My interview on Book Talk, Creativity and Family Matters was quite enjoyable. I wondered what I would talk about for an hour, but it seems I had plenty to say about creativity, my writing process, Seeking Sara Summers, as well as offering my take on the current world of publishing, getting an agent, and the dilemma of how to set aside time to write.

 Anjuelle Floyd, also a writer, asked some great questions and had a lot to contribute, as well.

 If you’d like to sample a bit of the interview, you can listen here. As always, I’d love to hear what you think.

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As a society, we often celebrate tortured and struggling artists who finally make it big despite their obstacles, and yet we don’t often examine the flip side of this, which is that the vast majority of tortured and struggling artists don’t actually make it. We tend to encourage everyone to write (Person 1 tells an interesting story, Person 2 says “Wow, you should write a book about that”), and there are very few people out there willing to tell any writer they don’t have what it takes and should probably try pursuing something else with their time. I’m guilty of this as well – who am I to say whether or not someone will or won’t be published?

– Nathan Bransford, literary agent

I’m with Nathan. Who am I to say someone will or won’t be published? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for discouraging the next Jane Austen or John Steinbeck. However, there is a certain naivete with beginning writers about what it takes to have a successful writing career. (I know this from my own naivete when starting out.) After years of learning the craft, you can be incredibly talented, and still not have the publishing gods smile upon you. Or you can publish with mediocre results.

So what do you think? Should we encourage everyone to write, especially when the odds are long and the cost to a personal life is sometimes high? I’d love to hear from you.

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Back in 1996, Brad Meltzer built what was arguably the first author Web site for his first novel, “Tenth Justice,” including character interviews and the first chapter. His publisher thought he was nuts.

“The publishing world is very resistant to change,” Meltzer said. “But there are always people — mostly the young and the hungry — who are trying new things. The days of just holing up and writing in solitude are gone. Today, you can’t be a successful writer without having a little Barnum in your bones.”

“But, I want to hole up and write in solitude,” we writers say. “Don’t tell me those days are gone!”

I hear you. I love solitude, too. I love those hours of total absorption with the creative process. But I actually think Meltzer is right. We have to have, at least a tiny bit, of P.T. Barnum in our bones if we expect even a modicum of success in today’s publishing world. Barnum was one of the world’s greatest promoters. He wrote a famous speech called, “The Art Of Money Getting.”

This isn’t an easy task for many of us. Writers are typically introverts. That’s how we can spend so much time alone developing our characters (our poems, our articles) and creating our stories. But we also have to figure out ways to get our talents out into the world, albeit in small arenas or large.

We must call upon an extroverted function to put ourselves out there—to secure our literary agents,to publish our books, to develop our websites, then to participate in interviews, book clubs, et al.

So what do you think? Do you have enough of the “Big Top” in you to go for that writing career? Do you even think it’s necessary to have this skill-set to be a success? Whatever your answer, I’d love to hear from you.

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This is part 2 of an interview I did recently with Alexandra Wolfe, Publishing Editor of Kissed by Venus based in Canada.

13. What’s your favorite story and why?

My favorite story is usually the one I am working on. It takes 100% commitment. However, every story I’ve written is precious to me and has its own special treasures.

14. What are some of the things you do to improve on your craft? Do you attend conferences? Take workshops? What works best for you to improve how and what you write?

You name it, I’ve probably done it. I’m a little burnt out on going to conferences. I’ve also been in and out of writer’s groups over the years and have a bookcase full of books on writing. Yet I feel that I’ve made the greatest improvement by simply writing—day in and day out. I used to be a professional musician, so I know the discipline involved in becoming good at something. It truly does take daily practice. It also helps to have a literary agent who believes in me and gives me good feedback.

15. As a writer what do you look for in a prospective publisher?

I look for a publishing house that is legitimate and has a track record for successfully promoting their books and their authors. Although, not many writers have a huge choice with their first book. You’re usually happy to get anyone interested in your work.

16. What, from your perspective, are some of the most common mistakes first time authors make when starting out in the business?

We all start out as naïve, I think. If we didn’t we probably wouldn’t want to be writers. I shared a lot of my stories in the beginning with anyone who would read them. I regret that now because I wasn’t very good. I’m much better now because I’ve put in the time to get better. When we start out I think we’re just so proud to get anything on the page. So I think one of the most common mistakes is to not take the time, years if necessary, to develop the craft.

Also, I’ve met many people who want to be writers who don’t even like to read. This doesn’t make sense to me. Reading books—lots of books—is one of the ways you develop the craft.

17. What are some of the things you do to build up interest for your work? What do you think are some of the most effective things an author can do to advertise him or herself?

Have a website and a blog. Post on other blogs that are related to what you write. Participate in interviews. I created a video trailer for Seeking Sara Summers. I am building my community on Amazon.com. There are a lot of different ways to market and the best ways will vary depending on the author, the type of book he or she has written and the subject matter.

Building interest in our work is very hard for many writers. Writing is, after all, a very introverted endeavor and marketing is an extroverted one. I haven’t met many authors who enjoy marketing but it is a requirement in the world we live in. In fact, I’m afraid many very fine authors fail to do this part and don’t get read as a result. I work every day to not be one of those people. I’ve read that 80% of book sales is word of mouth. Marketing is getting enough people to become aware of your book and then selling them the book. Assuming it’s a good book that captures the reader, they will tell others about it. It all starts with writing the very best story or book that you can and then being strategic about how you will market the book and then very consistent with executing your strategies and tactics.

18. How do you feel about e-publishing and e-books? And would you go that route?

I think if you’re absolutely certain that you have a good story and it has been professionally edited and you’ve come close many times but haven’t been able to find a traditional publisher then it is something to consider. Unfortunately a lot of writers put out their first writings into this format because they’re impatient. They’re not really writing things of high quality yet. This gives e-publishing and e-books a bad reputation.

19. What were your best and worst experiences with an editor?

I’ve had the usual nightmares. Executive editors who are very interested in a story, who offer suggestions and request a rewrite and then when I send the manuscript back to them they never respond again, despite follow-up letters. I’ve also had an executive editor get fired and another editor simply disappear. I hope these people are not behind the perfume counter at Saks now. It’s a rough business.

20. And finally, what’s your favorite thing about being a writer? And what, for you, totally sucks about it?

What sucks is struggling to make a living while in the service of stories. It seems we live in an upside-down world, and if it were suddenly right side up, then the storytellers and poets would be the millionaires.

My favorite thing about being a writer is the process. I love having a cast of characters show up, getting to learn their story and then relaying that story. I love that period of time when I’m totally in my imagination with the story, seeing it play out in front of me and then, writing it down.

Also, I love hearing from readers who really liked Seeking Sara Summers, who couldn’t put it down and got swept up into the world of the story and were moved by it. This is very, very special. I think stories have the power to heal and inspire. And if I accomplish even a tiny bit of that then I have done my job.

 P.S. If you have a passion, like I do, to document and pass down your family’s stories, check out www.YourFamilyTimeCapsule.com

I want my children to leave home. My book children, at least. I have been working on getting some of them out of my house for years. They are the manuscripts that I have nurtured and revised from upstarts to full-fledged stories.

It’s not easy getting your “children” to leave home. I know a writer who has written an entire novel and has kept it under her bed for years. I have no doubt that it is an excellent novel because she is a thoughtful, excellent writer. But something stops her from taking the risk of putting it out into the world.

My theory, and I could be wrong, is that she is afraid to get her work out there because she then runs the risk of it being criticized. At least while it is under her bed it is safe.

I understand this fear, but I don’t believe it is useful. As artists, and parents, we must put our creations out into the world or we run the risk of crippling them. It is our responsibility, after we have done our job to the best of our ability, to release these creations so that they have an opportunity to live out their destiny. We must release them because we never know who we might help or who might be encouraged and inspired by our words.

So I say to my own book children still at home: It is time to take flight. If you fail, you fail. If you succeed, you succeed. Either way, I have fulfilled my part of the promise.

Is there anything that you haven’t sent out into the world that you really need to? A book? An article? A painting? A poem you want to submit? If so, I encourage you to let your talents take flight. Give them the chance to spread their wings and fly, bearing their gifts to those who need them.

P.S. If you have a passion, like I do, to document and pass down your family’s stories, check out www.YourFamilyTimeCapsule.com

Stephenie Meyer, http://www.stepheniemeyer.com, author of the Twilight Series, is another one of those stories of authors like J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books whose catapult to fame has become legend.

Four years ago, Stephenie was a stay-at-home mom with three small children. She had a dream one night about a vampire and the image was so strong, she decided to write it down. Three months later she had enough writing for the “dream” to be a book. So she went to Google and researched literary agents. She got the names of 15 agents and sent out query letters. Nine rejected her, five she never heard back from, and one asked for the first few pages. The rest, as they say, is history.

Stephenie Meyer has written four books in three years. These books, known as the Twilight Series, have sold over 16 million copies. They are all simultaneously on the New York Times Bestseller List. The first in the series, “Twilight” is coming out as a movie in November of this year. This catapult to fame is rare in the book world, but when it happens it makes the news and fosters the dreams of many people who want to be writers.

What is my point? I’m not sure, exactly, except that I am trying very hard to be happy for her. My story as a writer is not the stuff of legends. Oprah has not featured one of my books on her program; I may never have a bestseller; I have not been on Ellen. I wish I had the desire to write about vampires. If I did, I might have a lot more money in my bank account. But this is not my journey.

So I guess my point is that anytime an author wins the “lottery” in this world where 99.99 % of writers are in various stages of struggle, we have reason to celebrate. Because of the success of Stephenie’s books at Little Brown and Co., and J.K. Rowling’s books at Scholastic, these publishing companies can take a chance on other writers.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. Congratulations, Stephenie!  

 Please check out my debut novel, Seeking Sara Summers. There aren’t any vampires but readers tell me it’s a really good read and many read it multiple times!

The internet is revolutionizing how people sell books. I’ve even read that pretty soon book-signings and readings by authors in bookstores will become obsolete. Authors are being interviewed online, they’re doing readings from their own computers, they have groups springing up around their books on facebook and myspace, etc, and they are making video trailers to encourage our visual, movie-loving culture to buy their books.

I have to admit that for an extreme introvert like me, this revolution in the book world is good news. Stay at home to promote my books? Love it. Interviewed while sitting at my desk with my house slippers on? Adore it. Chat with readers of my books online and get direct feedback? Excellent.

Don’t get me wrong, I will still show up wherever I might find readers and promote my books the old-fashioned way. But at the same time I am riding the wave of the internet revolution.

That said, please take 2 minutes and enjoy my trailer for Seeking Sara Summers. And let me know what you think of it!

Click here to view the embedded video.