Prize Fight: know what you’re playing for
by Damon Suede
(A-game Advice was a monthly column offering practical
tips for winning promo that fits your personal style, strategy,
and measure of success.
When I first started writing romance, a
few folks rushed to tell me what every author HAD to do (or mustn’t
ever). A lot of the advice contradicted itself and others’
suggestions…which flat-out drove me
nuts for a while.
Supposedly everyone in Romancelandia did this stuff, right? Maybe it
was my obligation to follow suit. Happily, the film industry had
given me a healthy skepticism of bromides and blandishments. I tend
to be an ornery cuss with a contrary streak, so I took the advice
that worked and discarded what didn’t. Mainly, I knew what I was
playing for.
Now I have a lot of fun as a writer. I
treat our industry as a game because it has rules and players, conflict and strategy,
touchdowns and trophies… Although the stakes are high, no one dies
if they don't hit a list or win an award. This also helps me keep
things in perspective and my nuttiness to a minimum.
Of course, before you play any game you
need to know the prize so you can focus on a strategy; that can
present a freaky challenge to everyone who hasn’t taken time to
seriously examine their own personal goals, motivations, and
conflicts. Different players in different contexts seek different
rewards and play radically
different games: some of us dig chess, some can’t get enough Pokemon
Go, and others seem to gravitate toward flaming-chainsaw-hockey.
One of the persistent, pernicious
falsehoods in our industry is the idea that there is one incentive,
one path, or one solution shared by all writers...or put another
way, that we all share the same GMC.
That's nonsense. People write for many reasons and publish with many
different approaches and outcomes in play.
Still, the appeal of monolithic solutions
is obvious: quick fixes and E-Z shortcuts don't require subtlety or
explanation. How can you customize professional advice for every
possible context?
In practice this is created some silly
shibboleths which terrorize and depress folks: everyone wants to win
a [insert award], [insert
social media platform] is essential, only [insert
generic adjective] books become bestsellers. Let’s be clear:
that’s goofy. We aren’t
assembly-line androids.
So to start with ask yourself:
what is your measure of success?
Okay so sure… we can agree that fame,
fortune, favors, and fans all sound better than a stick in the eye,
but what is the Big Shiny Trophy™ you play for every time you get up
and get in the game? Shouldn’t you know the rules and the prize
before you play?
Ask yourself what matters most to you in
this wacky career: is it the relationships with readers, the
clamorous accolades, or the cold, hard cash? All of those are valid
spurs, but they suggest radically different approaches to
every aspect of your
writing life. If winning awards floats your boat, but you never
enter contests or miss deadlines when you do then your personal
trophy will sit unclaimed on the shelf.
How will you know when you’ve succeeded?
Whenever you face an opportunity articulate a
measure of success, the
way you’ll gauge the results. Establish a personal metric to gauge
your progress before
beginning the process. As an added bonus a clear measure of success
will also help your rep team, your publisher, your colleagues, and
your fans to boost your professional goals as well. You could map
your entire career with interconnected measures of success.
Here’s the deal: like it or not, you are
the protagonist of your own professional story. You make the
choices, you do the work, you scoop whatever loot ensues. If you
suss out exactly what
you’re playing for, you can nail down a coherent strategy that
addresses your unique goal, motivation, and conflict so that your
authorial story can arc towards its own HEA. Yay, independent
thought! Yay, narrative structure!
Think of each measure of success as an expression of active
intention by using the phrase “in order to…”
-
I am attending this signing in order to connect with readers in a new market.
-
I am giving this workshop in order to attract savvy members to my chapter.
-
I am joining this anthology in order to support two young writers I admire.
Full disclosure: I establish a measure of success before
every con, when designing swag, or planning a Facebook party just to
keep myself focused and honest about results. Each measure lets me
keep track of what works and why so I can keep improving and
evolving.
Before you make a significant professional move, weigh the
strengths and flaws, opportunities and threats. For best results,
make sure that your measure of success is
unique to the project to
clarify your path and
independent of external influence, because it’s all too easy to
let raves and praise derail your personal GMC unless you nail down
the endgame.
Get serious and specific. What do you want and why do you
want it?
A few years back, management guru Peter Drucker popularized
a George Doran technique now known as S.M.A.R.T. planning. The best
measure of success will be:
-
Specific: with a tangible goal with clear limits and definition.
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Measurable: with a concrete, calculable indicator of progress.
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Achievable: within reach of your current skills and resources.
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Relevant: important and appropriate to your current objectives.
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Time-based: using a firm start and finish to focus your work schedule.
Use that measure of success to determine
if and when you’ve succeeded, and why and where you fell short. Aim
for progress, not perfection; molehills can build a mountain. Any
time you fall short, you’re better equipped for the next round. Hold
yourself accountable and tailor subsequent decisions based on those
results.
Grousing about failure or obsessing over
mistakes doesn’t actually fix anything. For best results, cast yourself as the active, focused
protagonist of your own adventure. You have the power to tell the
story of your own career, but only if you decide what matters most
to you.
The next time you consider jumping into a
twitter chat or decide to upgrade your website, or plan your next
unforgettable swag item, establish a measure of success that holds
you accountable and gives you useful intel on the back end.
Originally published as part of A Game Advice for the Romance Writers Report.
If you wish to republish this article, just drop me a line.