Note: This is a guest post by Shayla Raquel, she’s an expert editor, seasoned writer, and author-centric marketer. Shayla works one-on-one with authors and business owners every day. She is the author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist and her novel-in-progress, The Suicide Tree. She lives in Oklahoma with her two dogs, Chanel and Wednesday.
I recently had the good fortune of interviewing the literary agent, Mark Gottlieb, who has ranked #1 among Literary Agents on Publishers Marketplace. This interview was an eye opener for me. If you’re an author, trust me, you’re going to want to read it.
Most agent interviews are boring, so with that in mind, I did not ask Mark what his favorite color is or why he became an agent or anything that would put you to sleep. This interview is filled with serious questions that directly matter to you, as an author considering self-publishing or traditional publishing.
If you’ve considered self-publishing and wondered how many units you would need to sell in order to interest a traditional publisher, today you’re going to find out where that number starts.
You might not like all of the answers, but I will tell you this, as an author, you need to know them. And there are very few agents on the planet that know the answers as well as Mark does. He’s a straight shooter and not interested in blowing any smoke, so strap in and become informed.
The first rule about going viral is not to tell anyone about how to go viral.
Today I’m going to break that rule.
You have something incredibly special inside of you dying to get out! A dream that deserves life. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let anyone, for any reason, bring you down from where you belong, or stop you from going where you want to go, or doing what you want to do.
I am delighted to announce Positive Writer’s first annual Happy New Year’s promotion!
Inspired Writer, Writer’s Doubt, and The Audacity to be a Writer are currently reduced 70% from $9.99 on Amazon only!
Life is too short to wait to be inspired. You could wait all your life for the perfect moment―the perfect inspiration to create your masterpiece. But what if it never comes?
Then, you’re stuck. Forever.
2007, at the age of 37, I finally published my first book. I started writing when I was 12 and it took me 25 years to finally finish and publish a book. That’s a long time. I was ecstatic to complete my lifelong dream, but I still felt like a failure.
Every now and then you read something, view something, or hear something that resonates in such a way that it prompts change.
You don’t know why exactly, or even that it is happening, but in time you realize what’s happened and you can pinpoint the exact moment it started.
Do you ever feel like you don’t measure up?
When you do something extremely well, better than you ever thought you could, do you tend to believe it was just a fluke?
