Creating Your Literary Ecosystem: The 6 Elements of a Fulfilling Writing Career
After forty years as an agent, here is the essence of what I believe you have to have for a fulfilling life as a writer:
Gaia, the Earth, is an ecosystem—a unique, miraculous, self-sustaining combination of elements that evolved out of each other. You can create a literary ecosystem: a balanced, organic, evolving, sustainable, inter-dependent, international, environmentally sensitive community. Your system will be unified by passion, interest, service, connection, and commerce. The six circular elements of your literary ecosystem will be
- Products and services—as much scalable, first-rate work in your niche as you can generate in different forms and lengths that you re-purpose in other media
- Pre-promotion–test-marketing your work in as many ways as you can
- People—win-win relationships with engaged, committed, growing communities you serve who want to help you, because they know, like, and trust you
- Platform–your continuing visibility, online and off, with your communities and potential buyers about your work
- Promotion—using your platform to share your passion for your work with your communities
- Profit—what you need to achieve your personal and professional goals and maintain the system
Your ecosystem has to stay open to what it needs to learn from–and can contribute to–your communities, the human family, and the planet. Your system will continue to build synergy as long as you keep enriching the soil by producing content that sustains it. The importance of the six elements will vary, depending on what you write. If your mission is using words to create change, make cultivating your ecosystem a lifelong quest. You will accomplish more than you can imagine.
The blog aspires to help us both understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as helpful as it can be, please respond with your questions and answers. I hope you find it worth sharing.
Do one thing every day to make the world better . –John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman
The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference: Changing the World One Book at a Time
September 15, 2012 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Franklin & O’Farrell, San Francisco
Keynoters: Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism, and Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /
http://sfwriters.info/blog /@SFWC/ www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoWritersConference
San Francisco Writers University / Where Writers Meet and You Learn
Laurie McLean, Dean/free classes/www.sfwritersu.com/sfwritersu@gmail.com/@SFWritersU
415-673-0939 / 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, 94109
Michael Larsen is a literary agent and consultant to nonfiction writers. He and his partner Elizabeth Pomada are co-directors of the San Francisco Writers Conference and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference.
Many thanks for writing. Larsenpomada.com tells how to submit fiction to Elizabeth. Hope we can help. In any case, best of luck with your writing career. Persevere!
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Your approach is so Northern Cali. I’ve probably read 500 agents websites so far and nobody offers so much advice.
If I could stop, I would. It’s unquestionably a form of insanity. I’ll query you, but I’m not sure it’s necessary if you google: Ben Sen’s Blog.
It’s all there, the good, the bad, the sweat, the tears, the commas waiting to break free, the novel: Maggie Magic is 40ty years in the making and I’m not dead yet.
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Wow! What an insightful and well-written response! You got it. Please call or write, if you ever have questions. May your literary and publishing goals be as clear as your blog. Best of luck with your writing. With your vision, you will go far. Yours for opening minds by closing the circle.
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Mike, this is fantastic! You are suggesting seeing in whole rather than the parts we so often concentrate on. As we perceive our entire writing life and actions in this unified way, I am convinced we become better writers, more attuned to ourselves and others, and more dedicated and joyful in our commitment to writing. And as you say, the “circular” nature of our ecosystem cannot help but nurture itself in many overlapping ways (e.g., building relationships with others can easily lead to new essay ideas). As we focus on becoming the best writers we can, truest to our inner passion and desires, we cannot help but help others, and the circle continues. Bless you for your enlarged vision and conviction in sharing it with the writing community.
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