Writers write and write and don’t always get read. This is especially true if you’re not on the early rise of a trend. Early bloggers built vast followings quickly, artlessly. Now, most of us struggle to build an audience. Gone are the days when a book released (even by a known publisher) guarantees you a readership, right? But writing is intended to be interactive, and is a phenomenon when it reaches its audience and stirs the pot. Writing that is read, is like love that is requited, like a song that is answered.
If you have an idea worth sharing, and a concept that you’d like to write about – to change the world, help the people you care about, or move your audience to a new awareness or empathy, then you need a platform to help you get it out there, read, shared and cherished. Much as TEDTalks began to bring us passionate people with life-altering concepts, Kindle Singles has picked up the same torch for writers. It is an opportunity to write and be read.
Kindle Singles debuted a short two years ago, and are quickly gaining recognition and praise from many sources. They are the literary answer to TEDTalks – a curated group of ideas well-presented and worth spreading. And they are short. Intended to be morsels of inspiration and story. Here’s praise from the Kindle Singles Wikipedia entry:
The format has also been praised by literary critic Dwight Garner, who welcomed “what feels almost like a new genre: long enough for genuine complexity, short enough that you don’t need journalistic starches and fillers.[3]”
The Atlantic‘s Rebecca Rosen commented that authors of Kindle singles have found the platform to be financially beneficial, but distinguished Kindle singles, which are “curated and shepherded through an editing process by [former Village Voice editor-in-chief and Columbia adjunct] Blum, much like a traditional publishing house”
But how to do it? Here’s a link to the editorial submission page. You can absolutely do it on your own. I’m intending to write a Kindle Single on a topic I’ve been researching and speaking about for about two years now – How Women Create (differently from men.) Instead of doing it alone, I’ve decided to get help. We are not alone. We can get help. For me, and for many people with creative personalities, this is hard to admit. My creative style – strong on ideation and quite capable on development – could use the help of someone who clarifies things when I get in an unintended fog, and someone who implements when I’m toast from having written the (short) book, in a mere thirteen weeks.
I’m using Angela Lauria’s course – 13 Weeks to Published – to help me stay the course, and get the marketing and submission help I need to see the project through. Angela and her team help you work out your writing intention and any blocks, provide editing and design and when the time comes, submit your work to Kindle Single, as per their submission requirements. According to Angela, and her past participants’ experience, the course fee ($2000) will easily be earned back in royalties in the first 3 to 6 months of its release. Easy peazy. And more importantly, I think working with Angela will help me recognize and develop the parts of my creative process that need her gentle intervention.
Angela has found an up and coming writing trend according to headlines like:
The big short – why Amazon’s Kindle Singles are the future (The Guardian) and Kindle Singles: Growing, but Maintains Focus (Publishers Weekly)
Her ability to act quickly means she’s already on top of this trend, and is bringing it to us before it becomes almost impossible to participate in because of growing attention and competition. I want to be read and accepted, before there’s an enormous virtual slush pile. I hope to be featured and promoted within the Kindle Singles universe. (If we’d all found TEDTalks when they were scrambling for speakers, we’d be very happy, right?)
I’m writing you to pay it forward, and bring your attention to this opportunity, just as I’m poised to take advantage of it. Not everyone is a “quick start” and can jump in on this kind of opportunity TODAY, (Registration ends January 6th/class starts January 8th.) but if you’re that kind of person, do not hesitate. Jump in and be an early beneficiary of this new format and the attention (and money) it’s getting.
I’m providing the link to Angela’s course that I’ll be in, because I’d love to invite you into the group – to share the writing experience and coaching space with you and share the victory dance with you when we’re published – within thirteen weeks! Hope to see one or two of you there.