I’ve got a platform,” writers sometimes tell me. “I’m on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve got a blog.” But here’s the litmus test for whether you have a platform: If a publisher sent a pallet of books to your garage, how many of them could you move on the strength of your own connections? This question puts […]
We write who we are. Or at the very least, we write from who we are. In the same way that beautiful gardens and happy productive children don’t just happen, neither does good writing. All of these are products of an environment. How’s Your Writing Ecosystem? So what if you took an ecosystems approach to […]
Wait, what? We need to stay motivated on our passion projects? Yes! No matter how much we love what we’re doing, we get tired. Or we get distracted. Or both! In this 79-second video I share an essential tool for creatives…
If you’re fairly new to blogging, the thought of building a team may never have even crossed your mind. After all, blogging is a solitary endeavor, right? Well, yes, it is. Except when it isn’t. I contend that the best blogs – including brand new ones – are never built alone. They grow exponentially with the […]
When my wife read my blog post about the importance of platform and Google search ranking for writers, she replied, “It makes me sad. I wish platform/Google weren’t so paramount.” She spoke for legions of writers, I expect. “Why can’t I just write a good book?” “I’m a writer, not a marketer. Why do I have to be both?” […]
I just noticed something I have been doing habitually for well over ten years. Whenever I review a book proposal, one of the first things I do is Google the author’s name. I do this because a book deal is a business partnership. When we sign an author, we’re excited about the author’s voice and […]
The other day I walked past my bookshelf, and this juxtaposition caught my eye—two books that have no business being next to each other. The one is an Advent devotional titled Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom by accomplished writer and National Book Award winner Walt Wangerin. […]
As editorial director for a major trade book publisher, I regularly receive questions like this: Is it okay to blog content that I want to use in my book? Will publishers mind if my blog content ends up in my book? If my book proposal is for a book based on my blog, will publishers […]
Becoming an entrepreneur has done a lot more than pay the bills over the years, it’s saved my life.” That’s the first line of a wonderful little book by Inc. columnist Timothy Askew, The Poetry of Small Business: An Accidental Entrepreneur’s Search for Meaning. As I make my way into entrepreneurism, I find myself hungry […]
The way we work is changing rapidly. The number of us who have opted out of traditional corporate or government employment is growing. According to such sources as Forbes and Public Sector Digest, by the year 2020, 40 to 50 percent of the workforce in the U.S. will be freelancers. By 2030 we will be the […]
