18Q Stephen Spignesi

Stephen Spignesi

1. Did you choose the writing profession or did it choose you?

I definitely chose a writing career, because I knew early on I wanted to write full-time and deliberately crafted a game plan by which I could eventually replace my non-writing job’s earnings with writing income and do it for a living. I could have remained a full-time jeweler in an established family jewelry business but I chose instead to be a writer.

2. What is your background? (education, work, etc.)

A well-intentioned high school guidance counselor convinced me to major in financial accounting, which I did, ultimately earning a degree in Finance, and then never working in the field for even one minute. I was in the jewelry business for many years, but left it in 1990 to write full-time. I was in bands when I was younger and in the 80s had a piano-vocal act as “Stephen John” (Elton was big at the time. :-) and played local clubs. Also, in the early days of our marriage, I did what lots of newlyweds did to earn extra money worked part-time as a janitor and in retail.

3. When did you ‘know’ you were a writer?

When I was nine. I wrote a satirical short story about a spy and knew that that was what I wanted to do forever. My mother was, essentially, my first editor, since she gently told me that satire might be a bit of a stretch for a 9-year-old. She was right.

4. How would you describe your style of writing?

My nonfiction is accessible, conversational, well-researched, and well-crafted. My fiction is lyrical, fast-paced, and very psychological.

5. What is your writing process?

I write full-time so my process is to sit down at the keyboard for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, and turn out the pages. I am usually working on at least two books at once, plus freelance articles, so I really don’t put a lot of time into thinking about writing. I can’t afford it. I must write.

6. What was your path to publication?

I wrote an “Any Griffith Show” encyclopedia in 1984 and outlined a very specific program to find a publisher. I went through “Writer’s Market” and made an alphabetical list of every US publisher that did books about TV, pop culture, and nostalgia. I then drafted a query letter and started sending out 5 a week, offering a 50-page proposal, or the complete manuscript. As responses came in, I then sent out the material to editors who were interested in seeing more. I had gotten to the Cs when I got a very nice note from an editor at Contemporary Books, telling me they weren’t interested, but that I should contact Tom Schultheiss at Pierian Press in Ann Arbor because she felt my book would be perfect for them. I thanked her, followed up on this lead, and had a deal within a month with a $1,000 advance. This was my first book deal, and they also later bought my “Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia.” Ironically, a trade paperback subsidiary deal with none other than Contemporary Books for the King book allowed me to quit work and write full-time.

7. What is your favorite self-marketing idea?

I design and print business cards for my books. These cards are specific to the book NOT about my career or me personally. I am asked several times a day by people I run into, “How’s the writing?” It is terrific to be able to hand them something, saying, “My new book is ...” I know for a fact that many of these people have gone out and bought one of my books after getting my card. The front of the card is a scene relevant to the book, with the title. The back is a nice design with my website and the publisher’s website. That’s it. And the cards are very inexpensive considering the ultimate return. Also, I publish signed, numbered, limited edition bookmarks for some of my books. They are great promotional tools and a very nice thing to send to a fan who is too far away to have me actually sign their book.

8. What are the biggest surprises you’ve encountered as a writer?

1. People are overly impressed when they hear I’m a published author.

2. Cross-collateralization can cost a writer a lot of money.

3. Sometimes a writer has to overrule an editor.

4. It takes a tremendous amount of work to live comfortably as a “non-Stephen King-category” writer.

5. Close to 2,000 books a week are published in the United States (and I’m talking about books from trade, royalty publishers not self-published and POD titles). This humbling number illustrates what a writer is up against.

9. How do you inspire yourself? What are your sources of creativity?

I’m always reading things that have nothing to do with what I’m working on, often getting inspired from some odd anecdote or piece of trivia. My creativity my ability to communicate ideas is innate. I’ve been “creating” as far back as I can recall. As to what motivates me, it’s called a mortgage.

10. What is your proudest writer moment?

I have two: Selling my first book to Pierian Press, and then, 20 years later, after 36 nonfiction books, selling my first novel to Random House.

11. What’s the best advice you were given about writing?

A poetry professor once explained to me the difference between an author and a writer. The author is the public persona of someone who has written something. The writer is the one who sits in a room and types. He told me that real writers don’t care about being “authors.” I immediately knew what he meant and realized that it’s the craft that matters, not the “celebrity” of having been published.

12. What is your most embarrassing writer moment?

I honestly can’t say I have ever had an embarrassing moment as a writer. I’ve loved every minute of it and have always found being a writer fulfilling and fun.

13. What business challenges have you faced as a writer?

When I lecture on writing I am always asked by unpublished writers how they can become a full-time writer. I tell them this: every time I turn in a manuscript, I am unemployed. If they can live with that kind of pressure and uncertainty, then they should go for it. I also tell them that publishers do not pay medical insurance and that when you’re a self-employed writer, the Social Security tax hit on you is double what people who work for an employer pay because the writer is his or her own employee. So it’s a constant, relentless push to make your year’s pay using all the ways of earning writers have: For additional income, I freelance, book-doctor, ghost-write, and edit on the side in addition to my writing. Being a mid-list writer a “working” writer is not easy.

14. What is your writer life philosophy?

I have a few.

1. Writing = Butt + Chair.

2. Writing is not a career, it’s an avocation and writers are “on” 24 hours a day.

3. I have learned something from every editor I have ever worked with.

4. “ABP” “Always Be Pitching,” which is a variation on the “ABC” philosophy from “Glengarry Glen Ross”: “Always Be Closing.”

5. Say yes to everything. You want a 75,000-word manuscript in three months? No problem. You need the edited pages back on Monday? Sure. Etc., etc.

15. When you’re not writing what do you do for fun?

I write songs and record them playing all the instruments and singing all the vocal parts.

16. Who do you like to read?

A better question for me would be “what” do I like to read. And the answer is literally everything. I read two or three newspapers a day, countless articles on the Web, magazines, nonfiction books, short stories, poetry, novels. Hell, I even read packaging text. Consuming words all the time is part and parcel of working with them.

17. What’s your advice for new writers?

Read and write all the time. Carry a notebook. Don’t look at best-seller lists and try to figure out what to write based on what’s on that list. Listen to the inner voice that tells you what you’re passionate about. Odds are others will be, too, and if you can communicate that in a book, you will almost certainly get a deal. Get an agent. Submit, submit, submit. Don’t be a diva about your work. Let everyone know you’re a writer and then say yes to everything, even if it’s writing meal descriptions for a restaurant menu. Be careful about allowing your work to be published on the Web. Revise enough until you reach the point where even you say “wow” when you reread what you wrote. Learn how to be a professional writer and always act like a professional writer, even if you’ve never sold a thing. And always remember: People like to work with people they like.

18. What are you currently working on?

A novel called WHITE HELL about the blizzard of 1888; a book about George Washington’s leadership; a quiz book about Italian culture; a time travel screenplay called RX; the second book of my “COVENTRY” historical fantasy trilogy; a commissioned one-woman play; a sequel to my novel DIALOGUES; and a book about “The Sopranos.”

Writer’s 18Q