Chuck Wendig on Owning Your Voice and Choosing the Path of Your Career as a Writer

I’m excited to share my interview with bestselling author Chuck Wendig. He gets really honest about:

  • How he got a 3 book deal to write Star Wars book via a Tweet.
  • Why he says Twitter won’t help u sell books, but that it is filled with a lot of professional opportunities, giving you access to amazing people.
  • When Marvel approached him to write for a comic book series, they gave him a choice: a super popular one or a much less known series. He chose the lesser known book, because it would give him more creative freedom that would really leave a mark.
  • The not awesome jobs he took while trying to become a professional writer.
  • The reality of what it is like to make it as a freelance writer.
  • How he wrote four novels that no publisher wanted, were never published, and why he is thankful for that.
  • How he approached his last ditch effort as writing a successful novel differently, and why it worked.
  • How he changed his writing practice from taking 4-5 years to write a book, to writing the next one in 30 days.
  • The reality of what it is like to have your book optioned for a deal in Hollywood, to assemble a team, to get offices… and then have it fall apart.
  • Why he describes book series as having diminishing returns in terms of sales and audience, with each additional book.
  • How he got death threats because of his books, and how he dealt with it.
  • How when one opportunity closes, many new other opportunities open up.
  • The reason his new book, Wanderers is 280,000 words long, and how his publisher encouraged him to go where he needed to with it.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking ‘play’ below, or in the following places:

You can find Chuck in the following places: