- Why improving your writing skills isn’t enough.
- Why it’s critical you discover your strengths…and how to do so.
- What’s stopping you from finding the readers who love your work.
- What you really want from writing and why that matters.
- Easy methods to help you build a more successful author platform.
- What truly motivates you and how to use that to succeed.
- The author theme that unites your creative work and fits your style.
- How imposter syndrome can stall your progress, and how to overcome it.
- How to make better decisions about your writing career as a whole.
When you find the treasure that’s been inside you all along, don’t be surprised if it opens new doors you never thought possible.
Excerpt
Most writers, when they first start out, think of only one thing:
writing a bestselling book.
It’s what I thought about. When the writing bug first bit me, I dreamed of seeing my book in bookstores. I imagined what the cover might look like and how the weight of the paper would feel in my hands. I longed for validation from a publisher and positive feedback from readers. These thoughts sustained me through years of trial and error as I learned how to write a publishable story.
I didn’t realize back then that my dreams were far too limited. I
was a victim of small thinking.
Like most beginning writers, I was locked into a youthful mindset similar to the way students are at the end of their high school years. Looking out on their future, they may think, I’m going to be a doctor
… an architect … a teacher … an astronaut. But most aren’t really sure what they’re going to end up doing, especially at that young age. They can’t be. They don’t understand the world and the wide array of possibilities that exist within it. They don’t understand themselves, and all the many gifts they have to explore.
New writers are the same. We strike out with some vague idea of
what our future is going to look like: I’m going to be a writer. I’m going to publish a bestseller.
It sounds good, and for a while it may work if it keeps you writing. Heck, it may even be enough to get you that publishing contract you want, that self-publishing business you’ve dreamed of, or even that bestseller, and you’ll go on happy as a clam.
For many of you, however—I suspect, most of you reading this book—you’re going to experience a number of setbacks and disap- pointments along the way, and that dream is going to wear thin. Eventually, you may wind up in a place where you feel discouraged, fatigued, and confused. Was this the future you had in mind?
Maybe you’ve been writing for years and you still haven’t gotten that publishing contract you wanted. Maybe you did publish, but your book didn’t sell well, and you struggled to keep going. Maybe you self-published, but found the earnings weren’t what you’d hoped, and you started to wonder if this writing thing was for you after all. Maybe you blogged for years and your readership barely increased. Maybe you tried marketing tactic after marketing tactic with few results.
Whatever your story—and we all have one—if you’ve come to this point feeling less than fulfilled, this book is for you.
This is the book you should have had way back when you first thought about being a writer—when you thought you understood what that meant. Write a book. Publish it. Find readers. Make money. Be happy.
But that’s small thinking. That’s high school thinking. It’s time to move beyond that to a place where you can find true fulfillment in your writing career. That place is out there. You just haven’t found it
yet, and even more importantly, in your search for it, you’ve probably been going the wrong direction.
How do I know? I’ve traveled that journey. I’ve wasted precious years with small thinking that kept my creative wings tied behind my back. I worked hard, and I was stubborn enough to keep going. I experienced some success as a result, and maybe you have, too, but I also experienced plenty of despair, setbacks, discouragements, and self-doubt that kept me from finding the fulfilling career I enjoy today.
Most of us go about it all wrong. We think the first thing we must do is write a publishable book. But that sort of thinking can lead to years of struggle, failure, and waning enthusiasm, plus an overall nagging feeling that you just don’t know what you’re doing. That was the old way, and it doesn’t work anymore. That was the outdated way, the “take-three-times-as-long-as-you-need-to-get- where-you-want-to-be” way.
It’s time for a new paradigm.
It’s time to take a brand-new approach to your writing career, the type of approach that employs not only “big” thinking, but a strengths-based attitude about who you are and what you can bring to the world. It’s time to create an author platform uniquely right for you, that uses your gifts and talents and the skills you can easily develop to produce not only something you can be proud of, but something that touches others and expands your reach in a rewarding and fulfilling way.
In today’s publishing world, platform is the key not only to the success of your books, but to your personal and professional fulfill- ment as a creative entrepreneur. When you discover a platform that reflects who you really are, you’ll also find a writing career that gets
you up in the morning, eager for the day—a career you truly love.
About the Author
