What I learned from Dean Wesley Smith

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Dean Wesley Smith, not revising, output of books, revision, writing fast

A number of years ago, I attended a workshop given by Dean Wesley Smith–a two-part session at the Surrey International Writers Conference. It was incredibly inspiring, and in many ways it was truly a game-changer for me.

But, while his talk gave me a number of things to aspire to, it also highlighted the differences between our respective experience and situations, demonstrating several points at which I would need to diverge from the methods he used on his path to success.

If you’ve visited his fabulous blog, you’ll know that DWS is very persuasive–and he’s even more so in person. His presence is friendly, humorous, accessible and in all immensely personable.

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The Backlist and Dean Wesley Smith

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backlist, Dean Wesley Smith, independent publishing, multiple novels

Yay! I feel all vindicated, now. Last month, I wrote a post talking about the backlist–which in the digital context translates into the idea of having multiple titles out there–and the importance of “repeat customers”. I figured that as with traditional publishing, in which the publishing houses broke even and began to accrue profits only as the author wrote multiple titles and developed a backlist, an indie author will manage to do decently when he or she has multiple titles available (with the perpetual caveat that said titles are engaging, well-written, well-plotted etc. enough to have readers coming back for more. Putting up your unedited NaNoWriMo novels, complete with intact passages from when you did all those word wars during the all night write-ins isn’t necessarily going to bear out this theory. I know. I’ve got several such manuscripts, and they aren’t pretty–great concepts, but boy do they need fixing).

Dean Wesley Smith recently wrote a post in which he came to a very similar conclusion about volume and sales. So you know, don’t just take my word for it–check out his blog and read all his persuasive reasoning on the topic, too!