel de Lorne, Deb Fitzpatrick, James Foley, Alecia Hancock, Stephen Kinnane, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Natasha Lester, Brigid Lowry, Caitlin Maling, Meg McKinlay, Claire Miller, Brendan Ritchie, Rachel Robertson, Holden Sheppard, Sasha Wasley, David Whish-Wilson and Anne-Louise Willoughby.

Genres: Nonfiction, Writing

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 2, 2021

Reviews

[David Allan-Petale · Rating 5 out of 5]

So helpful in so many ways. This is the kind of no nonsense, deeply informed and utterly encouraging book I wish I'd had access to years ago. Now that I have it, the lessons are amazing. It's particularly valuable to have so many writers giving their experiences and hard-won lessons from the knocks along the way. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in writing, whether you are just starting out or salty from experience.

[Beau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful book that focuses on being an author in Australia (as opposed to most books in this genre which are USA focused).

Easy to read with tons of insights from different Australian professionals.
If you want to be an author in Australia then this book is super handy.

[Conor McCammon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful resource!

Cursory in places, but really in-depth in others. The author's personal anecdotes and contributions really make it work I think. I definitely learned some things.

Overall, worthwhile and solid.

7/10

[Zoe Deleuil · Rating 5 out of 5]

The business of writing is not something you really need to think about until you start looking for a publisher. But when you do get to that point, it's worth knowing the lay of the land to increase your chances of success in a competitive industry.

Being an author has changed a lot from the days when writers were more or less invisible - social media is now where many people go to find new books, so aspiring authors will benefit from understanding
how to use these platforms to connect with readers and even attract a publisher. This book looks at how to build your author profile in a way that feels authentic and comfortable, with practical suggestions that would be useful for anyone looking to establish themselves professionally online.

The book also covers how to build a long-term career with more than one book - how to keep your writing momentum going alongside the rest of your life and the marketing and public aspects of a writing career. And also, given that there's not a lot of money in writing books, what else do you do? Is it good to have a second career or skill so your entire identity isn't tied up in your writing? Ambelin Kwaymullina's comments on this topic were particularly thought-provoking.

Authors earn much of their income from public appearances, and benefit from building good relationships with readers, booksellers etc, so the book also touches on how to get better at talking about your work in public and selling yourself. Much of this is common sense, but as with any profession there's a certain etiquette to being an author, and it's worth knowing. The book demystifies that public side of the job in a way that feels reassuring and achievable for anyone, even the most introverted writer.

Added to this are insights and advice from a range of Australian authors, which works well to show that people manage their careers in all sorts of ways and it's about finding what works for you and your circumstances.

Disclaimer: I am about to publish my debut novel with Fremantle Press & Georgia Richter was my editor, so I was always going to like it.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive and grounded tour of all matters literary. The advice and information is forthright, and often defers to contributions from various Australian writers, which combine to give insights that are varied and thorough. There are detailed and very helpful sections on self-promotion, how to handle events, how to generate momentum, and managing the literary relationships in your life. These are all excellent and worthwhile suggestions. If you are interested in becoming a writer in Australia and have never received any advice on the logistical side of that process (and are allergic to the google-tron), this book will have just about everything you need...with only a few caveats.

First, this book tries to cater to all types of authors equally (poets, children's authors, non-fiction authors, various flavours of adult fiction authors), and somewhat suffers from a resulting lack of clarity. The first half in particular is written in a quite dry and vague academic style, leaning substantially on dot points (presumably translated from pre-existing lecture slides) to convey its information. The second half is a little more straightforward, but still remains vague for the purposes of reaching all readers.

Both halves are beset by frequent interruptions in the form of author contributions, not all of which will be relevant to every reader. Ideally you'd skip the less relevant contributions to focus on the relevant ones (e.g. if you write poetry you'd read contributions from poets and skip the children's authors). As the authors' contributions are presented in different orders each time (and not all authors contribute to all sections), however, it's hard to do this. The authors' organising decisions are perfectly reasonable; this is just a note of caution for readers expecting all the information to be relevant to them. Figure out early which bits to skim.

Also, as an addendum to this point, my scientist brain was craving facts and figures at certain points. A claim is made some 22,000 unique new titles were published in Australia in 2018. What proportion were Australian? Debuts? Fiction? Non-fiction? Traditionally published? Elsewhere, it would be good to know things like how many units a successful author will sell, how RRP is calculated, or even basic things like the demographics of writers in Australia. Happily much of this information is available through a 2015 report by some Macquarie academics*, but it might have been nice to have some more quantitative information contained in this volume.

The second caveat is peculiar to my own dumb idiot situation but I think is important to acknowledge. If you want to be published in genre fiction (i.e. science fiction, fantasy, or horror), forget this book exists. This book repeatedly claims the way to get published is to submit your manuscript directly to publishers. But no Australian publisher (at least none of reasonable size that I could identify) publishes or even accepts adult genre fiction. So you have to go the route of acquiring an agent, almost always with an agency overseas, who will then sell your book to a big international publisher. Your book will ultimately trickle down to the local bookshop as an international release (possibly via a local publisher), but not even remotely by the means indicated in this book.

If you do fall into this category, despair not; advice abounds. By far the most useful Australian perspective on getting published comes from Simon Haynes's spacejock.com.au. Besides this, listen to the first 10 seasons of Writing Excuses and follow the advice you see on AbsoluteWrite, QueryShark, etc. This present book will be helpful regardless in terms of setting you straight on matters of setting up a website, handling self-promotion, and so on, but it's important to remember that all the pre-publication advice is functionally irrelevant if your passion is genre.

The final caveat is that this book quite rightly explodes a few myths about writing, mainly pertaining to the perceived rewards in terms of glory and/or monies. The picture painted by the book is grim. The contributing authors generously bare their vulnerabilities, and reveal that full-time writing is basically a dysfunctional career. None of them seem particularly happy, and the compromises they make in terms of family and finances seem soul-crushing. If you want an inspiring book on the merits of storytelling, this ain't it.

Oh - also there are many split infinitives in this book. If that grinds your gears, brace yourself accordingly.

Overall, this is a helpful and generous book for most flavours of author. It seems maximally useful to a particular demographic of writer (the recent retiree who decides now is finally the time to write that atmospheric story about romance among rural sheep farmers and wants more people to read it than just the immediate family but also has no idea how to operate the google), generally useful to most other demographics of writers (serious writers of all ages with writing under their belts), and not very useful to one very specific demographic (those among us who insist on finding the fantastical in our fiction).

*I have read this report, and it is very interesting. Of 1,000 published authors surveyed (all categories and genres of long-form publications), 88% are over 40 and 65% are female. The average income from writing work is $12,900 p.a. The largest proportion of authors rely on their spouse for financial support, and many (also or instead) work multiple jobs to make ends meet. The best-paid genres are education and "genre," which is not a genre but includes all the fiction genres except literary fiction (crime, romance, erotica, thriller, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, horror, comedy, etc.). Unhelpfully, the report's authors didn't split "genre" into its many constituents, so it's hard to tell if the high average earned by "genre" authors ($15,200) is driven by runaway romance successes, international sff sales, or what. Anyway, this report is eye-opening and should be considered a mandatory accompaniment to reading Richter & Hunn's How to Be an Author.

Zwar, J., Throsby, D., Longden, T. (2015). The Australian book industry: Authors, publishers and readers in a time of change. Macquarie University. http://goto.mq.edu.au/book-industry

[Underground Writers]

This review was first published on the Underground Writers website: http://underground-writers.org/review...

Can we take a moment to thank Fremantle Press’s publisher Georgia Richter and Creative Writing lecturer Deborah Hunn for creating How to be an Author? This is the guidebook to publishing that Australian writers have been craving for a very long time. How to be an Author delves into the nitty-gritty of what it means and takes to become a published author in Australia.

Although the first few chapters provide some inspiration and tips for writing, this book is primarily concerned with what to do next with a completed manuscript. An author is not just an author but (when starting out) is required to take on multiple roles: manager, marketing director, and distributer to name a few. The book is divided into clearly labelled sections that walk the reader through the requirements in sequential order from the first step of creating a manuscript to the final step of crafting writing into a career. This novel is marketed towards writers who not only want to be published but want to make their writing a career.

How to be an Author takes the reader through the writing/publishing stages:

The beginning
Manuscript creation
Readership and audiences
Approachability and relationship building
Finding a publisher/representation
The contract
The publication process
Branding and self-promotion
Business of promotion
Writing as a career
Although you can read this book like any other traditional book—one chapter after the other—you can skip to chapters or sections that interest you the most. I’ve always been curious about how a writer finds the right publisher and literary agent, and let me tell you, the divisive thoughts several Australian authors contributed to this section were very interesting to read!

In addition to their own research and expertise, Richter and Hunn call upon the knowledge of 18 published Australian authors. Scattered throughout the book, these experienced authors dish out advice and lessons they learnt during their ongoing writing careers. From Nandi Chinna’s advice on how to tackle the dreaded writer’s block to Natasha Lester’s tips on how to gracefully accept rejection, this book provides both the expected and unexpected advice on questions many have pondered or never considered.

If you have questions about writing, authorship, publication, marketing, or any other aspect of book publishing, this is the book for you. Let this be the one stop so you don’t need to approach publishers at book festivals as they line up for a sausage roll … not that I’m saying I do that on a regular basis. There are many questions on publishing in Australia that Google can’t provide or questions so obscure Google can’t even comprehend, so grab yourself a copy of this book or signup to the online workshops and podcasts Fremantle Press have created for How to be an Author. It’s time to take the next step in your writing career!

[Levi Huxton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hoped this book would be useful and it was, covering as it does all of the bases, including - thank you! - self-publishing. Surprisingly, it was more than that too.

While it focuses on the business of being an author, this concise volume also delivers valuable insights into how one might survive and thrive as an writer. What's refreshing here is that the focus is not on making money. Georgia Richter and Deborah Hunn clearly understand that writers need a business manual only as a means to an end: the goal is sustainability because, well, we don't have a choice but to write.

So while you'll find all you need to know about representation and publishing and self-promotion, you'll also learn about self-care and support systems and how you can be an ethical and generous participant in the cultural ecosystem.

The internet is littered with books to buy if you want to learn about selling books. This one is special because it doesn't require you to put all your trust into a self-proclaimed expert. Instead, it shares thoughtful, candid and useful advice from a diverse bunch of successful (often West-) Australian writers such as Holden Sheppard, Ambelin Kwaymullina and Deb Fitzpatrick. Their contributions are carefully considered and practical.

It would have been great to see a few case studies unpacking the business models of publishing (and self-publishing), including a breakdown of figures, though I imagine there are sensitivities and confidentiality issues.

The list of resources is comprehensive, the research is thorough and the tone is encouraging. Fellow writers, don't miss out.

[Tyson Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to be an Author is a solid overview of each step along the path to being a (capital A) author.

Along with the overview, advice, and how-to you would expect from a book of this sort, are a collection of insights from Australian authors - primarily Western Australian. This is a highlight of the book as it gives a few different perspectives and personal experiences to add depth to the advice.

Much of the material in the book was familiar to me. This was in part because a lot of it is discussed on blogs, forums, and writers' events, usually just after the questions on "where do you get your ideas from?" It was also familiar material because I was part of the FAWWA Emerging Writers Program with Fremantle press, and Richter was one of the people involved in the program.

Helpful book, particularly for aspiring authors in Australia.

[Lee McKerracher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must have book if you are starting out on a career as an author in Australia, or even if you have been around a while, you will benefit from the tips in this book.

It is a practical guide to the publishing industry and what you need to do to give your work the best chance possible of being published. There is advice from the author herself, but also a lot of advice from local authors who have 'been there and done that'.

So much insight into this highly competitive industry and many hints that will guide you in structuring your journey as an author.

I read this book on the Indy Books App via my Library and found it so helpful that I have purchased a hard copy as it will be invaluable as I travel through my own writing journey.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the facts were good, some of the comments from authors were good, but I didn't quite find it as useful as I'd hoped. Most admittedly I already knew. Good for someone who is just starting out, with writing tips as well as publishing tips. Easy enough to dip in and out of and choose which topic you need to learn more about.

[Kasey Milburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a lot of books on writing go into the craft of writing, this is great as it goes into the business side of becoming an author, by someone in the publishing industry. This is a great read for those aspiring authors in Australia.

[Ash Valli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic insights on writing and publishing. Logical and engaging, with plenty of popular Australian authors to share on what to expect when going through the stages of becoming an author.

[Lillian Halliday · Rating 1 out of 5]

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