Latest News

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (for Writers)



‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (for Writers)
(an arrangement by Scott William Carter)


‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the publishing house

Not an editor was stirring, not even an intern’s mouse

All the contracts were done by the lawyers with care

In the hopes that poor writers would see them as fair

Then what to editors’ bleary eyes should appear

A miniature device holding a million books — right here!

A nerdy bald-headed man so bright and deft

I knew in a moment it must be Saint Jeff


And more rapid than paper, his device produced

Chaucer and Grisham and Patterson and Proust

And so on to the homes the orders soon flew

With packages full of Kindles and gift cards, too


Into the writer’s lives the Kindle came with a bound

It was dressed in opportunity and the future was sound

It turned not a page but there was no doubt it would stay

And filled all the bank accounts with a seventy percent day


And laying his finger on the side of his eReader

Then giving a tap onto the Internet Jeff loss-leadered

But I heard him Tweet as he dissolved out of sight

“Merry Christmas to all authors and to all authors — just write!”



The Best Advice I’ve Gotten on Promotion Was From a Comedian

Award-winning writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has been running a great series on promotion for writers (which I highly recommend you read, whether you’re a writer or just someone who’s interested in how writers find readers), and it got me thinking about the best advice I’ve ever gotten about how to find an audience.  It was this:

Be so good they can’t ignore you.

It was actually from Steve Martin, a comedian.  Well, the truth is, he’s actually a writer, too, as most good comedians are. Martin may have said this before, but I first heard him say it in an interview with Charlie Rose, when he was asked what he tells people when they want advice on how to break into show business.

“Nobody ever takes note of [my advice], because it’s not the answer they wanted to hear,” Martin said. “What they want to hear is ‘Here’s how you get an agent, here’s how you write a script,’ . . . but I always say, ‘Be so good they can’t ignore you … If somebody’s thinking, ‘How can I be really good?’ people are going to come to you.”

Of course, what’s good is somewhat subjective, so in the end only you can be the judge of what’s good.  But instead of thinking about how to use Facebook to promote your book, how to reach readers through Twitter, or, God forbid, how to build your “author platform,” bet on being good.  Do what Steve Martin did.  Ask yourself why others succeed?  Study their work.  Break it down.  Then apply what you learned to your own work and do something new and innovative in your own way.

There’s no secret sauce, no magic bullets.  It’s not about who you know.  You don’t need anyone’s permission.  Yes, luck plays a part, as it does in all things in life, but if you’re really good — and I’m talking about being so good that people can’t help but notice — luck will find you.

Yes, that’s the harder path, but it’s also a lot more fun.

Not Every Moment of Your Life Must Be Recorded

Sherry Turkle has a nice piece in The New York Times about the dangers of “The Documented Life” that fits right into some of my thinking about the need to live more of a plugged/unplugged life.  Here’s a key passage:

“Technology doesn’t just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are. The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us “on pause” in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations “on pause” when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call. When you get accustomed to a life of stops and starts, you get less accustomed to reflecting on where you are and what you are thinking.

We don’t experience interruptions as disruptions anymore. But they make it hard to settle into serious conversations with ourselves and with other people because emotionally, we keep ourselves available to be taken away from everything.”

Except for a strange little aside that perpetuates the myth that President Obama was being rude taking a “selfie” at Nelson Mandela’s funeral, it’s well worth reading the whole thing.

From the Video Archives: Seth Godin on Being Remarkable

“Being very good is one of the worst things you can possibly do.”

The above quote is probably the most controversial thing Seth Godin said in the video, and you really have to watch it to understand the context.  The basic gist is that it’s not enough to be good in the modern world if you want your ideas to spread; you have to be good in an interesting and provocative way, creating something “worth remarking about.”  Applying this to writing and publishing, the takeaway is that you need to take risks, but it’s not risks with the marketing (although that can certainly play a part).  It’s risks in what you write.  Yes, you have to write well, write with heart, and put out something of quality, but if you’re just chasing a trend because it’s selling well (i.e. writing vampire romances because that seems to be hot), you’re actually making the riskier bet in the long run.