“Mark, that could be you one day,” said Andee Jones, author of Kissing Frogs.
We were at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne for Debut Mondays, a promotional tool giving first time published writers the opportunity to read extracts from their book. It gives them additional advertising and the chance to increase book sales.
Public speaking makes me feel uneasy. I enjoy my isolation and I am too introverted to stand in front of a crowd and read from my own book. Andee confirmed that she felt the same way, but she has no choice if she wants to sell and make writing a sustainable career.
I walked away with the knowledge that being published is only 50% of an author’s job. The following questions came to mind:
• Who helps with sales?
• Who advertises?
• Who helps with gaining an audience?
The answer to all these questions is simple: the author!
To think that once published the job is done, is delusional. Being a writer is a process of running a business; consequently, you become a product that needs to sell.
I started to wonder how the Professional Writing & Editing course helps me with the world I intend to enter. Apart from teaching me how to improve my writing (fiction and non-fiction), I have chosen subjects that are also business related. For example, through Corporate Writing, I have learnt how to write articles for newsletters and how to craft a press release. Although the assignments are based on a non-writing business, I gained valuable skills that I can apply to me as a product to advertise and sell.
Desktop Publishing taught me the technical side of creating the layout of a newsletter, a magazine or an article, and Electronic Media gave me an insight on how to use—to my own advantage—the numerous on-line social networks. Don’t forget that many publishing companies also expect you to create a blog or write for their own one, once you sign a contract. Like it or not, electronic media is a massive part of the publishing world’s future.
I can now see that it’s crucial to create a smart balance with the subjects you choose to study; don’t be afraid to tap into the unknown. It’s best to be familiar with many areas within the writing world (or at least gain knowledge of the basics). Choose your subjects wisely; knowing how to write is not necessarily going to make you successful, so you need to start thinking as a business, because you ARE a business.
We were at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne for Debut Mondays, a promotional tool giving first time published writers the opportunity to read extracts from their book. It gives them additional advertising and the chance to increase book sales.
Public speaking makes me feel uneasy. I enjoy my isolation and I am too introverted to stand in front of a crowd and read from my own book. Andee confirmed that she felt the same way, but she has no choice if she wants to sell and make writing a sustainable career.
I walked away with the knowledge that being published is only 50% of an author’s job. The following questions came to mind:
• Who helps with sales?
• Who advertises?
• Who helps with gaining an audience?
The answer to all these questions is simple: the author!
To think that once published the job is done, is delusional. Being a writer is a process of running a business; consequently, you become a product that needs to sell.
I started to wonder how the Professional Writing & Editing course helps me with the world I intend to enter. Apart from teaching me how to improve my writing (fiction and non-fiction), I have chosen subjects that are also business related. For example, through Corporate Writing, I have learnt how to write articles for newsletters and how to craft a press release. Although the assignments are based on a non-writing business, I gained valuable skills that I can apply to me as a product to advertise and sell.
Desktop Publishing taught me the technical side of creating the layout of a newsletter, a magazine or an article, and Electronic Media gave me an insight on how to use—to my own advantage—the numerous on-line social networks. Don’t forget that many publishing companies also expect you to create a blog or write for their own one, once you sign a contract. Like it or not, electronic media is a massive part of the publishing world’s future.
I can now see that it’s crucial to create a smart balance with the subjects you choose to study; don’t be afraid to tap into the unknown. It’s best to be familiar with many areas within the writing world (or at least gain knowledge of the basics). Choose your subjects wisely; knowing how to write is not necessarily going to make you successful, so you need to start thinking as a business, because you ARE a business.
Thanks, Mark. You make some great points. Sadly, for some of us (and I'm one of those too) the days of the lonely writer in their garret is over. These days its 'writer as celebrity', something that does give some of us the horrors, but as you say we just have to be prepared for it. It is now part of the writer's job -- part of the publisher's expectation of you as a writer. There are, famously, some writers who can eschew this -- but they are far and few between and have to be brilliant to get away with it. For the rest of us, we do have to take some responsibility for marketing our work and ourselves as writers.
ReplyDeleteTracey