Tuesday, November 7, 2023

APPROACHING PUBLISHED WRITERS FOR ADVICE/BLURB

 

There’s a right way and a wrong way to ask writers to help your writing journey. I learned the hard way, making most of the usual mistakes.

 

A good post on this is here.

 

But despite the above linked post, my experience is that the right way is to not ask anything of a writer who is barely an acquaintance. Even more so if the writer is a complete stranger. Published writers, especially successfully published writers, don’t have the time to wade through the writing of others as they get many (repeat: MANY) such requests.

 

The bottom line is that unless you are close personal friends, or the writer offers without solicitation (rare, but happens. It happened to me 😊) they can’t blurb (which would mean also reading your work) and any general advice they give can be found on the Internet.

 

If you are real friends in real life (Facebook doesn’t count. Not ever) or taking a course with a writer, which includes feedback to your writing, other writers farther along on the path are our inspiration for aspirations, not personal assistants.

 

Enjoy meeting authors without asking them to bear your burdens.

4 comments:

  1. Good advice, Mirka. At the least, you should admire/love the author's work and support it if you're going to ask them for a favor.

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  2. Yes, it's a tricky part of authoring/publishing. I hated that one WFH publisher required 40 names/contact info of people who would be willing to receive a free copy of my book and hopefully write a review (that can't be required, of course). I didn't ask people I didn't know personally, but just put out a general request. It still felt very awkward to me.

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  3. I've blurbed now for several people. I find writing blurbs harder than writing a 1st pb ms, hehe. But some are merely acquaintances (we're connected on social media) with books on similar topics, and the editors suggested reaching out to me, etc...

    So I'm happy to help, although I'm "no one" in this business.

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  4. Always tricky asking for favors, even from people you're close to.

    ReplyDelete

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