By Melinda Eye Cooper Last fall, I made an important decision about work. Not about my full-time accounting job where my paycheck comes from. But about the work I know God has called me to do. Writing. My first memory of writing a story was in the third grade. I don’t remember exactly what it was about but it made …
Social Media Missteps
By Rondi Bauer Olson One of the first things I heard as an aspiring writer was that I needed to be active on social media, and if I wanted to attract an editor or agent, I needed lots of followers. The problem was I didn’t have a book out yet, and I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in following me. …
Do You Love Social Media?
By Deborah Raney As a true extrovert with a very solitary occupation as a writer, I truly enjoy social media. Sometimes I tell people I’m not sure I could have survived my 24-year writing career without it! (Of course there was no such thing as social media the first ten years I was writing, but I did connect with several …
Create While You Wait
By Kariss Lynch We’ve all experienced these seasons: the endless waiting for a dream to come true. We wonder if God hears, or if we heard him wrong when He called us to this crazy writing gig. Wait—the word that can make us squirm with anxiety and doubt our stories and our skill. Or it can make us hope. I’ve …
Four Observations from an ACFW Conference Newbie
By Lauren Gail The 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers Conference held in Nashville, Tennessee was my first ACFW conference. The amazing Frank E. Peretti and the awesome town of Nashville were two of the main reasons I was compelled to register. Add to those the number of agents, editors, publishers, and authors available to network with and the decision was …
Why Should a Writer be Part of Goodreads?
By DiAnn Mills The biggest reason for a writer to jump onboard Goodreads is from their own words: “It’s the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” I’m convinced this social media platform is essential to a novelist’s recognition by readers and publishers. Let’s unpack what that means: If I’m looking for a book to read, I can explore …
Post Conference Blues
By Dani Pettrey I’m excited to be guest posting today. It’s been a while since I’ve been on the blog and I’m really happy to be back. I gain so much insight and wisdom from the posts here and am just thrilled to be taking part. I hope all of you who were able to attend the ACFW conference had …
5 Things to Do After Attending a Writers Conference
By Beth K. Vogt We writers talk a lot about how to prepare for a writers conference, don’t we? We discuss our elevator pitches and our one sheets and how to polish our manuscripts, all the while planning our travel itineraries and our roommates and our wardrobes. Hundreds of you attended the ACFW conference in Nashville a couple of weeks …
Writing: Still Alive and Well in the Next Generation
By Sarah Hamaker Have you heard the news about the death of words? Every few weeks or so, a story pops up in my Facebook feed about how people aren’t reading like they used to, how texting is obliterating writing, and how the Generation Z will kill off books. But I don’t believe them, and you shouldn’t either. Consider my …
ACFW New Releases: October 2018
October 2018 New Releases More in-depth descriptions of these books can be found on the ACFW Fiction Finder website. Contemporary Romance: A Christmas to Remember by Julie Arduini, Valerie Comer, Janet W. Ferguson, Kimberly Rose Johnson, Deb Kastner, Elizabeth Maddrey, Lindi Peterson, and Ginger Solomon — Eight authors from the popular blog Inspy Romance each share a Christmas-themed novella to …