Publishing Entrepreneur

SINCE I'M GOING TO GIVE  YOU ADVICE on a professional subject—the building of a successful career as a writer—I'd like to tell you just how I learned the things that I share with you here.

I took the usual detour that many would-be writers take: I became a teacher of literature. In my case it was comparative literature in the University of North Carolina system. I published the usual "scholarly" articles in journals that nobody reads, but soon discovered that I was far more interested in the writing than in the scholarship. I decided to branch out. I began sending out queries and sold my first article, "How to Teach about Poetry" to a magazine called Teacher's Scholastic. Not long thereafter, the University of Georgia Press published my first book, Mallarmé and the Language of Mysticism. Then, in a great stroke of luck (but luck that came about because I was a relentless sender-out of queries) I sold an over-the-transom article to Esquire magazine that managed to be featured on the front cover. With that clip to send out, I was a made man in the magazine writing business.

But like an actor who itches to try directing, I wanted to try my hand at editing and publishing my own books and periodicals. In 1979 I was able to buy a weekly newspaper with no cash up front by assuming some of its debts. As it turns out, I was a pretty good editor. I increased circulation by 400% and ad revenues by an even larger percentage over a three-year period before selling out to one of the newspaper chains. I started and published many magazines, including Tar Heel: The Magazine of North Carolina (a statewide magazine), The New East magazine, NCEast Magazine (regional magazines) and Washington Magazine (a city magazine). I published Welcome to Wilmington, a newcomer guide, and the North Carolina Travel and Tourism Guide.

I started Venture Press, my home-based book publishing company, to self-publish my own books. This worked well. Titles such as How to Make $100,000 a Year in Desktop Publishing and How to Publish Your Poetry became Writers Digest Book Club selections. I later expanded Venture Press into Williams & Company, Publishers, and began to publish books by other writers as well.

The result of all of this? I learned, step-by-step and from both sides of the editorial desk, how to succeed (make a profit) in writing and publishing books, magazines and newspapers. This new blog will offer you—sooner or later—every trade secret I have mastered.

In order to support myself in the modest but delightfully civilized style to which I have become accustomed, I still write, publish and sell my books and am currently doing two periodical start-ups. I do one-on-one consultation, workshops and seminars for a fee. But mainly I "gladly learn and gladly teach" (as Chaucer said of his Clerk of Oxenford). If you want to learn how the writing and publishing business really works, Publishing Entrepreneur is a good, friendly place to start...

Tom Williams

PS. GOT A QUESTION? You can call me, Dr. Tom Williams, directly at 912.352.0404. I answer my own phone! Since I'm going to give you advice on a professional subject—the building of a successful career as a writer—I'd like to tell you just how I learned the things that I share with you here.