Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
by Jodie Hurst Whether it’s making new music or creating social media personalities, AI has dabbled into everything around us, including writing. This brings us to the one major question – Will human writers become obsolete? While artificial intelligence programs can certainly assist writers with ideas and inspiration, some can completely replace writers in […]
By Laurie McLean, Fuse Literary Publishing woke up from the pandemic years of big backlist profits and came out of the gate swinging in 2023. Publishing houses did not buy as many books as in 2022. (Anecdotally, I sold 24 books in 2022 and had a million-dollar sales month, but I only sold 4 […]
by Anne R. Allen Last week a few readers clued me in on the loss of Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. That was the thing that allowed readers to browse the first few chapters of a book before plunking down their money. The feature allowed readers shopping for books on Amazon have the same opportunity […]
by Ruth Harris I’d been planning to write my April post about outlines. Which authors do outlines? And which ones don’t? (I don’t and neither does Anne). I’d done a bit of research and made some notes when along came AI, the hot new kid in town. How could I ignore AI when everyday I […]
by Vasalysa Zaturets You can write an award-worthy story, but nobody will find it out if your book cover design doesn’t appeal to the target audience. Book cover design matters, and here’s why: It creates the first impression and proves that the story deserves the readers’ time and money. No advertising campaign is possible […]
Website Mistakes Can Lose Book Sales by Nate Hoffelder No matter what industry you are in, the tech you use every day requires regular maintenance. You take your car in every few thousand miles. The office copier gets monthly visits from the service tech. And the software you’re using to write your next book gets […]
Choosing the right font takes skill by Jessica Bell A good designer will know exactly what style of font suits your design and genre, but if you intend to design your book covers yourself, there are some things worth knowing about fonts before you get started. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen covers on which you […]
by Sue Coletta When the buzz of TikTok started spreading, I wanted no part of it. With two Facebook accounts, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Goodreads, etc. the last thing I needed was another social media site. I could barely juggle the audience I’d amassed on social media over the last twelve years. Then I […]
by Anne R. Allen Social Media Executor? That may not be a term you’re familiar with, but believe me, you need one. That hit home for me this week after the tragic death of my friend, the kind, talented, funny author Barbara Silkstone. I hadn’t heard from her for a month or two, so […]
by Anne R. Allen I’ve blogged before with tips on choosing a book title, but recently I’ve become aware of a few other things we need to consider in the age of online bookselling. I ruminated about titles over the holidays, when I had a chance to read some titles from my TBR pile, and […]
The audiobook market is booming! By William L. Hahn When Love and Need Become One So here comes a heaping helping of what’s good for my soul. I’ve always told tales. I just had trouble, the first fifty years or so, believing that people would pay me to tell them. But I had a revelation […]
Self-publishing isn’t about the author. It’s about pleasing the reader. by Anne R. Allen Easy self-publishing and the introduction of the e-reader brought seismic changes to the publishing world a decade ago. The “Kindle Revolution” propelled a bunch of smart authors from the slush pile to the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists. Suddenly writers had […]
Now authors can make DIY book covers with easy-to-use, drag-and-drop design apps by Ruth Harris In the early days of self-publishing, authors who didn’t know know coding had to hire formatters to make their books cyber-ready. Since then, formatting has become part of many writing programs. Word processors like MSWord, Scrivener and Pages will output […]
