A lot of bookish blogs have posted predictions for 2014. But I’m only making one prediction for the new year: writers will need to start thinking globally. Growth of ebook sales in the US and UK has slowed, but the markets abroad are growing fast. Eoin Purcell wrote in the Irish Times last week: “Ebooks outside of the US […]
Is Writing a Hobby or a Profession for You? Why Either Path Can be a Good Choice.
by Anne R. Allen If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to become a successfully published author, it’s a good idea to consider first what that means to you.What is your personal definition of success?Do you want to be a professional writer or a hobbyist? Before you burst into high dudgeon and say, […]
6 Writing Dragons: How To Slay Them…and Realize Your Writing Dreams in 2014
Why Tough (Self-) Love (and Some Dragon-Slaying) Will Get You Where You Want To Be Next Year by Ruth Harris The reasons (excuses?) for not writing/not getting your book finished often come down to six usual suspects: 1) The Procrastination Dragon As if you don’t know what I’m talking about. 😉 But, just in […]
The Rules of Writing…and Why Not To Follow Them
by Anne R. Allen Somerset Maugham famously said, “There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are.” But pretty much everybody you meet in the publishing business will give you a list of them. (One is “never start a sentence with ‘there are’” —so watch yourself, Mr. Maugham.) Last year I […]
Author Collectives: The “Third Path” to Publication. Is it Right for You?
Liza Perrat contacted me a few months ago, asking for permission to quote me in a book about her author collective, Triskele Books. I’ve been fascinated by the idea of authors forming their own publishing companies, so I asked if she’d like to guest post for us. I was eager to hear more about her […]
The Secret to Writing the Dreaded Synopsis…and its Little Friends: the Hook, Logline, and Pitch
by Anne R. Allen If you “won” at NaNo, and you’re madly editing that manuscript, you’re probably thinking about how you’re going to go about sending it into the marketplace.Or you may have spent years working on a manuscript and one of your New Year’s resolutions will be to get it published.Whether you’re going to […]
Why Your Grandma Wants an E-Reader (Even if She Doesn’t Know It)
by Anne R. Allen If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably relatively tech-savvy. But now that we’re in the midst of holiday season, most of us are running into the inevitable friends and relations who are threatened by new technology and maybe even hostile to the whole idea of e-books and e-readers. Some of […]
How to Sell Your EBook: Ads, Promo, Marketing—Paid and FREE
Writer’s Toolkit #4 by Ruth Harris The old ways of publicizing books aren’t working so well in the E-Age. In 2011, editor Alan Rinzler famously said, “That $50K space ad in the New York Times? Forget it. It’s only for the author’s mother. The twenty-city bookstore tour with first class airplanes, limousines, and hotel […]
Are Your Family and Friends Sabotaging your Writing Dreams?
by Anne R. Allen Writers participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) may discover that friends and family aren’t entirely enthused by your decision to disappear into your computer for a month. (I have a secret suspicion that Chris Baty invented NaNo in order to escape those painful family Thanksgiving dinners.) But at any time of […]
How to Write Funny Novels…And Why You Shouldn’t
We’ve got a V.I.P. guest on the blog this week. She’s Melodie Campbell, bestselling author and the Executive Director of Crime Writers of Canada. She’s also hilarious. She contacted me last month because she liked one of my blogposts. (See, blogging is an effective networking tool!) She saw we share a love of funny books. […]
Sex Sells, Right? Maybe Not. Why you Might Want to Rethink those Steamy Scenes in Your Novel
by Anne R. Allen When my publisher asked me to remove the explicit sex scenes from my upcoming novel, The Lady of the Lakewood Diner I thought he was nuts. Sex sells, doesn’t it? Maybe not so much anymore. That screeching sound you hear is the abrupt U-turn the publishing industry is taking away from erotic […]
The Big “O” for Writers—Organization: The Writer’s Toolkit #3
by Ruth Harris This is Ruth Harris’s third installment in her Writer’s Toolkit series. You can read Writer’s Toolkit #2 here and Writers Toolkit #1 here. Today she’s talking about tools for organizing your research and ideas: very timely for me this week. I’ve been working on and off for months on researching my […]
Social Media Secrets for Authors, Part IV: How Not to Spam
by Anne R. Allen If you’ve ever wondered why unsolicited Internet advertising is named after a perfectly innocent meat product, blame Monty Python. In a famous 1970 sketch, the customers in a café are constantly drowned out by a chorus of Vikings singing “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!” Conversation is impossible […]
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