We Need a System - to Succeed

[Richard A. McCullough]

By
Richard A. McCullough


Successful writing demands a system


It takes several systems (not just one) to survive, let alone achieve success as authors; whether one is writing fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose.

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." ~Vincent Van Gogh

If you are only writing as a "hobby" with no intention to share your creations beyond a hand full of relatives and close friends then this article isn't for you.

But if you have a desire to publish consistently and routinely then you'll want to grab a cup of coffee and study the following over carefully.

We know that we must "cope" with the muse, and inspiration. However, we also know that we must "organize" or we can become overwhelmed and confused.

"A professional knows the rules of the game as a matter of course so that he can achieve, in the upper strata above that, a high quality of art. ~ L. Ron Hubbard from "A Professional" - published in "The Art Series"

The question is how do we "organize" as writers such that we don't become overwhelmed, and can instead, expand?

The answer is through the creation and utilization of simple "systems".

To succeed in any endeavor one needs a system - and we writers are no different. For without a system everything is left to chance, inspiration, and the muse, which all too often leads to frustration, confusion and poverty.

To truly succeed one needs more than just one system - they need a SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS.

While we might recognize that a business must have an organizational structure - artists of every stripe often fail to realize that we must also have and utilize an organizational structure. After all, we rationalize, there is only me. I'm just one person creating my art. I don't need any structure. I merely write my stories, paint my pictures, or otherwise create my art. If we consider organization at all - it's as an afterthought. We tell ourselves, "When I start making money I'll organize…"

The truth is that one must organize - in order to - "make money".

The minimum organizational structure we must utilize consists of Establishment, Production and Marketing.

We need systems for:

ESTABLISHMENT:
1. The tools, facilities and personnel of production
a. Workspace - System
b. Tool evaluation and acquisition - System
c. Personnel recruitment, training and utilization - System

PRODUCTION:
2. Writing The Stories
a. Story Idea - System
b. Story Design - System
c. Research - System
d. Composition - System
e. Editing - System

MARKETING:
3. Marketing The Completed Stories
a. To agents and/or publishers - System
b. To the general book-buying public - System
c. To existing fans - System

There are others but these I feel are the irreducible minimum.

That means that as writers in the "Storytelling Business" our success depends on not just a couple of ideas or techniques but rather on a minimum of 11 complete systems, all working together to put stories into the minds and hearts of readers and income into our pockets.

Successful businesses are all built upon "Systems" not random chance - otherwise they would fail...Miserably. And we writers are no different.

McDonalds - Systems
Starbucks - Systems
Subway - Systems
(800) Flowers - Systems
Dominos Pizza - Systems

One should think of a system as the way to:

S - Save
Y - Your
S - Self
T - Time
E - Energy and...
M - Money

No System = No success. Because, "Systems" work. People fail.

Systems work because they consist of; a codified, repeatable, sequence of actions that routinely achieves the desired result more often than they fail. Systems are also known as Successful Actions.

Once we have even the most rudimentary system established there are several powerful things that can be done to further improve efficiency aside from simply tinkering with the system itself. Parts of a system or the whole system itself can be Automated, Delegated or Outsourced.

What obscures the simple necessity of systems is the apparent success of people (authors) who do not appear to have systems. But we must not be fooled. Just because they can't or won't articulate the systems they use, doesn't mean that none exist. In the acknowledgments for James A. Michener's "Centennial", Michener lists out a team of people that worked for months compiling research, and providing other services for his huge novel.

The work of these people had to be directed and coordinated based on some system. The file cabinet full of information they gathered had to be processed through some system whereby the relevant facts were determined and put into the correct sequence. And then Michener had to have some system for stringing together these facts in such a way as to yield the skeleton which he fleshed out to create his very compelling "novel". Even the most casual reader of this book can't possibly believe that Michener just sit down one day and start typing; Chapter One, Page One, "It was a dark and windy night"….

What alternative is there to a Systemized approach? Without a system one is reduced to relying on Luck, and Intuition.

And although Luck and Intuition can play a part in one's career, relying on them alone rather than even the simplest systems is a sure path to frustration, self doubt and ultimately to failure. Luck can run out and Intuition often fails. But "Systems" work repeatedly and consistently to achieve the desired result. That is their nature and purpose.

Successful books are not simply "written" into success but rather systematically built utilizing all of the following systems - in concert.

ESTABLISHMENT:
1. The tools, facilities and personnel of production
d. Workspace
This can be as simple at a card table in the corner of the kitchen or as complex as an office with all the accruements of an operating business.

e. Tool Evaluation And Acquisition
This is evaluating, specifying and acquiring all the tools that we need to be effective. It covers everything from the books and periodicals we read, the chair we sit in, computer we type on, cabinets we file in, and the consumables like paper, stamps, envelopes, etc.

f. Personnel Recruitment, Training And Utilization
This is where we would hire and train a personal assistant, interview and contract agents and publishers, and even get our own training.

While the need for Establishment seems self evident I think too many of us writers take it for granted. It's easy to do because too often we fail to think of what we do as a business operation, and therefore tend to neglect this important aspect of any business.

PRODUCTION:
2. Writing The Stories
a. Story Ideas
Not all "ideas" are created equal. Some can be fashioned into workable stories and some couldn't be hammered into a story for love nor money. If one has a "system" for generating "good" story ideas, then you have a license to print money. If not then you'll likely spend more time pulling your hair out than typing. Or perhaps worse still all the typing and re-typing that you do will not result in a salable story.

b. Story Design
Effective Story Design is not a "rote formula" but neither is it an arbitrary. Rather it is the implementation of the principles that work. These are the rules, traditions, and conventions that define a well structured "story". They have evolved over time based on the needs and demands of readers. And although it can be argued that these "conventions" are still evolving; one would do well to start with a firm understanding of the conventions before attempting to "break" them. There are design principles for stories just as there are design principles for bridges, cars, ham sandwiches and every other thing under the sun, moon and stars.

We can Attack and thereby master these Design principles, or we can Flee, Avoid, Neglect or, Succumb to them. These are the five mechanisms for handling danger. And one is in "Danger" in direct proportion to how much they know or don't know about what it is they are attempting to do.

c. Research
With a sound design in hand then the matter of research can be systematically and efficiently undertaken. When one knows what information and decisions are needed he/she can promptly go about getting the information and making those decisions. Without a system one can only suffer Confusion, because every bit of information, every fact, is equal to every other fact or bit of information and all decisions are arbitrary. How would one know what information was needed? How would one know when they had gathered enough data? How would one know whether to have the character jump off the bridge or kiss the girl?

d. Composition
This is the actual "composing" or typing of the words, sentences, and paragraphs that become the scenes, acts and movements that make up the story. When one knows what the story is, then they can just go about telling it.

Composition takes place in concert between the esthetic and analytical mind and is the process whereby the writer creates, re-creates, and alters Mockups while simultaneously selecting and re-selecting the words and phrases to represent the constantly evolving vision while simultaneously typing the words on the page. The words are then read by the writer from the viewpoint of a reader and compared to the vision. Then the next Mockup or set of Mockups is conceived and the whole process starts over again.

This envisioning and re-envisioning, word and phrase selection and re-selection, typing, reading, and then starting all over again; all happens very quickly and smoothly in the aesthetic (in conjunction with the analytical) mind. For anyone watching a writer compose, this system is "invisible" but it is a system never-the-less. Like the system for "driving" a car. While the "system" is invisible to the passenger it has become almost "subconscious" for anyone who has been driving for a while. But you can bet that it's there and functioning. (Note: while this vital system warrants a full thesis unto itself - such an endeavor exceeds the scope of this overview)

e. Editing
Editing is not "re-writing". Editing is fixing the typos, spelling and punctuation errors that creep in.

Re-writing is writing again what one should have written in the first place - and is only necessary to the degree that one didn't tell the story correctly in the first place. Which is the usual case when one is trying to compose solely from intuition or "the muse" instead of based on a good idea, converted into a workable design, and backed up with the required research.

Re-writing is like re-building a car, house or bridge because one discovered, after the fact, it was built wrong in the first place. A first draft, based on a sound design, evolved from a good story idea should never need to be torn apart and "re-written".

The idea that "writing is re-writing" comes from the fact that too may writers simply jump in and start slinging words down, and then after they have written a mess of words try to sort through the debris in hopes of discovering a story buried in there somewhere that can be re-written out of the confusion and turned into a salable manuscript. This is the most inefficient way possible of "creating" anything and therefore should obviously be avoided. (Note: while this vital system warrants a full thesis unto itself - such an endeavor exceeds the scope of this overview)


MARKETING:
3. Marketing and Selling The Completed Stories
Now that we have a finished product how do we get it to market?
a. To Agents And/Or Publishers
Here we have to learn how to sell our product as a raw material to another business. To sell these boys and girls we have to understand how they are going to process our manuscript into their finished product and how they are going to sell that product to their customers. When we understand that, we can develop a system to position and promote our manuscript such that it aligns with what they need and want. However, as covered in "The Good, Bad and Ugly - of the writing Business" we must understand the flawed "buying habits" of our two primary "buyers" or inherit the Confusion of their own flawed systems.

b. To The General Story-Buying Public
People do not "buy" books or movies, they don't even "buy" stories; what the public is buying (and the only thing people buy) are solutions to their problems. They are buying the emotional and intellectual effect they will receive from the story. And that effect must solve their problem. What we have to offer the "buying public" is only one or both of two things; 1.) Relief from boredom, and/or 2.) Relief from the worries and problems of their lives. To that end our "stories" must be compelling enough and interesting enough to capture and hold their attention away from what they wish to avoid, long enough to provide the relief they desire.

The above is arguably the single most important concept for any aspiring writer to grasp.

To the degree that we understand who ultimately buys our stories and more importantly WHY, then we can understand how to design them because we understand what stories must do and how they must go about accomplishing that end. This is vitally important as anyone with even the most rudimentary knowledge of marketing will tell you.

One of our greatest failures as artist is our arrogant blindness to the needs of our ultimate customers. Too often we create art purely for our own satisfaction and then wonder why no one buys it.

c. To Existing Fans
They bought once, how do we get them to buy again? Simply by understanding why they bought in the first place and offering more of the same - but different. Surveys could and should be used here although I have never heard of a writer (or any artist) Agent or Publisher making use of this vital technology.

One should note that Story; Ideas, Design, Research, Composition and Editing all rely on an understanding of marketing and the specific public that your stories will be sold to.

Marketing is the key to success in the storytelling business just as in any other business. A great product poorly marketed = failure; while even a mediocre product properly marketed = success.

Therefore, we would do well by starting at the marketing end of the equation; otherwise we are likely to find ourselves in the embarrassing position of trying to sell the equivalent of lawn-mowers to Eskimos.

Why doesn't the publishing industry distribute free copies of a prospective book to a hundred readers in exchange for their feedback BEFORE they commit to printing and distributing 10,000 copies? If they did this as a simply way of "surveying" the prospective public for any given title then they would know when they had a dud and when they had a potential "best seller" without expending all the time and money typically wasted.

But all the above falls on deaf ears unless and until one realizes that there is a "right way" and then there are all the "other ways". The "right way" is developing and working a sequence of systems in the correct order.

The reason the failure rate is so high in writing fiction isn't simply because the aspiring writer doesn't utilize systems - that would be bad enough. But worse still should they attempt to work out a system they do so in the wrong order.

Most of us were encouraged to "learn" writing by starting with Composition. Composition is step (d.) and is the fourth step out of five in the story writing process. Attempting to start here is a typical "skipped gradient" and is doomed to failure.

But we are deluded into believing that it works because occasionally someone appears to "win" this way. But this apparency does not tell us how to win consistently.

And to survive, let alone flourish and prosper, as professional writers we must learn to win consistently. To do so we must treat it like a business. And businesses rely on developing and utilizing systems. They alone are the Successful Actions that ensure our success - in the writing business.

Now, here is where it gets really interesting.

For many years I've known about Administration Scales and thoroughly understood that every business would need ONE. I've even owned a number of small businesses over the last 27 years for which I wrote ONE.

But in writing this article (and perhaps in conjunction with a few other things going on in my life) I realized that JUST ONE ADMIN SCALE FOR MY BUSINESS ISN'T ENOUGH. Every business, no matter how small, must have at least 4 separate Admin Scales aligned together JUST TO GET STARTED.

EVEN for just me, sitting here all alone in my little office, BEING a writer and trying to make a buck at it - I MUST HAVE AT LEAST 4 ADMIN SCALES.
1. For my writing business - as a whole
2. For the Establishment - of all the stuff of that business including myself as its personnel
3. For the Production - of the products of this little business
4. For the Marketing - of the products that are produced, by this business

And there are 4 "hats" - Four distinctly different sets of Beingness, Doingness and therefore Havingness that I must cycle through on a routine basis just to keep this little manuscript factory clicking along.

Isn't that interesting!

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The following are some illuminating quotes about the book business:

Excerpted from William A. Gordon's The Quotable Writer-a collection of quotes from the who's who of famous writers and prominent publishing industry figures.

"The most difficult of all (tasks) that a mortal man can embark on is to sell a book."
- SIR STANLEY UNWIN, The Truth About Publishing

"The main difference between marketing a book and marketing soap is that a book is a one-shot deal . . . and a book usually only has 90 days to make it or it's dead."
- CAROLE DOLPH, former promotional manager, Doubleday & Company, interview with Publishers Weekly

"Call it the curse of abundance . . .only a small percentage of what's published catches the attention of the public."
- JUDITH APPELBAUM, How to Get Happily Published

"The struggle in publishing . . . is to get attention in a crowded marketplace."
- Editor SIMON MICHAEL BESSIE, quoted in U. S. News and World Report, December 5, 1983

"In an industry where little money is spent on advertising, free publicity is the name of the game."
- "In Today's Marketplace, It's Hype, Hype, Hype," U.S. News and World Report, December 5, 1983

"[Be] shameless. Try anything within reason to get your book noticed."
- WILLIAM TARG's advice to editors, "What's an Editor," Editors on Editing

"Even if you have the next Gone With the Wind, it will not sell itself."
- BARBARA GRIER, vice president, Naiad Press, Small Press, November/December 1985

"I suspect that if any current product, be it an automobile, a vacuum cleaner, or whatever, were to be honestly described, there would be few takers. Books are no exceptions. You cannot permit them to come barefaced into being. They must be cosmetized, bewigged, perfumed, given padding where needed for the sake of appearance."
- DONALD MACCAMPBELL, The Writing Business

"A new book is just like any new product, like a detergent. You have to acquaint people with it. They have to know it's there. You only get to be number one when the public knows about you."
- JACQUELINE SUSANN, quoted in Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann by Barbara Seaman

"Some 42,000 books are published in the United States each year . . . The ratio of new books to those we have space to review is about 175 to one."
- Editorial, The Nation, November 20, 1982

"The real villains are media organizations unwilling to spend the money covering the book business that they spend on a lot of other things."
- CARLIN ROMANO, book editor, Philadelphia Inquirer, quoted in Publishers Weekly, April 10, 1987

"One would expect an industry that trumpets the public's right to know, the journalist's courageous quest for truth, to celebrate the book. The expectation is not fulfilled, partly because . . . newspaper editors fear and resent the greater thoroughness and sophistication of books."
- CARLIN ROMANO, "Extra! Extra! The Sad Story of Books as News," essay in Publishing Books edited by Everette E. Dennis, Craig L. LaMay and Edward C. Pease

"No matter how prestigious or enthusiastic your publisher is, your book probably won't be treated the way it should be. It's not that publishers don't want to support your books, or that they don't know how to generate sales; it's just that they don't have enough staff and money to give each book the attention it needs and deserves. As a result, most general-interest titles fizzle out fast."
- JUDITH APPELBAUM and FLORENCE JANOVIC, The Writer's Workbook: A Full and Friendly Guide to Boosting Your Book's Sales

"If you have a book coming out, you have to get heavily-and intelligently-involved in marketing it or prepare to see it fail."
- JUDITH APPELBAUM, author, How To Get Happily Published. Interviewed in WritersWrite: The Internet Writing Journal, June 1998.

"In today's market, writers can't just be writers. They have to be performers and publicists as well."
- Novelist JOSHUA HENKIN, "Writer with a Roadshow" (op-ed page article), New York Times, July 5, 1997

"Publishers lavish promotion on books likely to sell, written by bestseller writers."
- JEFF LIPPMAN, Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1997

"Everyone else pretty much has to fend for himself."
- ROBERT CRAIS, author of the Elvis Cole mystery series, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, September 2, 1997

"I've never quite bought the idea that the public buys or takes what it deserves. I think that . . . publishers to a measurable extent dictate public tastes. They're really more powerful than we want to admit."
- VAN ALLEN BRADLEY, literary critic, quoted in Conversations by Roy Newquist

"If you can't describe a book in one or two pithy sentences that would make you or my mother want to read it, then of course you can't sell it."
- MICHAEL KORDA, editor-in-chief, Simon & Schuster, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, June 26, 1984

"Simon & Schuster runs a sales contest every year. The winners get to keep their jobs."
- JACK O'LEARY, former Simon & Schuster sales representative, half-joking about the company's approach to sales, Newsweek, July 24, 1984

"One of the wonderful, sad and desperate things about this business is that nobody really knows how to sell books."
- ROGER STRAUS III, publishing executive, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, August 2, 1990

[Richard A. McCullough]

Wow Chazz, thanks for that. I'll have to find that book. Sounds like it's one that belongs in my personal collection of books on the subject of writing.

[Charles Brian Van Heyden]

I think you are providing a fabulous service to many writers who are not as accomplished as you are. These quotes above I will use as pointers and checklist items in getting works published and well marketed. They are gems. Incidentally A few moths ago my brother home some books.

One of these, the first of James A. Michener’s that I read, was ‘SPACE’; a truly
Interesting story about our astronauts, beginning with the rocket scientists in Germany during WWII. Then recently I doubled my pleasure by picking up and reading ‘The Drifters’ by Michener, which particularly gratified my interest in his writings by being a book very much in tune with the times I grew up during the Vietnam War. And then against hope, I saw that there was a third book in the house by Michener...
Now I’ve gotten my hands on a truly unique creative work called ‘The Novel’. And it is this story that I highly, no HIGHLY recommend that any author read and digest, and that includes composers and songwriters as well.

Besides predicting the de-evolution of publishing away from traditional methods, and the observance of the plight of publishing companies who get taken over by conglomerates, it is a living mentorship to any author who will knowingly or unknowingly go through all the stages of worry, self-doubt, conflict over modesty vs. triumph; and, a conservative outlook in light of the datum, “an author is only as good as his last book” (which datum is or maybe an industry maximm but not one in the creative arts), and all written in ‘The Novel’, and more, (I'm 2/3rds through the story]), twenty years ago.

It will very incisively tell an author what to expect in attaining the success they desire and what the liabilities are when they attain that success, i.e. trying to maintain it. And viewpoints from a publishers eyes. All very illuminating.