7 Things I’ve Learned So Far, by Bradley Spinelli

This is a recurring column called “7 Things I’ve Learned So Far,”where writers (this installment written by Bradley Spinelli, author of KILLING WILLIAMSBURG) at any stage of their career can talk about writing advice and instruction as well as how they possibly got their book agent -- by sharing seven things they’ve learned along their writing journey that they wish they knew at the beginning.

1. For certain projects, there comes a time to forget about the big boys. We all have the dream of the fat advance and champagne parties, which seem scarce these days. Killing Williamsburg, about a suicide epidemic in Brooklyn, landed me an agent soon after I wrote it, and I was giddily awaiting my “discovery” when September 11th happened. After that, no one, not even me, wanted to read a disaster novel set in New York.

I put it aside, wrote other books, went on with my life. Years later, I realized the book had a new resonance. I made some effort at garnering another agent, but when I was given the opportunity to publish with an indy press, even knowing that I wouldn’t have a big team or big budget behind me, I jumped.

2. Get some help. You can’t do it alone. That mythology of a lone writer in a room banging out the perfect novel on a typewriter—it’s just a myth. I hired a couple of editors to do rough passes to help me see what I no longer could. Then my friend and mentor Mike DeCapite worked a kind of rough magic on the book, tightening the belt. This is important even before you seek publication. Later, a great designer is key, for both the book cover and the less-celebrated interior layout. An impactful cover makes people pick the book up.

3. Seriously, get some help. I needed someone to help send emails, follow up with media, and help develop press materials. I hired a publicist, the smartest move I could have made. A publicist not only brings in contacts and contributes to the task of promoting you, but serves as a buffer between you and the world, making a lot of things easier. Even if you write the press release, people will take it more seriously if they receive it from someone else.

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4. “Getting the word out” can mean just about anything. Everyone knows about social media, but old-school “social” still works. I paid my fee and went to the BEA’s Blogger Conference, introduced myself to book bloggers and gave them ARCs. (I also sat in on a number of conferences where everyone talked about Twitter.) The first bookstores that sold my book were stores in my neighborhood—an obvious target demographic for a book with the ‘hood’s name in it—because I walked in and asked. Get out there.

5. Get someone more famous than you. For the launch party, I wanted more than just a reading, so I had the idea to get DJ Questlove to spin a “Suicide Set,” songs about suicide or by artists who had “left the party early.” Questlove agreed, and we held the event on World Suicide Prevention Day. It was a great way to raise awareness about how widespread suicide is, and make the event about something other than just my book. People came out to support lost loved ones, yet it was also a fantastic dance party with a unique soundtrack. The event was listed in dozens of publications and was a Time Out New York Critics’ Pick—unusual for a book launch—and I was interviewed by New York magazine’s Bedford + Bowery.

6. Be willing to learn weird stuff. After reading every recipe on the Internet, I found myself in my kitchen cooking up wheat paste for my street team to put up posters in the neighborhood announcing the Questlove launch party. No one ever told me wheat paste was part of being a novelist—but it appealed to my punk rock roots. If you don’t have a giant team of people working to promote you, everything is your responsibility.

7. Learn everything… and don’t stop. I’ve written novels, stage plays, screenplays, and short stories, not to mention a pile of press materials and reams of advertising copy. Anyone would tell you that all writing is writing, and good practice for what you eventually want to write. But even the things that aren’t writing are writing—a writer today needs far more skills that just writing, and still needs life experience to become fodder for future stories. In the past few years I’ve learned not only wheat pasting, but bottle cutting, rudimentary sailing, and a little bit of conversational Thai. I’ve worked with so many production vendors that I’m starting to learn the language, and beginning to learn InDesign, which saves on favors I have to borrow from designer friends. I continue to travel, to explore, and to learn everything I can about life. It’s why I started writing things down in the first place.

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