There are thousands of books giving advice on how to be a freelance writer. Most of these books are a total waste of time. Some of them are only a waste of time. A few of them are worth reading, maybe one of them, actually. The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman is one that might teach you a thing or two. But as with every advice you get, personally or in book form, you'll have to adapt it to your personality for it to work for you.
The Well-Fed Writer is informative and fun to read. It is the latter which lifts it out from all the humdrum advice books you get dealing with freelance writing. The book is divided into 15 chapters. Each chapter is again subdivided several times. This allows you to read it in little bits and pieces whenever you have some spare time. There is no thread to loose, just information to be sorted through and absorbed.
Like all writers of advice books, Peter Bowerman sets the trap for the reader by pretending that his is the only way to do it. All cults and religions work that way. Don't fall into the trap. Instead, concentrate on what he has to say and then make it work for you in your personal way. Replication is a dead end; once people start to replicate, they all walk in the same direction without a creative thought to their head. That is not what customers of writers are looking for.
The book contains a ton of information, most of it useful in one way or another. Some of it is so basic that you might think you are dealing with an idiot (or that the writer is dealing with idiots, which might even be true in most cases). But over the 15 chapters, he has lots of advice that you should think about. It will give you ideas on how you want to do things in a way that will work for you.
The book will cover the important aspects of sales, marketing, and making money. The Well-Fed Writer also highlights the importance of networking for your career as a freelance writer. The book contains loads of tips, good places to find contacts and how to improve your network connections. When you read the book, you will find that the author is probably suffering from OCD, he's so thorough: just filter the dross from the gems carefully.
Where Peter Bowerman gets his book to stand out over the usual drivel is in his assumption that you don't necessarily live in a big city. He gives good advice to writers dealing with limited markets. That may apply to small towns or villages, or to countries with a limited language reach. In that sense, this book contains valuable tips for writers in any country, writing in any language.
The book also contains information about niche markets. Like all the rest of the book, you'll have to sort out what is important for you, and what isn't. I disagree with most of what he said, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. It just means it doesn't work for me.
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