Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 134

When It Crashes, Part Two

Did you ever see the movie Wag the Dog, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Deniro, directed by Barry Levinson and written by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet?
The film is about a lot of things, but at its core it's a portrait of a Hollywood producer. The character of Stanley Motss, played by Dustin Hoffman, is, by
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The Elephant in the Room

[This Friday's "What It Takes" is the first from my publicist Callie Oettinger. I'm sure the first thing most readers will think is, 'Does a writer really need a publicist? How can you afford it? Isn't that over the top?' I first worked with Callie on a job-by-job basis. Her forte is the military; she's
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A Safe Space

I did an interview for Ishita Gupta and Matt Atkinson's online magazine fear.less that's going to run in January. I was proofing the text this morning and I thought, "There's a section in here that'll be perfect for an end-of-year Writing Wednesdays post."
The section was about Mike Nichols. His AFI Lifetime Achievement tribute had just
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The Sell In

I ended last week's post discussing "publishing meeting" Personae.  As Steve's manager/agent, one of my jobs is to secure the best possible sales campaign for THE PROFESSION.  Easier said than done.
As Steve's representative, I went to the Crown marketing meeting with an internal agenda.  Just as a publisher needs to define the proceedings of a
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When It Crashes

In our "What It Takes" series (adjacent), we're getting into the inside stuff of publishing, marketing and promoting The Profession, my upcoming novel. Here, for a look at the other side, is an event from the writing of the book. Here is every writer's worst nightmare:
When it crashes. When the wheels come off smack in
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Sean Van Vleet

Sean Van Vleet is a Chicago-based musician, songwriter, and lead singer of the alternative-rock band Empires. In March, Empires released their highly-anticipated sophomore effort BANG and have spent much of 2010 on the road in support of the release, with stops at SXSW, Verve Music Festival, and CMJ Music Fest. MTV.com called the album "great, all
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The Empty Chair

So there we were…
On Wednesday December 1, 2010 at 10:37 a.m. Steve and I took the two seats at the head of the 14th floor conference table at the Random House building in midtown New York. Steve was in the left chair. I was on the right. Counterclockwise from me sat the head of Crown's
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Horror Stories

[Continuing our "What It Takes" series, an inside look at the process of publishing and promoting a book in 2010-11 ... here's Post #3:]
The first book signing I ever did was for The Legend of Bagger Vance. It was at a Books-a-Million store in Lakeland, Florida. I flew 3000 miles from Los Angeles.
Nobody showed. Not
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Getting the Meeting

[Two days ago--Wednesday--I put up a post titled "What It Takes," which promised an insider's look over the next few months at the campaign to market and publicize my upcoming novel, The Profession. Response was so enthusiastic that we decided not to wait till next Wednesday to follow up, but to plunge in right away.
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What It Takes

I'm going to try something new over the next few months. Remember, a few weeks ago, we commandeered this Writing Wednesdays space to post a series called, with apologies to John Steinbeck, a "A Writer's Journal of (Finishing) a Novel?" I was, then, in the final writing throes of a book I'd been working on
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