When You Shouldn’t Hire and Pay For a Professional Editor
There are many good reasons to hire a professional editor, but also a number of compelling reasons to hold off and save your money.
Category Archives: Guest Post
Secrets to Developing the Best Title for Your Nonfiction Book
If you’re pitching your book to agents or editors, the perfect title for your book will define your subject and grab their positive attention. It should be a label they can confidently share with colleagues in editorial board meetings and use to convince the powers-that-be to release money to acquire your book.
Writing Secondary Characters That Pop—And Sell More Books
Series have become extremely popular, and secondary characters are now in the spotlight. Readers enjoy trying to spot the next potential hero or heroine.
How Time Zone Differences Affect Your Book Marketing
Do you know what time it is in Mumbai, India? Knowing time differences in the countries where you sell books is key to social media engagement, and ultimately sales.
Using Amazon Ads to Sell a YA Novel: A Detailed Analysis
While Amazon sponsored ads haven’t been a marketing miracle, I also haven’t lost that much money—and copies of my YA novel have sold at a steady pace.
Self-Publishing a Debut Literary Novel: The Actions, The Costs, The Results
A self-published author breaks down her expenses and resulting sales after promoting on social media and email, paying for reviews, advertising, and more.
5 On: Dario Ciriello
Author Dario Ciriello talks about breaking writing rules, what publishing other writers taught him about the business, and how little he as a writer cares about what other writers think.
The Marketing Rule You Can’t Forget
When I work on a project—with clients, but particularly with my own writing—I start by acknowledging a blunt but important truth: Nobody cares about what I have made.
Screenwriting Techniques to Strengthen Your Novel: Q&A with Nina R. Sadowsky
Screenwriter and novelist Nina R. Sadowsky shares screenwriting techniques that have influenced her novel writing, and writers can learn from the screen.
The Difference Between a Press Release and a Pitch (You Need Both)
The two biggest mistakes in book publicity pitches: they are too long in length, and not pointed or provocative enough.
How to Choose and Set Up a Pen Name
You should consider how secret you want to be about your true identity. Maintaining secrecy is difficult. The higher the level of secrecy, the more complicated the process
5 Steps to Kick Your Marketing FOMO to the Curb
Marketing FOMO is more debilitating than distracting—and if you suffer from marketing FOMO, your marketing tasks will never be done.
How Do Literary Agents Approach Diversity?
How do agents—generally considered the gatekeepers to publishing companies—approach the issue of diversity in the publishing industry?
A Writer’s Worst Fear
Every writer’s pet fear stems from the mother of all fears: What other people think of what I write is more important than what I think of what I write.
How to Spot Toxic Feedback: 7 Signs That the Writing Advice You’re Getting May Do More Harm Than Good
If you recognize the following characteristics in the critiques of your work, it may not just be inept—it may, in fact, be toxic.
Classic Story Structures and What They Teach Us About Novel Plotting
Turns out there is only one universal rule of plot, and it goes back to what Joseph Campbell uncovered: every single story worth telling is about transformation via trials.
How to Pitch the Media (Without Even Sending Your Book)
When you’re wooing the media, what you’re really trying to do is to intrigue them. To whet their appetites. Sometimes the best way to do that flows from remembering that less is often more.
Are You Clear About Your Writer Persona? Going Public by Design
As writers, we don’t always know how much of ourselves to share with the public. But it behooves us to create and curate an author persona—the public face for our work.
Pantser or Plotter? Deciding Which Can Save Your Writing Life
Half of writers are plotters, and the other half are pantsers. One is not the right way or the wrong way; there is only the way that works best for you.
How to Optimize Your Amazon Author Central Pages (Don’t Forget the International Pages)
Every author, regardless of when or what they’ve published, has an Author Central page. But many authors have not claimed theirs—which is a big mistake.
4 Methods for Developing Any Idea Into a Great Story
How do great authors develop stunning narratives, break from tradition, and advance the form of their fiction? They take whatever basic ideas they’ve got, then move them away from the typical.
Today’s Publishing Landscape: Two Generations of Literary Agents Speak Out
How do agenting styles vary within the same family? Are there generational differences when agents approach opportunities such as self- and hybrid publishing, which didn’t exist until a few years ago?
5 Commonly Confused Words Starting With A
Learn the difference between all ready/already, altogether/all together, all right/alright, any time/anytime, anyway/any way.
The Most Common Entry-Level Mistake in the Writing Game
By far the most common entry-level mistake in the writing game, the thing that can get a perfectly good story rejected by an editor on the first page, is overwriting.
The Importance of a Strong Opening Scene
No pressure, but the opening of your book is the gatekeeper in determining whether your novel will sell. If your opening is weak, it won’t matter if chapter two is a masterpiece. Editors and agents and booksellers and librarians and readers will stop reading before they get there.
4 Freelancing Myths That Are Holding You Back
Misconceptions about getting started often hold new writers back. You may think that to be successful as a freelance writer, you need a J-school degree, an impressive database of editorial contacts, and a truckload of supplies. Not so—read on to learn the most common myths that can sabotage you before you start.
How to Write Your Memoir with Fun, Easy Lists
You need to write a memoir—except the mere thought floods you with anxiety. You’ve got decades of memories; where would you even start? Lists to the rescue!
The Second Act Novelist: 6 Ways to Prepare
If fiction writing is something you’d like to pursue in your retirement years, follow these steps to help you prepare for the business of authorship.
How to Get Violence Right in Your Fiction
For new writers, throwing in a few combat scenes can seem like an easy way to add some excitement to a novel, but the reality is that violence can be incredibly difficult to pull off effectively.
On Tastemakers and Making
Taste is not static. Rather than a fixed endpoint toward which one toils away, it’s a target that moves over the course of a lifetime.
5 On: Debra Eckerling
Debra Eckerling (@WriteOnOnline), founder of the writers’ support group Write On!, discusses common writer challenges, the value of blogs, what it means to take writing to the next level, tragic networking mistakes, and more in this 5 On interview.
How to Produce an Emotional Response in Readers: Inner Mode, Outer Mode, and Other Mode
All three paths to producing emotional responses in readers are valid, but all three have pitfalls and can fail to work. To successfully use each, it’s necessary to understand why each is effective when it is.
5 Things Nonfiction Authors Can Get Sued For
Unlike pure fiction, nonfiction is grounded in the real world, with real people, real names and real places, and this inevitably creates an environment where a legal misstep can occur.
Stop Focusing on Follower Count: 5 Better Approaches for Improving Social Media Use
When I ask most clients what their goals are in hiring me, I usually get some version of “to get more followers and sell more books.” I encourage them to think both bigger and more deeply about social media.
Where to Find Opportunities to Teach (and Supplement Your Writing Income)
While you may wish to run your writing class completely by yourself (and I recommend it), you may also want to consider partnering. Here are the options.
Using Amazon KDP Ads to Sell Your Ebook on Amazon
Amazon offers two ways for authors to advertise ebooks at their site. Learn how to smartly set up and manage product display and sponsored product ads.
Writing Retreats: Bringing the Goodness Back Home With You
On the last day of your retreat or on your way back home, pose this question to yourself and take it seriously: How can I take the way I’m feeling home with me?
Writing Retreats: How to Make the Most of One
Productivity is certainly one goal of a retreat. But there are other desired outcomes, such as returning home rested, relaxed, and energized by the time away.
How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Creative Process
Learn about four tensions you may experience that have the potential to undermine your creative work and leave you feeling stuck.
How to Make Readers Deeply Connect to Your Characters
There is one secret ingredient to crafting a novel that readers will read from beginning to end. All the other elements are important and necessary, but they play supporting roles to this one.
5 WordPress Themes for Professional Authors
One of the first choices you have to make for your author website is determining its theme or template. It sets the tone and even defines the site.
The Value of Writing Retreats
Why must writers schedule time for residencies and retreats? Because in doing so, we honor an annual appointment with writer self-care.
Your Novel’s First Scene: How to Start Right
Every reader starts a story cold, and you want to warm the reader up to your story as quickly as possible. Learn proven techniques for story openings.
Negotiating Editorial Control in Publishing Contracts
Today’s guest post is from writer and Sidebar Saturdays blogger Matt Knight (@mattknightbooks). One of many worrisome areas for writers negotiating publishing contracts is who has final word when editing a manuscript for publication. Publishing agreements define the right to creative control over the manuscript in the editing clause. Typically, that right goes to the […]
How to Attract a Readership Based on Concept Alone
Ultimately, concept is far less important than character when it comes to determining the overall quality of your story, but your audience is attracted to your story based on your concept alone. Does your concept have what it takes to draw people in?
Using Multiple Points of View: When and How Is It Most Effective?
Some stories require greater scope, more voices, or a different context than can be delivered through the eyes of one protagonist. When you find this to be the case, consider using multiple viewpoints. However, you must think about several factors before launching into this greater undertaking.
Do You Have Intention? How to Set Achievable and Meaningful Goals
The most successful people in every industry use goals as road maps to help them reach their desired destination. It’s no different for writers.
A Key to Great Writing: Make Every Word Count
If I could teach only one key to great writing, it would be this: Make every word count. Recognize the power of a single, well-chosen word. Trust it to do its work. As a rule, the more economically you use language, the more powerfully you will deliver your message.
Have Trouble Getting That Book Done? Try Doing Less.
There are countless ways to defeat ourselves, but the biggest and worst is to make the task too big and then feel daunted before we ever start
Building a Believable Chain of Events in Your Novel
Every action in your novel should be justified by the intersection of setting, context, pursuit, and characterization. They all need to make sense. They all need to fit. If you have to explain why something just happened, you’re telling the story backward.