The Roar Series Continues! Guest Post by Nina Amir

Attitude Provides the Key to Author Success

I’ve seen the overwhelmed and discouraged look more often than I can count. It usually descends across a face during a writers’ conference or workshop as an aspiring author first discovers the truth about becoming a successful, published author.

I had that look, too, when I learned I couldn’t just be a writer; I had to be much more. I had to be a promoter, speaker, businessperson, social networker, media darling, and PR specialist, for example. Generally, I needed to be a good author-platform builder, because a built-in readership for a book is a necessity for any writer wanting a successful career as an author.

Choose Your Attitude
If you don’t like doing these things, don’t want to do them or don’t have the funds to get help accomplishing them, it’s easy to feel frustrated—especially if your decision to become an author was based on your love of writing. And, let’s face it; most authors love writing. That’s why we write!

When you learn the truth about what’s needed to succeed as an author, therefore, you might just take a defeatist attitude and give up. Or, you might simply say, “I’ll just write and see what happens,” an attitude that basically leaves your career to chance. The better thing to do, as I found, is to change your attitude.

Attitude can mean the difference between success and failure—unpublished or published—for an aspiring author. I know this well. I spent many years trying to get published and to be successful as an author. I self-published a few books that didn’t succeed because I didn’t do any of the things necessary to help them sell; success in the publishing industry is calculated in book sales. I also tried to land a literary agent and to get a traditional publishing deal, but to no avail.

When I made an important decision, everything changed. The decision was simple: I refused to fail. Simply, I was going to become a successful, traditionally published author. Period.

That changed my attitude—and my results.

At that moment, I stopped resisting the things I had to do to succeed, like:
· Social networking
· Promotion
· Speaking
· Business
· Branding
· Radio personality

Instead of fighting against platform building, I wrapped my arms around it. I learned to love it and all other aspects of becoming a successful, published author because they represented ways to help me reach my goal of successful authorship.

Move Faster Toward Your Goal of Successful Authorship
In so doing, I found that I moved much more quickly in that direction, and I accomplished more in less time. Previously I spent eight or more years struggling to get published. After this decision, it took just four years to hold a traditionally published book—and an Amazon bestseller at that—in my hands.

The other day someone at a conference asked me what I did differently after I decided that I refused to fail. I started to say, “I blogged more, spent more time on social networks…” The truth was, I did do those things but only because my attitude changed. The reason I succeed had less to do with what I did from that point forward and more to do with my attitude.

About the Author
You can learn more about “Author Attitude” in Nina Amir’s new book, The Author Training Manual: Develop Marketable Ideas, Craft Books That Sell, Become the Author Publishers Want, and Self-Publish Effectively (Writer’s Digest Books, March 2014). Amir, who is also the author of How to Blog a Book: Write, Publish, and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books), transforms writers into inspired, successful authors, authorpreneurs and blogpreneurs. Known as the Inspiration to Creation Coach, she moves her clients from ideas to finished books as well as to careers as authors by helping them combine their passion and purpose so they create products that positively and meaningfully impact the world. A sought-after author, book, blog-to-book, and results coach, some of Nina’s clients have sold 300,000+ copies of their books, landed deals with major publishing houses and created thriving businesses around their books. She writes four blogs, self-published 12 books and founded National Nonfiction Writing Month, aka the Write Nonfiction in November Challenge. www.ninaamir.com