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Seth Godin has a great blog post called, “Is Effort a Myth?” Read it and ponder this: “Am I willing to do what it takes to succeed as an author, or am I hoping for luck?”

There’s a reason some people get published and others don’t, and usually it has to do with the fact that published authors have put in the effort to gain expertise, build an audience, and actually write the book or get a good ghost writer to write it. They go through the work of putting together a good proposal, they don’t quit when they get rejected, or they self-publish intelligently.

My goal with this blog and my other resources is to give you the tools that can lead to your becoming a successful author. However, a hammer does no good in itself. Only in the hand of the carpenter does it hit the nail on the head.

Read Seth’s blog. To suggestion #2, I would amend, if you want to become a successful author, spend your 120 minutes:

• writing an article and posting it to article directories
• coming up with some free “Special Report” on your topic that you can give away to start relationships with people (ask them for their email addresses to get the report)
• setting up a blog and writing 2-3 times per week
• finding other people who are already talking about your topic (Ning groups, Yahoo groups, blogs) and enter the conversation by posting. Put your Special Report offer in your email signature line when you do post.

Everything else, listen to Seth!

The questions have been pouring in for Publishing Coach Weekly! (Get the call-in information and ask your question up here.)

Here’s a question recently asked by Loretta:

“As a first time published author, is it possible to get an approval from another author to use their quote in your book, or is it best to avoid quoting other sources on the first try?”

Yes, it is quite possible, but it depends on how extensively you are quoting the person. Read this article on the interpretation of fair use of other people’s works.

Once you determine whether your quoted material falls into “fair use,” the next step is to contact the author. Most authors would be very happy that you found their work important enough to quote, and are glad for the extra exposure.

I’m assuming, of course, that you will be giving full credit to the author (name, name of the work from which you’re quoting, publishing info such as who published the book, and date).

One of the keys of “fair use” standards is

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