Here's an extremely interesting take on how to be successful in a music career, which I think has a ton of great advice for writers as well.

Derek Sivers is a musician who built the business CD Baby. Last month he published a free ebook titled "How To Call Attention To Your Music" giving musicians really incredible, distilled advice about reaching a bigger audience.
I think this amazing doc has a really important message for writers who want to be successful into the future.

Writers need to grasp that the publishing industry is going the way of the music industry - decentralized, far less attention (meaning marketing muscle) given to the smaller artists in favor of the big, sure-thing blockbusters. But also, the tools to make a career are now in everyone's hands thanks to the massive technloogy changes in the last 2 decades.

Since it's really only been 20 years of technology, I can understand why some don't feel the ground shifting yet. For example, I read a hilarious set of posts on a big writer's forum recently (which were truly sincere and not trying to be funny) on a writer's forum, where some posters seemed to say that in order to be published there was a lot of praying involved.

But look at Siver's website: the technology gurus he bookmarks, the ideas. he generates.

Then think about how musicians are coping now that their dreams - of being picked up by the mega-music conglomerate for multi-multi-million record deals, massive international concert tours - you know, the next Beatles or Rolling Stones - are virtually gone, because it's not viable in an iTunes world.

While those dreams might be fruitless, yet musicians' options have dramatically multiplied - itjust takes a different mind set to be successful.

Can writers learn the same lesson? You'll have to eventually. Why not figure it out sooner than later?