Do You Give Up too Easily?

To become a published author your must have determination. You must be unwilling to give up–on yourself or on your ideas.

In today’s publishing world, you have so many options. If you can’t get your work published traditionally, you can publish it yourself. You can produce an ebook or a pbook. If you don’t have the money for a pbook, produce an ebook first and then raise the money via digital sales for the pbook. If you don’t have the money for editing and cover design for your digital book, run a Kickstarter.com, Indiegogo.com or Pubslush.com campaign to raise your own advance. Or you can blog your book (and then later publishe it either traditionally or as an indie publisher.)

How many old book ideas are you sitting on? How many have you started and not finished? Why? Did you get frustrated? Did you get rejected?

That’s the life of a writer. Get over it, and get going–or get help getting going again.

I’ve got a novel that just needs editing before it can be resubmitted to agents or self-published, and I’ve got six proposals that need updating. However…

I’ve just updated three and resent them to a publisher–the first publisher I ever proposed to back in 2001! I ran into him at Book Expo America, and pitched him again. That book has had three different versions since then, so he’s getting three proposals–all updated! If he doesn’t take the book, I’ll submit elsewhere now that the proposals are ready again–or later I’ll write the books.

I’m about to update another proposal and create one more and get them both out to a small publisher who asked to see these (also at the BEA). I thought I’d have to self-published these–and I will if he doesn’t take them. I did self-publish one of these books in a short form already; it just needs to be expanded.

I’ve got one more proposal to update for my agent, and then I’ll get around to a new one as a follow up to my latest book.

I refuse to let all those good old ideas go to waste–even though I have a lot of new ideas that I think are great as well–maybe better.

If you give up on an idea because you got rejected, frustrated, overwhelmed, had writer’s block, or whatever, then you simply aren’t doing what it takes to be a writer or become an author.

So, get over it. Get determined. Commit. And get back to it.

Photo courtesy of Drew Coffman