Jen's Writing Journey

What does Who Moved My Cheese have to do with writing? You mean besides the lesson that you can write a book about darn near anything?

Seriously, there were two lessons I got from the book that are helping me build my writing business.

1. Don’t resist change. Markets change, and if you are looking to write for a living, you need to be flexible enough to adapt to that change. One change we are navigating is in the delivery method of our writing. It is possible that printed magazines and books may go the way of celluloid, without the spontaneous combustion. We need to be able to shift our methods to take advantage of the new delivery methods. Edited to add: I just got my Writer’s Digest email newsletter, and they are discussing the future of print magazines here: http://www.writersdigest.com/article/its-a-digital-world-now/ Personally, I think print will stay around for a while, but it will be augmented even more with online content. And, I’m not averse to ebooks. I like the ability to carry multiple books without giving myself a massive backache. And an ebook reader would help me avoid the issues I have with book covers. (Come back Thursday to find out my thoughts on that topic.)
2. Believe in your success. Writing can be a very depressing undertaking. Rejections pile up, and if you let them discourage you, you will never reach your potential. But if you keep a positive attitude, and learn from missteps, you will achieve the success that is within you. This is very much based on the law of attraction, the extremely popular new age idea that the universe gives you what you wish for, as long as you truly believe in what you are wishing for and that you continue to show gratitude for the things you receive.

This is a short book, and an even shorter audiobook. I personally recommend the audiobook, especially if you commute a long way.

Related Posts:

• Book Review: Self-Leadership and the One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard et al.
• Book Review: Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny
• Book Review: The Freelancer’s Guide to Passive Income by Thursday Bram
• Book Review: Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb
• Book Review: My So-Called Freelance Life

Want a quick reference to help you prepare and submit your manuscript the right way?

Author and editor W. Terry Whalen recounts his own experiences receiving and reading submissions and gives good insight into what an editor is looking for. In this Amazon short, you will find his advice boiled down into easily digestible bits.

The most important lesson I got from this piece was the reminder that editors are busy. They receive many submissions each day, and no matter how much they would like to give constructive feedback to each one, they simply cannot. So they are looking for quick ways to weed out the ones that can get a quick form rejection. The queries that include misspellings, a pitch for a type of book the publisher doesn’t print, a pitch that is too similar to current works, or a query that shows a lack of experience in the field. Spend time on your query, proofread it, and ensure that you have targeted the right publisher for your manuscript. Don’t give the editor an excuse to reject you without even reading your stuff.

Related Posts:

• Book Review: Overcoming Underearning by Barbara Stanny
• Book Review: The Freelancer’s Guide to Passive Income by Thursday Bram
• Book Review: Novel Shortcuts by Laura Whitcomb
• Book Review: My So-Called Freelance Life
• Book Review: The Boss of You