How to Become a Famous Writer
Ariel Gore's Do-It-Yourself Guide to Publishing and Self-Promotion
Ariel Gore's new book How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead is a must-read for anyone trying to get their writing out to the world.
Ariel Gore is most well known for her radical parenting zine Hip Mama and the resulting anthology, the Hip Mama Survival Guide. In her newest book How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights (Three Rivers Press, 2007) she tackles a subject she's mastered in her own life: how to self-publicize, self-publish and make the world take notice.
For those who don't know her, Ariel Gore started the Hip Mama zine as a journalism school project. At the time she was a teenage single mom, trying to finish her degree. The first issues of her zine were photocopied, stapled together and handed out. What Gore found was that by writing honestly and passionately about the experience of being a teenage single mom, she found an audience ready to listen. From there, her career has blossomed.
Do It Before You're Dead
In her preface, Gore tells the story of an aspiring writer friend who asked for Gore's advice on how to become famous. Within a month, the friend was dead of a seizure at the age of twenty-three. In honour of her friend, Gore decided to write this book to help other writers find success, now.
The book is written in a conversational style, and reads like you're listening to your best writer friend giving you a solid kick in the butt. Each of the five sections is broken into at least a dozen mini-essays on topics ranging from how to create your lit star persona, how to find time for writing, and how to improve your writing craft.
The emphasis is on a do-it-yourself approach. Don't wait for your genius to be discovered. Instead learn as much as you can aout the industry and marketing, and put your writing out there.
Be yourself
Ariel Gore reiterates the importance of being yourself: she says “Don't try to hide your quirks, exaggerate them. Other people are going to objectify you anyway. It's a lit star's job to beat them to the punch.” She argues that branding yourself is the first step in creating a buzz around your work. She has milked the persona of 'single teenage mom writer' for all it's worth.
Be Both an Artist and an Entrepreneur
Gore knows that to be successful in the current literary climate, writers must be both artists and entrepreneurs. This book contains helpful advice on how to self-publish, how to work with large publishers and how to organise readings and cross-country tours. Marketing departments of even the biggest publishers are being cut, and often it is up to the writer to make sure their writing is being heard.
Listen to Advice
How to Become a Famous Writer includes interviews with Dave Eggers, Usula K. Le Guin and Margaret Cho, among others. Each of these now-famous writers weighs in on some aspect of self-promotion or the writing process and provides an assignment for the reader. The assignments are particularly helpful for writers just getting started in the business of self-promotion.
Write and Be Brave
Billed as “cheaper than an M.F.A. but just as informative,” How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead is a new approach to a much-discussed topic. Don't sit around waiting for someone to discover you. Instead, write as much as you can, tell the truth, and sing your own literary praises.
