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You Don't Want to Be Published
In these essays, Peter M. Ball-Aurealis award-winning author and founder of Brian Jar Press-explores the seemingly unintuitive lessons he's learned over twenty years of writing, educating other writers, and running writing conferences attended by hundreds of authors at every level of experience.
Drawn from some of his most popular blog posts, author presentations, and articles, You Don't Want To Be Published sets out to bring the kind of conversations established writers have in private to a more general audience. Here Ball explores the anxieties of building a writing career, the unexpected writing lesson drawn from other forms of narrative, the importance of treating your business like a business, and the subtle shifts in psychology and mindset that can help push your writing career to the next level.
Primarily written during the years Ball convened the popular GenreCon Writers Conference and managed the Australian Writers Marketplace, these essays also strive to find the questions new writers don't yet know they should be asking, while arguing the most common inquiry new writers pursue- how do I get published? -is actually the worst place to start.
Whether you're a new writer looking to sidestep the common problems, an established writer trying to figure out why your career feels like it's been derailed, or you're simply eager to figure out a new strategy that can push your career forward, You Don't Want to Be Published is full of blunt, irreverent, and unexpected advice that just might change the way you look at the writer's job forever.
Drawn from some of his most popular blog posts, author presentations, and articles, You Don't Want To Be Published sets out to bring the kind of conversations established writers have in private to a more general audience. Here Ball explores the anxieties of building a writing career, the unexpected writing lesson drawn from other forms of narrative, the importance of treating your business like a business, and the subtle shifts in psychology and mindset that can help push your writing career to the next level.
Primarily written during the years Ball convened the popular GenreCon Writers Conference and managed the Australian Writers Marketplace, these essays also strive to find the questions new writers don't yet know they should be asking, while arguing the most common inquiry new writers pursue- how do I get published? -is actually the worst place to start.
Whether you're a new writer looking to sidestep the common problems, an established writer trying to figure out why your career feels like it's been derailed, or you're simply eager to figure out a new strategy that can push your career forward, You Don't Want to Be Published is full of blunt, irreverent, and unexpected advice that just might change the way you look at the writer's job forever.
150 pages, Paperback
Published March 22, 2021
5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 5, 2018
Disclosure: I know Peter personally, and as a subscriber to his newsletter I got a free copy of the ebook (but then, almost all of the content is free on his website anyway, this is just a nicely collated format).
Most advice books for writers are about the actual writing process. As a man who is very much focused on "making writing a viable career", Ball instead focuses on all the scary stuff outside the creative process: understanding what you want to get out of your writing (because it's almost always not just "to be published"), recognising that the writing business is a business (and what that means to the writer), how to adjust to and mitigate the common financial pitfalls of being a writer, how to keep working when it all seems too much, how to handle rejection (Ball has five reasons rejection letters are awesome), how to handle success, and how (and why!) to network - especially if you're an introvert. It is, in other words, really really good info to get your hands on if you're looking to get paid for sticking words together.
Most advice books for writers are about the actual writing process. As a man who is very much focused on "making writing a viable career", Ball instead focuses on all the scary stuff outside the creative process: understanding what you want to get out of your writing (because it's almost always not just "to be published"), recognising that the writing business is a business (and what that means to the writer), how to adjust to and mitigate the common financial pitfalls of being a writer, how to keep working when it all seems too much, how to handle rejection (Ball has five reasons rejection letters are awesome), how to handle success, and how (and why!) to network - especially if you're an introvert. It is, in other words, really really good info to get your hands on if you're looking to get paid for sticking words together.
July 16, 2018
Peter Ball has collected and updated several years' worth of advice on the business of becoming a beginning writer who thinks they want to be a working writer, based on his experience of (among other things) working in the Queensland Writers Centre. It's really good, no-holds-barred advice for building a career, which also explains to you why you might not want to do that after all.
Also, Peter swears a lot, which is just fine by me, but be warned.
Disclosure: I read a pre-release proof copy
Also, Peter swears a lot, which is just fine by me, but be warned.
Disclosure: I read a pre-release proof copy
July 12, 2023
This little gem of a book by Peter Ball from Brain Jar Press is a great summary if you're a new writer getting your head into the writing game with a long term vision of making writing a career.
You know you love writing, but do you know how to sustain it? Peter gives you a guide into getting a few steps into the darkness of the abyss and feeling your way around.
4 out of 5 Raging Tyrannosaurs of the Internet
You know you love writing, but do you know how to sustain it? Peter gives you a guide into getting a few steps into the darkness of the abyss and feeling your way around.
4 out of 5 Raging Tyrannosaurs of the Internet
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews