Here's yet another of those articles where I share what little I know about the writing business just in case there's anyone out there who knows less. Part 1 can be read here, Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 can be read here, Part 4 can be read here, Part 5 can be read here, Part 6 can be read here and Part 7 can be read here. Part 8 begins now…
If you want to stop being an amateur writer, it helps to stop acting like one. This will probably not, in and of itself, get you work but it may remove an important obstacle that is making that less likely.
There are lots of amateurs around and there's a reason that some of them remain amateurs: Their work isn't that good. If you have never been in a position to hire writers and been deluged with submissions and applications, you may not realize how many people there are out there who want to be writers who aren't that good. It's probably more than you imagine.
Anyone who's in a position to hire writers or buy their work for any length of time has seen plenty of them. And if you in some way resemble them…well, you don't want to do that. It causes your submissions or samples to not be taken seriously and not given even the shortest of shrifts.
Every editor or producer has some indicators in this category. One of the most prevalent is a kind of mindless sense of oversell and bragging. Put simply, the top writers do not have to tell you how good their work is. If anyone will, it's their agents but they themselves don't feel a need to try and convince you. If anything, their work and their credits will convince you. Amateurs, however, usually think they have to. And then the potential buyer of your writing thinks, "He's pretty desperate so he's probably not very good."
I don't particularly enjoy being in a position to buy work from or hire other writers. Given the choice of one, I would much, much, much, much (add at least three more muches in there) be the writer than the editor. But occasionally, I have been in an editorial position and I was amazed, as stated above, how poor or inappropriate some of the submissions were. I was also amazed how many people tried to sell their writing with a sales pitch as opposed to letting their writing speak for them. The merits of the writing were all that interested me.
A very common mistake — I thought — was to quote what others had said. One applicant said in a cover letter, "Three different writing teachers told me my work was excellent. One said I had the potential to be the next Kurt Vonegutt." I of course wrote back to him that he couldn't be the next Kurt Vonnegut until he'd learned how to spell the first Kurt Vonnegut's name…and while I was at it, I also told him I wasn't looking for the next Kurt Vonnegut. The gig he was applying for, as he well knew, was writing for the Richie Rich cartoon show. Mr. Vonnegut was among my all-time favorite writers but I was not sitting there thinking, "Gee, I wish I could find the next Kurt Vonnegut because he'd be so ideally suited for Richie Rich."
Beyond all that, there's this: Why should I care in the slightest what three writing teachers I never heard of allegedly thought? There are writing teachers in this world who can't tell good writing from bad, and they certainly have no idea what I'm looking for. There are also writing teachers who will tell you your work is good because you're paying them…just as you have friends who'll tell you it's brilliant to make you feel good and/or to get you to go away.
You know what a lot of editors and producers think when you tell them how simply brilliant your work is? A lot of them feel insulted; like you think they're so dumb that that will mean something to them. They think to themselves, "Hey, pal…I'll decide if it's brilliant." They also worry that you may have a bit of an ego problem.
Remember that the person who's considering buying your writing or hiring you to write is asking him- or herself two questions. One is whether you're capable of producing work that fits their needs both in terms of style and quality. For the most part, they will make that decision based on reading your work, not on how you hype it. Then there's the other question, which pretty much comes down to "Can I work with this person?"
Will you be reliable? Will you give me grief if I tell you something needs a rewrite? Will we have the kind of rapport I need to have with someone? This is where what's on the paper isn't as important as how you come across. This is where being pushy or frighteningly in love with your own work may make someone think you might be trouble. Not long ago, a movie producer told me that she has found some good, new filmmakers for high-level projects by looking at low-budget student films. Of course though, that means sitting through a lot of bad ones.
We got to joking about how in such productions, the lower the budget is, the more times the people in charge will put their names in the credits. I don't remember the name of the guy about whom she told me the following but let's say it was Harvey Lipsitz. She said, "The film he made wasn't bad but the credits…oy! It said, 'Produced by Harvey Lipsitz, Directed by Harvey Lipsitz, Written by Harvey Lipsitz and Someone Else, Based on an Idea by Harvey Lipsitz, Cinematography by Harvey Lipsitz, Costume Design by Harvey Lipstiz, Music by Harvey Lipsitz…' He probably ordered lunch delivered himself just so he could put down 'Catering by Harvey Lipsitz.' And then at the beginning of the film, he gave himself a possessive credit. It said 'Harvey Lipsitz's' before the title and at the end, it said 'A Harvey Lipsitz Film.' And this wasn't a joke."
She said it made her decide not to get into business with Harvey Lipsitz.
None of this is to suggest one should not promote and sell one's work and one's self. But just as a car salesman can sell you so aggressively that you think, "Gee, there must be something wrong with that Hyundai," a writer can sell his or her work in a way that makes you wonder if just maybe there's something wrong there. If you're going to sell, sell with a little class and wit and please, please don't sell so hard you appear desperate. Desperate is not a quality that makes people think, "Hey, this person must be a good writer." It makes them think you're an amateur.