Know Your Goals: Artist-Author or Professional-Author?
Too often in the discussions about “how to be successful,” the emphasis is on income alone. For many, that measure works. But that’s not the only option.
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All About The Money: Authors, Readers, and Ebook Prices
The publishing world has been abuzz with the results of the 2014 Digital Book World (DBW) and Writer’s Digest Author Survey. Headlines scream “Most authors make less than $1000 a year.” Numbers taken out of context claim that 80% of the 9000+ respondents earn $1000 or less. Eh. Yes and […]
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Ebooks: What We Buy vs. What We Read
Between the rise of self-publishing and the agency pricing settlement, the industry is struggling with how to price ebooks. Before the settlement, many self-published authors enjoyed the attention they received at the low end of the pricing scale. On the other hand, many traditionally published authors bemoaned the high prices […]
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Branding 101: Do You Have a Tagline?
Taglines are like the phrases on a movie poster: short, intriguing, punchy, attention-getting. In addition to taglines for our writing, we might also want one about us and our author brand.
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Handling Readers: Expectations and Disappointments
Most of us suffer from self-doubt in some way. Those of us doing NaNoWriMo might have reached a point in our story where events aren’t playing out as cool as they seemed in our head. Or maybe NaNo’s going great, but we’re not sure we can keep up the quality. […]
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Writing Rule #1: There Is No “One Right Way”
Every once in a while, I come across a blog post or a workshop description that makes me want to warn newbie writers away. The problem usually lies with the author/presenter’s insistence that their way is the best way, or in some cases, the only way. The truth is that we all have […]
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How Fake Reviews Hurt Everyone
I had the idea for this post over a month ago after seeing a Slate article about the “epidemic” of niceness in online book culture. Their point boiled down to whether all the friendliness on social media made people feel they couldn’t say bad things about books. I was going […]
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Five Lessons from a Book Tour Newbie — Guest: Suzanne Johnson
I’m in Anaheim, California this week for the Romance Writers of America (RWA) Annual Conference, but I have another great guest here today. Suzanne Johnson just had her debut release a few months ago, and she’s been on fire with her stories. Her Royal Street debut came complete with a book tour. A book […]
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What Do We “Owe” New Writers?
The last couple of posts have been about beta reading, beta readers, and authors helping each other. I love positive, uplifting conversations like that. But the comments brought up an important point: Sometimes the relationships we have with other writers in our circle aren’t all unicorns and rainbows. Sometimes a […]
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When Does Fan Fiction Cross an Ethical Line?
Fan fiction, also known as fanfic, refers to stories written by fans about the characters, situations, or world of existing works created by others. This definition sounds broad because the world of fanfic is broad. On some level, everything from Wicked, inspired by The Wizard of Oz, to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies […]
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