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I'm giving my "What Would William Shakespeare Do?" workshop tonight at the Howe Library in Hanover, NH. I've done various versions of this workshop on publishing for years, changing my information to reflect the changes in book publishing.

This workshop began after a phone call from a beginning writer who nearly wept as she told me about a particularly bruising experience with her first novel. As she talked, I had one of those split personality moments as I simultaneously sympathized with her and the publisher. While I think the situation could have been handled with more compassion (the author's book had been among nine titles the publisher cut for financial reasons), I found myself saying "What else could they have done? Sales are down for everyone."

At which the author wailed "Don't they know how much this means to me?"

The short answer to this is yes and no.

Generally, folks in book publishing love books. Some of them have been writers and as such, know how much it stings to be rejected. 

But publishing is all about sales which, if you think about it, should be an author's first concern as well. That's why we strive to have our work published, so that we can see it in print and sell it to readers who will benefit or be inspired by it.

So I found myself explaining that while writing is all about passion, publishing, for the most part, is a passion-free industry. In order to cope with this dichotomy, I urged the writer to set her passion aside and approach the process with a hard head backed up by reasonable expectations of what publishing is and is not.

As we wound up our conversation, the author sniffled that "No one ever told me what to expect from publishing. You should teach a class on this."

So now I do.

If you're interested in hosting a "What Would William Shakespeare Do?" class, drop me an email at: bkcoach@sover.net and we'll see what we can do.