A WORDSLINGER 10-SHOT
Every successful writing career is built on mistakes. I’ve made plenty of them.
In this Wordslinger 10-Shot, I share some of my biggest failures as a writer—from falling for a literary agent scam and spending thousands on things that didn’t move my career forward, to signing a publishing contract without proper representation and eventually burning myself out trying to keep up an impossible pace.
The point isn’t to avoid failure entirely. You can’t. The goal is to learn from it, recognize the warning signs earlier, and make better decisions the next time around.
If you’re building a career as a writer, author, creator, or creative entrepreneur, learn from my mistakes—and then go make some new, brilliant failures of your own.
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TIMECODES:
00:00 Why I talk about my accomplishments
00:46 My biggest failures as a writer
01:25 Falling for a literary agent scam
02:28 Paying for expensive book reviews
04:44 How to recognize publishing scams
05:08 My traditional publishing contract mistake
06:50 Why I walked away from the publishing deal
07:34 Making six figures—and burning myself out
09:33 The danger of pushing too hard
10:24 Why writers should have contracts reviewed
11:21 The biggest red flag with literary agents
12:01 Advice about writing contests and competitions
14:18 Why I talk openly about failure
15:03 Experience, confidence, and taking criticism
16:05 Why failure is part of success
16:46 Go fail fabulously
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And tell me in the comments: What’s one mistake or failure in your writing career that taught you something valuable?
FIND KEVIN:
Find Kevin and his books:
https://kevintumlinson.com
Join Kevin on Substack:
https://kevintumlinson.substack.com
Wordslinger Podcast home page:
https://wordslingerpodcast.com
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