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NOTE: Bob Pollock died a few years ago. We miss him. He was a true working writer, covering many subjects in his long career. Probably his most famous, or infamous, book was Loophole, or How to Rob a Bank which was a work of fiction. But real bank robbers in France used the book as a how-to manual, committing one of the largest bank heists in French history—and the events of which were then made into a movie—and Bob found himself suddenly famous for all the wrong reasons.
ESSAY: Writing for Money by Robert Pollock
Probably
the most important first decision a writer has to make, particularly
a new one, is to establish his or her intent. Why do I want to write?
Not what, but why? Why is far more important than what because the answer to that question can be the beginning or not of a
writing career.
There
are two answers: the first is to write for literary fame and accolades,
the second is to write for money. That's it, either or, although
it is possible to mix the literary accolades answer with the money
one, but that's an outside risk and asking a lot. In spite of
what the literary reviewers may say, it doesn't happen very often.
The best bet is to choose to write for money because that is the
currency of the publishing business. That is the fully understood
principle: write to sell a lot of copies. Any other reason isn't
going to work anywhere near as well. Writing for money will simplify
the problem because the way to accomplish that end is a marketing
problem, not a literary one. Getting involved in literature is
like deliberately planning for a hard and rocky way; a writer
could spend years getting nowhere in particular if they choose
that answer.
published in The London Sunday Times, The L
Robert Pollock's
work has been published in The London Sunday Times, The London
Sunday Observer, Vanity Fair, The San Francisco Examiner and The Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Various short stories
have been published in magazines, newspapers and on-flight airline
magazines. He has written and produced an extensive number of
house magazines and newsletters.
He
has had five books published, three novels and two non-fiction books:The
Persuader, Loophole (Or How to Rob a Bank), The Legend of John Dougan, Soccer for Juniors and The Everything World's Religions
Book. All the books were published in Europe and America. Soccer
for Juniors may also be purchased on-line from the Macmillan
Information SuperLibrary.
Pollock's
latest books are The Everything World's Religions Book, Adams
Media, ISBN 1-58062-648-3, was published in August, 2002 and Shadows,
a suspense novel available at Pollock's web site.
ondon
Sunday Observer, Vanity Fair, The San Francisco Examiner and The Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Various short stories
have been published in magazines, newspapers and on-flight airline
magazines. He has written and produced an extensive number of
house magazines and newsletters.
Keep in
mind it is reckoned that it takes at least fifty years for a book to
be truly considered an artistic success; you may not want to wait that
long.
No, money is the best bet, don't even worry about getting good reviews,
they don't sell books, word of mouth sells books. Someone around the
water cooler who says: "Hi, I just finished this great book, it's about
. . . ." They are the book sellers a writer should produce for.
Right. So now you have made the correct decision, what next? You have
arrived at the what part of this short essay. The best way to discover
what to write is to analyze the marketplace and find out what sells.
Romance sells; it sells more than any other genre, but maybe you don't
fancy writing that kind of material. Then you have to pick another genre
that's more to your style: action/adventure, mystery, or go completely
away from fiction into the nonfiction area.
Nonfiction
is easier to get off the ground because the subjective reasoning of
the potential buyer - the placement agent, (they used to be called literary
agents when people knew what constituted literature,) is in no way as
involved in the decision making process as it is in fiction. Nonfiction
can be qualified and quantified without emotion: will a book on how
to buy a car find a market? The answer to that is a lot easier than:
will this loser ever fall in love and be seen as a hero/heroine? .
Writing for money releases the writer from all sorts of hang ups about
are they any good as writers and things like that. Just take a look
at the current best seller lists. The question in that arena is: will
what is being written sell? Does it accomplish what the writer and the
publisher want it to do? .
To pick writing for money simplifies the entire process. Try it, it'll
probably work. .
