Anne R. Allen's Blog... with Ruth Harris
Writing about writing. Mostly.
Facebook ads work to reach the elusive niche reader by Barbara Morgenroth Eight years ago when I began a second career as an indie author after many years in traditional publishing as well as television, my middle grade book, Impossible Charlie, was the only new book in its category. Total book visibility! By the […]
We’re honored this week to host literary agent Laurie McLean of the Fuse Literary Agency. If you’re looking for an agent, we have great news for you! Although Laurie is not accepting unsolicited submissions, she will accept queries from readers of this blog! Scroll down for more info in Laurie’s bio. And now, here’s Laurie!… […]
by Anne R. Allen Should I pay to copyright my manuscript? Will a publisher or agent steal my plot from a query? How can I protect my ideas? We get asked these questions a lot. Until recently, our standard answer was: “Stop worrying about it. Your work is automatically copyrighted as soon as you type […]
by Ruth Harris What’s a Style Sheet? Look, guys, I don’t want to freak you out but, if you’re writing a book (or a short story or a novella), you need a style sheet. If you plan to self-pub, a style sheet will save your sanity while you’re writing—and after because a style sheet will […]
by Mark Williams How would you like to double, triple or even quadruple your titles without writing a single extra word? Think E Unum Pluribus. The United States’ original motto “E Pluribus Unum” translates as “From Many, One”, a reference to the creation of one country – the USA – from the myriad colonies that fought the British […]
Get Instant Relief Without Dangerous Drugs, Messy Creams Or Exhausting Exercise! by Ruth Harris Writers write—except when we’re staring into space or out the window, at a blank screen or an unfinished sentence.From first draft to final draft, we spend a lot of our time looking for help, info, inspiration. Which is why the right […]
by Anne R. Allen A lot of marketing gurus are advising authors to cut back on blogging and social media and go back to the email marketing of the last decade. “The author with the biggest mailing list wins,” has become a mantra with self-publishing gurus. Go to most blogs and websites these days […]
We’re jazzed to have a visit this week from one of the most respected journalists in the publishing industry. Porter Anderson‘s resumé includes CNN, The Dallas Times Herald, and the Village Voice. He also writes for online biggies like Writer Unboxed, ThoughtCatalog, and FutureBook. He visits most of the major publishing industry conferences worldwide […]
by Anne R. Allen I’m not going to pretend that picking a title for your book is easy. In fact, it gets tougher all the time. We have to consider a lot more than how grabby a title looks on a bookstore shelf these days. In choosing a title now, we have to think […]
by Anne R. Allen Last month the Seattle Times reported that Amazon is suing a bunch of paid review mills. Unfortunately, many paid review sites don’t feel they’re doing anything wrong. A spokesman for one of the companies Amazon is suing said: “We are not selling fake reviews. However we do provide Unbiased and […]
by Anne R. Allen Internet spam! Everybody hates it, right? Not only is it annoying, but vigilante groups can be cruel in enforcing anti-spam rules. But here’s the thing: not everybody defines “spam” the same way. I thought I knew what was acceptable on social media. I know that it is social and shouldn’t be be used for direct […]
by Anne R. Allen Let’s face it. Authors do a lot of obnoxious things online in the name of “marketing.” I think that’s because the average author isn’t educated in the field and we don’t realize that not all marketing is created equal. Good marketing is not about bullying your customers. It’s about enticing […]
by Anne R. Allen A few years ago, soon after the debut of the Kindle e-reader, the world was buzzing with talk of self-published “Kindle Millionaires” like Amanda Hocking and John Locke, and big publishers were beating a path to the doors of all the newly successful self-published ebook writers. Even modestly successful self-publishers […]
