Sometimes getting your writing into readers’ hands can seem like a long, arduous process. You might feel lost. You might feel like the “gatekeepers” in the publishing industry are out to get you, hate your work, or are just plain mean.
In this interview, we’re talking with Iseult Murphy about her writing journey, her decision to self-publish, and the power of connecting with other writers.
It’s goal-setting season again! Have you set your writing goals for 2021 yet?
Love them or hate them, the idea of setting goals permeates the entire month of January. And most of those goals are “positive.” From physical appearance to self-care to organizing your pantry, it’s all about improving one’s life.
And most of those goals end up in the dumpster before the month’s end.
I have a new approach for you: Set a goal for getting (and overcoming) one hundred literary rejection letters in 2021.
Read on for my very sound reasoning on the subject.
Now, when I go to bookstores I see them automatically, the little with’s and and’s next to celebrity authors’ names. However, when I first found out a friend had ghostwritten a bestselling book by a major author, I didn’t know what the word “ghostwrite” meant, not to mention the fact that nearly every celebrity author who has ever “written” a book has used a ghostwriter.
Writing is communication. It requires a giver and a receiver. A writer and a reader. While there’s a lot to be said for the value of private writing—diary and journal-keeping, therapeutic ventings on paper, and the like—writing, at its heart, is meant to be shared.
So you write, and then you send it forth.
When new writers ask, “How do I succeed as an author?” the advice they most often receive is, “Write to market.”Popularized by Chris Fox’s 2016 book, Write to Market: Deliver a Book that Sells, the strategy requires authors to pick a genre to write in, study the tropes of that genre of books that are currently selling, and then write a book in that genre that fits all the existing tropes. While many authors struggle to embrace this concept, by changing our perspective on it, we will find it empowering rather than limiting.
“I’m a teenager. Am I too young to write a book?”
I get this question a lot. The answer is no, you’re not too young to write.
The fact is most writers wish they had started younger. If you can string sentences together, you can write.
