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The Blessings of Thanksgiving for Writers

November 21, 2012 By 2 Comments

Thanksgiving is a time to take (turkey?) stock of the blessings that writers have:

  • Loving to learn, read, write, serve your readers, and share your passions
  • Stringing words together like lights that enlighten your readers
  • Knowing that you’re doing what you were born to do
  • Having literary and publishing goals that motivate you to achieve them
  • Having ideas to write about
  • Writing what people want to read
  • Producing work that has social value
  • Writing work you can resell in other forms, media, and countries
  • Having technology to  help you create, share, promote, and profit from your work
  • Experimenting with new ways to express your ideas
  • Being supported by your friends and family
  • Having a community of early readers
  • Having fans who love what you write
  • Being liked and respected by authors you admire
  • Having an agent, editor, publisher, and fans who champion your work
  • Finding new ways to Monetize your work
  • Having a community of collaborators to help you
  • Maintaining a balance between work, home, and leisure
  • Earning enough income to support your writing habit
  • Not having everything you want
  • Having challenges that bring out the best in you
  • Being so energized by your work and your readers that you wake up every day eager to write
  • Living in a home and community that cherish creativity
  • Being part of  a business which is a labor of love

Then of course, on Friday, there are turkey sandwiches on dill rye with mayo and pepper…

 I hope you’ll share these blessings and let me know which ones I left out.

 

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 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

 

 

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August 24, 2012 By 4 Comments

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

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Getting a Book Published, San Francisco Writers Conference, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction Tagged With: , ,

Marrying Commerce to Community: The Next Bookselling Revolution

August 4, 2012 By 5 Comments

People, companies, and countries that don’t reinvent themselves every three-to-five years will get left behind.

–John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems

At the end of the nineteenth century, there was concern about the future of reading because people were spending so much time riding bicycles. New technology makes people think either/or instead of both/and. Publishing will continue to be a hybrid business, and it will flourish, online and off, as never before, if the publishing community collaborates on thinking outside the big box, and is creative and resourceful in taking advantage of the huge opportunities technology offers.

Overlooked in discussions about bookselling is that print books are a unique medium. They can be converted into other forms and media, but they are irreplaceably valuable. Imagine the world without movies and CDs as it was at the beginning of the twentieth century. Then imagine it now without print books. A catastrophe for our personal, professional, and political future. Can you imagine taking an oath on an e-reader?

Mosaic: An Online Bookselling Community

One way to assure the future of print books is to regard them as artifacts of culture, not just commerce. The solution to online bookselling is for the publishing community to create its own Amazon as a non-profit cooperative, formed and administered by American Association of Publishers and the American Booksellers Association with the advice and support of The Author’s Guild, the Association of Authors’ Representatives, and other writing and publishing organizations.
Publishers would upload books into the system, post metadata, change whatever they wish whenever they wish, and fulfill orders. The cloud and the low cost of starting tech companies make this project easier and cheaper to accomplish than ever. Present and former Amazonians would be delighted to help. It could start just by selling books, then add features members want.

A possible name for the organization: Mosaic, because it would be a unified image yet each imprint would be distinct and enrich the whole. The slogan to improve on: “We care about books.” With the support of stakeholders in the industry, Mosaic will be fail-proof and a service to readers everywhere. Making the software available to other countries will make the idea universal.

Indies Unbound: An Offline Bookselling Community

It’s been predicted that Barnes & Noble will not recover from its problems and will suffer the same fate as Borders and the independents the chains destroyed. The creative destruction of four-story bookstores will be the greatest opportunity ever for independent bookselling, if they become community-based nonprofits or co-ops. The ideal size for a bookstore is 3,000-4,000 feet. A growing network of independent booksellers can thrive if they do these four things:

1. Become member-and-community-supported nonprofits like other cultural resources, such as PBS, libraries, museums, symphony orchestras, and dance and opera companies. A customer in Four-Eyed Frog Books in Gualala, California handed owner Joel Crockett a $100 bill as a deposit on future purchases, which inspired him to start a Community Supported Bookstore program. Members buy enough books in advance, perhaps at a discount, to help assure the store’s survival.

If the ABA decides to receive petitions from towns with, for example, a thousand names of people who commit to buying $100 worth of books a year, the ABA can help find someone to run it, help the person to start the store, and have someone available to answer questions. Regional associations and other indies will help.

The publishing community can support the ABA in making the case to the government that booksellers who wish should be nonprofits. The AAP and the ABA can help support new booksellers who want to adopt this model. Towns, local realtors, and independent stores could help provide needed products, services, and space.

This could happen with libraries that want to start a store. The ABA can post the demographics required to sustain a store, and send them to librarians, Chambers of Commerce, and regional bookselling organizations asking for potential locations. This idea will lead to the revival of stores forced out of business.

2. Have Espresso Book Machines that enable stores to stock as many books as Amazon as well as printing books for schools and independent publishers. Wouldn’t it be better for stores to stock one copy of twenty titles than twenty copies of one title? I watched Jason Epstein’s excellent Book  Business being printed at McNally & Jackson in New York, before being handed the book warm off the press. It took five minutes. Since technology years are like dog years, in five years, it will take one minute. AAP and ABA should collaborate with Xerox on helping to get EBMs into bookstores now and encouraging publishers to make their lists available on EBMs. Color printing and printing in other formats should be integrated into EBMs as soon as the technology makes it possible.

3. Make Bookstores an ever more needed respite for screenagers by being community centers that

  • respond to their community’s needs and tastes
  • provide events and classes
  • serve as a meeting place for reading and writing groups
  • contribute to community events and causes

4. Continue to collaborate with other businesses to make customers aware that communities lose a quarter of every dollar spent in chains while indies spend that income in the community. There is a growing interest in locally produced food and independently produced goods. Indies can use signing and all the other ways they communicate with customers to convince locavores to become loca-shoppers.

The America we love will not outlive print books. Technology is transforming the world from a collection of me cultures into a hyper-connected we culture, a global village with a human family united by the same needs and desires. We need books more than ever to help solve the problems our institutions can’t.

Technology is giving us these two gifts for the book community to enlarge the community of the book. If, for the first time, the book community collaborates on marshaling the passion of readers, writers, and professionals, print books will receive the support they need and deserve. Like writing and publishing, bookselling is a labor of love. Wedding community and commerce will create an enduring union that will produce happy readers, publishers, and booksellers.

The blog aspires to help you and me understand writing and publishing. To make the blog as good as I would like it to be, I need your comments, questions, and answers. I hope that you will find it worth sharing with your community of writers.
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
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

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Filed Under: Book Publishing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You and We the People: Writing for Change

July 4, 2012 By 12 Comments

One lazy man is called a disgrace, two lazy men are called a law firm, and three or more a congress.

John Adams in the musical 1776

Although America’s follies and problems approach in size and gravity its potential and stature, the United States is the best and greatest country the world has ever had. The signing of the Declaration of Independence is worthy of celebration, if only to remind us of how unlikely an enterprise America was at its birth, how remarkable its vision of America, and our role in keeping its ideals alive.

On the morning of America’s birthday, I want to recommend a speech and a musical comedy for you to watch. One may change your mind, the other your life. The first is a talk by John Perkins, author of Hit Man: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded–an What We Need to Do to Remake Them. You can watch it at www.c-spanvideo.org. Perkins says that despite corporate bribes and paralyzing partisanship, we, as citizens, can determine America’s future.

America is a centrist country, but politicians and the public usually hear more from zealots at the ends of the political spectrum, rather than the middle. Parkins asked his audience to do one thing every day to make the world better, an idea as powerful as it is simple. More than ever before, writers have the opportunity, not just to make a living, but to make a difference. It’s easier than ever for the right idea and the right book to change the world, and the Internet enables you reach the world with your fingertips.

Perkins said that when Rachel Carson sat down at her small desk in her Pennsylvania home to write about how DDT was harming the planet, she had no idea that she would write The Silent Spring, a bestseller that became a classic that liberated the world from DDT and started the international environmental movement.

Whether you write fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, your passion and your gift for portraying the challenges we face, and proposing solutions, can make a difference. Knowing how big a difference you can make is impossible, but it’s much greater than you think.

How about writing and signing you own declaration of independence from whatever is keeping you from becoming the best, most creative and productive person you were born to be and that only you can be? Free yourself from beliefs, people, and activities that waste your resources, but don’t help you achieve your goals. That will be something for you to celebrate every day.

A revolution won is a revolution lost. When people believe there’s nothing more to fight for and just enjoy the fruits of victory, they begin to lose what was so costly to win. The only way to win a revolution is to keep striving to keep its ideals alive, especially at a time of political impasse, accelerating change, and the growing urgency of the problems we face. Our hyper-connected planet has only one economy and only one family: the human family. As Benjamin Franklin warned, we have to hang together, or we will hang separately.

For America to work, we have to do what we must to keep the vision of the Declaration of Independence alive and perpetually strive to fulfill its dream of a free, independent, thriving country, united by the compromises needed to balance contrary beliefs.

Every 4th of July, Elizabeth and I watch 1776, a Tony-winning  musical about the signing of the Declaration of Independence that has important lessons we ignore at our peril. The show brings to life the remarkable but all-too-human men who made it possible.  The show captures how divided and ineffective Congress was at its birth, how one vote made the difference, and the disastrous compromise on slavery required to make America possible despite overwhelming odds.

No matter where you are in your life or your writing career, remember Anne Frank’s words: “It’s never too late to start doing the right thing.” America’s only hope is to remain a revolution in progress that we keep alive with our efforts. Have a happy 5th. 

 

The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference: Changing the World One Book at a Time will take place September 15th at the Unitarian Universalist Center, Geary & Franklin Streets, www.sfwritingforchange.org.

The goal of the blog is to help you and me understand writing and publishing. Rants, comments, questions, and answers needed to make the blog more helpful.

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

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

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Filed Under: San Francisco Writers Conference, San Francisco Writing for Change Conference, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

D & N: The Chain of Endless Inspiration for Writers

May 14, 2012 By 4 Comments

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Desires and needs.

We are a blend of nature and nurture, but also of what we want and need. Don’t people’s needs and desires, and how they try to satisfy them, tell you and your readers the essentials of what you need to know about them? Because D & N are unique and universal, portrait and portent, they can create and convey character. People are what they want, as well as what they do and say.

What are people’s lives but the stories of how they pursue their D & N? These  stories are  characters’ literary DNA, the blueprint of their real or imagined lives and a source of endless inspiration.

We are all born with the same basic needs. We prisoners of them. But, just as mistakes are the ornaments of freedom, desires are the ornaments of our lives. They’re what we add to needs to help make life worth living. Footwear is necessary; Jimmy Choo’s are optional.

And yet, D & N make us running around in circles like hamsters on a wheel. The moment of satisfaction may either end a need or desire, or only subdue it, in which case, it’s the beginning of a renewed need or desire, perhaps for something different, if not better.  Is this The Human’s Journey, and when we return from each quest, we bring back new knowledge about our D & N and how to satisfy them.

To be a successful writer, writing must be a need. To be as good a writer as you can be, make getting the words right a compelling desire. To be a successful author, you must know:

what your literary and publishing desires are

what you want to write and for whom

how you can satisfy the needs and desires of publishers and book buyers

how you want your books published

how well you want them to sell.

Your goals determine what you write, how you write it, for whom, and the platform and promotion you need.  Your goals determine who you become, so choose them wisely and change them when necessary. May your goals always inspire your best efforts.

 

The goal of the blog is to help you and me understand writing and publishing. Rants, comments, questions, and answers are needed to make the blog as helpful as I want it to be.

Just Announced:

The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference

Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 15, 2012 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary & Franklin, San Francisco

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

 

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Filed Under: San Francisco Writers Conference, San Francisco Writing for Change Conference, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction Tagged With: ,

4 Keys to Guaranteeing the Success of Your Book

May 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

On publication day, because your book is new, it’s news. Books are on bookstore shelves, reviews start to appear, and you begin carrying out your promotion plan, which includes arousing media interest. Writing, publishing, bookselling, reviewing, and marketing are migrating online, but publishing is a hybrid business that requires your best efforts online and off.

Depending on your publisher’s commitment, your book may have a launch window as short as two weeks, after which your publisher will focus on the next book on its list. Your goal is to help generate enough sales momentum for your book to sustain the interest of booksellers, the media, and your publisher. You need to be visible in as many ways and places as possible, online and off. Visibility is not a spigot you can turn on because you need it. You have to prepare for your book’s launch window by maximizing its value before you publish it or sell it to a publisher.

Here are four simultaneous, overlapping ways to guarantee the success of your book that you must integrate for maximum impact:

  1. Write the best book you can. Only books that fulfill their promise succeed.
  2. Test-market your book  in as many ways as you can to prove it works, including a blog, videos, podcasts, a website, talks, teaching, articles, self-publishing, and media interviews.
  3. Build your platform–your continuing visibility with potential buyers, online and off, on the subject of your book or the kind of book you’re writing.
  4. Crowdsource your success by building win-win relationships with engaged communities of people who want to help you, because they know, like, and trust you: writers, fans, mentors, techies, bloggers and other media people, reviewers, booksellers, and key people in your field.

Technology forces publishing to reinvent itself. Before the Internet, books were the beginning of the information stream. Writers wrote them; publishers published them; and whatever happened–usually nothing–happened. Then writers wrote their next book. Because it keeps getting harder for publishers to launch writers, for new authors, the system is broken.

Now, books have to be the end of the information stream. The only time to publish your book, or sell it to a publisher, is when you have met the four challenges above as well as you can. This is only way to get the best editor, publisher, and deal for your book or ensure it sells, if you keep  publishing your edition. Sell enough copies, and publishers will find you.

Although a publisher can add great value to a book, technology empowers you to control as much of the process as you wish. If your book delivers enough value to your readers, social media guarantees bestsellerdom no matter who publishes it. If you’ve got the goods, technology makes it faster and easier than ever to become a successful writer. Good luck!

 

The goal of the blog is to help you and me understand writing and publishing. Rants, comments, questions, and answers most appreciated.

Just Announced: The 4th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference

Changing the World One Book at a Time

September 15, 2012 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary & Franklin, San Francisco

The 10th San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / February 14-17, 2013 / www.sfwriters.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com /

http://sfwriters.org/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

 

 

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Filed Under: Getting a Book Published, San Francisco Writers Conference, Writing Fiction, Writing for Change, Writing Nonfiction
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