Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 86

Old Dog, New Tricks

So in the past year, three of my contemporaries have died.
The usual suspects felled them—cancer, heart attack, and that never see it coming…sudden brain hemorrhage. When people you know well begin to meet their maker, you can’t help but look beyond today’s utility bills and tomorrow’s cocktail party at the Joneses.
I used to think that
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Does Somebody Know Something?

Continuing on last Wednesday’s subject of Nobody Knows Nothing:
Somebody has to know something. We can’t all be flying blind. It’s unacceptable for us to throw up our hands on the topic of our art and our livelihood.
But who is that someone?
In the book biz, that individual is called an editor.
“Editor” is probably the least understood
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What the Dog Saw: Pitching and Receiving

I’ve been on the pitching and receiving end of books and films, as a publicist sharing information and as an editor and/or writer receiving and deciding what to do with that information.
Personal value is the common thread. As both a publicist and an editor/writer, you have to find the elements of value. What is of
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Nobody Knows Nothing, Part Two

We were talking last week about how hard it is to evaluate material, particularly your own.
How do you tell if your new novel, your start-up, your Cuban-Chinese restaurant is any good? Who can tell you? Whose judgment can you trust?
In the literary/movie field, entire industries have evolved to respond to this need. Robert McKee (full
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The Small Press Conundrum

So despite your literary agent’s best efforts, your first novel/first nonfiction proposal didn’t sell to any of the Big Five publishers.
What do you do now?
You ask your agent to plumb the directories of small presses and start cold calling.
Right?
Well, if your agent is a realist, that is if she has a family to support or
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Nobody Knows Nothing

I used to work for a big New York ad agency named Ted Bates. The agency was constantly pitching new business.
The way it worked was the entire Creative Department, about 150 people, would be assigned to come up with new campaigns for Burger King or Seven-Up or whatever business Bates was going after. You were
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Focus on the Person, Not the Product

Flannery O’Connor hooked my interest through a school-assigned reading of A Good Man is Hard to Find and her personal story kept me reading more. I was certain that a bit of that geranium she wrote about—“with its roots in the air”—was her, a transplant to New York City, from Georgia, where the geraniums weren’t
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The Difference Between 14% and 15%

I was talking to a friend at the gym the other day. “How much strength do we all have?” he said. “Think about it: a ninety-five-pound mom can lift a Buick if her baby is underneath it, right? Then why is it so hard for that same woman to lift a 25-pound dumbbell here at
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When Not “Earning Out” is a Good Thing

Here’s how big shot literary agents make a compelling living.
A client brings an idea to the agent who advises the client about its commercial possibilities. It’s important to note that this advisement traditionally means whether or not the agent thinks he will be able to sell the project to a major publisher for a compelling
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Why #5

Continuing our exploration of why I write this blog and why anyone might read it.
Let’s consider a topic we’ve discussed previously in this space: the idea of personal cultures.
We’re all familiar with the idea of institutional cultures. Apple has a culture. The New York Yankees have a culture. The Marine Corps has a culture.
You and
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