Selling Yourself

Some creative people like to think they're different from business people.

That may work if you chose to live in an ivory tower and don't care about selling your product. If you want the world (customers) to value your work, then you must develop a business attitude. That's especially true in today's competitive market.

Take writing, for instance. Bowker statistics reveal 560,626 new books were published in 2008. That works out to 1,532 books a day. That's a lot of competition. The big name writers receive a lot of help from their publishers and their established reputation. If a newbie wants to compete in that marketplace, he/she must take efforts to stand out from the crowd.

How do we achieve that? We begin by producing the best product we can. Second, we seek every possible opportunity to promote our product and make it known to potential customers. Most important, we must cultivate an attitude of success.

As Cervantes so eloquently put it: "The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works."