branding

What Does “Writing Is Subjective” Mean?

April 19, 2012 Writing Stuff
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If you’ve sent out queries, you’ve probably received rejections.  They usually say things along the line of: “This is just my opinion and others may feel differently.” “Just because I wasn’t drawn in doesn’t mean others won’t love it.” “Publishing is a subjective business and another agent would be better suited to your work.” We can’t fault those who [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, agents, beta reader, branding, feedback, Jami Gold, listening to characters, muse, paranormal author, professionalism, queries

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What Stories *Won’t* You Write?

April 17, 2012 Writing Stuff
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In my last post, we talked about voice and how we tend to write the same types of characters, premises, and themes over and over.  That’s not a bad thing.  Those stories resonate with us as writers. Similarly, there are stories we would never write.  Stories might be so against our internal grain that if an idea along [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, genre, Jami Gold, muse, paranormal author, premise, romance novels, strong characters, theme

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Do Your Stories Match Your Voice?

April 12, 2012 Writing Stuff
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I’ve been having a great conversation with Serena Yung in the comments of one of my posts about voice from a few weeks ago, so voice has been on my mind again this week.  When I found a fantastic article by author Julie Leto about voice and how it relates to our writing, I knew I had to [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, emotional heart, Jami Gold, paranormal author, premise, theme, voice

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Exploiting Our Brand: Is There a “Right” Way?

March 29, 2012 Random Musings
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Our brand is the impression others have of us.  So we all have a brand, whether we know it or not.  Hopefully, we’re building a brand that reflects who we really are, in a way that shows us at our best (however we each define “best”). Once we have a brand, we might wonder what [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, fan fiction, genre, Jami Gold, paranormal author, premise, risk, social media

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Who Cares about Quality Writing Anymore?

March 13, 2012 Writing Stuff
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No, that’s not a rhetorical or trick question.  Recent events in the publishing industry have left me asking that as a serious point of confusion and discouragement. I know this is an ongoing complaint about the state of literature.  Over a century ago, people complained about penny dreadfuls and dime novels, and then moved on to complaints [...]

Tagged as: branding, editing, genre, Jami Gold, Jami's rants, literary, paranormal author, perfectionism, professionalism, self-publishing, traditional publishing

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Goodbye, Google Friend Connect–Now What?

February 28, 2012 Random Musings
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We’ve all seen the Google Friend Connect (GFC) widgets on websites and blogs we visit.  Some sites have asked us to join GFC to qualify for a contest or giveaway.  On our own blogs, we enjoy seeing the avatars of our readers (and the numbers of our “members” go up). However, Google is retiring GFC [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, blogging, branding, Jami Gold, mobile website, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, social media, Tech Guy, website

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Need Voice? Think Out Loud

February 16, 2012 Writing Stuff
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“The voice didn’t grab me.” Uh-oh.  Isn’t that feedback one of a writer’s worst nightmares?  Voice is one of those things that feels like we either have it or we don’t.  And we think we can’t easily change it because our voice is so internal to us. But all is not lost.  We can develop and strengthen [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, branding, feedback, Jami Gold, Janice Hardy, listening to characters, paranormal author, point-of-view, voice

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Do You Call Yourself a Writer or an Author?

January 24, 2012 Writing Stuff
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Recently, the Awesome-Dipped-in-Glitter (TM) Kristen Lamb pointed out that “aspiring is for pansies.”  We are not aspiring writers. Aspiring: to have a plan, desire, or hope for something. Writer: a person who writes. If we put those together, that means an aspiring writer is a person who plans, desires, or hopes to write, but doesn’t actually [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, authors, blogging, branding, Jami Gold, Kristen Lamb, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, self-doubt, self-publishing, website

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How Tightly Do You Control Your Blog?

January 12, 2012 Random Musings
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We’re in the middle of the Pitch Your Shorts pitch session with Entangled Publishing.  If you have a 10-60K word story with strong romantic elements, check out that post for details on how to pitch to six(!) editors. During the pitch session, I’ve had to lock down comments to make sure things run as smoothly as possible. [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, blogging, branding, Jami Gold, paranormal author, professionalism, risk, website

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Are All Cheap Ebooks Crap?

December 20, 2011 Random Musings
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In my last post, I asked how much people would be willing to pay for ebooks.  Most comments agreed with my thoughts: Ebooks should be less expensive than paper books because of DRM, ownership, quality, and physicality issues.  What surprised me, however, was the number of people turned off by $0.99 ebooks. The comment section [...]

Tagged as: advice for writers, authors, branding, ebooks, ereader, feedback, Jami Gold, Kindle, paranormal author, self-publishing, social media, story openings

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