Persist With Your Passion

What are you doing each day to persist with your passion? Are you passionate about fiction? If so, what are you doing to continue growing in your craft? What are you doing to continue writing the stories in your heart and get those stories on paper? Or maybe your passion is to be published in magazines? Are you faithfully pitching new ideas and writing the assignments which come your way? Or possibly you have a nonfiction idea that needs to get published? Or maybe you have a friend with a nonfiction book idea that "should" be published? What proactive steps are you taking today to get those ideas moving?

Your breakthrough opportunity might be around the corner. It certainly can't happen if you don't keep knocking on the doors and trying to open the way. If you read these entries, you will know one of my passions is to help writers produce better book proposals and pitches to editors and literary agents. Why? Because as an editor (and now an agent), I see many proposals which have a gem of an idea--but it's buried or not pitched in the most compelling fashion. I can't fix every one of these proposals. It's impossible. What I can do is encourage writers to read Book Proposals That Sell and study the contents and grow in their abilities.

When I go to a conference, I bring several copies of my book and make a pointed case to give these books to key individuals. After the conference, I follow up and see if I can provide any additional information or open another opportunity from the gift. While my book has been out for almost two years, I continue to mail review copies to people. In fact, yesterday I mailed two more review copies. I've seen firsthand how persistence will pay off.

My book continues to be reviewed. This week Shane Werlinger posted a review about Book Proposals That Sell on Suite 101. I hope you will check it out.

Almost daily I received notices about selling electronic versions of Book Proposals That Sell. Some of these sales come from affiliates, who are leading people to my book and earning 50% of the commission from this web link. If you haven't taken two minutes, join my affiliate program and begin using your own link to lead people to Book Proposals That Sell. As people read the book, they will improve their own book submissions so you will serve others in that process. In addition to helping your audience, you will be adding some passive income from the experience. The process is simple. First, join my affiliate program, then add your link to your website, your newsletter or your emails.

Everyone needs to follow the persistence of Andy Andrews who wrote the bestseller, The Traveler's Gift. I told this story almost two years ago but I'm going to repeat it here. A popular speaker, Andy wrote a manuscript which he tried to get published. It was rejected 54 times. How many of us send out our material to this degree? He continued in his popular speaking work but did not have a book for his audience. One day Gayle Hyatt was in Andy Andrews' audience. She came up to him afterwards and suggested that he write a book.

Looking a bit sheepish, Andy told Gayle, "Your husband's company (Thomas Nelson) has already rejected my book." Gayle asked to receive a copy of the manuscript and promised to read it. Andy sent her the book. She showed it to her husband (Mike Hyatt, president of Thomas Nelson) and the book was published.

Note the perseverance in what happened next. When Andy got his new book, he gave away 12,000 copies of the book. Most of those review copies didn't make much of a difference. But one of those copies got in the hands of Robin Roberts, a producer of ABC's Good Morning America. Roberts selected The Traveler's Gift as their Book of the Month. The Traveler's Gift sold 850,000 copies and the rest is history.

The writing life isn't easy for any of us. You have to persist with your passion. It is a key characteristic of the writers who ultimately find success.