I got an email from a recent Well-Fed Group Coaching participant that made me smile for a few reasons. She wrote: This is all becoming less and less theoretical and more real. Which is eerie. It seems I’m beginning to live in your make-believe world! Too funny. I swear, it’s as if, until people experience … Read more
I weighed in on a publishing forum post a few weeks back. One commenter said: I know of an author whose book launches this summer with one of the top publishers, top editors in the industry. The book is truly phenomenal. The publisher is even putting money behind a tour (sounds antiquated). But the author … Read more
Call it “inadvertent self-promotion”… Men With Pens recently ran a guest post about dating rules you can apply to client prospecting. Considering I’ve inadvertently won over a commercial writing client while on a first date, I found the post pretty funny. This has actually happened to me not once, but twice. Dating your clients? To … Read more
Came across a 6/22/10 post by successful Kindle author Joe Konrath, one of the countless online discussions percolating about this new wild, wild west-world of “self-publishing.” One commenter, Kathleen MacIver had this dead-on comment: I think the sticking point is going to be quality of writing, though. There are so many aspiring authors who think … Read more
Sometime back, I was speaking to my good friend and colleague (and fellow Atlantan) Ed Gandia (co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer; and co-founder of International Freelancers Academy). Couple interesting things came out of our chat… For starters, he was sharing his experience conventionally publishing TWF. Even when authors get into bed with traditional publishers, fully … Read more
Got the idea for this post from a picture sent to me by my brother… It was a unique desk arrangement he’d set up for his son. Apparently, my precocious nephew would often wake up in the middle of the night with the compulsion to get online and check this, play that, or research the … Read more
Recently came across this priceless quote from Dick Cavett: “Both minor and major publishing houses long ago perfected the art of unselling an author’s work. That excellent writer Calvin Trillin has threatened repeatedly to do a book titled, ‘An Anthology of Writers’ Atrocity Stories about Publishers.’ I think the most likely reason he hasn’t yet … Read more
About a month and a half before my holiday trip to Ohio this past December to visit family, I Googled “Ohio Writers Groups,” and found one right in my kin’s neighborhood, Western Ohio Writers Association. Shot an email to the executive director of the group (Gery Deer, also a commercial freelancer), letting him know I’d … Read more
Welcome to The Well-Fed Self-Publisher Blog… Since I first self-published the book by the same name in 2007, I’ve had the pleasure of communicating with, meeting personally and working with, many hundreds – perhaps, thousands – of you. And to those I haven’t met, but who share this goal (whether or not you have a … Read more
So, check this out… I few months back, I finally got around to returning a pair of sweatpants to Lands’ End that I’d bought a few years back to exchange for a new pair. They’d lost their elasticity in the waist, which made them droopy and draggy. And hey, when you’re a work-at-home commercial writer, … Read more