In Praise of the Educated Writer

While I've been in the publishing community many years, I continue to learn new information all the time. I'm committed to a life-time learning process. I've watched several of my writing friends who stop learning and figure they have reached their level in the market. 

From my experience, this attitude of arrival is self-fulfilling for them as I also watch the stall of their careers. Authors with this attitude only get to workshops when they are teaching and don't read how-to magazines or books. I encourage you not to fall into this attitude trap—no matter where you are on the spectrum of published authors.

There are many ways for writers to get educated and here's a few of them:

--conferences
--online groups
--writer's groups
--critique groups
--books
--magazines
--one on one mentoring or coaching
--blogs and other online articles
--online courses like my Write A Book Proposal course

From my experience, I know a great deal of publishing is about being in the right place, at the right time, with the right material—timing is crucial. As someone who has reviewed thousands of manuscripts and book proposals, I can read a few paragraphs and know whether the writer is educated about the market and publishing.

The opposite is also true. I can tell whether the writer has sprayed their proposal far and wide without any thought about what our publishing house is producing. Recently an author mailed a self-published book to the Morgan James office in New York City. A little online research would tell you quickly that I work remote and live in Colorado. Our office forwarded the book to me and I opened it. First, I was amazed at the size (over 700 pages) then I looked at the title and the contents (targeted to the New Age market). While Morgan James publishes some Christian books (about 30 each year), they are not a “Christian” publisher yet this view is across the board in the published books (i.e. our fiction has no sex or curse words and the publisher would not publish a New Age book). While I admire the enthusiasm of this writer, he had not taken the few minutes to get educated and targeted with his submission. I read numerous books outside of what I do at Morgan James and often write book reviews. Yet this book would not be one that I would even read a few pages.

What steps are you taking to get educated as a writer? 

Literary agents and publishers receive thousands of submissions. The standout ones that get published come from thoughtful, educated writers.

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Are your submissions targeted? How do you locate your right audience? Ideas are here.  (ClickToTweet)
 

Five Ways to Boost Your Writing To A New Level

It's hard for every writer to begin and it takes work for every writer to move to a new level with their writing. I've been pouring words into stories since I was in high school and have had a lot of practice—yet I continue to learn new aspects of the publishing world.

Late one night at a writers' conference, I was sitting with several much published writers listening to their stories. At that point in my career, I had published only a few magazine articles. These writers discussed how each of them has huge doubts and fears every time they begin a new book. I found their honesty encouraging. It is like the actors or public speakers who admit to getting nervous or butterflies right before they walk on the stage. Such feelings are a part of life and these professionals have learned to acknowledge these feelings, accept them and yet move past them to produce excellent work.

If you want to move your writing to a new level of excellence, here's five ways to boost your writing. I encourage you to do as many of these ways as you can in the days ahead. If you take action, then in a few months your writing will be at a new place in the market.

1. Attend a Writers' Conference (cost: varies)

Published authors agree the step which propelled their writing life is attending a writer's conference. If you have never been to a conference, now is the time to plan to attend a conference. I'm going to be speaking at several conferences in the coming months (use this link to learn more details). There are many excellent conferences. Prepare ahead of time and this action will broaden your connections to editors and agents—but also give you key insights into your own writing life. Attend the workshops, take notes and follow the teaching. Also meet one-on-one with different editors and agents, then follow their suggestions and submit your material to them.

2. Read a Book on the Writing Craft Every Month (cost: free or low)

Whether you write fiction or nonfiction or have never written, I encourage you to intentionally read books about the craft of writing.  I have shelves of these books that I have read but you don't have to purchase them. Get them from your local library. I've written a couple of these books like Book Proposals That Sell or Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. Weave these books into your reading plans then take action on what you learn—apply it to the writing and marketing of your books.

3. Take an online course (cost: varies)

There are many possibilities in this area. Bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins has launched a FREE three lesson course course. Or another alternative is listening to a number of my free teleseminars on different topics like blogging or book reviews or dealing with the media or special market sales. Also you can take my Write a Book Proposal course.  Finally for this method, you can use my Simple Membership System to create your own membership course. 

4. Read blog posts from respected leaders (cost: free)

A number of literary agents and well-known editors have created blogs. Look for their subscription button on the site and sign up. The updates will come to your email box and you can read them and learn from their expertise. To get you started, here's a new list of the Top 100 Writing Blogs for Authors and Bloggers. Notice how I qualify who you read. Select people with experience and follow their guidance instead of “so-called experts” who when you look at their credentials have published less than five books. I include this reality check to make sure you are taking teaching from real experts.

5. Follow my twitter feed and read the articles in it (cost: free)

At this writing, I've been on twitter since 2009 and tweeted over 28,000 times (almost every hour throughout every day). I'm committed to reading and telling my followers about solid teaching information in the publishing and writing area.  As you follow this information stream, it is a terrific education to help you take your writing to a new level of excellence.

Follow the links and advice in this post and you will take your writing to a new level. It is critical that you do more than read and absorb new information.  It's great to learn but in addition to learning, you need to take action and incorporate what you learn into your daily actions. If I can help you in this journey, don't hesitate to reach out to me. My personal email is in my twitter profile. You can boost your writing with these active steps.

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Use these five suggestions to boost your writing to a new level. (Click to Tweet)