You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.
–Author and speaker Zig Ziglar
In publishing, the beginning of the year is “New Year New You” time. People use gift cards, exchange gifts, atone for holiday excesses, or start fulfilling their New Year’s resolutions by buying self-improvement books. E-books can add other media to them and make them social and interactive.
The new year is a time for taking stock of where you are and for deciding if you can get where you want to go faster. My wish for you is that 2013 be better than 2012, that you write better and get more of the help and visibility you need to succeed.
Technology has made this a golden age for all writers. The relative ease of writing, sharing, and profiting from your work on a worldwide Web of eager readers should be all of the inspiration you need to serve your readers as well as you can. You control your career. Your future is at your fingertips, on your tongue, and in your ability to speak, and build your visibility and communities to help you.
The essence of the challenge you face, whether you publish your books or Random House does, is that you have to balance being a writer and publisher, artist and merchant, creator and communicator, student and teacher, and being online and off.
You have to keep creating content that satisfies your readers’ need for information, entertainment, guidance, or wisdom so well they become lifetime fans of whatever you create and tell their communities to read your work. Content is king, but communication is queen. I call this passion for writing and service contentpreneuring: enterpreneuring for writers.
My brother’s unexpected death on December 28th brought home once again that my only salvation is service. As Lao Tzu said: “He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.” So my resolution for 2013 is to serve you as well as I can. This is both an opportunity I relish and one of the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced, one reason I’ve neglected you.
Writing as well as I’d like is as hard for me as turning out your best work is for you. Finding something to say that will have lasting value for you is even harder. I live with the frustration nothing I write will ever be as inspiring, insightful, humorous, life-changing, or even just as well written as I want it to be. Knowing this doesn’t make me leap to the keyboard. Knowing that you need all the help you can get prevents me from stopping.
You need and deserve the best ideas, insights, and information I can give you. I will use posts from others and encourage you to send posts, yours and those of other writers that you think worth sharing. I’d also like to learn your writing resolutions and hope you’ll share them.
Two reasons this is a golden age for writers:
More readers than ever, everywhere on this aching planet, want to read your words.
It’s easier than ever to get your share of the gold.
I hope you will have a productive and prosperous 2013.
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 suggestions for changes. 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 /
Keynoters: Bella Andre, Anne Perry, and R. L. Stine
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
The 5th San Francisco Writing for Change Conference / Changing the World One Book at a Time
September 2013 / Unitarian Universalist Center / Geary and Franklin
www.sfwritingforchange.org / sfwriterscon@aol.com
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.
