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The older I get, the more often people tell me how quickly time passes. They bemoan how fast this year flew by, as if their dreams are slipping away because time is speeding up. They tell me that I will blink and my 6 year old will be 18, as if the things we care most about are already lost to time.

Today I want to talk about intentions. About taking back control of time in order to create the experiences you care most about — to attend to your creative vision.

Intention is how we combat the busyness, overwhelm and distraction that seems to take hold of our lives. As we look ahead to the new year, I encourage you to have a clear intention of what you want to create.

Intention, to me, is the opposite of reaction. For every failed creative project, there are reasons, and too often they are reasons of reaction. We didn’t explore our creative vision because we were too overwhelmed reacting to all the inputs in our lives.

What is your creative intention for next year? What is your vision that you won’t sacrifice so easily to the busyness of time; the overwhelm of responsibilities; the distraction of media and the internet?

What is the creative vision within you that you will fight to protect?

Intention is about caring and attending to the things that matter most to you. That can be normal every day things: a day job, family, health. It can also be things you hope to create: a book, art, music, and ways you hope to affect the world.

I’ll share my intentions for the new year, and would encourage you to consider your own. I have three main goals this year, one personal, one creative, and one business:

1. My wife and I are expecting our second child in April. My primary goal above and beyond all else is to care for my wife, our newborn, and our six year old son. Come the spring, my wife and family will need much more of my focus as we welcome Baby Optimus Prime into the world. Yes, I’m still trying to convince my wife of that name. Stay tuned…
2. Write and publish books. To be honest, realizing this goal has been a long time coming. While I have written more than 500 email newsletters, 1,000 blog posts, and 24,000 Tweets, I want to write and publish longer-form content.

   In March, I will publish my first book. I have been working for months on this, and have recruited an entire team of people to assist. I’ll share more on the process in the coming weeks.

3. Grow my company.
   WeGrowMedia is now six years old and has been a complete joy every single day. I have a team of four people who work with me, and they are all incredible. This year, I want to move to the next level in terms of how the company works, what we offer, and how we collaborate. As the founder, this moves me outside of my comfort zone — the one where I stand at the center of every process and every decision. That needs to change this year. I need to empower others, and evolve WeGrowMedia in some key ways.

Could there be more on this list? Of course: I could add intentions for physical and mental health, to how I can better serve my community, and so much else. But the three items above are my primary focus, the things I consider every day.

What are your creative intentions for the new year?

Thanks.
-Dan

I have 5 slots open for a personal mastermind with me, and I want to tell you about it. This is a tiny group — 15 people total — and is 100% focused on engagement (with me, and with others in the group.) It’s called the Creative Action Mastermind, and it runs from January 1st to March 31st, 2017. It’s a virtual group — everything happens via private online collaboration tools — meaning you can join us from wherever you are. Within it, we focus on helping you:

• Make progress to turn your creative intentions in 2017 into actions.
• Create momentum with your creative vision, while living up to your many personal and professional responsibilities.
• Break down big milestones and goals into smaller steps that you can begin taking right now.
• Stay accountable to the work that matters most to you, but in a way that is filled with caring and support.
• Find balance in your craft and business, and invest in developing your audience.
• Develop the habits that lead to productive creative work, with a sense of fulfillment.

This is not a course — it is a collaboration. A mastermind group is traditionally a group of like-minded people who come together to help one another brainstorm and focus. You do not get loads of course material. Instead, you are given a structure by which to collaborate with me and others in the mastermind. Nothing else. This is about action. Period.

You don’t have to show up anywhere on any particular day or time (I understand you are too busy to add another meeting to your calendar), but you will have constant access to the group (and myself) via powerful online collaboration tools.

You will have me and others in the mastermind providing feedback on your goals, giving direction, sharing ideas, and pulling you out of the hole when you feel stuck and lost.

The Creative Action Mastermind is one of the most powerful things I have ever offered — the feedback from folks who joined me have been off the charts amazing. They have found renewed clarity in their creative work, and a solid roadmap for moving forward. What people have said about the mastermind:

“Dan promised me collaboration when I signed up for this group.  I had my doubts, but not anymore. Being a part of the the Mastermind group has brought so much clarity (and simplicity) to my creative work.”
–– Jack Schaeffer

“This group has lit a fire under me. It has created energy and momentum with my writing.  Plus: I’m having so much fun!”
–– Teri Case

“WOW. I’m really blown away (seriously, not exaggerating) by the kind, helpful responses in this group.  When I signed up, I had wondered if I was doing the right thing by joining this Mastermind –– I was afraid I wasn’t really ready for the step. But now I see that this is exactly what I needed.”
—- Maya Rushing Walker

“I’m telling you, these Masterminders are a generous and creative and supportive group.  And that Dan Blank is generous and helpful beyond the beyond.”
–– Judy Reeves

“There are so many layers of emotional and creative spirit in this group. I can feel positive momentum building.”
— Mary McFarland

“Dan’s Mastermind group is a safe haven for creators and writers.  Dan and my fellow Mastermind participants helped me define the direction for my writing and reach more readers through my website, blog and social media. I recommend this group to anyone looking for support and direction in their creative projects.”
-— Rupert Davies-Cooke

“I believe that Dan Blank has created MAGIC here. This group has held me accountable to making a positive change in my creative work — I have never been a part of something this powerful before!”
—- Cathey Nickell

“This Mastermind has given me a sense of direction with the business side of my writing that I’ve never had before.”
—- Dawn Downey

“This Mastermind is building camaraderie with like-minded people for the first time in my life.  I have never felt so alive.  I can’t even explain it.  Even with all my past successes nothing has brought me as much fulfillment as this group and each individual in it.”
— Cari Flory

The deadline to register is Wednesday December 28, 2016, but please keep in mind, there are only 5 slots left. They go on a first come, first served basis. If you think this may be for you, you can read more about the mastermind here.
Thanks.
-Dan

If you are a writer or creative professional who works on your craft at home, I want to share my best advice on how to do so. I want to help you find more focus amidst the many distractions you face every single day.

This is everything I have learned through:

• Working from home full-time for the past 6 years, while running my company WeGrowMedia, and raising a family.
• Working from home both full and part time when I had a corporate job in the 3 years prior to that.
• Working with thousands of writers and creative professionals, who themselves work from home, or split their time between a traditional office setting and nontraditional settings of home, cafe, etc.
• Studying how successful people manage to get stuff done while at home.

Okay, let’s dig in:

Calendar everything.

My life runs on time blocking. This means I open up my calendar application (I use Apple’s Calendar) and block out each hour of the day for tasks.

Sounds crazy, right?

It’s not. It allows me to have clarity about what I need to do throughout the day, reducing decision-fatigue. What’s that? It’s having to think a million times “Um, what is on fire right now?” and rely on my emotions to tell me.

Instead, I have clarity in my day, and I’m allowed to work on some immediate tasks, but also work on projects that won’t have a pay off for months or years down the road. When you run every moment of your schedule based on emotions, you are going to spend all day reacting. It’s hard to build something meaningful over time when you are too busy reacting all the time.

I use three different color codes in my calendar: green for meetings, purple for focused creative work, and blue for non-work stuff. Yes, I schedule that too. Today I have scheduled what I’m eating for lunch and when I take my nap. Oh, I take a nap every day too. (More on that here.)

For important tasks, I schedule twice as much time as I think I need. Why? Because I have found that I will try to “squeeze in” an important task, when it truly requires more space. I want to be honest with myself about how long craft takes. This applies to so much of what I do, including writing. This morning I spent an hour editing 2 pages of a book I am writing, and that was with notes to guide me. That hour felt like 100 decisions to find clarity, to craft prose, to move things around, and to ensure it fit within the larger context of that chapter.

Schedule everything that requires your focus, including when you will get to email. Too often, someone will schedule meetings on their calendar, and just assume that email will be managed in the cracks in between meetings. It won’t. Instead what happens is that person’s day is spent constantly “trying to catch up,” and can’t effectively communicate with others because of it.

Does time blocking sound too rigid for your tastes? I keep it flexible by constantly moving blocks of time around on my calendar. Why? Because life happens. My schedule needs to honor the important work that needs to get done, but also that we are human beings living in a complex ecosystem where things change all the time. We are all managing family, relationships, physical and mental health, and our responsibilities to work, home, and our communities.

But maybe time blocking won’t work for you. If that is the case, I encourage you to take the same strategy, but apply it to different tactics. Perhaps instead you wake up every day to a hand-written to-do list that you made out the night before. Or you wake up to an intention that you wrote out the night before — a single thing that you need to ensure gets done each day.

My point is this: have a system.

If you feel that you are drowning every day, and can never find the time for your creative work, I strongly encourage you to consider new ways to manage your daily calendar.

Have a door. That locks.

If you work from home, even if just for what you feel is a “hobby” of writing, find a space that can be truly private. And this is the important part: the door should have a lock on it.

Since I run a little company, I have an office at home that is 100% dedicated to work. When we bought the house, this was the first space I defined when divvying up the bedrooms because it needed to have a sense of privacy in terms of the layout of the house. I also installed a lock on the door — a signal to myself and to my family that there are times when work is more important than whatever the interruption is.

Perhaps you can only find a tiny desk in a spare bedroom for you to use for your work. Or a section of the basement. Whatever it is, take the time to go to Home Depot, buy one of those cheap locks with keys, and install it on the door.

That key is a symbol that your creative work matters.

Learn to create in sprints, not marathons

I know, there are some full-time writers or artists who can devote 12 hours a day to becoming lost in their work. I think that is truly awesome.

But for the rest of us, we can’t.

Our days are spent juggling 1,000 things: the litter box has to be changed, you have two kids about to come home from school, you work part time at the post office, and as a crossing guard for extra cash, and the dishes are piled up in the sink. Oh, and you want to write today.

I would encourage you to develop the skill to create even in small increments of time: 10 or 20 minutes.

You may tell me that it takes you longer than that to “get into” writing, and that once you are in the zone, you lose track of time. That’s fine, but if it the result is that you can never find that kind of time to write, then I encourage you to work on the skill of smaller sprints of creative work.

Buy a timer. One of those kitchen timers, or a cheap timer on Amazon. Set if for 20 minutes to give yourself little bouts of work in between moments of your otherwise busy day. For many of you, you will never have a spare 2 hours where you can write. BUT… you may have 20 minutes. Set the timer so that you can feel freedom to write for those 20 minutes.

Connect a task to a place

Sometimes “working from home” really means not working in the home. I spend the first 4 hours of the day working from my local Starbucks.

That means I never schedule meetings first thing in the day, because that time is dedicated to writing and to doing client work. When I come home, that is when I catch up on other tasks and take calls. Starbucks is a place dedicated to doing focused work.

You can create this for yourself in a variety of ways; perhaps you go to the library where you will only work on your novel; then you will go to a cafe where you will only do business planning; and then at home, you will only do admin, email, and take calls.

Each place has their own mood — experiment and find what works for a given task. I have found that I focus really well when working amidst the chaos of morning rush hour at Starbucks.

Develop tiny habits

Everything I have shared above comes down to creating small habits. The bottom line is that I understand that you are likely struggling to make ends meet financially; that you are taking care of a family; that you may be going through a health crisis; that the time to focus on your creative work never seems to be “right now,” because important things come up.

My final pieces of advice:

• Forgive yourself. Let go of the guilt you feel in feeling that you can’t do it all.
• Find joy in the process. I listen to music while I work, and that helps me stay focused and inspired.
• Reward yourself for the tasks you do accomplish each week, even if you feel you dropped a few balls. The reward can be simple, such as food or a beverage.

What helps you get your creative work done?

Thanks.
-Dan

If you want more time and energy to focus on your writing and creative work, then this post is my best advice on how to do so.

Too often, we invest in things. We seek to add more to our lives, not less. We convince ourselves that this new app, this new course, this new product will somehow streamline our lives and add a richness to it.

Instead, I encourage you to remove things from your life. Take away everything you can.
Why?
Because that means everything that remains receives so much more of your focus, your resources, and your caring.

What you are doing is investing in focus and clarity, instead of distraction.
When you focus on fewer things that matter, you get rid of the plague that many people feel: overwhelm.

The term I use to describe this is “white space.” To create more space between things in your life. I use the word “invest” here on purpose. Too often, we think of white space as not taking action, as a passive act. It’s not. When you invest in removing things from your life, instead of adding, you are using your finite resources (time, energy, money, attention) in more powerful ways.

That is where success happens.

Clarity and focus won’t just happen by itself. The world encroaches… it overwhelms us and distracts, and this can take a serious toll on our mental health, our relationships, and our ability to focus on creative work.

I want to share three small examples of taking intentional action, instead of feeling overwhelmed by simply reacting to the world around you. My goal here is to encourage you to focus more on creating things that matter to you, to spend more quality time with those you love, and to feel that you have the capacity to live up to your responsibilities. Let’s dig in…

Example 1: Spoiling the magic we seek

I’m 43 years old and grew up feeling star Wars was magical. Like many Gen Xers, I have searched to recapture that magic with recent films. For years, it just seemed that “things were different today,” and that newer movies don’t have the same magic.

I was wrong. I found the trick to recapturing the magic: protect it.

Last year, as the buildup for Star Wars: The Force Awakens kept ratching up, I pulled away. I stopped watching trailers. I avoided any news about the film. I skipped past social media updates which mentioned it.

We haven’t had a TV at home for more than a decade, so there was no intrusion in commercials or other programs. I didn’t have to see some ad showing Chewbacca selling us shampoo. I didn’t see any interviews with the actors, or the constant replay of commercials pummeling scenes from the new movie into my head. I didn’t just avoid spoilers, I avoided anything having to do with the movie.

I went into the movie almost completely cold, I knew almost nothing about it. What I did know was this: what the two main actors looked like, that there was a droid that rolled, and that some of original trilogy cast would appear in the film. That’s it.

As my friends were analyzing and complaining about Star Wars overload in the media, I was on a blackout.

The result: When I saw The Force Awakens, it was magical. Every scene, every charcter, every plot point, every action scene was a complete surprise. I didn’t expect any of it. Scene by scene, it was all brand new. I didn’t know who would be a main character, and who wasn’t. I didn’t know if Harrison Ford would make a simple cameo, or (as it turned out) had a major role in the film.

This, as opposed to how people love to spoil their white space, their magic.

When I was sitting int the theater waiting for the movie to start, about 30 feet away, a father gloated loudly to his family that “Luke isn’t really in the movie until the very last scene.” For a moment, I got angry, because this set an expectation in me, and I didn’t want that. This man was truly joyful to show off that he knew something about the movie, even if that meant spoiling it for others. It was like a power that he had to use before everyone else found out simply by watching the movie.

His power was in spoiling.

Protect yourself from that by being intentional about where you put your attention.

Example 2: Make time for your goals

I have a good friend who I have a private two-person mastermind with. About once per week, we schedule time to talk about our professional goals and challenges.

Usually we talk for an hour, but this week we got on the phone and she asked me, “How long do you have to chat?” I replied, “unlimited time,” because I hadn’t scheduled any calls after her, and I knew we had important stuff to discuss.

We chatted for 2 hours and 14 minutes. We dug deep into key prioirites, and focused on specific actions we can take to push past obstacles and help each other out.

Even though each of us has a full load of clients, have an inbox of emails to get to, we took that time to focus on big picture goals that often get lost amid managing the inbox.

Take the time to focus on your mid and long term goals.

Example 3: Schedule white space

Teri Case shared this with me awhile back, and it is such a great example of what it means to be intentional about creating white space. For years she was an executive assistant, and this is how she began blocking the calendars of the executives she supported:

Monday – Thursday
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.: FOCUS
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.: FOCUS
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.: FOCUS

Friday
8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m.: FOCUS
1:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.: FLEX

She describes FOCUS as “times which are exclusively reserved for your manager to do his/her job and get stuff done, and therefore, make progress on milestones and goals. This is not time for meetings. It’s time designated for focusing and preparing for everything on his/her plate.”

She defines FLEX as “It sends the cultural message that your manager wants his team to FLEX and get as much work done as possible every Friday afternoon so they can enjoy their weekends and come back refreshed the following Monday and accomplish even more.”

This is how you take control of accomplishing big goals that get lost in the reactions to everyday life. This is how you integrate mental health into your days. When your life gets too crowded with “fires” you need to put out, it is up to you to make time for the things that matter.

Conclusion

Are these three examples relevant to how you can create more white space and focus on your creative work? Maybe, maybe not. But they are practical ways to illustrate control when it seems that you are overwhelmed by other people’s priorities.

How do you create white space?

Thanks!
-Dan

I have written a lot about the value of collaborators in your creative work. How there is a difference between creating art for the sake of your own personal experience, and in wanting to share it with the world.

In working with hundreds and hundreds of writers, I often hear things like:

“An agent said they wanted to see me have at least 10,000 Twitter followers.”

Today, I would like to share my impression of what agents, publishers, and any collaborators want to see from you and why. If you do other types of creative work, this advice applies. Perhaps you are an artist who seeks a gallery show or a licensing deal; a musician who seeks a producer or label; an entrepreneur who seeks investors or a co-founder. All of the advice below is about how to help collaborators help you.

Now, I am not an agent. I’m not a publisher. I’m someone who works with authors & creative professionals to help them connect their work with an audience. So this is my interpretation after working with so many wonderful authors, agents, and publishers. But an agent or publisher may be reading this, and will want to clarify with their own feedback. I do not pretend to speak for them. My goal is only to try to give writers more clarity to understand how to be great collaborators.

Okay, let’s dig in…

Write an amazing book that resonates

This is always number one on the list.

Of course, the first thing that an agent or publisher values is an amazing book.

The only thing I would add here is this: they want to see something that resonates. How often have you read a super popular book, and said to yourself, “The writing here is crap.” Or “this is a rip off of 1,000 other stories.” Even if you are correct, the bottom line is: something about it resonated with a massive audience.

Too often, writers hide behind the notion of “quality” in the marketplace. The marketplace does respect “quality,” but they may define it differently. Of course, you should focus on craft work of the highest quality. But you should be aware that “quality” can be defined in different ways. Quality is something that resonates like a laser focus to the heart. And the bottom line is: different people, different tastes.

Say what you want about some popular authors or creators: they know how to move someone. To get people to keep turning pages. Keep buying books. Keep telling friends about them.

Each agent or publisher will have their own definition of a “great book” or “quality.” All I would suggest is: don’t be constrained by a limited notion of what this means. For instance: I have seen platforms around historical romance novels that were too bogged down in historical accuracy. In other words, 99% of what the reader saw was an overwhelming amount of accuracy, but a story, dialogue, characters that didn’t resonate. No doubt that author spent countless hours researching, ensuring the highest level of historical accuracy. To them, they felt they were doing right because this was there definition of “quality.” Are they wrong? Nope. But if they want to resonate with readers, they may have to broaden that view to include other things, like working more on the plot, characters, dialogue, etc.

Likewise, a nonfiction author may rely too much on stats, or perhaps not enough. A memoir may be too bogged down with a moment by moment, play by play of their life, which is “accurate” (and therefore “high quality”) but does not resonate with readers because it doesn’t move them. There are many ways to tell the same story, and if your goal is to engage others, you have to experiment with them.

This is why I encourage writers who want to reach an audience to engage with others. It could be other authors, or readers, or librarians, or booksellers, or so many others. No, this is not to say that you should write to a market, selling out your own vision. It is about understanding how to tell the best story you can by understanding what resonates and why.

There is no one perfect way to do this. I would simply encourage you to not get comfortable in a single way that makes sense to you because it is comfortable to you. A lot of books have been thrust into the marketplace with a quiet “thud” because of this. No readers, no sales, no reviews. What I am encouraging is for you to find out what resonates before you publish.

Can you get lucky with your query or your proposal, and have it instantly resonate with an agent, then a publisher, then readers? YES!!!! It happens. Just not as often as we would like.

For agents and publishers, they want to say “yes.” They want to wake up and be blown away by a story. But too often, their reality is about sorting through thousands of things that fall flat to them.

Come to them knowing what resonates with readers.

Some of this is about craft, some is understanding what a particular agent loves, and some of this is about breaking all of those rules. There are wonderful resources to help you explore this, starting with Writer Unboxed’s own Donald Maass.

Have a sense of who the core audience for the book is

A good partner for a book is someone working with them to get the book into reader’s hands. Who has a clear sense of who this book is for. That will be able to assist in marketing and promoting the book.

Too often, writers look to agents and publishers to know who the audience is, and what they may not realize is that agents & publishers are looking back at the author with the very same expectation.

So how can you, the author, help collaborators with understanding the core audience for your book?

Develop an audience for your writing, even if it is tiny. No, you don’t need 1,000 readers, but can you have 10? Or 7? Can you have experience understanding what resonates with your book from the perspective of others? What parts do people always talk about?

I was doing research for a client recently, and waded through hundreds of Amazon reviews for Outlander. It was fun to see the common themes that came up in the reviews:

• Readers focused on the story and characters first, historical accuracy second. To them, the historical accuracy was that was nice for context, but what they couldn’t stop talking about were the characters and story. I bring this up because, as I mentioned above, I have spoken with historical fiction authors who put story/character second, because they want to “make use of” their hundreds of hours of historical research. Again: know what resonates with readers.
• Readers kept saying “I never read romance, but I loved this book.” It was like they had to apologize or justify liking this book, which has strong romance themes. That would be amazing to know, as an author, that this book would resonate with an audience who normally distances themselves from romance, but loved it because of the romance themes.

What is it about your work that resonates with readers? Knowing this will help your collaborators understand how they can best connect it with more people. What can you tell them about who these readers are? This doesn’t have to be a peer-reviewed analysis with stats.

Think of it this way: often a band will tour and tour as they seek a record deal, or before they release their first album. Part of that process is to develop a sound, and to develop an audience. But it is also knowing who comes to their shows, what moments in a song get people to dance, get them to go crazy, and get them to hold up a lighter.

Knowing this about who resonates with your work and why, is an incredible gift you can give to those helping you share your book with the world.

Understand the current marketplace

Know your comps. In other words: the other books in the marketplace that a bookseller would shelve yours next to. Know why you align with some of them, where you fill in gaps.

Have a clear sense of who will buy this book, and proof that there is a market for it. An awareness of comparable titles in the marketplace and an analysis to prove this, along with insight into how you align, and where you are different from them.

To show a focus on genre-specific online centers,or related topic-specific areas online. These include social media, blogs, podcasts, media, and prominent people your ideal audience loves.

Publishing is a business, and if you are asking for collaborators to invest in you and your work, then take the marketplace seriously. Don’t pretend that doing so is “selling out,” or that “this is someone else’s job.”

Help them help you.

Develop the relationships you need to reach these people

If you are a professional, you need colleagues. These can be friendly relationships, formal partnerships, affiliations with organizations, connections to booksellers and librarians, or general engagement in the “community” to which your work matters.

Focus on this years before you think you are “ready.” Relationships with colleagues require trust, and that takes time. One day, you may reach out to these folks for emotional support, for advice, to ask for an introduction, to write an endorsement for your book, or to share it with others.

No, this shouldn’t be a selfish targeting of “influencers” whereby you judge the value of the “relationship” by how much they can promote your book. This is about being genuinely curious, helpful, and caring to the many people who you will be on this journey with.

These relationships don’t have to start in some huge way. Send an email saying something nice. Ask for advice that really matters. Go out of your way to help them out.

Have ideas for how to reach your ideal readers

Come up with marketing ideas on how to interest in your book. This may include: messaging, launch plans, contests, bulk purchases, promotions, bonuses, pre-orders, partnerships, events, or so much else.

Even if the ideas you come up with are nuts, it shows agents and publishers that you are someone who is working on behalf of the book to make it a success.

Develop direct channels to reach these potential readers

Show that you have an active social media platform, with a plan for growth, on channels that readers value. Maybe that includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, plus an established website and email newsletter focused on the themes of your book.

Too often, the “best practices” dictate that after you right a great book, the next thing to focus on is “Tweet your brains out!!!!” But I put social media lower on this list for a reason.

Now, I love social media. Looooooooove it. For every author I work with, we are highly engaged in social media. But I think people get distracted by the technology, and miss the point: this is about people. Let’s have Steve Jobs explain it, here is an excerpt from a 1994 interview:

INTERVIEWER: You’ve often talked about how technology can empower people, how it can change their lives. Do you still have as much faith in technology today as you did when you started out 20 years ago?

STEVE JOBS: Oh, sure. It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people. Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them. It’s not the tools that you have faith in — tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not.

I love authors. I love agents and publishers. Every day, I try to have empathy for their goals and challenges.

What does an agent or publisher want from an author? A great book. And help in connecting it with the world in a meaningful way.

What do you feel makes a great collaborator?

Thanks.
-Dan