By W. Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Often writers see writing in black and white terms. You are either a gifted storyteller or not. These people believe writers are born with their gift and not taught the skill of writing. This concept is another myth of publishing.

The writing world is a strange combination of skill and talent. Until you learn about what the publishing world wants and submit your material, you don’t know if you have talent or not. It’s true: if you don’t try, it won’t fly.

Many years ago as a young writer, my Indiana journalism professors taught me about manuscript submissions. For example, my magazine writing class professor, Floyd Arpan had a rule with our articles for class. If he found two errors, spelling or grammar, then we received an “F”, on our assignment. Talk about frightening. The redeeming factor was the grace which Mr. Arpan built into his class. If you received an “F”, you got a second chance to revise your work and turn it in a second time then he erased the first grade. He had this type of system in place before computers so we produced our ten-page magazine articles on a typewriter. If you made a mistake or error, you had to retype the entire page. This type of training for a young journalist was invaluable to me.

For about ten years after college, I left my writing and went into linguistics. When I returned to it about thirty years ago, I had to learn the system for manuscript submissions. What does it mean to have your material in manuscript format for a magazine? What in the world is a query letter and how do you write a successful one?

In this electronic age, I’ve learned my interaction with editors even via email is important. As my wife likes to remind me, you only get one chance to make a first impression. With an email message, it’s almost too easy to fire off a missive or an email with typos and spelling errors. It’s important for any writer to think about such issues with their communication—and reminder to myself as well. It makes me work hard at my email query letters or my nonfiction book proposals or any other type of writing. Your craft shows in every bit of communication.

Always Be Knocking On Doors

It takes great practice to fish successfully. While some people fish for a hobby, the seasoned fisherman knows he has to fish many times to gain skill and also to catch fish. To be honest, it has been years since I’ve been fishing but I “fish” every day. A fisherman puts his line into the water and is positioned to catch a fish. I put quotations around the word “fish” since I’m using fish for the word networking or connections. You have to be in the market talking and connecting with others every day to make a difference with your writing. Yes, you need to craft an excellent book and good storytelling. I always encourage writers to learn that skill, but you need something more than good writing. You need the right connection. Much of publishing (and any business) is a matter of making the right connection with the right person at the right time at the right place. You can’t make that connection working alone in your office at your computer or curled up with your legal pad writing your story.

What steps are you taking today to “fish” or network with others? It begins with your goals for your writing. Do you want to sell more books? Do you want a traditional publishing deal or are you going to self-publish? Do you want to build your platform or group of readers? Do you want more people to know who you are and what you are doing? Then you have to make a conscious effort every day to reach out and touch other people.

Also, I dig into my network of friends and connections. I pick up the phone and call people leaving little messages or connecting with them for a few minutes. Yesterday I spoke with several literary agent friends. Why? Because these agents represent numerous authors who they want to get published.  Those agents need to be reminded that I’m constantly looking for great authors to publish through Morgan James. Our publishing program will not be right for every one of their authors. Yet it will be perfect for some of them. I have authors who have submitted their manuscripts and I’m scheduling calls with them to see if Morgan James is the right fit for these authors. I spend a great deal of time on the phone and answering my email but it’s part of my daily work. Your daily work will be different but are you working every day expanding your connections? I hope so.

I think about activities in the past which has been productive for me. For example, I’ve made terrific connections speaking at conferences. I’d like to do more speaking next year. It will not happen if I don’t take any action. Instead, I’m making a list of conferences where I’d like to speak and be conscious of who runs these conferences. Can I fill the need for this event with a workshop or keynote? There are numerous conferences and events where I can help others—but I have to be proactive to get on their radar.

I’m eager to continue to promote my Billy Graham and Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams books (as well as other books that I’ve written or been involved with). Can I book a radio show or podcast or do a guest blog post or some other event to get in front of a new audience? The answer is yes but from my experience it rarely happens without my initiative. Most of the time, these opportunities come through proactive pitching and follow-up work. Are you putting this type of fishing into your daily schedule? Throughout my day, I will be emailing and calling people. To catch fish, you have to have a line in the water. What steps are you taking?

W. Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor lives in California. A former magazine editor and former literary agent, Terry is an acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams and Billy Graham. Get Terry’s newest book, 10 Publishing Myths for only $10, free shipping and bonuses worth over $200. To help writers catch the attention of editors and agents, Terry wrote his bestselling Book Proposals That $ell, 21 Secrets To Speed Your Success. Check out his free Ebook, Platform Building Ideas for Every Author. His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com