I liked this book a lot. Besides books on small business and nonprofit management/fundraising, I love to check out good books on writing. I don't find many new ones that are good because they all seem to say pretty much the same ol same ol. But this one, the one being reviewed, seemed to rise above the pile and stand out. I found it to be worthy of a review.
If you are lucky enough to get hold of this book, then you will be able to read it and learn that successful writers are good at the following:
>>Be creative
>>Be original
>>Be a good storyteller
>>Be a voracious reader
>>Be passionate
>>Be disciplined
>>Be a marketer (self promoter & promoter of your books)
>>Be a strategic planner (write something that will sell)
The book is split into four parts: (1) Passion, (2) Creativity, (3) Discipline, and (4) The Business. I found the first three parts to be great. Take a look at the Search Inside feature provided by Amazon to examine the Table of Contents for this book. It is a fairly detailed TOC and you will learn a lot about what is covered.
I thought the first three parts of the book were very well done. They were well written and well organized. My only criticism of the book comes with regard to Part IV. Times are changing in the writing world. With the advent of PCs, POD publishing options, and the Internet, writers are no longer required to play flunky to publishers. The author partly acknowledges this. But he does not explain it in graphic detail and fully inform the reader of how things are today (at least in my opinion). Where was the chapter on blogging? Where's the chapter on Myspace? Where was the chapter on strategic planning? And where was the chapter on writing a good book or two that you simply give away or sell from your Web site in order to create an author platform (self promotion tool)?
Other books you may want to read to supplement this book's Part IV include: "The Web Savvy Writer" (websavvywriter dot com), "The Author's Guide to Building an Online Platform" (ISBN: 1884956823), and "The IndieAuthor Guide" (ISBN: 1434857689). 5 stars!