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Editing Mistakes: How Forgiving of a Reader Are You?

Wadded-up paper spilling from wastebasket with text: Do You Forgive Writing Mistakes

An interesting conversation grew out of Misti Wolanski’s guest post earlier this week. She mentioned that sometimes readers enjoy finding typos. Let’s take a closer look at what that means for readers and for us as authors? Should we leave typos in our work? What say you…

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September 10, 2015

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When Is a Good Editor Not Good for Your Story? — Guest: Misti Wolanski

Modern building beside old brick building with text: Fiction vs. Non-Fiction

Many writers write both fiction and non-fiction (even if the latter is just blog posts), but the two types of writing require different skills—from authors and from editors. The better we understand the differences, the better we can follow the right rules at the right time and the better we can judge whether an editor is skilled in the right areas to be a good editor for us.

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September 8, 2015

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Subjectivity and Reader Shaming

A woman with her head in her hands with text: Have You Ever Been "Reader Shamed"?

If we write genre fiction, we might bemoan the lack of respect, but the same lack of respect occurs at the reader level too. Readers of science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, young adult, and romance have also been looked down on. Many outsiders have attempted to make readers ashamed of their reading choices by judging by subjective measures.

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August 11, 2015

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Shining a Light on Diversity Issues

Cartoon of people looking up at light with text: Shining a Light on Diversity Issues

In gearing up for the release of Pure Sacrifice, one frustrating experience was beyond my control. I’ve mentioned before that we should avoid assumptions about our characters, so I waited until I heard a voice that resonated and knew my paranormal character for this book wouldn’t be white skinned. Great! Except…

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July 28, 2015

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What 5 Years of Blogging Has Taught Me about Writing

Chalkboard with text: Lessons from 5 Years of Blogging

People tend to like nice round numbers like 5s and 10s, so reaching the five-year point on my blog feels like a major milestone. That means now might be a good time to look back at what I’ve learned over those five years, and share what those lessons might tell us about the rest of our writing career.

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July 16, 2015

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Audiobooks: Getting Started with ACX — Guest: Amy Patrick

Microphone on a counter with text: Audiobooks: Finding the Right Narrator

One way slow writers can succeed is to create more income streams for each book, such as releasing an audio version. But we might not have experience with audio publishing. Luckily, today’s post is by a narrator for Amazon’s ACX service who will tell us how to get started with ACX, especially how to audition and work with a narrator.

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July 9, 2015

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Save Money by Designing Your Own Promo

Wooden box filled with money with text: Save Money with Promo Design

While I paid for a cover designer for my books, I created the bookmarks myself to save money. Several people asked me how I made them complement the cover so well, and since saving money is always a good thing, I figured I should post about the topic.

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June 18, 2015

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Romance Writers: New Scrivener Template!

Black and white image of couple walking in Paris with text: Isn't It Romantic...with Scrivener

One of my most popular posts is for my Romance Beat Sheet, but one of my readers asked if I could create a Scrivener template to go along with the Romance Beat Sheet. Yes! If you’re a romance author and use Scrivener for drafting your stories, today’s post is for you.

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June 11, 2015

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How Can Guest Posting Help Us?

Arrows pointing in every direction with text: Expand Our Reach with Guest Posts

As writers, we have to be a one-man band for many aspects of our career. No matter how we publish, we have to do the majority of our marketing, and that can be a problem. Only so many friends or family members will spread the word about our work, so how can we reach people we don’t know?

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May 26, 2015

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