This presentation was given by Laura Backes & Dani Alcorn

Q: The biggest myth of publishing?

• All you need is craft to be a successful author. The writing has put the craft on a pedestal.
• A book is also a product and publishing is a business.
• Besides better products, you need to know their audience and how to connect to them.
• Authors need more than just writing all day to succeed.
• Many skilled writers have difficulty connecting to their readers.

Q: what other abilities are needed for success?

• More than writing well.
• You need to learn the best skills that build your business.
• Attitude: internal how you feel about yourself. Developing resilience, being authentic. Determine our own metrics for success.
• Mindset: is external to how do you present yourself to your audience. Manifest through action. Defining our path, treating writing like a business. Understanding that your work can come to a stage of good enough to be sent out. Strategy 20% of time = 80% of your success. Invest in your education.
• At this stage of your career are you ready to pitch your book or to take a training course in an area you are weak?

Q: ingredient to the secret sauce.

• Each is different.
• Identify a career path that is feasible to your today and where do you want to be 5 years from now.
• Part-time writers who have day jobs. Career authors support themselves by writing full-time. Specialists establish a reputation in specific genera. Celebrity authors: Knowing where you are and where to go helps in secret sauce.
• You are always in control of your destiny and your success.

Q; what other ways can authors take control?

• They can define what success means to them. If you don’t define this, you can experience imposter syndrome.
• Each sense of success is different.
• Getting invited to school and getting paid can be a marker for success.

Q: how to combat imposter syndrome?

• One of the biggest causes of imposter syndrome is comparing yourself to authors who are different authors at the stage of their career.
• You need to study successful authors and see what they did. If they are good in dialog. Type out their dialog and see what they are doing right.
• Everyone started at the beginning.
• Read interviews and see how long it took them to succeed.
• Know that you don’t have to do everything by yourself. Find specialists for cover design, editing etc. Consider outsourcing.
• Once you can define the source of our anxiety then you can see what needed to address it.
• You can write your story; others can’t write your story. No one is better than you to tell your story.

Q: What are things that authors can’t control?

• If you have a marketable idea but are not being accepted. Did you query the wrong agents because you did not do the research? Is there a hole in your ability?
• A good perspective on a bad review is that there is no book that is loved by everyone. Look at the review as objectively as possible If the reviewer had a valid idea then remember that in your next book.  One person looks at 3-4 reviews to see what they say. People see 1 star reviews as those who are not the audience for that book. The occasional 1 star review shows the book is authentic.  Celebrate your first 1 star review.
• Each book should have a specific audience.
• If you are making a point on a certain theme. You will find people who disagree with you. The people you want to reach can be changed in some way.

Q: Final Advice:

• When you are tracking your writing progress, don’t judge yourself by your end goal. Judge yourself against yesterday. Celebrate that as a win.
• Wring is a marathon.
• Don’t see a book as a best seller to see your success. A success can be fixing a plot twist.
• One dander said he was not always trying to be the best. He was just trying to be better than yesterday.
• Trying to be the ‘best’ can burn you out.
• At the beginning of each manuscript. “Need to write this book because” I m the best person to write this book because… hang them on your wall during writing of that manuscript.