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Writer Dilemma: Private Life vs. Public Figures

Man pointing a camera at viewer with text: Are Authors Public Figures?

Many of us struggle with maintaining a sense of privacy online, yet being a writer requires us to be “public figures.” That means we have to find a balance between privacy and public sharing to be an author. Let’s take a look at some of the privacy issues we might run into in our writing life.

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January 19, 2016

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Author Newsletters: 6 Tips for Smart Strategies

Line up of information dispensers with text: 6 Tips for Author Newsletters

Approximately seventy bajillion new books are released every day (give or take a few bajillion). Our newly released books might have a hard time being noticed, so when we find readers who like our work, we want to make sure they’re still in our audience for our next book. Enter the email newsletter.

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January 14, 2016

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Does Our Personality Affect Our Writing Process?

Gears with text: Does Our Personality Drive Our Writing Process?

Whether we put any stock into tests like Myers-Briggs, they’re interesting for providing insights into our strengths and weaknesses. Once we understand our traits, we can decide whether we wish to fight to improve, find a way around them, or embrace them as part of our process.

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December 17, 2015

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Discovering Our Writing Processes

Light trails over black background with text: Any Process Can Get Us to "The End"

When it comes to writing processes, we’ve probably all seen attitudes implying there’s only one right way. However, just because something works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for everyone, and in the end, there’s only one thing that matters.

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December 10, 2015

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Self-Publishing? What’s Your Pricing Plan?

Stick figure at a chalkboard with text: What's Your Pricing Plan?

Self-publishing advice often centers on how much we should charge for our work, and the advice often conflicts. My monthly guest post over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University is digging deeper into our options for our pricing strategy and why we might want to make each choice.

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December 3, 2015

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7 Tips for a Writing Partnership — Guest: Jennifer Hale

Ampersand symbol with text: 7 Tips for Writing Partnerships

Successful writing partnerships are all around us. How do they do it? Why do they do it? What are the pros and cons? Would it work for us? Today’s guest is Jennifer Hale, one-half of a writing team, and she’s here today to share seven tips she’s learned along their journey.

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November 19, 2015

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Release News! Do Your Plans Succeed?

Path through a maze with text: Can You Stick with a Plan?

Yesterday marked the release of my fourth book, Ironclad Devotion, and I think I’m going to collapse now. This release marks the end of my “master plan,” also known as my daisy-chain release schedule. I first came up with that plan about a year ago, and I can’t quite believe it actually worked.

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October 29, 2015

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Digging into Research: Consider the Source

Collection of historical documents with text: Getting It Right with Research

Last week, we talked about how we can add diversity to our stories in a respectful way, and no matter what kind of story we write, we’re probably going to need to research something. Whether we’re referring to an aspect of diversity, a setting, or a character’s job, we can’t know everything about everything.

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October 27, 2015

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Writing Diversity: How Can We Avoid Issues?

Purple eye and green hair with text: Avoiding Mistakes with Diversity

The real world is filled with diversity, and our stories should be the same way. There’s no “one right way” to portray diverse characters, but there are wrong ways to portray diversity. However, there are steps we can take to minimize—as much as possible—the potential of “getting it wrong.”

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October 22, 2015

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What’s Your Long-Term Plan?

Plant growing in cement with text: How Can We Avoid a Dead-End Career?

Back when we first started writing, we might have been writing for ourselves, but for many of us, we expanded our goals somewhere along the line to focus on what others think of our work or how we might sell our work. Are we ready with a plan that will support that next step and the steps after that?

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October 20, 2015

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