I get asked a lot of questions about how to get published. I offer a lot of answers in response–lots of advice on what to do and what not to do. I can’t, however, guarantee that anyone who follows my advice will actually end up published traditionally or successfully self-publish their own book. (By successfully I mean that they will sell a lot of books.) The reason for this is simple: I don’t know for sure how good their book is or how good a business person they are.
There are some things I do know for sure about publishing and succeeding as an author. For instance, I know that to succeed in publishing you must:
- write a great book
- write a marketable book
- be a great business person
I also know something else for sure: If you are passionate about your topic and about getting published, you stand a higher likelihood of succeeding. Why? Because you will do whatever it takes to reach your goal of producing a great and marketable book and of becoming a great business person. Passion pushes you forward, makes you want to take action. Of course, if you are passionate and don’t take action, nothing will happen, but I don’t know many passionate people, or writers, who don’t take action.
Writers who pursue their passion–whatever topic they really want to write about–because they feel so compelled to do so they simply can’t help themselves will move forward at great cost to themselves. They will not let hardship stop them from succeeding. Just as they embrace their book project–the actual writing, they embrace everything that goes with making that project succeed–even the tasks they don’t like or really want to do. They will become passionate about, or at least take on energetically and with a poistive attitude:
- promotion
- design
- editing
- branding
- platform building
- pitching
- query and proposal writing
Writers who have a huge amount of passion for their projects almost always follow through and end up published. And they end up successful–with a book that sells to a publisher and/or to lots of readers. Their passions comes through and people–readers and acquisitions editors buy into it.
Are you passionate about your project?
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