For authors: Eric Flint on getting published

In "The Internet is not a Magic Wand" at JBU, #18 (April 2009):

1. "Spend no significant time or effort promoting your work, which is minimal to begin with. Instead, sit your ass down and write. As soon as you’ve written something, submit it to a professional publisher. While you’re waiting to hear the results, write something else. Yes, it’s a dreary business. Yes, it will get damn depressing. But it’s the way I got published and it’s the way almost all authors initially get published. And if it makes you feel any better, the one bright side to the whole dark and dismal process is that good writing is actually fairly rare. If you can genuinely write well, you will eventually get published—as long as you stick to it, and don’t let yourself get sidetracked by ..."
2. "The fact of the matter is that the writing in slush piles is notoriously bad. With a few exceptions, the best of it only rises to mediocrity."
3. 'If you can write—and understanding that most people need to write a lot before they start writing anything good enough to get published—you will eventually get published. But that means you should spend almost all of your time writing, not frittering it away doing “promotional work.” Most of that promotional work will be useless and even the little that has some value has only minimal or marginal value.'

Related: "For authors" series; Eric Flint's works.