Navigating Amazon Ads

Changes to Amazon Advertising: What Authors Need to Know

Amazon has updated its advertising tools for authors, with mixed results. Kindlepreneur's Dave Chesson breaks down the pros and cons of the new advertising modes, improved dashboard, and better ad targeting in Amazon Ads.
love words

When Words Are What You Love Most of All

The writers who visit you in class, when you're still a student—especially if you're young and impressionable—these writers stick with you for a lifetime.
novel query problems

When Your Query Reveals a Story-Level Problem

When novelists struggle to pitch their work, it may have more to do with the book itself than the query letter. Editor and book coach Susan DeFreitas discusses three reasons why a promising work never lands a traditional deal.
A Primer on Estate Planning as a Writer

A Primer on Estate Planning as a Writer

Whether you start writing as a child or in your golden years, it's never too early to learn about estate planning. You may wonder which is best, a will or trust, for bequeathing your written work. Both have their advantages. Here's what you need to know.
contracts

3 Types of Contracts Every Writer Should Understand

Publishing relies on contractual relationships, but not all contracts are equally enforceable. Here's what you need to know about forms of legal contracts.
Rich Miller audiobook

Understanding Audiobook Production: An Interview with Rich Miller

How much input should an author have when it comes to the narrator's interpretation? When is feedback helpful, and when is it frustrating? What is a reasonable cost per finished hour of audio? An interview with Rich Miller.
plan first write later

The Myth of Plan First and Write Later

You don’t have to choose between planning and "simply writing." Do both, at different times, all the way through the novel writing process.
email newsletter growth

How to Grow an Email Newsletter Starting from Zero

Here is a step-by-step guide to building an email list of thousands within one year—primarily through giveaways and Facebook ads.
writing voice

Voice Is How You Dance on the Page

Voice: It's either there in the writing or it's not. And some writers haven't developed or "found" their voice yet.
marketing strategy tactics

Don’t Focus on Marketing Tactics at the Expense of Strategy

One of the hardest things to do—for any individual, organization, or business—is to define a vision and strategy. It involves diving deep into one's strengths and weaknesses, and understanding the market opportunities and threats. Talking strategy usually means dealing with uncomfortable realities, as well as risking disagreement with others.
repressed emotions in characters

The Inner Struggle: How to Show a Character’s Repressed Emotions

If a character is repressing an emotion, real-world behaviors can show it. Readers will catch on because they’ll recognize their own attempts to hide their feelings.
platform unpublished

Building a Platform for Your Work When You’re Unpublished

When I finished my biography, I studied how to get it published. Websites advised: platform, platform, platform. But I had no relevant background. Now what?
copyright term in the US

What Is Public Domain? (And Why 2019 Is a Big Year)

Photo credit: aestheticsofcrisis on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA Today's guest post is by intellectual property lawyer and novelist Brad Frazer
POV in memoir

The Tricky Issue of POV in Memoir

While it’s possible to write memoir from your own authorial POV (because you know more today than you did then), the most engaging memoirs are ones in which the author sticks to their POV at the moment of events.
balance budget

Balancing Your Submission Budget for Literary Journals

Although the world of submissions can be complex and expensive, balancing your submission budget doesn't have to be. Here are some tips to help you minimize expenditures and maximize profit.
looking up

Feeling Envious of Other Writers? Here’s a Solution.

Writer Anthony Doerr once told me something his father told him, and I'll paraphrase it poorly here: You're going to get your neck sunburned looking up all the time.
writing scenes

Questions to Consider When Plotting a Scene

Before writing a scene, determine what type of scene it’s going to be. Will it be a narrative scene? High-action scene? Low-energy dialogue scene?
community

Your No. 1 Secret Weapon: Writing Communities

Building a supportive network takes time and courage. It’s worth starting to cultivate community early on, even if your instinct or preference is to work alone.
story planning guides

Story Planning Books: 3 Approaches to Consider

Plot and structure books aren’t necessarily calling for adherence to a formula—in fact, they warn against it. Here are 3 story planning methods to consider.
literary journals

Lit Mag Resources You Can’t Do Without

Today's guest post is by Jenn Scheck-Kahn, founder of Journal of the Month. Literary magazines, also called literary journals or
bookbub ads

Using BookBub Ads to Support Your Book Marketing

Many authors use Facebook and Amazon to advertise their books. If you’ve tried these platforms without success or hesitate to spend the money, consider experimenting with BookBub ads.
define and describe your readership

How to Define and Describe Your Readership: A Confusing Issue for Nonfiction Book Proposals

If you’re pitching a nonfiction book, at some point, an editor or agent will expect you to describe the readership that your book is intended for.
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.
Holly Root and John Cusick

Switching Literary Agents: Two Agents Offer Advice

If you’re a writer, how do you know if it’s worth the risk of leaving your current agent? Does past representation impede your ability to find a new agent?
author SWOT analysis

Take Charge of Your Creative Life: The SWOT Analysis

When you understand your SWOT as an author, you can take control over your time. You can stop fighting fires, and start focusing on the things that will truly help you in the long run.
neurodiverse characters

How to Describe Neurodivergent Characters

How do you describe a character with Asperger’s—especially if your story takes place before such a thing had a name?
Amy Tipton

5 On: Amy Tipton

Freelance editor and former literary agent Amy Tipton discusses her love of young adult and middle grade fiction, the "unlikable female character," whether agents who don't want a manuscript will be likely to pass it along to an agent friend, her personal editing style, and more.
book marketing swag

How to Use Swag to Support Your Book Marketing

Meaningful swag offers the reader something connected to the book and something that’s memorable—but you need something that doesn't break the budget.
commitment nanowrimo

Something to Remember as NaNoWriMo Begins

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic,
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 useful articles I've found and shared thus far in 2018.
science fiction accurate

How to Research Your Writing to Ensure Technical Accuracy

Misconceptions pervade popular science fiction. Many, if not most, could have been avoided if the writers spent some time doing research.
five levels

How to Understand Your Reader’s Level of Awareness to Grow Your Fanbase

Readers start their journey to find new books in a broad sense, but eventually gain experience and understand more about what they are looking for. By understanding the awareness level of a reader, we can better position our books and gain long-term fans.
book exhibit budget

5 Tips for Selling Your Books at Events—on a Budget

It can be challenging to make back the cost of your books and the price of a table when exhibiting at a book festival. So, finding cheap but cool things to use at book events is essential.
sound smart

Don’t Be Too Smart or Clever in Your Book Descriptions

Publishers and authors can use sophisticated language to describe books—to sound unique, clever and smart. But readers describe books in more direct ways.
mirror

Writing Immigrant Characters: Avoiding Exoticism

When children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read, they learn a powerful lesson about how they are valued in society.
creativity wounds

Overcoming Creativity Wounds

There’s no one recipe to overcome a creativity wound, but putting a pen between your fingers and then resting it on a piece of paper is a pretty good start to finding one.
writing life time balance

3 Principles for Finding Time to Write

How do you navigate the writing life when you have an intense day job? Does such a thing as work-life balance exist?
Cai Emmons van tour

Pre-Publication Marketing: A Van Tour to Bookstores

Novelist Cai Emmons discusses how a van tour to meet booksellers in person helped her overcome her timidity toward book marketing.
Russell Rowland

5 On: Russell Rowland

Author Russell Rowland discusses the big mistake he made with HarperCollins, whether the journey of writing is truly its own reward, why his Indiegogo campaign worked so well, and his experiences with publishing—from one of the Big 5 to self-publishing.
nonfiction niche

6 Questions to Help Nonfiction Writers Find Their Niche

No matter how many books have been written about a topic, there is probably some important facet that has not yet been covered thoroughly or well. A key driver behind success is understanding how you fit into the existing landscape, what distinguishes your work, and why it is likely to appeal to a particular audience.
build traffic to your author website

10 Ways to Build Traffic to Your Author Website or Blog

This post was first published in 2012 and is regularly updated. First things first: an author's website, whether it gets
everything is connected

Writing for Connection Brings Both Hope and Fear

Do you write write according to your own internal motivations or creative impulses—with the intention to create serious art—or do you write hoping to create a bond between writer and reader?
instagram tips for writers

10 Instagram Tips for Writers

Younger generations (and older ones!) flock to Instagram for its feed of beautiful pictures. So how can writers use Instagram to their benefit?
fear of public speaking

How Writers Can Overcome Their Fear of Public Speaking

Public speaking skills are more akin to musical or athletic skills than intellectual knowledge alone. Mastery does not take place simply in your brain; it takes place in your body, in the “doing” of it.
how long to write a book

How Long Should It Take to Write a Book?

Writing a novel requires the creation of a living, breathing, fully populated world. Deities can pull off a trick like that in six days, but how long should it take to write a book?
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5 Steps to Writing Better How-To

Learn how to simplify the writing process for how-to books and write them in a way that provides maximum value in an information-filled world.
bookstore distribution

For Indie Publishers: When and Why to Work with a Trade Book Distributor

A trade distributor is a partner company who takes over the tasks and responsibilities of selling your books to trade accounts like bookstores and wholesalers.
curse of knowledge

Nonfiction Writers: Beware the Curse of Knowledge

Few of your readers care about what you know, no matter how many years you have spent accumulating that wisdom. They care about what they need or want to understand.
place in fiction

Fix Your Story By Focusing on Place

For beginning fiction writers, focusing on place is one of the easiest ways to improve stories that aren't quite working.
audiobook listening

Resolving My Cheater Shame: Listening to Books Instead of Reading Them

I’ve been air-quoting “reading” since my first legitimate introduction to audiobooks this past winter.