Tips for Becoming an Author

what do you need to know to become a
writer if what you want to do is to keep
a journal and put it online you can do
that but that’s a very very different
thing from writing novels imagine alica
for watchmojo.com and I catch up with
fiction writer Naren Holtz for her tips
and insights I’m not terribly interested
in blogs I guess I kind of ignore most
of it I’ve been living at 150 miles an
hour last year and a half because of my
book and having to promote it I sort of
delved into online culture a bit i was
part of a listserv for about a year and
i was on facebook I’ve actually just
kind of removed myself from all of that
in order to sort of get back into my
writing and I’m not sure how useful I
found most of that stuff I have
appreciated though having some of my
short stories on the web because it has
meant that if people are interested my
writing they’ve been able to just sort
of type in my name and find them so
could you tell us a little bit more
about self-publishing I think
self-publishing is a very hard road to
take because of the distribution sure
the costs of producing a book are easy
but self-published books don’t find
their way into american bookstores it’s
very very hard to get into publishing so
I’m sure that there’s all kinds of
wonderful work that’s totally overlooked
any tips of finding building a team
trying to get an agent join your local
writers Federation or Writers Union get
involved in your writing community
support your writing community the
people’s books get to know them get to
know other writers do editing exchanges
it’s sort of a process of throwing
yourself into it and not in a cold and
calculating way but trying to see who
you connect with