by Georgina Crawford

Created on: April 06, 2010

The Most Pointless Reason to Write a Novel

“I wanna be rich and I want lots of money…”  As Lily Allen’s song goes.

Wealth is the most pointless reason to write a novel, because, quite simply most writers will never achieve it.  There are a few fortunate novelists who are wealthy beyond dreams, more who are rich, many who earn a decent living and legions who earn a little money, if that.

Certainly, while the first novel is being written, most writers struggle with the conflict between writing and earning a living to keep the wolf from the door.  Few writers are fortunate enough to be able to concentrate only on writing and many first novels are written in spare time between the demands of a job and daily life.  As this could easily take a year or two, writing a novel is hardly a get rich quick scheme.

Once the first draft is complete, it’s important to be ruthless about rewriting and editing, cutting out all extraneous words and information not crucial to the plot.  Some writers manage to be ruthless about their own work, but others find they need an external perspective.  Friends and family can help with editing, but often it’s best to have your manuscript read by a professional editing agency, who will offer advice and will make sure the novel is ready for submission to publishers, such agencies charge a fee, often up to £300, but the benefits of a professional, critical eye far outweigh the costs involved, as some editing companies will act as scouts for publishers.  The editing and rewriting phase could also last another year or so, thus lengthening the time it takes to begin earning money from the work.

Then comes the difficult task of finding a publisher.  If a writer already has a body of work in publication, a prospective publisher may accept a manuscript after receiving a carefully worded letter and synopsis of the first three chapters, but often, new work is relegated to the ‘slush pile.’  It may be best to find an agent interested in taking your work to publication; however, the agent will extract a fee from your earnings.

If a novel is accepted, the publisher may offer and advance payment.  This is an up-front lump sum towards the costs of writing and publishing work.  A short time ago, advances could be counted on to tide an author over whilst writing the next book, but now they hover around £1000 - £1500.  In addition, it can take a couple of years from signing a publishing contract to actually seeing a book in print, then there will be some delay while the book is promoted until finally, royalties begin to roll in, or not.

Your novel may be one of the really lucky ones, the sales of which reach stratospheric proportions very quickly, making the five years you spent getting to that stage well worth it.  On the other hand, your novel may vanish out of sight, making few sales, in which case the five years you spent slaving over your craft in between loading the washing machine, mopping up dog vomit, working for the boss and dreaming of riches will feel pointless.

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