The Importance of Networking
If you are serious about being published, then you need to network. Once you are published, you need to carry on networking. The wonderful thing about networking, is that it is GREAT FUN!
What exactly do I mean by networking? I mean get yourself - and your work - OUT THERE. Writers spend a lot of time by themselves in their garrets (actually, I’ve never met a writer who has a garret, most of us can’t afford them - but if you do have a garret, or know anyone who does, then please let me know). If not in a garret, then in a spare room, at the kitchen table, dining table, corner of the bedroom, loft, shed or wherever it is that we sit and write. We also spend a lot of time alone with our heads in the clouds. Networking gives you an opportunity to socialise with people you will really like to socialise with.
The first thing you should know about networking, is that you will meet lots of fellow writers. The first time I went OUT THERE and attended a weekend writers’ school, I was very worried about meeting other writers - I thought they would all be better than me and published and agented and not at all interested in a newcomer like me. How wrong I was. The first thing you will learn about other writers is that WRITERS ARE NICE! I have never met a bunch of such supportive people as fellow writers, who know exactly how I feel about writing, understand where I am coming from and don’t think I am completley mad. The other thing about writers is that they love it when someone else is successful. We are not jealous and we don’t go muttering about how people don’t deserve it behind their backs (unless they are celebraties with famous implants who have to get other people to write for them and that makes us REALLY cross). Instead we enthuse to each other about so and so’s deal and keep saying how wonderful it is. WRITERS ARE GENUINE!
As well as all this wonderful stuff, networking has a business side. We don’t just meet up to have a drink, a back pat, a commiseration, the giving and receiving of support while putting the world to rights and having a great time - there is real purpose to this networking business as well. By networking, you will meet AGENTS, you will meet PUBLISHED AUTHORS, some of whom are very published indeed, and you will meet PUBLISHERS. Before you think there could be nothing more terrifying, don’t worry - agents and publishers know the value of networking and are always on the lookout for new authors. Authors will tell you how they did it, agents will tell you what they are looking for, publishers will tell you how to approach (and how not to approach) them. You will hear on the grapevine about who is looking for what and will be able to pitch to agents and publishers in a way that will send you soaring up the slush pile.
Networking has played a vital part in my life as a writer. Without it, I would never have met the publisher who encouraged me to write for children, I would never have approached agents with such confidence and I would never have had such a great time the other night, the other weekend, the other day . . .
And I would never have made all those wonderful writing friends.
To find out HOW TO NETWORK, click on the link!