Build Your Writing Career

Building a writing career involves a multidude of skills. First you must master language. You need to be able to create distinct settings, build intriguing characters, write words that drip with suspense, and dialogue that makes readers feel like they're eavesdropping. Tackling these areas takes discipline but offer the rewarding feeling of expressing your creativity.

Once you've fine-tuned your writing, it is necessary to learn the business of getting published. This part requires developing the practical skills of writing the perfect query letter, researching publishers, and studying agents' submission guidelines. It takes perseverance, which keeps you busy, and patience, which is no fun at all. I help lead aspiring writers through this area by offering personalized consulting sessions.

Between formatting query letters, researching publishers, and beginning another writing project, consider enhancing your career by volunteering with a writing-related organization. My activities with the Young Alberta Book Society and other writing groups have been very rewarding. They allow me to connect with other authors, learn about publishers, compare publicity ideas, and explore many areas of this work-in-solitude business.

Volunteering during the annual Raise-a-Reader program provided the opportunity to connect with fellow authors and others devoted to improving literacy in Edmonton. We stood on Edmonton's downtown street corners, selling newspapers and collecting donations to support literacy programs in Edmonton. Some of these funds go to to support Young Alberta Book Society programs. YABS organizes the Taleblazer festival every October to tour authors, illustrators, and storytellers in schools and libraries throughout Alberta. Bringing kids into contact with creators is a great way to encourage reading and writing.

Volunteering with a writing, book, or literacy group offers a good break from writing while still allowing you to move your career forward. Alberta groups include The Young Alberta Book Society (YABS), the Writers Guild of Alberta, Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators, and Performers (CANSCAIP), Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling (TALES), SCBWI Canada West, Canadian Authors Association Alberta, Room-to-Read Edmonton Chapter, and many others.

You may be drawn to helping a literacy group, establishing a critique group, or joining a book club. No matter what group you choose, you are bound to learn useful to tips that move your own writing career forward.

Advice for aspiring authors

Five things you absolutely must do to become an author:

1. Read great quantities of books, especially in the genre in which you hope to be published

2. Practice, practice, practice. The more you write, the better you will become.

3. Never think your manuscript is done after one draft: edit, edit, edit!

4. Research publishers before you submit, to ensure the publisher is interested in your genre. (Cookbook publishers don’t want to receive young adult novels.)

5. Take rejection in stride. Rejection letters mean you’re trying. Many fantastic books were rejected many dozens of times before a match was found.

Copyright or Copy Wrong!

The Internet and other new technologies have dramatically changed the way copyright material can be produced and accessed. If you are a published author, type your name into a browser. There is a good chance "Google Books" will be one of the links that appears on your screen. 


As well as listing your titles and showing your book covers, this site invites visitors to browse excerpts or sometimes the entire contents of books at no charge. In fact, the Google Books homepage brags that you can search the full text of more than seven million books.

Image courtesy of
Renjith Krishnan
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What Google Books is less enthusiastic about discussing is that they have been scanning books without obtaining permission from copyright holders. As a result, people such as myself who would rather work on a manuscript than read legalese, must pay attention to numerous details relating to copyright. Sadly, it feels more like copy-wrong.

Considering the Canadian federal government’s eventual intent to amend copyright law, it becomes necessary to examine its claim to “protect and promote Canadian culture in the interest of Canadians and to ensure a domestic, as well as an international market, for Canadian cultural products.”

Is this really likely to happen, considering current laws and Google‘s somewhat successful bulldozer attempt to seize copyright?

As copyright holders, authors already have contracts that describe their rights in relation to what their publishers can or cannot do, along with reimbursement terms. Yet, intellectual property issues are becoming increasingly complex as technologies advance and methods of distribution take unprecedented and unpredicted forms. Many of us have seen contract clauses which demand authors agree to publication in any form that currently exists or may be invented in the future, without the benefit of any additional compensation.

The responsibility for keeping copyright policies up to date lies with the department of Canadian Heritage Copyright Policy Branch, which works with Industry Canada’s Intellectual Property Policy Directorate.

Creators negotiating copyright will do well to limit rights for specific uses and for limited time periods, largely because business models will continue to evolve. Future legislation will need to keep Canada on par with international standards by ensuring balance between the protections of creators' rights with consumers’ ability to legally access copyright material. It will necessitate better enabling Canada’s knowledge-based economy to take advantage of global Internet opportunities.

Protect Yourself
•  In Canada, copyright protection arises as soon as an original work is created.
•  International treaties ensure Canadian copyrights are protected in most other countries.
•  Registering copyright provides owners with evidence of ownership.
•  Canadian copyright typically lasts for the creator’s lifetime, plus 50 years running from December 31 in the year of death.


Learn More
•  Media Awareness Network
•  Copyright legislation
•  Canadian Intellectual Property Office
•  Google Book Settlement
•  Access Copyright