Brett Battles Offers Great Writing Tips
By Liz Babcock, East Sierra Branch (a.k.a. Ridge Writers)
Brett Battles, a local-boy-made-good, has become a Ridge Writers’ favorite in the process. During his information-filled talk at our July 2002 meeting, he emphasized two words to follow to writing success: quality and quantity.
A prolific writer in an impressive array of genres, he has 41 books to choose from at https://brettbattles.com.
Brett was in grade school when he decided to be a writer, but that wasn’t an obsession at first. After graduating in 1980 from Burroughs High School, he went to CalState Northridge, traveled for a bit, then held down a job as a TV graphics for 20 years, marrying and raising three kids along the way.
In 2002 he reached a point in his life where he decided, “If I’m going to be a writer, I’d better get started.” He took a short-story and novel writing class at UCLA Extension, then joined a writing group that grew from that class. “By 2005 I had finished four novels and had an incredibly large pile of rejection letters.”
At first nobody wanted to publish his work. So he continued on with a second and a third book. Still no nibbles from publishers. But he was learning from each book. He also achieved momentum by starting a new writing project the minute he sent a finished manuscript out.
In spring 2004 he was sitting in Starbucks editing his fourth book when he got an acceptance call from a small press. After his first sale, everything began to go smoothly as he built a reputation in the mystery-thriller community. Then his publisher went bankrupt.
Brett then sent a manuscript to a friend who was an editor at Dell. “She bought my book,” he said, “and that’s what launched my career.”
The Cleaner, perhaps his best-known book, came out in 2007, and Dell accepted two more novels after that. Then came the big financial collapse of 2008, and things started to fall apart in the publishing community. Brett had already quit his day job, and he didn’t want to go back. So he struggled along living on savings and getting rejection slips for a couple of years.
In 2010 his agent and supportive friend suggested that Brett try publishing on Amazon. So he put two books online. He also began publishing on other sites, and today he has a whole shelf full of ebooks. “The beauty of ebooks is that they can be up there indefinitely and just continue to keep selling.” The small amount of return to the author for each book sold can mount up to a respectable income.
He added that he’s not saying that his route to publishing is the best, but that there are many routes a writer can take. “I didn’t write because I wanted to make money, I wrote because I had to.”
You’ll find out what happened next and tips on getting published,
in the next edition of Showcase.