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Make Characters Unique with Layering

Poster for Spider-Verse movie with text: Making Our Characters Unique

Somewhere along our learning curve as writers, we’re likely to come across the skill of layering. Layering can help us create unique characters, no matter how stereotypical or tropey they might be on the surface.

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January 10, 2019

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Branding: The Right Way vs. the Wrong Way

Painting of an R in a circle with text: Authors, Trademarks, & Ethics

A crazy story erupted on social media with the hashtag #cockygate involving authors, Amazon KDP, and trademark law. One author is attempting to prevent others from using a word in their book titles, as she mistakenly thinks our book titles are our brands.

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May 8, 2018

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Reader Connections, Fake Personas, and Catfishing

Yellow figurine on pile of fake coins with text: When Does "Fake" Become "Fraud"?

Many authors try to create a sense of friendship and connection to their readers. But some “authors” aren’t authors at all—they’re marketing people using ghostwriters and fake personas to trick readers into forming those connections.

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April 17, 2018

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Do You Share Your Work in Progress?

Keyboard button labelled "Share" with text: Do You Share Your Work in Progress?

The stereotype of a writer pounding away in isolation ignores how the online writing community gives us more options. We can work in secrecy or involve others by sharing our work in progress. There’s no right or wrong answer, but we should figure out which approach works better for us.

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August 23, 2016

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OnDemand Workshops & Blogging Basics

Starting line of a race with text: Blogging: How Do We Start?

On social media, I often encourage people to ask me questions. That’s not a superficial platitude. I am pathologically helpful, so when a reader asked for my advice about blogging, specifically how we would start and when we should get started, I decided to do a mega-link post with all my tips.

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October 14, 2014

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When Should We Start Building Our Platform?

Red flag with text: Don't Have a Platform? Red Flag!

In my post about book pirates and plagiarism, I mentioned that book bloggers and reviewers are now more wary of debut authors, especially those who are self-published. I don’t blame them. Some people out there are willing to do an insane amount of work to fake legitimacy. A book blogger […]

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August 6, 2013

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