Chart Your Course for Publication

By Toni Robino

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’
then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
—Vincent Van Gogh

“You can’t write. What are you going to write about?” George Costanza’s mother squawked at him in one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes. Her middle-aged son had just announced that he and his friend Jerry had signed a contract with NBC for a sitcom, and that was as much support as she could muster.

The scene reminds me of the way my own mother responded when I left my full-time job to pursue my writing career. She didn’t squawk, exactly, but she did think I’d lost my mind. And she was certain I was headed for financial doom, as evidenced by the circled want ads she mailed me about “real” jobs available in my hometown.

And really, I couldn’t blame her. Anyone who’s tried to make a living as a writer knows how challenging it can be. It’s not the writing that poses the problem—usually. It’s everything that comes before and after. It’s the pitching, platform-building, positioning, marketing and promoting. Writing a book and selling it require very different skill sets, but the onus is on the author to do both and do them well. This is true whether you’re self-publishing or have a contract with a publishing house.

No wonder that charting a course to publication can be daunting. At Windword, we’re committed to making the voyage a whole lot easier. Together with our affiliated experts, we can provide the guidance and support you need from the time you decide to write a book until well after it’s been published.
 
So let’s chart your course for success, eliminate the guesswork and put your mother’s mind at ease.

Welcome aboard!