Notes from An Alien

~ Explorations In Reading, Writing & Publishing ~

The Best Book On How To Be Successful As A Writer?


What’s your definition of success as a writer?

Lots of money? Lots of books? Both? Something else??

I just may have discovered the best book to read, no matter how you want to be successful

And, even though it’s called The Newbie’s Guide To Publishing, I feel it can help those who’ve already attained a bit of publishing success to find even more.

The author is Joe Konrath, and, if you click-through on that name-link you’ll read stuff like this:

“Konrath…spent…12 years garnering close to five hundred rejections for nine unpublished novels.”

He now has 12 published novels, 15 tie-in stories, and 22 other stories.

If you want an independent and forthright blog to read, his is it!

In January of this year, Konrath wrote:

“One hundred grand [$100,000]. That’s how much I’ve made on Amazon in the last three weeks.

“This is just for my self-pubbed Kindle titles. It doesn’t include Shaken and Stirred, which were published by Amazon’s imprints. It doesn’t include any of my legacy sales, print or ebook. It doesn’t include audiobook sales. It doesn’t include sales from other platforms.

“This is from my self-pubbed books. The ones the Big 6 rejected.”

Needless to say, since I discovered him, Joe Konrath has been referenced on this blog many times.

So, that book by him has over 360,000 words. And, you can get The Newbie’s Guide To Publishing, only $2.99.

If you still feel hesitant, I’ll let Barry Eisler, best-selling novelist, speak to you from the forward to Konrath’s book:

“There’s no one in the industry more knowledgeable than Joe about both the craft and business of writing. A Newbie’s Guide is the result of years-worth of thought, research, discussion, and, most of all, experience. Want to know how to develop compelling characters? Write crackling dialogue? Run the kind of guerilla marketing campaign publishers only dream of? Put together a cost-effective, kick-ass book tour? Want to maximize your chances of getting and staying published? Then you need to read Joe. This is a guy who never accepts the conventional wisdom, who never does anything just because that’s the way it’s always been done, who’s totally unafraid to try new things, who’s remarkably honest in reporting the results of his experiments, and who’s obsessed with sharing for free his uniquely valuable insights. Yeah, you can get published without reading Joe. But you can drive a car with the parking brake on, too — it’s just not the fastest way to get there.”

And, if you still don’t want to download Joe’s book, here’s a video from 2009 with Joe giving quite a bit of advice:


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11 responses to “The Best Book On How To Be Successful As A Writer?

  1. Simone Benedict April 2, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    “Jack is short for Jacqueline…” says Mr Konrath. Haha that’s Pistol Packin Jack in my town!

    I’ve never read his fiction, but his blog is a great read. Thank you Alexander for the heads up about the free book!

    Like

  2. jacobdp April 2, 2012 at 9:49 pm

    Excellent. I read the first 25 pages without thinking just reading. I like his personal style, it just sucks you right in. Thanks.

    Like

  3. Jane Watson April 3, 2012 at 12:56 am

    After reading this post and watching the video I’ve now decided my definition of success as a writer is being able to shape and manage one’s own writing life, so that you are free to write – have the time to write, the means to be able to support the habit and the freedom and confidence to create however you wish – and Joe Konrath seems to doing exactly that! I also found his comments on gender neutral author names fascinating. I’ve been thinking on this for quite a while. As a female author who has experienced first hand what I perceive as a certain gender bias in the industry it is cool to hear from someone like him on the advantage of having such a neutral name…J.D.Watson applauds him!

    Like

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  5. lynnbiederstadt April 30, 2012 at 8:00 pm

    This is so great to read, so inspiring. Now all I have to do is find the time to get to it. The new job is going to cut into my time…. Missed commenting and hearing from you. Don’t lose faith….
    -Lynn

    Like

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