With a new year, we often want to start on the right foot. We don’t want to repeat last year’s mistakes. (Let’s make new ones instead, right? *smile*) So to get and stay organized, I’d love to find a time management approach that helped me track everything.
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Every Thanksgiving, I write a “the best reason to blog” post because gratitude is such a powerful tool. Thinking about what we’re thankful for forces us to pay attention to our priorities. The daily grind can make us forget why we do what we do, but being grateful for the good things reminds us of what matters most.
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Writers pursuing traditional publishing are often told not to pay for editing before submitting to agents or publishers. But the landscape has changed and we’ve had to change our opinion and attitude about many old-school advice “rules.” Should this advice should be next on the chopping block?
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We often write about settings or jobs or situations we haven’t experienced, and diversity among our characters should be no different. Today’s guest post is about how we can research and learn more about experiences for which we don’t have first-hand knowledge and avoid the fear of “getting it wrong.”
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As writers, most of us are insanely busy. *raises hand* And it can be difficult to find time to dedicate to writing. So I’m picky about the number and quality of blogs on my “must read” list. They have to earn their spot—and keep earning their spot. So why would I turn over control of my blog to others for most of a month?
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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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We’re all familiar with the concept of movie trailers, but book trailers are becoming more common too. Like a movie trailer, a book trailer is meant to increase interest in a story. Where queries and back-cover blurbs pitch a story in writing, book trailers pitch a story by showing. Literally. Some publishers […]
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Many articles and infographics have tried to answer the question of what makes readers stop reading. They usually include a list of offenses like typos, too boring, confusing, etc. And those are all true. But a recent post took a more analytical approach to measuring problem areas. Jefferson Smith started […]
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When we’re first starting out as writers, creating a business plan might be the last thing we want to do. However, a business plan can be anything we want it to be. In truth, there are far more non-business things we could include in a “business” plan than we might assume.
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No one will ever care about our success as much as we do. That’s why—even though we’re writers—we should think of ourselves as business people. No matter what kind of writer we are, we’ll need to make business decisions, and that’s where having a business plan can help.
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