Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Anne R. Allen What is the Slow Blog Manifesto? It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy. Slow Blogging is modeled on Alice Walker’s “slow food” movement (the opposite of McBurgerish “fast food.”) The point is quality over quantity. Todd wrote: “Slow Blogging is […]
by Anne R. Allen For a new writer, this can seem like a terrifying time to be launching a career. Everything in the publishing industry is in upheaval. Bookstores are closing all around us. Publishers and online retailers are conducting high-profile battles in the legal system as well as the court of public opinion. (If you want a […]
by Anne R. Allen Guest posting on blogs is a great marketing tool. The frenzy for blog tours seems to have quieted down a bit recently, but whether you’re launching a new title, promoting an editorial service, or simply building platform, providing content for other people’s blogs is still an effective way to reach potential new readers […]
by Anne R. Allen I’ve had a number of people ask me that “now what” question in the last few months. There’s tons of info out here in Cyberia, but not everybody knows how to access it. And along with the good info, there’s plenty of bad—especially from predatory vanity publishers and bogus agents. So here are some basics. […]
This week we have a returning guest, literary author and college professor Samuel Park. Last year when he visited us, Samuel had just published his first novel, THIS BURNS MY HEART with Simon and Schuster. (And he told us NOT to kill our darlings.) His spectacular reviews are the kind most of us just fantasize about.) Now he’s preparing for […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Anne R Allen’s Blog With Ruth Harris