Just thoughts.

Writing is, of course, the primary skill required for being a writer.

But the profession of being a writer of any kind requires rather a lot more.

Especially for writing fiction.

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I. Editing

Aside from the writing itself, there's editing. All fiction writers need someone else to do the editing and look at it with an eye from the outside, but even before someone else gets a look at it, one needs to be able to edit one's own work and get it polished up. This is especially crucial if you're just starting out and:

a) You're going trad publishing and need to sell an agent/editor on the work you can produce alone;

b) You're self-publishing and can't yet afford the thousands of dollars it takes to hire a good free-lance editor.

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II. Social

This covers the part of the business of writing that is reaching out.

Unless you've got:

a) a giant advance from a publisher, meaning that their marketing department is going to invest a ton in trying to boost your sales, or

b) enough money to hire your own publicist,

you have to do a lot of reaching out.

Opportunities will arise to ask for help from people and a writer's got to take them. Whether reconnecting with friends and seeing if they know anyone who can, say, make you some bookmarks to use as giveaways, or do a reading from your book at your book launch, or who know people in the news who review books....

Unless a writer is some ridiculous genius or has tapped into a perfectly timed phenomenon, one has to just cold-approach people on blogs to ask if they're willing to receive a copy for review, to ask old acquaintances if they're willing to come to one's book launch, to ask anybody and everybody who could possibly help to help.

Personally, I am very lucky that my high school class is unusually close and supportive of each other. People I haven't spoken to in almost twenty years attended my book launch, took pictures, helped put me in touch with other helpful people, and slowly, steadily, are helping build the platform.

I like to write stories about fictional people! I don't practice writing articles with clickbait headlines or flash stories that can go viral (though I probably should), so the steady propagation of people who know people is a lot of what I rely on (as well as, of course, the organic fans who have no ties to me but liked the book and are also slowly growing my visibility).

Both Thomas Dunne and Hodder & Stoughton also helped of course, putting me in touch with publications willing to do interviews and reviews and features, and giving away books to people who can also propagate support. In the Philippines, National Book Store got me TV and radio interviews.

But I'm quite realistic about not being the superstar with a six-figure advance, 50 foot banners at the big cons, and elaborate book trailers. The publishers have tons of other writers to support, and that's just business.

Personally reaching out is quite vital. You never know who people you know also know! And every little bit of help is needed. Talking to strangers who walk-in during the book launch, genuinely thanking them for their support, etc.

I feel that a writer's success these days is very much reliant on the kindness of others--of people one knows, of strangers, of professional acquaintances, of people from the same high school, the same college, the same background, on the way to actually growing a fan-base that can only discover your story if they *see* it.

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Writing is, at least for me, a totally solitary, lonely activity. But being a writer requires other people and word of mouth just as much as any other creative field (and perhaps more so--while a band can put out a performance on youtube for publicity, mostly using equipment they already possess, most writers aren't good enough voice actors to do a decent reading of their own work, and producing a real book trailer costs money).

If your natural inclination is to be snide or a jerk or to close up and hide away, you're going to have a tough time in this business (and in most jobs, really).

Being a hermit is a hefty handicap for a writer. There's just no getting around that. Even if one does have incredible stories and style and timely work and success happens, that success is magnified by being sociable and diminished by isolation.

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So if you're an aspiring writer, aside from all the stuff having to do with the craft of writing: make friends, and practice being a good friend. Public speaking is a plus.