Very clever video about the future of publishing

Watch this one until the very end. Well worth a watch and it will only take a few minutes. Things are changing in publishing, what with Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad with iPublishing. Opportunities and danger, like the old cliché about the Chinese word for crisis.

Done is the engine of more

I found this while reading Seth Godin’s new book Linchpin.

If you need a kick in your writer’s pants, here you go.

There are three states of being: Not Knowing, Action and Completion.
Accept that everything is a draft. It helps get things done.
Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
Failures count as done. So do mistakes.
Done is the engine of more.
– Bre Pettis

Now this is a great bio page

http://www.ingermanson.com/home/personal.php

Tough love for wannabe writers

Jane Friedman, my editor at Writer’s Digest for Write is a Verb, has compiled her best tough love reality slap for those of you who are really serious about being published writers. To paraphrase Betty Davis (who said Old age is not for sissies), writing and publishing are not for wimps.

Get some tough love from Jane and go get published if you (and you work) are up to it:

http://blog.writersdigest.com/norules/2009/10/06/TheSecretsToPublishingSuccessJanes2009ToughLoveGuide.aspx

Cool new book+ video format

Called a Vook. Check it out at:

http://promo.simonandschuster.com/vook/

Why traditional publishing models are in trouble

Listen to and watch Seth Godin tell you about how things have changed and what succeeds now in publishing and why most traditional publishers are (mostly) in deep trouble.

http://toccon.blip.tv/file/970223?filename=Toolsofchange-SethGodin10BestsellersUsingNewMediaNewMarketingAndNew237.mp4

A year from now

“A year from now you may wish you had started today.” —Karen Lamb

How many times have I had people tell me they want to write a book “someday?” Many. The only way to write a book is to write it. And the only way to write it is to start and finish it.

A year from now, will you still be saying to yourself and others that you want to write a book someday? If you start today, perhaps next year you could tell someone that you have written a book.

Why You Should Never Write Your Book Before You Sell It Video

How I got an agent in one day video

Managing to eat while being an author

“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