Why Now is the Best Time to Be a Writer
There was a New Yorker cartoon showing an editor sitting across a desk from a writer who looks like Charles Dickens and saying: “Make up your mind, Mr. Dickens. Was it the best of times or the worst of times? It could scarcely have been both.” It’s certainly a challenging time to be a writer, but for many reasons, it’s best time ever.
There are more:
- subjects for you to write about
- books and authors for you to use as models
- options for getting your book published
- ways to build your platform–your continuing visibility with potential readers
- ways to test-market your book
- ways to find an agent
- ways to promote and profit from your books
- resources to help you
- ways to use technology to help you
If you are writing to meet the needs of the marketplace and you can promote your work, now is a tremendously exciting time to be a wordsmith.
Drawing on my experiences as an agent for 38 years, author or coauthor of eleven books, teacher, and founder of the San Francisco Writers Conference, I hope that this blog will save you time, effort, and anxiety, and help you become as successful as you’d like to be, as quickly as you can, by finding the path that only you were born to blaze.
But as in all things, trust your instincts and your common sense. Whatever I tell you about writing, agents, promotion and publishing must make as much sense to you as it does to me. If it doesn’t, ask me about it or ignore it. Believe that you can do what it takes to become a successful author. I do.
Onward!
Comments, questions, humor and guest bloggers welcome.
Welcome to the world of blogging, Michael. I think you’re a natural and can’t wait to read tidbits of wisdom from the master!
Many thanks for the encouraging comment! Onward!
Yours for Good Books That Sell (Especially When They’re Yours!),
Mike Information about writing, publishing, submitting your work, writing a proposal and promotion plan, and Michael’s consulting services for nonfiction writers are on our site. Michael Larsen-Elizabeth Pomada Literary Agents / [email protected] / _www.larsen-pomada.com_ (http://www.larsen-pomada.com/) Please write or call 11-4 PST, Monday-Friday, with questions. 415-673-0939 / Hours: 10-4 PST M-Th / Established 1972 / Members: AAR 1029 Jones Street / San Francisco, California 94109
The 8th San Francisco Writers Conference will take place February 18-21, 2011 at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel. Visit _www.sfwriters.org_ (http://www.sfwriters.org/) for information. Keynoters include bestselling thriller write David Morrell. The link to receive the newsletter and free MP3s: _http://www.sfwriters.info_ (http://www.sfwriters.info/) .
Mike is the author of How to Write a Book Proposal and How to Get a Literary Agent, and with Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and David Hancock, coauthor of Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work. Information about Michael’s consulting services for nonfiction writers is on our site.