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April 8, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 50 Comments

12 Myths About Being a Writer

12 Myths About Being a Writer

by Anne R. Allen   When you’re beginning to write, you’re likely to be bombarded with advice from all quarters—your family, your friends, your hairdresser, and that know-it-all guy at work. I don’t know why, but everybody who ever watched a few minutes of Oprah’s show seems to think they know all about the publishing […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, Book Luvin’ Babes, Catherine Ryan Hyde, How to Be a Writer in the E-Age, J. K. Rowling, James Patterson, Writing myths

April 1, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 85 Comments

Why You Should be Writing Short Fiction

Why You Should be Writing Short Fiction

  by Anne R. Allen Update: I’m so pleased this post has had thousands of hits over the last year and is energizing so many writers to take up short fiction. But I fear a number of readers don’t read the whole piece and assume I’m telling newbie writers to self-publish their first efforts at […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: Amazon Singles, Editor David Blum, Funds for Writers, Hope Clark, Jeff Carlson, Kindle Singles, Lawrence Block, Martini Madness, Short stories made into films, WG2E

March 18, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 56 Comments

When Should an Author Hire an Editor?

When Should an Author Hire an Editor?

by Anne R. Allen     First: This week marks the anniversary of that fateful day three years ago when I started this blog…and then promptly lost it. But luckily I found it a few months later, and this blog now gets an average of 12,000 hits a month on its four monthly posts and […]

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Filed Under: Scams and Alerts for Writers, The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: book doctors, book editing, Edit Ink scam, Freelance book editors, how much should you pay a book editor, Kristin Lamb, Natalie Whipple, proofreading, slow blogging

March 11, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 48 Comments

Are the Big Publishers Really Dying?

by Mark Williams   Today we have a different kind of post. And yes, it’s long. But our guest poster, author and publisher Mark Williams, has a lot to say.  Mark is the co-author of the thriller Sugar and Spice —the most popular self-published book in the UK for 2011. He has also started a […]

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Filed Under: E-Books and Technology for Writers, Self-Publishing, The Publishing Business Tagged With: Amazon monopoly, Big 6 publishers, Death of the Big 6, Gatekeepers, Mark Williams international Digital Publishing, MWiDP, Saffina Desforges, Self-published ebooks, Sugar and Spice

March 4, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 50 Comments

How Do You Learn To Be a Writer?

How Do You Learn To Be a Writer?

by Anne R. Allen I’m often approached by parents or grandparents of children who’ve shown a talent for writing. They ask how a child can learn to be a writer. Or sometimes a person going through a mid-life job change will ask my advice about going back to college to pursue a long-deferred writing dream. […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writing Craft Tagged With: 10 thousand-hour rule, Anne R. Allen, creative writing courses, How to be a Writer, how to write, Janet Reid, Kristen Lamb, Kristin Nelson, Malcolm Gladwell, Rachelle Gardner

February 19, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 54 Comments

How to Blog Part V: 12 Dos and Don’ts for Author-Bloggers

How to Blog Part V:  12 Dos and Don’ts for Author-Bloggers

by Anne R. Allen   This is the 200th post on this blog. Since I started it on Friday the 13th  in March of 2009, I’ve learned an awful lot. (The first thing I learned was that you have to actually post stuff. My second post wasn’t until late June.) Another thing I’ve learned is […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: 21st Century prose, Anne R. Allen, blogging for authors, blogging tips, building platform, CAPTCHA, Catherine Ryan Hyde, how to blog, Ruth Harris

February 12, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 52 Comments

Trolls, Sockpuppets, and Cyberbullies—How to Blog Part IV: Dealing with Difficult Blog Visitors

Trolls, Sockpuppets, and Cyberbullies—How to Blog Part IV: Dealing with Difficult Blog Visitors

by Anne R. Allen   Blogging is fun, and a wonderful way to network and build your author platform. But it’s not always rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes a visitor may disagree with you or be confrontational in some way. Nothing wrong with that. If it’s done in a friendly manner, disagreement can be an excellent […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, blogging pitfalls, Cyberbullying, Geek-chic, how to blog, Insult Ferrets, Internet bullying, Internet trolls, Luddite, Ruth Harris, Sock Puppets, Trolls

February 5, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 69 Comments

How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?

How to Blog Part III: What Should You Blog About?

by Anne R. Allen   When I teach blogging, the most frequent question I get is “What do I blog about?” (For info on what not to blog about, see Part II of this series: How Not to Blog ) A writer starting a blog right now faces two problems: 1)     There are already, like, a trillion writers out […]

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Filed Under: Blogging for Authors, Social Media and Marketing For Writers Tagged With: Alex J. Cavanaugh, building platform, C. S. Perryess, Camille LeGuire, Dani Amore, how not to blog, how to blog, Kristen Lamb, publishing business, slow blogging, What to blog about, Wordmonger

January 22, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 71 Comments

How to Write a Publishable Memoir: 12 Do’s and Don’ts

How to Write a Publishable Memoir: 12 Do’s and Don’ts

by Anne R. Allen They say we all have a book inside us—our own life story. The urge to put that story on paper is the most common reason people start writing. Adult education programs and senior centers everywhere offer courses in “writing your own life.” Memoir is the most popular genre at any writers […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: Ann Carbine Best, Anne R. Allen, Anne Schroeder, do’s and don’ts for writing a memoir, how to publish a memoir, how to write a memoir, Miss Snark, Sarah Woodbury, Tony Piazza, YourMemoir.co.uk

January 15, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 38 Comments

Rejection: Why it Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means

Rejection: Why it Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means

    NEWS: The book I’ve been writing with Catherine Ryan Hyde, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE—and keep your E-sanity! will be published by Mark Williams international  in June of 2012. The book will be available as an ebook that will include free six-month updates. AND it will also be available in paper in both a US and UK edition. We’ve […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writers Dealing with Reviews and Rejection Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, Catherine Ryan Hyde, How to be a Writer, Mark Williams international Digital Publishing, Pay it Forward, Walter's Purple Heart, Writing Workshop

January 8, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 45 Comments

Hooks, Loglines, and Pitches: What Every Writer Needs to Know

Hooks, Loglines, and Pitches: What Every Writer Needs to Know

by Anne R. Allen If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to start sending that masterpiece out into the marketplace, you’re going to run into words like “hook,” “logline,” and “pitch.” The terms come from the film industry, but they’re becoming standard in publishing as well. So what do they mean? Are they just sexy […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, Writing Craft Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, Catherine Ryan Hyde, how to pitch a book, Kathy Carmichael's pitch generator, Kristen Lamb, loglines, Miss Snark, The Wizard of Oz

January 1, 2012 By Anne R. Allen 44 Comments

Confessions of a Former Query Addict

Confessions of a Former Query Addict

  by Anne R. Allen   Happy 2012! What a year it’s been. Exactly a year ago, I woke on New Year’s Day to one of those emails that used to flood my brain with a mix of adrenalin, serotonin, and hope—a burst of euphoria that somehow made my life of constant rejection bearable. It’s […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business, The Writing Life, Writers Dealing with Reviews and Rejection Tagged With: Anne Gallagher, Benoit Lelievre, David Gaughran, Donna Hole, Gerry McCullough, indie publishing, Katheryn Smith, Kristen Lamb, Laura Morrigan, Meghan Derico, query hell, Ruth Harris, Small Publishers

December 28, 2011 By Anne R. Allen 27 Comments

I did it: I’ve Published Five Novels in Three Months! Here is #5

I did it: I’ve Published Five Novels in Three Months! Here is #5

THE BEST REVENGE  has been published by Popcorn Press! It’s another rom-com mystery, this time set in the 1980s—a prequel to GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY and SHERWOOD, LTD (an ebook now, with the paper version to follow in about a month.) Long before the events of GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY and SHERWOOD, in 1980s New York, a […]

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Filed Under: The Publishing Business Tagged With: Anne R. Allen, Camilla Randall mysteries, Plantagenet Smith, Popcorn Press, The Best Revenge

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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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