Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 133

Selling Books in the Trenches

So far, we've been talking in these What It Takes posts from our own point of view, from the angle of the writer and his agent and publicist. Today I'd like to turn that around.
Let's get down and dirty–in the trenches, selling books to bookstores. We'll talk with Random House's David Glenn, who's one of
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Collectively-Enforced Mediocrity

Have you seen the movie, The Fighter? It's already won Golden Globes for Melissa Leo and Christian Bale–and looks like a strong Oscar contender in a number of categories. I loved it.
The movie is also–in its depiction of the psychological dynamics within the Ward family of Lowell, Massachusetts–one of the great cinematic evocations of Group
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Art & Commerce

In my last post, Rubber Meets Road, I talked about "the number." Here's what I said:
A number gives you clarity. Don't fear a number. Embrace the number. It will focus you like nothing else.
After some analytical research, I came to the conclusion that THE PROFESSION's number is 15,000.  Fifteen thousand sold copies will put THE
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On the Subject of Fear

[Today's post is an interview with me in fear.less online magazine. If you haven't heard of fear.less, it's a terrific enterprise founded and run by Ishita Gupta and Matt Atkinson, who are two young stars of new media.

[Fear.less appears once a month; it's free; you can sign up via the link above or below. The magazine
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Bringing It All together

Do a Wayback Machine search for www.stevenpressfield.com and check out the late 2002 version of Steve's first author site—and then check out the 2008 version.
Not much of a difference . . .
Steve's first site was a traditional early 2000's author site—a stylized resume, offering readers information about authors and their work. Steve's site was static,
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Resistance Tomorrow

I just came in from getting my stuff ready for the gym tomorrow–packing my bag, loading up my gear, leaving it in the car. It got me thinking about one of the most useful books I've ever read, Dr. Robert Cialdini's Influence. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.
In the book, Dr. Cialdini
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Rubber Meets Road

My last post was about the tried-and-true book publishing methods of making sure that the most important element of publication—getting books in stores and displayed—is successful. Selling-in a book at the retail and wholesale level is vitally important. So the early discussion at our December 1, 2010, marketing/publicity meeting at Crown covered this ground. Here
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Scott Oden

Hailing from the hills of rural North Alabama, Scott Oden's fascination with far-off places began when his oldest brother introduced him to the staggering and savage vistas of Robert E. Howard and Harold Lamb. Though Oden started writing his own tales at the age of fourteen, it would be many years before anything would
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Panic is Good

My friend Paul is writing a cop novel (I mentioned this in an earlier post, on the subject of trusting your instincts, even the darker ones–particularly the darker ones.) Paul has written screenplays and stuff for TV, but he's never tackled a novel, which is really his native medium. At the same time, he's writing more
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On Sharing

Steve's blog was created to serve as a vehicle for sharing his video series "It's the Tribes, Stupid." His goal was to share information about a common thread that had presented itself throughout his years of research. He wasn't interested in financial gains or promoting his books through this outreach, so we focused on sharing
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