Not only is author Ruth Harris prolific, she has one of the best author photos I’ve seen because she’s sitting and smiling in front of what I imagine are all of her books! She’s also incredibly generous and in one of her emails to me said she’s “open to any & all questions & hope people will feel free to comment away! One thing I have learned is that you never know where your next terrific idea is going to come from. Sometimes it even comes from what you might think is a dumb question! lol”
No wonder I am always saying that authors are amazing. And Ruth Harris ranks right up there. Please welcome her to Women’s Fiction Writers!
Author Ruth Harris Says Women’s Fiction has an Extremely Broad Range of Subjects and Voices
ASN: I read that you were “around” when “publishing was run by editors”. You’re an author but you’ve been an editor and publisher as well. How do you see the current publishing climate and how do you think it affects a genre like women’s fiction (with all it’s permutations)?
RH: If you’re speaking of Big 6 publishing, it’s in tremendous turmoil and only the biggest of the big brand names are getting properly published with all that entails: promo, publicity, store events, maybe, once in a while, even a book tour. As far as women’s fiction, the authors I can think of who are on that level are writers like Jackie Collins, Jodi Picoult, Emily Giffin and Barbara Taylor Bradford.
If you’re speaking of e-publishing, women’s fiction, like every genre, is newly energized and we will see many writers emerge. Since women’s fiction can include everything from the sex-and-shopping epics of the Eighties to Lionel Shriver’s WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and Stockett’s THE HELP, there is an extremely broad range of subjects and voices for writers—and readers—to explore.
ASN: Which leads me to — what is your definition of women’s fiction?
RH: Women’s fiction encompasses the entirety of women’s lives—our public and domestic lives, our professional and personal lives. Women’s fiction is inclusive and anything that affects a female character is worthy of exploration.
ASN: You’ve released your backlist for ereaders. Are you finding a new audience for your books? Was doing so what you thought it would be — or not?
RH: I’m definitely finding a new audience & I’m thrilled by every one who buys one of my books and, even if they never heard of me, decides to take a chance on me. And it’s just about what I thought it would be: lots of work, exciting, frustrating, gratifying, tiring and sometimes overwhelming! You know, just like publishing in the olden days. 😉
ASN: What is your best advice for aspiring authors of women’s fiction — or any fiction?
RH: Read a lot—fiction & non-fic, blogs, magazines, newspapers whether in print or cyber version. Read constantly. Make notes. You never know when a line from an overheard conversation or an interesting but obscure article about sea urchins will be exactly what you need!
Ruth Harris is a long-time NYC editor and publisher as well as a New York Times bestselling author. Her novels, originally published by Random House, Simon & Schuster and St. Martin’s Press have been translated into 19 languages and sold millions of copies in hardcover and paperback in more than 30 countries. They were selected by the Literary Guild, Book-of-the-Month Club and book clubs around the world. Ruth has reverted all rights and is now making her work—new and previously published—available in e-editions.
Wow, Amy.. Another great introduction for us! Curious, Ruth … if you were starting out as a new author in today’s publishing climate, would you opt for e-publishing out the door, or would you still try for the more traditional agent-publishing house model? Why? Why not? (Talk about a loaded question!)
Hi Melissa, Important question indeed but, to make it super simple, I would do the sensible thing & keep all my options open. 😉 An author starting out today has a much wider range of choices than ever before: TradPub, small independent pub, e-pub.
TradPub offers the biggest potential upside—the humongo advance, mega-pub, promo, movie deal, tv, etc—and the biggest set of hurdles. It can—and probably will—take years to get an agent. Once that happens—IF it happens—it can take another year or more to place the book. There’s no reason not to try for a TradPub deal but I would suggest you place a limit in advance of how much time you want to set aside for the query process and also to prepare yourself emotionally for rejection after rejection. A time limit will give you some sense of control in a process that, basically, is out of your control.
A second option is the small independent publisher. The upside is that you will most likely receive more personal attention. The downside is that a smaller publisher most likely won’t be able to get your book into the wide distribution (difficult anyway these days with the chains and indie bookstores disappearing) a Big 6 publisher can offer. There is also the possibility that a small publisher might not be adequately financed—a practical but important consideration since publishing and distribution are expensive.
The third option, e-pub, offers speedy upload & publication and lets you edit & revise if and when you reconsider your work. E-pub offers more control over cover design, blurb and marketing. Another advantage of e-pub is that the sites like Writer’s Cafe and the blogs of self-pubbed authors offer an enormous amount of advice, input & help. The caveat, though, is that you need to feel confident that you can create compelling cover design, come-hither blurbs & effective marketing—or that you can afford to hire free lance help in the areas where you need it. You must prepare yourself for the labor-intensive and time-consuming work a more traditional publisher will handle for you. You WILL feel overwhelmed at times. Ask me how I know! lol
I’m so glad to meet Ruth Harris through you, Amy! Great advice in the post and in the response to Melissa’s comment on publishing as well as writing. Thank you for your reassurance, Ruth, that I’m not alone feeling daunted and overwhelmed at times with this process toward publication!
Hi Julia, You are most definitely not alone! The whole process IS daunting for just about everyone so we all just do the best we can. We plod along, make our mistakes, fix them, ask for—and get—excellent advice along the way. There’s always the initial anxiety for everyone but, as you go along, the process gets more familiar and you learn to cope much more effectively (most of the time!) lol…just be sure to allow for the occasional meltdown. 😉 And, of course, keep your sense of humor. You’ll definitely need it.