What better way to start the new year than with some writing advice from a seasoned professional? Rob Bignell is the man behind Inventing Reality Editing Services and the author of over 80 books, including fiction, nonfiction, children’s books, and several guidebooks for writers.
Bignell’s company name, as he explains on his website, “is a play on British author J.G. Ballard’s quotation, ‘The writer’s task is to invent the reality.’ That is, writers must create a fictional dream and in doing so, show the truth via their art.” For writers wanting to increase sales, it also means “taking the fulfillment of your dreams into your own hands, that is, turning your dream into a reality through your own hard work.” Read on for more of Bignell’s thoughts about writing, self-publishing, and marketing your work.
1. You’ve been working with other writers for over 15 years now through your editorial services, your suite of how-to books, and more. Based on your experience, what is the most common mistake new writers make when they decide to self-publish?
The answer depends a lot on where you’re at in the self-publishing process.
Indie authors when writing their manuscript often don’t master the craft of writing. They’re solid at constructing a great plot and character arc — they’ve read a lot and can pick up plotting and characterization just by watching top-notch movies and streamed shows — but that’s enough. It’s sort of like giving me a bowl without cracks and a perfectly made scoop of vanilla ice cream. Readers want a sundae, though. They want fudge ripples, a sprinkle of crushed peanuts, sweet-tasting whipped cream, and a cherry on top. Think of those toppings as writing craftsmanship; specifically, show don’t tell, use active voice verbs, appeal to all five senses, and tighten those sentences. Good craftsmanship enriches your story, just like those toppings keep that scoop of vanilla ice cream from just being vanilla.
When self-publishing, a lot of indie writers don’t go for a professional look. Their formatting is messy, and their covers underwhelming. When readers see this, they crinkle their nose, as if they’ve got a whiff of garbage, and they doubt that the words beneath smell any better. Rather than pay someone to do all of this designing for you, take the time to learn it yourself. Create a tester book of 24 pages of your short stories, poems, and vignettes, and format it then create a cover, continuing to tweak it until it looks right. There is plenty of free advice online about how to do it, and many authors, including myself, have published books about how to get it done.
When marketing, a lot of indie writers just post something on social media and hope for the best. Marketing a book is a lot more than that, though. You need to build an audience before the book comes out, you have to nurture readers by providing them a ton of free and useful information that ultimately directs them to your book, you have to create an email list, and more. It is time consuming, but if you want your book to sell then you actually have to sell it.
2. In addition to your writing, you crank out a lot of content, including social media posts and short podcasts. How do you manage your time to balance these many writing-related activities with your writing?
Everything is thought out and organized in advance and serves multiple functions. Suppose a writer I’m editing is telling rather than showing in his dialogue. I need to explain to that writer what he’s getting wrong and how to fix it. That explanation becomes a blog entry. That blog entry can be a section of a writing guidebook. For the blog entry, I often write something for my own fiction and then reverse engineer it so it violates the best practice of writing that I’m blogging about. Every blog entry can be converted into a podcast within a few minutes if you get rid of the jokey fluff most podcasters pad out their casts with. (Ever notice how many podcasters take 10 to 15 minutes to actually get to their podcast’s topic?) Every blog entry and podcast can be a social media post, and you can automate posts with social media management software.
I think of it as a musical piece. First comes a D note, then five Gs, then an A, then five Bs, and you keep playing that melody until you complete your song. Of course, editing and writing is my full time job, so if you’re an aspiring writer holding a day job, you just have to be more patient in turning out content, but if you’re deliberate and intentional about it, after just a couple of years you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve created.
3. What two or three writers have most influenced you, and why?
Every writer I’ve read — from the novelists that English professors made me parse every single sentence of to the back of cereal boxes that some low-paid advertising hack penned — has influenced me for better or for worse.
The one set of writings that have most dramatically influenced both my fiction and nonfiction are Albert Camus’ lyrical essays, especially Summer in Algiers. He appeals to all of the senses so that you feel like you’re actually there in Algiers on a hot summer day, the scent of sea salt heavy in the air. He layers each sentence with meaning; you can take it literally and it makes sense, yet there also is subcontext, as it forms one weave in two or three greater tapestries that make up the total essay.
4. Talk a bit about any new projects you are working on or planning to launch in 2025.
For my writing guidebooks, I probably will come out with a couple of more volumes in the Storytelling 101 series, likely one on writing character arcs and one on how to write press releases to promote your book. For my hiking guidebooks, I have one ready to go on Petrified Forest National Park and third volume of Palm Springs area trails. My fiction writing I’m keeping close to my vest, as I plan to release that at a date beginning a few years from now when I can devote more time to marketing it.
5. Finally, for someone wanting to self-publish, what one piece of advice would you offer?
If you just want to write for the sake of writing — because you’re journaling or writing for the simple pleasure of it — that’s perfectly fine. But if you’re writing with the notion that you will publish your manuscript and maybe even make money off it, then you have to be very deliberate and intentional about what you do.
I recommend setting aside an hour every day for writing. Spend 10 minutes reading about the craft of writing. Next spend 20-30 minutes reading a published short story in the genre you want to write, paying attention to how the author handled the writing tip(s) you just read about. Spend the last 20-30 minutes of your hour writing, paying close attention in your piece to the writing tip(s) you read at the session’s beginning. Allow yourself to write “poorly.” Later, as your craftsmanship improves, you can edit out the junk.
If you do this every day, in a year you’ll have learned more than 350 things about the craft of writing, read at least 350 great short stories, and written 91,250-127,750 words, which is longer than most first novels. With that kind of work ethic and dedication to your craft, you’ll quickly become a top notch (and productive!) writer.
In the past, the great artists and thinkers usually did an apprenticeship for several years before going out on their own. Leonardo da Vinci spent 10 years as an apprentice in a master artist’s workshop. Today’s writers don’t do apprenticeships but instead get a day job at a cubicle farm and then wonder why they can’t create a bestseller. Consider that hour you set aside a day your apprenticeship.
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Andy writes! 
“Allow yourself to write “poorly.” Later … you can edit out the junk.”
Im pretty good at writing poorly, and seem to never catch the mistakes till after I publish.
I am, however, awed by your writing ability, and believe you could give lessons to any of your teachers.
There was a phrase in the email that brought me here that I didn’t see in this post. “writers must create a fictional dream and in doing so, show the truth via their art.”
Keep it up!
Thanks, Mark! The phrase you mention is in my intro to the Q&A, so you probably overlooked it if you went straight to the question-and-answer section. That phrase is from Rob’s own website, where he explains the name of his company. Here it is in broader context (with emphasis added):
As for writing poorly, I’m the same way, Mark. I edit most posts a couple of time before they go live, but then it’s not unusual for me to discover a typo after I hit “publish.”