Michael A. Ventrella

Someone on Twitter posted “HARSH WRITING ADVICE: Your writer friends are also your competition. Sorry.”

This is ridiculous.

I am in no way in competition with the majority of writers who write books nothing like mine. You write moving stories about families torn apart by internal conflict? Your readers aren’t mine.  Someone who writes only horror novels is not my competition.

And neither are writers who write the same kind of stuff I do. 

Those writers who write like me are friends I encourage, and do you know why? Because when their readers are looking for something else to read, here I am. Here’s my similar stuff. You like Philippa Ballentine and Tee Morris’s steampunk novels? Well, while you’re waiting for their next one, here’s another fun steampunk novel you may be interested in. Oh, you prefer the humorous high fantasy of Alan Dean Foster? Well, look what I’ve got here.  Oh, you would rather read a fun political thriller about vampires like Jonathan Maberry might go for? You may consider something of mine…

These people are my friends — I support them, they support me, and we all win. 

It’s not like there are only so many books that can be published or read, and therefore we’re all fighting over a finite resource.

Support other writers; they are not your competition. They are your allies.

A bunch of writers at a convention getting along great. (Ian Randal Strock, Daniel Kimmel, Hildy Silverman, Gail Z. Martin, me, and my wife Heidi Hooper)

Filed under: writing | Tagged: Writers are not in competition |