A Writer’s Perfect Timing

A huge range of time-related factors can profoundly affect how an editor responds to your work: recent sales of other writers’ work on the topic; the amount of current competition; what else the editor has recently published (or bought and scheduled for publication) on the same topic; what’s in the news (and what isn’t) on that day; what the editor’s friends and colleagues talk about on that day; which topics and trends the editor perceives as hot, whether that perception is accurate or not; which topics and trends the editor fails to notice; the editor’s energy and mood that day; and literally hundreds of other factors.

Significant as these factors are, you can’t affect, change, or accurately predict almost any of them. What you can do, though, is get your work out to lots and lots of editors, which greatly improves your chances of having things line up in your favor, and often makes the difference between success and failure.

One of the most successful books I’ve agented is Steve Hagen’s Buddhism Plain and Simple, which has sold over 270,000 copies in North America and been translated into Spanish, Dutch, Korean, German, Polish, and Portuguese. The book was turned down by every large publisher I approached—and I approached a lot of them. It eventually found a home at Tuttle, a small specialty house. The book’s publication was delayed for a few months when the company was sold; as a result, the book was published on the same week that Buddhism was the cover story in Time and the secondary story in Newsweek. The movie Kundun was released two months later.

Some of writers’ most inspiring success stories involve just such exquisite timing, when multiple events and decisions aligned in just the right way. Do you have a story of perfect timing—either deliberate or unwitting—that led to some writing or publishing success?

Comments

5 Responses to “A Writer’s Perfect Timing”

1. Margie Church says:

   August 22, 2009 at 2:44 pm

   Unemployment handed me a lot of spare time last summer. An online friend invited me to to write in a fiction challenge. What could be the harm? So, I began and I wrote and I wrote until I’d cranked out a cool thriller. And then a storm blew into town and a contractor on our roof asked me what I did for a living. At the time, breathing about summed it up. We talked. He knew somebody who was an author and asked for my contact information. Perhaps she’ll write to you, he said. Well, she did and she volunteered to read some chapters and she cheered me on and suggested a publisher. When the manuscript was done, she gave the publisher a heads up. It got rejected. Bet you weren’t expecting that. Neither was I. However, the publisher wrote a few paragraphs to me explaining why she rejected the book and made some suggestions about how to correct it. I took her advice and worked on the book six long weeks. I got a contract. It came out August 1 and the sequel comes out November 1. Right place, right time? You bet. Hard work? Lots of it.
2. Randi Kreger says:

   August 31, 2009 at 1:31 pm

   While my book was a decade too early for the world in general, being the very first bought me things no one else could hope for, including:

   GOOGLE RANKING
3. Randi Kreger says:

   August 31, 2009 at 1:37 pm

   While my book was too early by at least five to 10 years, the rewards were fantastic.

   I got in way before the big search engine push; now, when people insert my keyword (borderline personality disorder) I come up on the upper half of the first page partly because I’ve been around so long and other people have linked their site to mine. My site was one of the first–if not THE first–about my subject.

   The book “Positioning,” a classic, talks about the advantage of being first, and that sometimes being first is even better than being the best. WHo remembers the second man on the moon?

   So yes, my books are very well done (as opposed to rare) but being first has helped make me into a household name (in households when a person has BPD!).
4. Malia says:

   September 2, 2009 at 11:20 am

   My bad news last year turned into good news this year. After years volunteering as an event planner for a national non-profit, I found myself in need of a job last year. They needed to take on new staff and I asked them to hire me to coordinate their events. It’s not what I like to do, but I’m good at it. Unfortunately, several other volunteers made the same request and I was not given the job. I politely parted ways with the group and took a job getting paid nearly nothing, but doing what I love–writing. The non-profit saw my work for the other agency and decided they wanted to add a blog to their website. They hired me to write it and now I am on salary as a writer. I’m so glad I turned down event planning!
5. Eric Wood says:

   September 11, 2009 at 5:12 pm

   My “other” job (besides being webmaster of this site) is a sales job. I call people to set appointments, meet with them, etc.

   Sometimes you go out a meet with someone, and it’s not the right time for THEM.

   Rest assured, when the time IS right, they will remember you.

   Now the important part is… when they remember you… will it be a good thing?