Hail the Conquering Writer!

There’s a cartoon showing a patient sitting on an examination table and a doctor standing nearby looking at an X-ray machine with an image of a book in his patient’s  stomach. The doctor is saying: “I’m afraid that book inside you will have to come out.”

If you produce one book, you will have done something wonderful in your life.

–Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Becoming a successful author requires overcoming your fears. You have two worlds to conquer: the outside world and the world  inside of you.

The Outside World

To succeed, you have to conquer the fear of

• the short attention span of time-starved readers
• asking for feedback
• building your visibility, online and off
• proving you can promote it
• the responses of early readers who will help you revise it
• the resistance of agents and editors
• the indifference of the world’s readers who have more choices in what and how they read
• more media to choose from
• and more ways to spend their free time and discretionary income than ever

But as daunting as these challenges are, it may be harder to conquer world inside you.

The Inside World

You have to conquer the fear of

• failure
• success
• writing
• test-marketing your work, online and off, to ensure it has the desired effect
• writing a book
• readers hating your work
• rejections by agents and editors
• promoting your book
• bad reviews
• readers not liking your work
• writing your next book

Yet every year, thousands of new authors overcome their fears and become conquering heroes. You can be one of them. Do something wonderful with your life. Make this the year you get that book out of you. You and the world will be better for it.

The Eighth San Francisco Writers Conference / A Celebration of Craft, Commerce & Community / President’s Day Weekend, February 18-20, 2011 / Mark Hopkins InterContinental Hotel on Nob Hill / Keynoters: Dorothy Allison & David Morrell / Pitch your book to agents and editors / Free feedback on your work / www.sfwriters.org  / sfwriterscon@aol.com / blog: https://sfwriters.org/blog / Open to anyone: a day of in-depth classes on Monday, February 21  / Free MP3s at www.sfwriters.info / New! San Francisco Writers University: Where Writers Meet and You Learn, a project of the San Francisco Writers Conference / Laurie McLean, Dean /  www.sfwritersu.com

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