Avatar photoJane Friedman

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) has nearly 25 years of experience in the media & publishing industry. She is the publisher of The Hot Sheet, the essential newsletter on the publishing industry for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2019. In addition to being a professor with The Great Courses (How to Publish Your Book), she is the author of The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), which received a starred review from Library Journal. Jane speaks regularly at conferences and industry events such as Digital Book World and Frankfurt Book Fair, and has served on panels with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund. Find out more.
Audiobook Publishing and Distribution: Getting Started Guide for Authors
audiobook publishing
Everything authors need to know about the audiobook market, including retailers, distributors, and payments ...
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/ Publishing Industry
How to Build an Author Website: Getting Started Guide
How to Build an Author Website: Getting Started Guide
I strongly advocate all authors start and maintain a website as part of their long-term marketing efforts and ongoing platform ...
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/ Digital Media, domains, hosting, websites, WordPress
Want More People to Support Your Book? Don’t Make These 2 Mistakes.
Want More People to Support Your Book? Don't Make These 2 Mistakes.
A big mistake authors make is assuming that the influencer needs to read a copy of the book—or have a ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
Jane’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of a Writers Conference
Emerging Writers Festival
Here's what I've learned over 20 years about making the most of any writers conference, whether you're an attendee or ...
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/ Conferences & Events
The Complete Guide to Query Letters
Image: a pair of cufflinks with question marks on them.
The query letter has one purpose, and one purpose only: to seduce the agent or editor into reading or requesting ...
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/ agents, fiction writing, Getting Published, novel hook, query letters, traditional publishing
5 Common Story Openings to Avoid—If You Can Help It
morning coffee
While it's not wrong to open in these ways—and a great writer can make even the most pedestrian series of events ...
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/ Getting Published
My Must-Have Digital Media Tools: 2020 Edition
My Must-Have Digital Media Tools: 2020 Edition
My favorite digital media tools that have enhanced my productivity and creativity as a teacher, author, and entrepreneur ...
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/ Digital Media
Current Trends in Traditional Book Publishing: Fiction, Nonfiction and YA
book publishing industry
The rise of Millennial nostalgia and graphic novels, the decline of political tell-alls and publisher-driven marketing: all of this and ...
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/ Publishing Industry
Loss: The Exact Reason to Read and Write
empty train track
Loss can make fiction feel like an obnoxious waste of time. And maybe it is. But what if all of ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Sure, Write for Yourself—But Know Your Reader When It Comes Time to Sell
know your audience
Knowing your audience is key to book marketing and sales success ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
The People in Publishing I Learn From
Friedman DBW
The funny thing about being any good as a publishing commentator: it requires talking to many others, learning varied perspectives, ...
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/ Publishing Industry
Context: When a Story Demands More Than Plot
45 Years
Sometimes a story demands more than just a plot. You may want to create a context, a descriptive background that ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Public Libraries: How Authors Can Increase Both Discoverability and Earnings
Public Libraries: How Authors Can Increase Both Discoverability and Earnings
Libraries represent a valuable opportunity for a book discoverability and sales, but librarians may not know your book exists without ...
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/ Business for Writers, ebooks, libraries, self-publishing
Indiana in July: Beginner and Advanced Workshops for Writers
Jane speaking in Indiana in July
In late July, I'll be returning to my home state of Indiana to offer two workshops: one for beginning writers ...
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/ Conferences & Events
The Challenge of Book Cover Design
book cover design
Sharing your in-progress book cover on social media to solicit meaningful direction is like throwing a bomb into the creative ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
Identifying the Best Self-Published Books by State: The Indie Author Project
Identifying the Best Self-Published Books by State: The Indie Author Project
The Indie Author Project identifies the best self-published fiction by state; thirteen states participate so far. This year's national winner ...
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/ Author Q&A, indie publishing, libraries, Publishing Industry, self-publishing
Considering Your Reader Is Not Coddling Them
chair table el salvador
Which approach is right? Write only for yourself and in service of your vision OR write with an intended readership ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Getting a Memoir Published in a Difficult Market: Q&A with Margaret McMullan
Margaret McMullan memoir
Even a well-published and successful author can have a difficult time finding a home for a memoir. Margaret McMullan discusses ...
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/ Author Q&A, Publishing Industry
Upcoming Events and Classes with Jane
Jane Friedman speaking
This spring, I'll be on the road speaking at a wide range of events on the East Coast (and one ...
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/ Conferences & Events
The Myth of the Natural Writer
myth of the natural writer
There's a legendary joke about the writing life, often attributed to Margaret Atwood. It goes like this: A brain surgeon ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
When Words Are What You Love Most of All
love words
The writers who visit you in class, when you're still a student—especially if you're young and impressionable—these writers stick with ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Voice Is How You Dance on the Page
writing voice
Voice: It's either there in the writing or it's not. And some writers haven't developed or "found" their voice yet ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Don’t Focus on Marketing Tactics at the Expense of Strategy
marketing strategy tactics
One of the hardest things to do—for any individual, organization, or business—is to define a vision and strategy. It involves ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
Feeling Envious of Other Writers? Here’s a Solution.
looking up
Writer Anthony Doerr once told me something his father told him, and I'll paraphrase it poorly here: You're going to get your ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
How to Define and Describe Your Readership: A Confusing Issue for Nonfiction Book Proposals
define and describe your readership
If you’re pitching a nonfiction book, at some point, an editor or agent will expect you to describe the readership ...
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/ Getting Published, Publishing Industry
Feeling Stuck? Focus on a Single Sentence
Feeling Stuck? Focus on a Single Sentence
Focusing on the smallest thing you can accomplish: this is the magic trick to making progress or getting unstuck. ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Something to Remember as NaNoWriMo Begins
commitment nanowrimo
The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Marketing Advice Roundup: Best of the Last Year
Marketing Advice Roundup: Best of the Last Year
I regularly read and report on marketing trends that affect traditionally published and self-published writers. Today I'm sharing the most ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
Don’t Be Too Smart or Clever in Your Book Descriptions
sound smart
Publishers and authors can use sophisticated language to describe books—to sound unique, clever and smart. But readers describe books in ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
Writing Immigrant Characters: Avoiding Exoticism
mirror
When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are ...
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/ Writing Advice
3 Principles for Finding Time to Write
writing life time balance
How do you navigate the writing life when you have an intense day job? Does such a thing as work-life ...
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/ Business for Writers
Pre-Publication Marketing: A Van Tour to Bookstores
Cai Emmons van tour
Novelist Cai Emmons discusses how a van tour to meet booksellers in person helped her overcome her timidity toward book ...
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/ Author Q&A, Marketing & Promotion
10 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Author Website or Blog
build traffic to your author website
This post was first published in 2012 and is regularly updated. First things first: an author's website, whether it gets ...
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/ author platform, blogging, book marketing and promotion, Marketing & Promotion, SEO, WordPress
Writing for Connection Brings Both Hope and Fear
everything is connected
Do you write write according to your own internal motivations or creative impulses—with the intention to create serious art—or do ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Fix Your Story By Focusing on Place
place in fiction
For beginning fiction writers, focusing on place is one of the easiest ways to improve stories that aren't quite working ...
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/ Writing Advice
The First Half of 2018: Traditional Publishers Stand Strong with Nonfiction and Backlist
BookExpo 2018
Broadly, traditional print book sales continue to grow at about 2 to 3 percent per year, but growth is driven ...
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/ Publishing Industry
Author Income Surveys Are Misleading and Flawed—And Focus on the Wrong Message for Writers
author earnings
I don’t trust author-income survey results and I question their usefulness in improving the fortunes of writers. Too often it ...
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/ Business for Writers, Publishing Industry
How to Evaluate Small Publishers—Plus Digital-Only Presses and Hybrids
small presses
As the publishing industry has transformed in the digital age, small press activity has proliferated. Here's how authors can evaluate ...
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/ book publishing, digital publishing, e-publishing, Getting Published, getting published, Publishing Industry, small presses, traditional publishing
The Power of Silence in a Pitch Situation
silence conversation
Silence—or, in fact, just saying less—is an art that can be strategically practiced by authors who seek attention. It is ...
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/ Marketing & Promotion
You Have a Voice and It Means Something
In & Of Itself
Despite the notion that we are voiceless, the challenge of a good creative writing instructor is to teach students that ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Writing About Acts of Violence
Writing About Acts of Violence
Violence can be too sanitized, too tamed into a generic, pre-packaged mold, and so it can't yield the kind of ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Building Your Business Model as a Writer
Building Your Business Model as a Writer
Over the last month, I've been talking (and writing) about how to build a business model for career that suits ...
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/ Business for Writers
Building a Strong Author Platform: It’s Not Just About the Numbers
Writer Unboxed
A smart and strategic author should evaluate their platform strength on three levels: (1) ability to reach new readers, (2) ability to ...
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/ Business for Writers
Your Characters Don’t Have to Change to Be Compelling
Your Characters Don't Have to Change to Be Compelling
When a character "change" feels beautiful, it's because the character has confirmed what we've hoped or suspected all along. Maybe ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
What I Earned (and How) During My First Year of Full-Time Freelancing
What I Earned (and How) During My First Year of Full-Time Freelancing
In 2014, I made the leap from conventional employment to a full-time freelance career. Here's how I did it—and what ...
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/ Business for Writers
My New Book, The Business of Being a Writer, Is Now Available!
Business of Being a Writer
My newest book, The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), takes it on principle that learning about ...
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/ Business for Writers
AWP 2018: Tips on the Business of Writing and Publishing
AWP 2018: Tips on the Business of Writing and Publishing
For AWP 2018, I hired a team of writers to help me cover business-related sessions, as part of the launch ...
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/ Conferences & Events
You Must Write Through Many Bad Sentences
You Must Write Through Many Bad Sentences
Writer Jane Delury discusses the importance of showing up and writing regardless of the conditions you find yourself in, no ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
You Can’t Get to “Once Upon a Time” Without “What If?”
asking questions
Danielle Lazarin: "At every stage of my work, questions are my most essential writing tools. I use them to move ...
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/ Creativity + Inspiration
Is Writing Being Devalued by Giveaways and Cheap Ebooks?
indie authors and the value of free
There's growing unrest surrounding the proliferation of free and cheap books, particularly ebooks. The reasons for sharp discounts and giveaways ...
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/ Publishing Industry