One of the sad realities of our time is that thanks to movies, TV shows and yes, even books, we’ve come to expect success as something that will happen like a lightning bolt.
You work hard and create something incredible and CRACK – BOOM you hit the big time and everyone loves it, buys thousands upon thousands of copies, and you become rich, famous, and an all around badass success.
Every week I receive emails from new authors ready to publish their books and they want to know how they can stand out and get noticed, and, well, sell a crap load of copies of their books.
That’s a tough question, and the answer is even tougher.
While waiting for my turn to get the Covid test, I happened upon this fun and informative compilation video of Stephen King sharing 10 rules of success. I thought you might enjoy it, too.
I personally love the first one. 🙂
By the way, my test result was NEGATIVE. Whew! 🙂
It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of my latest book, Inspired Writer: How to Create Magic with Your Words. It’s dedicated to you: The Writer. It’s a fight song. It’s about letting go and becoming inspired to write what you’re called to write.
For this weekend only (including Monday), 17-19 Sept 2016, I’m promoting Inspired Writer for just 99cents on Amazon! I’m also giving away 3x $25.00 and 1x $50.00 Amazon gift cards.
Find out how to get one of the gift cards…
Bad news first. It would be wonderful to say you can love to hate your inner editor, but really, we just have to hate to hate them. No matter how skilled we are as writers, no matter how much experience we’ve had, no matter anything, they will always be there on some level.
That’s the scary, hard truth. But there’s good news!
Note: This is a guest post by Karen Sargent. Karen anxiously awaits the release of her debut novel Waiting for Butterflies (Walrus, 2017). Visit Karen at Karen Sargent Books and at her blog.
The good ol’ rejection letter. At its best, a rejection tells us we’re close but not quite—so we keep trying. At its worst, rejection forces us into a cavernous pit of humiliation and defeat, and we vow to never write again. (Until the next day, that is.)
Back in January, I had the privilege of interviewing Jerry B. Jenkins for Positive Writer. After the interview, I asked if he wouldn’t mind sending me a signed copy of his book Writing for the Soul. Well, guess what...
Jerry sent me an autographed copy of his awesome book on writing, but he didn’t stop there! No, when I opened the heavier than expected package I discovered that he included two more signed hardbacks for Positive Writer readers, and now I get to give them away to two lucky readers.
For the love of your writing and your sanity, stop taking the advice from the know-it-all’s as gospel.
Seriously, that’s the best advice I’ve ever received and I’m willing to bet, at least by the end of this post, you’ll agree it really is the best advice for all of us.
Since starting Positive Writer and publishing Writer’s Doubt, I’ve received thousands of emails from readers from all over the world asking for more guidance and specific writing exercises they can do to beat the living hell out of their fears and doubts.
The emails have also proven to be tremendously beneficial, in that I’ve learned firsthand from fellow writers in the trenches just how much, and why, their fears and doubts were crippling them, but the #1 most consistent and crippling issue was something so obvious, and yet, we all seem to underestimate it.
On to the 1st Place Winning essay…
