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June 1, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 61 Comments

How Book Launches Have Changed in the Digital Age

How Book Launches Have Changed in the Digital Age

by Anne R. Allen Most writers have been picturing it since we started scribbling ideas for our first novel. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel, the goal that keeps us slogging along, the Holy Grail of our writing journey— It’s your BIG BOOK LAUNCH PARTY!! We’ve watched the scene in so many […]

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Filed Under: E-Books and Technology for Writers, Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Publishing Business, The Writing Life Tagged With: Amazon countdown, Blog tour, book launch party, Facebook launch pages, Ghostwriters in the Sky, Google Plus Hangouts, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age, how to launch an ebook, The Lady of the Lakewood Diner

May 18, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 71 Comments

Tweet THIS, Not That! 12 Things Not to do on Twitter

Tweet THIS, Not That! 12 Things Not to do on Twitter

This Week Twitter rolled out its new “mute” function for mobile phones. Muting will soon be available on all devices including your PC. That means you’ll be able to mute anybody who tweets too often or annoys you with spam.  So it will be more important than ever to avoid annoying your Tweeps.  Here’s some […]

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Filed Under: Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: author branding, Author Platform, How not to spam, How to Tweet, Molly Greene, Schmoozing on Twitter, social media etiquette, social media for authors, Social Media Marketing

May 11, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 69 Comments

The New Golden Age of Short Fiction: 12 Reasons to Write a Short Story This Month

The New Golden Age of Short Fiction: 12 Reasons to Write a Short Story This Month

by Anne R. Allen I recently heard from a writer who said she felt disrespected by her writing group. They were all working on novels and memoir and didn’t take her short fiction work seriously.I saw another writer on Google Plus asking for help because his work kept coming in at around 40 pages—like that […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: Day One magazine, Kindle Serials, Kindle Singles, Shirley S. Allen, short fiction, short is the new long, short stories, Short stories made into films, Short story markets

May 4, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 129 Comments

How To Write For the 21st Century Reader: 6 Tips to Modernize Your Prose

How To Write For the 21st Century Reader: 6 Tips to Modernize Your Prose

by Anne R. Allen   Publishing isn’t the only thing that’s being transformed by the digital age. Reading and writing themselves are evolving.We may not like it, but as writers, we need to be aware that our audience’s habits are changing. Last month I wrote about how to format your blog for easy skimming, and unfortunately, […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, E-Books and Technology for Writers, Writing Craft Tagged With: 21st Century prose, 21st Century readers, advice for writers, book editing, Camilla Randall mysteries, How to write a bestselling novel, how to write Web content, James Patterson

April 20, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 125 Comments

How to Write Blog Content: 9 Tips to Entice Readers to Your Author Blog

How to Write Blog Content: 9 Tips to Entice Readers to Your Author Blog

 Blog content is easy to write if you know a few tricks by Anne R. Allen You started a blog. Congratulations! But nobody’s reading it. Sigh. Don’t give in to despair. It takes a while to build a readership. Usually a long while. For the first six months I blogged, my followers consisted of my […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers, Writing Craft Tagged With: 21st Century prose, Ann Timmons, Author blogs, C. Hope Clark, Google Authorship, How, how to blog, how to write Web content, Janet Reid, Publisher's Lunch, SEO for authors, What to blog about

April 13, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 138 Comments

The 10 Commandments of Social Media Etiquette for Writers

The 10 Commandments of Social Media Etiquette for Writers

by Anne R. Allen   When I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the importance of commenting on blogs to raise your social media profile, I forgot to say one essential thing—probably because I figured it’s something your mom told you—but for those who’ve forgotten, here it is… If you don’t have anything nice to say, […]

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Filed Under: Social Media and Marketing For Writers, Writing Craft Tagged With: Amazon reviews, Goodreads, how to blog, Internet trolls, Screwpulp, social media etiquette, Social Media Marketing, Sock Puppets, Wil Wheaton's Law

April 6, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 73 Comments

10 Ways Pre-Published Writers Can Start Establishing Their Careers NOW

10 Ways Pre-Published Writers Can Start Establishing Their Careers NOW

  Today’s guest post is from freelance writer Sarah Allen (no relation that we know of, but we do have a lot of things in common, including the agreement that Colin Firth is THE greatest Mr. Darcy, and a tendency to knee-weakness at the sight of Benedict Cumberbatch’s cheekbones). She is still in the query […]

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Filed Under: Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: A-Z April Challenge, Authors Anonymous, how to start a writing career, Poets and Writers, Pre-published writers, Sarah Allen, Why Short Stories are Hot, writers conferences, writing contests

March 23, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 237 Comments

Building Platform: What Most Writers are Getting Wrong

Building Platform: What Most Writers are Getting Wrong

by Anne R. Allen   Writers know we need a “platform” these days. That means we need to be on Twitter and FaceBook and Google+ and LinkedIn and Pinterest and Tumblr and have a blog with a ton of followers and get 100s of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and drive ourselves batty keeping up […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Self-Publishing, Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: Catherine Ryan Hyde, Click farms, Elizabeth S. Craig, Facebook, Google rank, Kristin Nelson, Sarah Burnes, Scratch magazine, social media for authors, Social Media Marketing, The Passive Voice

March 16, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 76 Comments

The Changing Role of Literary Agents and New Submission Guidelines: Read Before You Query (or Self-Publish)

The Changing Role of Literary Agents and New Submission Guidelines: Read Before You Query (or Self-Publish)

  This week I’m totally jazzed to host my agent, Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg (aka Pam Howell) . She’s one of the new breed of agents at the cutting-edge literary agency, Foreword Literary, founded by “Agent Savant” Laurie McLean. Pam represents the book I wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age: […]

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Filed Under: E-Books and Technology for Writers, Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Publishing Business Tagged With: Agent Laurie McLean, Agent submission guidelines, Foreword Literary, Golden Quill Awards, Kristin Nelson, Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, Porter Anderson, When to query an agent, Writing on the Ether

March 9, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 258 Comments

Are You Ignoring This Simple Platform-Building Tool? How to Comment on a Blog

Are You Ignoring This Simple Platform-Building Tool? How to Comment on a Blog

by Anne R. Allen Platform. It’s a scary word to a lot of authors. Some of us obsess too much about it and waste time on pointless overkill. (More about how to skip the time-wasting stuff in my post, 7 Ways Authors Waste Time Building Platform.) But others ignore it entirely, but that’s not smart. The […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Publishing Business Tagged With: Alexa Ratings, blogging for beginners, blogging tips, building platform, Gravatar.com, How to comment on a blog, How to sign up for Google+, Kristen Lamb, Meg Wolfe, Nathan Bransford

March 2, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 144 Comments

Is There a Place for the Slow Writer in the Digital Age?

Is There a Place for the Slow Writer in the Digital Age?

by Anne R. Allen   We live in a speed-obsessed culture. Whatever it is we crave—cars, trains, electronics, food, dates—we want them ever-faster-and-furiouser. In fact, much of the developed world seems to be engaged some turbo-charged drag race of the soul, hurtling our frenzied selves from cradle to grave, terrified of slowing for even a […]

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Filed Under: Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: Alex J. Cavanaugh, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Dean Wesley Smith, Delilah Marvelle, Donald Maass, Heinlein's Writing Rules, hybrid authors, Rachel Aaron, slow blogging, Writing and Depression

February 16, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 73 Comments

Guest Blogging for Authors: 10 Tips to Help You Land Those Valuable Guest Blog Gigs

Guest Blogging for Authors: 10 Tips to Help You Land Those Valuable Guest Blog Gigs

 by Anne R. Allen Guest blogging is a great way for writers to improve visibility. Most host bloggers will allow you to link to your website and to your book “buy” pages, so the post can both improve your name recognition and sell books. It’s free advertising and boosts your search engine rank. Some authors […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Self-Publishing, Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: Author Platform, Book Marketing, Chuck Wendig, Greg Strandberg, Guest blogging, How to be a good blog guest, How to query a book blogger, Jon Morrow, Ruth Harris, The Best Revenge

February 2, 2014 By Anne R. Allen 68 Comments

Six More Pieces of Bad Advice for Writers to Ignore

Six More Pieces of Bad Advice for Writers to Ignore

by Anne R. Allen   Two weeks ago I wrote a post listing some of the bad writing advice that can stand in the way of launching a successful publishing career. But I had too much to run in one post, plus I got some great suggestions from readers in the comments. So this week we have […]

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Filed Under: Social Media and Marketing For Writers, The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: Elizabeth S. Craig, How much do writers make?, Joel Friedlander, Lexi Revellian, what if somebody steals your plot?, Writing myths

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writers digest 101 best websites for writers award

Anne R. AllenAnne R. Allen writes funny mysteries and how-to-books for writers. She also writes poetry and short stories on occasion. She’s a contributor to Writer’s Digest and the Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market.

Her bestselling Camilla Randall Mystery Series features perennially down-on-her-luck former socialite Camilla Randall—who is a magnet for murder, mayhem and Mr. Wrong, but always solves the mystery in her quirky, but oh-so-polite way.

Ruth Harris NYT best selling authorRuth is a million-copy New York Times bestselling author, Romantic Times award winner, former Big 5 editor, publisher, and news junkie.

Her emotional, entertaining women’s fiction and critically praised novels have sold millions of copies in hard cover, paperback and ebook editions, been translated into 19 languages, sold in 30 countries, and were prominent selections of leading book clubs including the Literary Guild and the Book Of The Month Club.

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