I grew up in a churchgoing household, and often had to suffer through Sunday School and Vacation Bible School sessions that were more than a little dumbed down. And when we’d talk about praying to the Big G, our teachers would always tell us that He wouldn’t respond in words, but rather with one of three messages: “Yes,” “No” or “Wait.”

Personally, I never liked that aspect of religion — as far as I was concerned, if God gave me a mouth to speak and ears to hear, why couldn’t He just talk to me directly? It’s a mystery I still don’t have an answer to. But as it happens, “Yes,” “No” and “Wait” are the three types of answers you’ll hear any time you are asking another human being or organization for support of some kind,  especially when it comes to creative works. Sadly, while I’ve seen many articles that tell aspiring writers how to elicit a “yes,” I haven’t seen many talking about what it means to “wait” or receive the all-too-common “no.”

And while this article might not be too helpful to those seeking spiritual answers from the Big Guy in Charge, it should be quite helpful to those seeking practical knowledge about gaining traction in the world of publishing.

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So let’s be honest here –I never set up this blog with the intention of updating it every single day. But now that some of my articles are starting to get picked up by search engines and linked by readers, I’m seeing a lot more traffic than I used to.

So, it’s time for me to start updating again with more of my latest research.

But in the meantime, here’s a quick update on what I’m doing these days.

First of all, I’ve been quietly building up marketing momentum for my next book, Code of the Wild: North American Wolverine Vs. Timber Wolf, which is hand-painted by the incredible Jason Maranto. You can read all about the book at http://www.codeofthewild.com, but you can also check out this cool video I made to get a glimpse of the first book:

I’m also credited in the upcoming seriesDog Eaters, which I adpted from the screenplay by Malcolm Wong. It’s coming out as a 6-part comic book series in November, and a graphic novel next spring. You can read more about it at http://www.dogeaters-manga.com.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve had a big change in my life lately as I’ve transitioned from earning my undergraduate degree in business administration to working towards my Master’s in Marketing Research. It’s time-intensive, but one of the perks of the program is that I was placed in an internship with a small marketing research firm in St. Louis called The Research & Planning Group. It’s taken me a few weeks to get adjusted to the new schedule (particularly since I’ve been taking some time to make adjustments to my personal life as well by exercising more and devoting more time to reading), and I’ve had a hard time staying focused on the publishing side of things.

But the good news is that I’ve been writing fragments of articles in OneNote over the last month, and I’m ready to start finishing them up and posting them. I think a lot of them will be very valuable to aspiring publishers, especially my pieces about STP (Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning) and the Blue Ocean Strategy (which comes from a book I just read). I’ve also been clipping articles about the Amazon Kindle, comics as an educational tool, and the future of the publishing industry, all of which I intend to discuss in upcoming pieces.

I do want to thank those who have taken the time to approach me for work as of late. I apologize that I’ve had to turn some of you away, but as my next article will discuss, sometimes, being told “no” is the best thing that can happen to a creative person… and sometimes, being told to “wait” is one of the worst!

With that said, enough about me. Onto the articles!

-SJJ