Build Your Audience

This past week I had dozens of one on one meetings with writers at the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference. Each of these writers wanted to pitch their book idea and try to entice me to take their project as their literary agent. A number of them had good ideas which contained merit. The majority of them had some great life experience and knowledge to pour into a book topic. Yet often they lacked any exposure in the marketplace. The majority of them had never been published or written for a magazine or newspaper. Or if they had been published, at times their book idea had no connection to their publishing experience. Everything was done on happenstance rather than a deliberate effort.

Publishers and literary agents don't have the opportunity to help you build your audience and career. Each individual writer has to take charge of that responsibility and build their own audience. It was one of the themes that I repeated to authors over and over. If they love to write about _______, what are they doing to build that audience today and right now? Can they launch a free newsletter? Can they write magazine articles for print publications and Internet magazines? Can they develop a reputation as being the go-to person for such information? The answer is yes to every one of these questions. It will not happen instantly or overnight yet with each step they can increase their attractiveness to publishers and literary agents. Then when they pitch their ideas, it will be something worth serious deliberation and consideration.

Some of those people will have to self-publish their books and demonstrate their market through the sales of that book. I hope you can join me tomorrow night for my live tele-seminar with Susan Driscoll, the president of iUniverse. Sign up and ask your question.

Fragile Dreams

For the last few days, I’ve been at the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference. As a literary agent, I’ve had a parade of would-be authors sign up to meet with me, flock to my dining room table and catch me in the halls of the conference.

Each time I attend a conference as a member of the faculty, I’m keenly aware of the fragile nature of dreams. I’ve listened to many people tell me about themselves, their work, their hopes and their dreams. The challenge is to understand the effort of the writer to tell someone else about their hopes and dreams. I know these plans are fragile because I have many of my own plans and dreams. I look for ways to build these individuals, give them hope and encouragement yet balanced with realism about the challenges of book publishing and today’s marketplace. It’s a careful walk and I hope I achieved it.

I’m on the way back home. Tuesday I’m looking forward to interviewing Susan Driscoll, the president and CEO of iUniverse.com which is one of the largest Print-On-Demand companies in the United States. I’d encourage you to ask a question and listen to the live telewebcast.

Blog Flack

I’ve taken my fair share of critics about these entries on The Writing Life. You could even call it a bit of blog flack. There will always be critics in this world—no matter which way you write and work in the publishing community. As a writer, you have to decide which voices you listen to and respect. Or which voices you ignore. There are some people who when they speak to me about something, I will listen to in-depth and other people I will almost instantly discount it.

I have my own series of challenges to faithfully create the material in these entries and get it out into the marketplace. I’m continually learning about publishing. In a week, I head to the Glorieta Christian Writers Conference. In recent days, I’ve been preparing for two new workshops that I’m teaching about Ebooks and Repurposing Your Content plus meeting with a number of writers and helping them with their proposals.

Just when I was having some doubts about the merits of these entries about writing and publishing, I received an unsolicited email from Joe Wikert. We had never corresponded yet Joe has been reading my blog and in fact recommended my Straight Talk From The Editor in his well-crafted blog about publishing. If you look at Joe’s entry, you will see that he is the Vice President and Executive Publisher at John Wiley & Sons, which recently celebrated 200 years of publishing. This publishing house was founded in 1807 during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. From Joe’s brief email, I received some encouragement.

Most of us will never know the impact of our words whether in print or in an email. It’s something to consider in these days of rush with way too much to accomplish in the hours of our day.

I’m excited about my teleseminar tomorrow. You can register for it, ask a question at http://www.askterrywhalin.com/. I’ve been corresponding with the “mystery magazine editor” who will be joining me for part of this call. It’s one of the absolute best places for any writer to break into WRITING FOR THE CHRISTIAN MARKET. He’s going to be giving us unique information about how to meet his editorial needs. Here’s a hint for you about which publication: the magazine is a weekly publication which means it requires a high volume of excellent Christian writing. If you can’t make the live event, go ahead and register because you will receive the link for the replay. Hope to see you on this call or you can hear it on the live telewebcast.