Struggling as an author? Stop writing only what you want to write

Earning a living as a writer is as likely as winning the lottery. Instead of writing books and persuading others to buy them, find out what people want to write, then do it for themPhilip Pullman: professional writers set to become ‘an endangered species’ due to low wagesI left school with a burning urge to lead the life of a writer: travelling like Byron, feted like Wilde before his fall, creating laughter like Wodehouse and crafting sentences like Nabokov. I had no professional contacts, so I wrote my masterpieces speculatively, and every path I went down ended with a rejection slip or total silence. The perceived wisdom then, as now, was that earning a living as a writer was about as likely as winning a lottery.Then I discovered the secret of marketing: instead of writing things and trying to persuade people to buy them, I would find out what writing services people needed and offer to provide them. So, at the same time as begging publishers and editors for commissions, I made myself available to anyone who might want to write an article or a book but did not feel able to do it for themselves. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-01-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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[ The Huffington Post | 2023-08-18 15:13:40 UTC ]
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Crafting Madness: Stephanie Heit on Joining a Lineage of Authors with Mental Health Difference

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-18 09:25:04 UTC ]
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Author Michelle Tea Launches Dopamine Books

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-08-18 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Pidgeon Pagonis on the Urgency of Writing a Memoir as an Intersex Writer

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-17 09:20:26 UTC ]
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Much-hyped biography of Tucker Carlson struggles to sell

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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-15 16:05:23 UTC ]
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‘Times change’: what authors think about rewriting older books

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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-14 13:30:39 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-11 12:45:25 UTC ]
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Amazon removes books ‘generated by AI’ for sale under author’s name

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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-09 14:28:36 UTC ]
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When Writing a Novel Bridges a Gap Between Mother and Daughter

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[ Literrary Hub | 2023-08-09 09:10:27 UTC ]
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[ Engadget | 2023-08-09 06:17:44 UTC ]
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[ CBC | 2023-08-08 18:39:04 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-08 17:35:35 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-08-08 15:19:43 UTC ]
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[ The New York Times | 2023-08-03 09:01:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-08-01 18:13:09 UTC ]
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[ CBC | 2023-07-31 08:00:00 UTC ]
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[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-07-28 19:53:27 UTC ]
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Bruce Handy on Becoming a Children’s Picture Book Author in His 60s

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[ The New York Times | 2023-07-28 09:00:25 UTC ]
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Bruce Handy on Becoming a Children’s Picture Book Author in His 60s

“Writing for kids had long been an ambition of mine, but until recently I didn’t know it had long been an ambition.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2023-07-28 09:00:24 UTC ]
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[ The Guardian | 2023-07-20 12:04:29 UTC ]
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