Anne Lamott begins a chapter of her wonderful book Bird by Bird like this:
There’s an old New Yorker cartoon of two men sitting on a couch at a busy cocktail party, having a quiet talk. One man has a beard and looks like a writer. The other seems like a normal person. The writer type is saying to the other: “We’re still pretty far apart. I’m looking for a six-figure advance, and they’re refusing to read the manuscript.”
If you find yourself pretty far apart from publishers, perhaps you need to consider using the following seventeen building blocks to construct your career as a successful author:
1. Read: Ernie Gaines, author of the Oprah book club selection, A Lesson Before Dying, believes that you can only write as well as you read. So read what you love to read and write what you love to read. Reading will enable you to establish criteria for your books.
Also read about authors you admire to learn how they succeeded.
2. Establish models for your books and your career. Choose those that most inspire you.
3. Understand how publishers and agents work: You want the best editor, publisher, and deal for your books. Having a positive but realistic perspective on the business will help you find the right publisher for you and your book, and an agent if you decide to hire one.
4. Set personal and professional goals: Establish goals that keep you motivated to do all you can to achieve them.
5. Practice nichecraft: You can write any kind of book on any subject. But a faster way to build a career is to come up with an idea for a series of related books that sell each other and that you will be passionate about writing and promoting.
6. Develop your craft as a writer: Make every word count for your readers. Find early readers to help you make sure your work is 100% before submitting it.
7. Build communities: You can’t get your books right or make them succeed by yourself. Get the help you need by helping people and asking them to help you.
8. Develop your craft as a marketer:
* Build your platform: your continuing visibility, online and off, with the readers for your books.
* Build the communities you need to succeed.
* Test-market your work: Maximize the value of your book by proving it will sell before trying to get it published.
9. Promote your work: Whether Random House publishes your books or you do, you will be the person most responsible for promoting them. Regard promotion as an essential part of your mission to spread your message.
10. Be passionate about your books: You want all of the people you meet to be as passionate about your work as you are. You are the well from which they will draw.
11. Make Mistakes: Jame Joyce said that “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” As long as you learn from your mistakes, you will make fewer of them. Eliminate failure as an option, and success is inevitable.
12. Staying committed to your writing and your career: No one will know or care as much about your books as you do. So you must be relentless but professional about writing and promoting them, and about building your presence in the industry and in your field.
13. Put your life in the service of your readers: The better you serve them, the more they’ll help you achieve your goals. If you want people to keep buying your books, establish and maintain a relationship with them. You have more ways to do that than ever.
14. Be an authorpreneur: Speaker Sam Horn’s brilliant word which, for me, means:
* having the entrepreneurial ability to create something out of nothing: an idea; a book that you can sell in more forms, media and countries than ever ; an international 365/24/7 business; and a career
* coming up with ideas that you can sell in as many forms, media, and countries as possible
* being responsible for your success
* being unique by being creative in writing and promoting your books
* being resourceful in meeting challenges
* looking at everything you experience and reflexively wondering if there’s a way to use it to enrich your personal or professional life
* using speed, creativity and flexibility to compensate for size
* embracing and taking advantage of new information, technology, and opportunities created by accelerating change
15. Have courage: Believe in yourself and the value of your books. You will overcome the obstacles that await you.
16. Take the long view: A writing career isn’t one book but ten or twenty, each better and more profitable than the last. So you have to balance and integrate your short- and long-term goals.
17. Grow yourself: You are the most important factor in your success. You have to challenge yourself to improve physically, mentally, spiritually, and professionally. You have to keep learning if you want to keep earning.
You are Needed Now
Creative, resourceful people keep proving that anything is possible, that we are limited only by our ideas and the time and resources we devote to developing them. The world needs all the information, inspiration, help and entertainment you can provide. Enjoy the journey and best of luck!
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.
