Anna Vaught Profile picture
Writer, teacher, hustler, momma, #Curae. PGR @yorkstjohn. Mentor @jerichowriters 2024: To Melt the Stars. @brokensleep 31/07; Her Winter Song @renardpress 20/10
Jan 28, 2023 14 tweets 5 min read
Thread. I know some #writers research & query at the weekend, so here: on independent - indie - #publishers. Clarification: authors who self-publish (good option) also call themselves indie, but here I'm referring to independent publishers. Get a drink and snack. I'm going in 1. Indie publishers are sometimes called indie presses or small publishers or small presses. What is this thing? A publisher that operates on its own, & is not part of any large corporation or conglomerate. They may be tiny - but not all; Bloomsbury; Canongate, for example
Jan 27, 2023 4 tweets 2 min read
You wouldn't BELIEVE who comes to tell me their problems in ##publishing and #writing so red flags I cannot point at enough even with my most MASSIVE POINTY STICK
1. If you're told this is your one shot, your opp, run for the sodding hills
2. No dialogue? Get out of there 3. If the person or people you might work with on your book repeatedly & openly criticise other sectors of the industry, TREAD CAREFULLY SHOUTY CAPITALS. I don't mean all the epic folk who work to effect change, but something harsher and sharper; bombast
4. This one is crucial
Dec 13, 2022 10 tweets 3 min read
Thread. On #agents
1. I was following a thread and noticed that many think you can never approach a publisher without an agent, but many indie publishers - even some surprisingly big pubs are indie - will accept unagented authors. Here -@Mslexia & helpful to authors in ALL areas Image 2. It's possible - I've written & tweeted elsewhere about how dialogue is key - to be agented & still do some solo books & projects. That's what I do, but it's agreed, planned AND we talk over projects & books which are not agented AND all contracts are looked over, agency or not
Dec 7, 2022 22 tweets 5 min read
Thread. 10% of authors earning nearly half all author income. That's startling, isn't it?
This is going to be a long thread and it's personal because I thought it might be helpful to show you what I have done. I am going in hard with information on £ but also ideas. Ready? 1. By the end of 2023 I'll have had 8 books published and one in translation. I have been writing since late 2015 & in print since 2016. I've had 2 major columns in that time, pieces in the national press and, tallying it, 32 other stories, features, reviews & non-fic pieces
Dec 6, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Okay. I’ve dithered about this but we need to speak frankly. I’ll have had 8 books published by the end of 2023. I’ve never even made half that in a year. Just one reason why, unless you’re doing well financially, I advocate a portfolio career; gigs that come from the books. So financially, in order
Teaching
Mentoring
Columns and features
Guest lectures & event talks
Manuscript review & appraisal
Editing
Writing books
Dec 4, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
On where you fit in #writingcommunity WELL, since I had my revelation about being a portfolio worker and the one big creative project (ie career as only partly about books), I've been much cheerier about this, and producing plenty. Still, where does my work fit in? Read on The answer is that I don't really, but then I never have so I figure I'll just engineer something. I write literary fiction, & I hear it like poem or song; the words have colour, heft and shape. Writing is a physical experience for me. Why? Fuck knows. The experience is glorious