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 […]
Rejection 101: What Authors Should NEVER Do When They Get Rejections
I know. Rejections hurt. But they’re also a necessary part of your career as an author. So when you get your first one, give yourself time to feel the pain, then do something to celebrate. Maybe even print it out and frame it. Yup. You read that right. Congratulations! You now have the one thing […]
Is Your Author Website Working Against you? Top 10 Things to Avoid on your Author Site or Blog
by Anne R. Allen I visit a lot of author websites and blogs. Most are delightfully creative. I love how so many of the sites—especially the blogs—express the author’s personality and genre in a unique and clever way. But then there are the others… I’m talking about the sites that seem to have forgotten […]
Top 10 Questions from New Writers: Answers to Your Most Burning Questions
by Anne R. Allen We welcome questions from readers, and we always try to offer an answer or at least steer you to a place where you can find one. A good place to get more detailed information is a book I co-wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde: How to be a Writer in the E-Age…and […]
Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing? Which is the Right First Step for YOU?
by Anne R. Allen The list of million-seller “indie” authors is growing every day. Self-publishing has not only become mainstream—it’s edgy and cool. Persuasive blogs by self-publishing stars like Joe Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, David Gaughran and Kris Rusch have inspired a staggering number of new writers to self-publish in the past two years. […]
How a 91-year-old Author’s Debut Mystery Hit the Bestseller List
by Anne R. Allen NEVER GIVE UP ON YOUR DREAMS! Recently, my publisher, MWiDP, relaunched Shirley S. Allen’s cozy mystery, ACADEMIC BODY as an ebook. Sales had slowed for the print version published by Mainly Murder Press in 2010, but Mark Williams saw my ad for the book on this blog, read it and loved […]
Social Media vs. a New York Times Book Review Cover: Which Sells More Books?
by Anne R. Allen Yesterday Catherine Ryan Hyde and I spoke with a wonderful bunch of eager authors at the Digital Authors Seminar in San Luis Obispo. They were full of lots of great questions, some of which I’ll address here on the blog in coming weeks. We talked about the two events that […]
What if Hollywood Rewrites Your Book? Survival Tips from Catherine Ryan Hyde
First: The big day has arrived!The ebook version of HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…And Keep Your E-Sanity which I wrote with my mentor Catherine Ryan Hyde is now available on Amazon from MWiDP. For a limited time, the e-book price will be $2.99 in the US and roughly the equivalent in the UK. (This book […]
The Slow Blog Manifesto…and 8 Reasons Why Slow Blogging Will Help Your Career, Your Love Life, and Protect You From Angry Elephants
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]