The Uphill Climb of Writing a Book
I recently attended a writing conference. I learned a great deal and realized clarity on many issues.
The first writing conference I attended had no published authors in attendance; this one had several — which is a bit intimidating. As someone without a book deal, I was still in the majority, but we were a silent majority. The verbal minority had seemingly all published books.
At the first conference I was dismayed to learn that only 3% of writers make their living by writing full time; the rest need a "day" job to pay the bills. At this conference I was further dismayed to meet a published author who has cranked out nine books in five years — he, too, needs a day job. By the way, he is not an obscure author either. I had heard of him and two of his books prior to the conference.
At the conference, he taught a class on memoir writing (teaching, incidentally is his day job). A few of my book ideas fall in that genre and he helped me clarify my objectives and develop a better vision. I was also fortunate to have a 15 minute personal consultation with him, where we discussed a specific book idea. He was most encouraging.
At writers conferences there are always a plethora of books to buy. Seemingly each speaker will plug at least a couple. Knowing my proclivity to buy books faster than I can read them, I limit myself to one book per conference. This time I bought one of his memoirs. At our consultation, I asked him to sign it. (Is it proper etiquette to read their inscription when they hand the book back to you or do so later?)
He simply wrote, "Thank you for buying my book."
The first writing conference I attended had no published authors in attendance; this one had several — which is a bit intimidating. As someone without a book deal, I was still in the majority, but we were a silent majority. The verbal minority had seemingly all published books.
At the first conference I was dismayed to learn that only 3% of writers make their living by writing full time; the rest need a "day" job to pay the bills. At this conference I was further dismayed to meet a published author who has cranked out nine books in five years — he, too, needs a day job. By the way, he is not an obscure author either. I had heard of him and two of his books prior to the conference.
At the conference, he taught a class on memoir writing (teaching, incidentally is his day job). A few of my book ideas fall in that genre and he helped me clarify my objectives and develop a better vision. I was also fortunate to have a 15 minute personal consultation with him, where we discussed a specific book idea. He was most encouraging.
At writers conferences there are always a plethora of books to buy. Seemingly each speaker will plug at least a couple. Knowing my proclivity to buy books faster than I can read them, I limit myself to one book per conference. This time I bought one of his memoirs. At our consultation, I asked him to sign it. (Is it proper etiquette to read their inscription when they hand the book back to you or do so later?)
He simply wrote, "Thank you for buying my book."
Posted by Peter DeHaan at 10/27/2010 10:29 AM 
Categories: Writing
Tags: Writing conference Peter DeHaan blog author Peter DeHaan Peter DeHaan Musings Musings of Peter DeHaan
Categories: Writing
Tags: Writing conference Peter DeHaan blog author Peter DeHaan Peter DeHaan Musings Musings of Peter DeHaan
Comments