Brandon Sanderson speaks to Quark!

We had an awesome weekend in the Quark writing group!  Brandon Sanderson came and spoke on turning your dreams of becoming an sf/f writer into reality…

It was a really good speech: a lot of the quarkies I talked with afterwards said that it was really motivational and educational to them.  We also had a handful of people from the general BYU community come (not a whole lot, but maybe a half dozen or so), and I think they really liked it as well.

Brandon started by telling his story about how he became a published writer.  Basically, it went along the lines of everyone telling him he couldn’t make a living at it, him spending some time during and after college getting by with a graveyard shift job and living in a friend’s basement, and then, after a LOT of time going to conventions, walking up and introducing himself to editors, and doing a lot of other legwork and networking, Tor picked up his seventh unpublished novel (Elantris) and bought it from him.  From there, things really took off.

He spent a lot of time telling us about the business aspect of writing, and I think that was really good.  I think it helped to ground us in reality and show us the general path that one follows to get published.  We talked a bit about ebooks, print on demand, publishing scams, and a lot about conventions, approaching editors and publishers, what kind of money a book deal translates into after taxes and other fees (not a heck of a lot…about 50% of what you started with–it’s enough to turn me into a Republican!), etc etc.

When I approached him and asked if he would speak to us, I asked if he could speak a bit about getting published and ground us in the real world in a way that would motivate us to be more than just hobby writers.  I think that a lot of us are like that in the writing group–we love sf/f and we love to write, we’ve been doing it forever, but we know that it’s next to impossible to make a living as a writer and so most of us are going into different fields and just write on the side.  I was hoping that he could help us to see what kind of paths were open for us–how we could become published writers, even if we weren’t doing it as a primary career.

I wasn’t disappointed.  While Brandon focused on the professional and business aspects of writing in general, he also spoke about what it means to do it on the side, and how to make that possible.  What he said was actually very encouraging to me!

He drew out where the money goes when you have a book deal, like he did in his 318 class–a $40k contract turns into $34k after paying your agent, $31k after self employment tax, $25k after health insurance, and then you’re looking at regular taxes and tithing (and tithing alone is $3k or $4k if you pay on the gross).  That means that if you’re writing as your primary career, you’re looking at two book deals a year to give you a modest income, which translates to about 10,000 words a week.

However, if you’re doing it on the side, the self employment tax goes away and you’re looking at your regular income plus whatever you get from a book deal.  If you already have a job that gives you a modest salary, the extra stuff from writing starts to look like a really nice amount of money.  And since you don’t have to support yourself on your writing, you can write less–about 2,000 words a week to write a modest sized novel each year.

2,000 words a week!  Sometimes I do more than that in a single sitting!

When you write on the side, however, the key issue becomes time, not money.  You’ve got your work life, your home life, your church life if you’re religious (which most of us in Quark are), and then, on top of all of that, you’ve got your writing life.  You and your family might not be starving for money, but you personally will find yourself juggling a lot of your time.

And then you’ve got all the conventions to go to, the networking, contacting editors and publishers, researching the industry, reading novels to keep up on the current trends in the genre, etc etc.

However, it’s doable.  As we were walking out of the room, I was chatting with Brandon and told him how I’ve been writing (or trying to write) 1,000 words a day this semester.  His response was “see, you can do it.”

!!!

So, yes, I can say it was definitely an awesome weekend!  And I think that Brandon had a pretty good time as well.  Quite a few people came up and bought some of his books, so I think we made it worth his time to come.

And, yes, I recorded the entire talk.  It’s about 1:45 hours long, and I did the audio editing on it just today.  I’ve got it down to four mp3’s that are each between 25 to 30 megabytes long, and if you want me to burn you a cd copy, just email me at onelowerlight at gmail dot com.  If you live too far away to make burning you a cd practical…well, email me and I’m sure we’ll work something out.