What
guides human beings in the way they live and approach the world? The law, ethics, and perhaps religion play a
major factor here. So does the influence
of one’s genes, family, friends, job, environment and status – sex, ethnicity,
I.Q. wealth, age, and other key demographics.
But what guides the book writer, the modern-day author?
Writers should heed these 10 commandments:
1.
Dedicate
yourself to writing books that you believe are needed or wanted, that you feel
uniquely positioned to pen, that you wish existed for you to read and
enjoy. Write books that educate,
inspire, enlighten, or entertain – add to the world.
2.
Become
the best writer you can be. Keep
writing, researching, and dreaming. Learn not only about what you write on, but
about the craft of writing.
3.
Seek
to live worthwhile experiences that can be used to make you a better, more
informed, well-balanced person.
4.
Commit
to working with a good editor. Every
writer needs someone else to make them better.
5.
Apply
state-of –the-art techniques and technology to serve your readers well.
6.
Devote
the proper time, energy, and attitude to marketing and promoting your
books. Don’t just write a book and leave
it to fend for itself.
7.
Allow
for time to let your imagination flourish.
Doodle with your brain. Free-write and let the ideas pour out of you, unfiltered.
8.
Stand
up for literacy, free speech, and equal access to information. Fight censorship, book bans, government cuts
to the arts, or library closings.
9.
Be
as good a reader as you are a writer.
You will learn from fellow writers and in the process you will support
them.
10.
Do
not write out of ego or as a means to get rich. It’s fine to profit from your words and you
should be proud of the legacy you build, but neither money nor fame should be
the chief motivator to writing a book.
Write simply because you want to, because you feel called to do so,
because life would seem less meaningful or pleasurable without writing books.
***
In Memory: Read On, Fred Bass
The man who made The Strand
Bookstore what it is today died on January 3, at age 89.
Fred Bass, whose father founded
the store in the 1920’s, worked in the store since he was 13. He moved it
from its small Fourth Avenue location its presented location at Broadway and 12
Street in 1957 – over six decades ago. He took the store of 70,000 titles
to one offering 500,000 books by the mind-1960s. He boasted of shelving 8
miles of books.
Now it offers 2.5 million titles,
spanning 18 miles.
It’s one of the premiere
bookstores in the world, a leader in used and rare books.
Bass, a Brooklyn College
graduate brought his daughter into the family business in 1986. She’s
married to a U.S. Senator from Oregon.
If you want to honor his work, visit the Strand Bookstore.
***
"Sooner or later the life of our
time is summarized in its books. Our new ideas are expressed there,
whatever may be their original sources or the first mediums through which they
reached us. It is books that form the permanent record, and books that
furnish the most convenient basis for describing the mind of the world in which
we live. In many ways it is a different mind from that of the world in
which our fathers lived, and books at the very least have contributed to the
change."
--Malcom Cowley, Books That
changed Our Mind
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Brian Feinblum’s
insightful views, provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this
terrific blog are his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You
can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him
at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels much more important when discussed in
the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2018. Born and
raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester. His writings are often
featured in The Writer and IBPA’s Independent.
This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs.
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