Which Rules Should Writers Break?

I came across a book, The Rules To Break: A Personal Code for Living Your Life, Your Way by Richard Templar, and saw him define 90 rules that we tend to live by – and then showed a counter approach to each of them.

He turned “Give as good as you get” into “You get what you give,” and “Take one step at a time” becomes “If you want big things to change, you have to make big changes.”  “Stick to what you’re good at” turned into “Stretch yourself” and “Don’t sacrifice yourself for a relationship” becomes “It’s the compromises that make relationships worth having.”

By the end of the book you don’t know what to believe because you begin to get both sides to everything, with pros and cons to each.  The truth is both and neither versions are correct, depending on your circumstances and the world you live in.  Slavery was accepted 150 years ago.  So was riding a horse everywhere.  Times change and so do our values and our approaches to life.

But the book got me thinking.  Just what are the rules governing authors, publishers, book promoters and editors?  Whatever they are, do you embrace them or do you see the contrarian point of view?

Certainly, acquisition editors and book publishers operate under all kinds of rules, theories, fears, and desires.  Their psychological frame of mind influences decisions of what to publish and who to promote.  What if they operate under delusions, lies, errors, myths, and distortions?  What if they don’t have all the facts or misinterpret the data?

We all operate under some notion of how to act, filtering all that comes to us through a prism that probably is outdated, incomplete, even biased.  It’s time to examine and question the assumptions we operate under.  Perhaps we need a good mind cleansing.

·         What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. 

·         What used to be true may no longer be correct. 

·         What was dismissed under another standard may not be embraced. 

·         The people who used to be seen as not important or relevant may suddenly be those you should connect with.

·         Test your facts, update your resources, and simply question the way things have been.  Did they change?  Should you change?  What needs to be altered in your attitude, activity, and style?

2015 is approaching.  Time doesn’t stand still.  Things change faster than ever.  Everything is global, instant, and technology-driven.  We live with words, ideas, and fantasies for a living.  Don’t be afraid to change but be fearful of not changing.

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014