Saturday, May 8, 2010

Article to Note: What Authors Should Know


Visiting the Hunnington Post website, I read an article by Penny Sansevieri who writes about the reasons why some authors may fail to sell their work. It struck a chord with me. I had to admit, some of those are part of my story, my past mistakes. And I truly hope I've learned from them, or as Sanservieri puts it, that I have managed to "fail up".

Her points of advice cover: 1)not learning enough about the industry; 2)not accepting feedback; 3)not surrounding yourself with enough professionals; 4)not doing your research; 5)not clearly understanding how to measure success in booksales; 6)not understanding how New York publishing works; 7)playing the blame game; and 8)believing in the unbelievable.

As a teacher, I'm very familiar with the philosophy of being well-prepared and well-informed before you go forth and do, well, whatever it is you attempt to do. And as the author says, the mistakes you make in publishing may be costly in both time and money. And with the Internet at our fingertips, we have an unending resource of advice to read. Unfortunately, not all of it is well-intended. As one might figure, there are some unscrupulous people out there. Taking the time to learn about the industry before you try to sell your masterpiece is essential.

In any case, take a look at what this article has to offer:
Why Some Authors Fail

3 comments:

Hunter said...

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

Author and Reader said...

Your very welcome. I just wish I had read it before I had my first novel published. I would definitely have taken more time to learn the ropes. It's great advice.

Author and Reader said...

Oops. I mean "you're" The teacher in me made me come back to correct it :)