Beyond the Page:Success in the Age of Information Excess January 31, 2006
Public Readings is all about libraries and good writing, which means that we are all about writers. In order for us to have good books to review, writers need to be published, books must sell, and libraries must buy them. All of this starts with writers, and all writers begin life unpublished.
You might think that in the world of email and attachments, writers and editors would have a chance to know each other better. According to Mark Vender in today’s Guardian, writers are actually having more difficulty getting published now, or at least a different type of difficulty. Writing from the Hay Festival in Cartagena, one of the publishing industry’s major occasions, Vender describes his attempts to get attention in an age of information overload. The most precious commodity is attention, and to get it writers have to self-market in ways that are often alien to their natures. Best advice- get over it. There is too much information out there, and too little filtering of it. Attention, especially editorial attention, is the philosopher’s stone, the Excalibur, the enriched Yellow Cake Uranium of writers. As Public Readings evolves over the next few months, you can bet that I will be thinking about ways to help good writers get their works out there.
In the meantime, develop a thick skin, a portfolio,practice your elevator pitch, and spare a moment to read more from Mark Vender.
M.Riggs
