How I got an agent in one day video
July 3, 2009
Managing to eat while being an author
September 19, 2008
“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.” –Cormac McCarthy
I came across this quotation the other day and had to laugh. I also realized it spoke to something very important for people who would be authors.
There is a business side to writing and publishing: making sure you write something people will want to read; getting agents and publishers to take the book on; getting readers to buy the book when it is published; getting the word out about the book; managed the money aspects of being a writer.
I cover all this stuff in my live and online courses on writing and publishing.
There are two faces to writing:
1. Your raw energy and writing abilities;
2. Your ability to get the book into the world and have it support your writing.
Some people are better at one than the other, but you must attend to and master both to get the book written and published.
Bill
As usual, I invite you to learn more by visiting: http://www.getyourbookwritten.com
I started out clueless in both Writing-Land and Publishing-Land. I only succeeded at writing and publishing 29 books (my next one, A Guide to Trance-Land, comes out from W.W. Norton next year) because I had such unstoppable passion for getting my ideas and work out into the world to contribute to others.
But I quickly discovered that one gets passive income from books, if they do well enough. Most of mine are still in print and it is so cool to get checks every six months from my publishers. I never know how much they will be for, since sales are variable, and I never count on this money as income, so it is always a pleasant surprise.
I’ve discovered that most people are a bit stymied by the writing and especially by the publishing process, so I have created an online Book Writing and Publishing Course. The course tells you where to start (never write your non-fiction book before you sell it; but always write much, if not all, of your fiction book before you sell it), how to get yourself to write (Did you know you could write a book in five-minute chunks and it would take you less than a year to get it done?), how to get an agent (I’ll tell you how I got one in one day!), and how to make it likely your book will sell to a publisher and to readers.
You can take the Book Writing and Publishing Course at your own rate and pace, when it convenient, from anywhere you have online access. I wish I had had this course when I started. I would have made many thousands more dollars, had even more books published and written, and avoided myself costly errors. It’s a bit like having a friend in the publishing industry.
If you want to see a book with your name on it and want to set up ongoing sources of passive and residual income, visit:
http://www.getyourbookwritten.com/online-writing-course/
Cool New Website for Authors
July 11, 2008
While I was at BEA (Book Expo America, the big author/publisher confab) in LA recently, I met a guy from Germany (Gunnar Siewert) who is part of a cool new website for authors called BookRix (www.bookrix.net). You can use this site (free) to create an online book or article and invite others to view it like a real book, but with enhancements. If you want to develop a following or put a sample of your book on the web to gauge interest, this is a nice resource. It’s sort of a social networking site for authors.
Giving is a great way to get
April 22, 2008
My email is stacking up on the flight deck again. I get hundreds of emails per week. Some percentage of those emails, as I have become more well known, are from supplicants asking me to help them get published. They want me to read their manuscript, give them a blurb, recommend an agent or editor, pass their book along to my agent or editor, collaborate with them on their great book idea, and so on.
I am a kind and generous person, but sometimes I get a little put off by these requests. First, because as one gets even a little well known (and I know I am not that well known at all-I can’t imagine how much more pressed really well known people are with these requests), the number of them increases. Many people are looking for a leg up and you look to be a person who can give them that boost. But if I responded to each of these requests, I would not have much time to get my writing done or to have a life outside of my work.
Second, there is often an off-putting insensitivity in these requests. Some people acknowledge that I must be busy and that if I can’t find my way to help or I am too busy, they will understand perfectly. But others seem to assume I will be happy to take the time to both read their requests and to help them no matter the time it takes or the burden of the request (my agent would be very unhappy if I referred everyone who asked me to to her). These people occasionally express resentment when I do not provide whatever help they expected.
I have had one person seriously request that I read their dissertation in German and tell them if they missed any references to a particular subject I had some expertise on. I have had others ask me to essentially write their class papers on my area of expertise.
Besides not assuming that the person you make a request of will comply, I have a simple suggestion that may serve you well in life. If you want something from someone, give them something of value first, whether it be a compliment, a kindness or some useful information. Establish a relationship.
I have a correspondent who, noticing I like quotations, regularly sends me interesting quotations. I always take the time to read her emails. If she asked me for a favor, I would likely do it because has built up some credit with me (although I wouldn’t read her dissertation in German).
End of rant.
Waiting for inspiration is like waiting for Godot
April 6, 2008
“I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” Peter De Vries
If I had waited to write until I was inspired, I would have far fewer books written. I decided to work and wait for inspiration to show up while I was working. Writing, and any creative act, is a funny thing. You are not always inspired and you can’t directly control inspiration. But I find that when I work hard at the craft of writing, the art becomes easier. I am more confident that because I have pulled it off before (that is, completed a book and gotten it published) that I can do it again. And that seems to prime the pump of creativity so that I come up with ideas for books quite regularly. Most working writers I know have more ideas than they have time to write in a lifetime.
So, start working at writing and maybe the Muse will deign to visit you when you are at the writing desk or your computer or the coffee shop or the kitchen table or wherever you write. Once she knows where and when you’ll be there, especially if you develop regular habits, she is more likely to know where to find you.
Another blog to a book advance
March 30, 2008
The New York Times recently ran an article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/fashion/30web.html?ref=books) about a guy who began blogging only a short time before he reportedly got a $300,000 advance from Random House for a book derived from his blog, Stuff White People Like (stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com). He has gotten 19 million hits on his blog since he started. (A few more than this blog, it must be noted.)
Have you started blogging your way to a book yet?
Bill on The Today Show on St. Patrick’s Day
March 15, 2008
Platform building.Out of the blue, I was invited to be on The Today Show on Monday, March 17, 2008. Since I am already on the East Coast (I’m in D.C. at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium teaching until Sunday), I agreed.A few people I have mentioned this to wanted to know how it happened. I was contacted by a writer asking me to comment on some Irish proverbs (I had never heard any of these proverbs) and their relevance to relationships. The resulting article was published in Women’s Health magazine and timed to come out in time for St. Patrick’s Day. Since I have an Irish background and name and am male, they wanted to know whether I would come on The Today Show for a “He Said/She Said” segment featuring the theme and Women’s Health editor/columnist Nicole Beland.I don’t really have a current book to hawk (my Write is a Verb is the latest book and that really doesn’t fit with the theme), so I plan to just have fun with it. They tell me it will be on during the 10 O’clock hour.
Enough
January 4, 2008
Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. –Edward Gibbon
I came across this quotation today and it really struck a chord. That was me when I started writing (okay, maybe I did have some habits of thinking, but the other two are right on). I just started writing even though I wasn’t a good writer and didn’t know a thing about the publishing industry.
I attended a writing workshop once with former screenwriter turned therapist, Dennis Palumbo. He began the workshop telling a story about an encounter he had with Robert Redford in which Redford expressed some envy about Paul Newman. Redford thought Newman had it made and Palumbo was thinking that everyone else thought Redford [fixed typo, thanks Tony!] had it made. It occurred to Palumbo that this was an indication of scarcity. If Redford didn’t think he had enough at that level of success, fame and financial success, it was never going to be enough. That led him to develop one of his three rules for writing: Who you are and what you know right now is enough to start writing.
Don’t wait for the ideal conditions, that new model of computer, the room in your house to get remodeled, the kids to graduate and leave home, the job to become less hectic, the next writing workshop, and on and on and on. Start now. Write now/right now.
You are enough. You have enough. You know enough.
Right now.
