By Marguerite Martin Gray Are you goal oriented or deadline driven? I would like to say deadline driven is purpose driven, but it is not all the time. I have always been an over achiever in school, work, life. That has landed me in places where I look around and wonder “Now, what do I do to sustain this?” For …
Five Things I Learned from Launching a Book
By Felicia Ferguson @Felicia_writer 1: Marketing a book is more than hosting a launch party. From guest blogs, to book reviews, to social media posts and ads, the author must be 70% marketer and 30% writer. Yes, I know. Most of us writers didn’t major in PR or Marketing in college. If you’re like me, you have nightmares that book …
Troublesome Characters
by Susan A. J. Lyttek @SusanLyttek Several years ago, I took a course on character development from a well-known Christian writer. Through the multiple session course, we were taught to create a psychological profile for our character, find pictures that looked like him or her, and create brief histories for prior to the story’s commencement. It was all good and …
The Scent of Manual Typewriter Ribbon
by Jenny Powell MD Twelve men sat around a large, round table. I typed out the sentence, hunt-and-peck style, on my father’s manual typewriter. The paper was legal- size, the blank side of a form no longer used at my father’s office. He had brought stacks of it home, as suited a child of the Great Depression: never waste what …
Average, But Obedient
by Heidi Gray McGill How do I stand out and reach the top in the Christian Indie world when I’m average? There are authors with English degrees and years of experience under their belt. Others don’t need to choose between paying for an editor or rent. I have a decent number of followers on social media, but Twitter and TikTok …
Introducing ACFW’s Masterclass Series
A series of workshops geared to the multi-published author. Publishing has never been easy, but there are so many choices today and different challenges for multi-published authors than even five years ago. One big advantage we have in ACFW is Community. Need to change genres? So have some of the rest of us and we’re happy to share what we …
A World of Inspiration
by Deborah Raney Last Wednesday I returned from the dream trip of a lifetime, one I wasn’t sure would actually happen before I died. It was our first time to travel overseas and we spent three glorious days in Paris, then wound our way through the United Kingdom—England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland—over the next ten days before returning to London to …
ACFW New Releases: October 2023
October 2023 New Releases More in-depth descriptions of these books can be found on the ACFW Fiction Finder website Children’s: Road Trip Rescue by Becca Wierwille — After spotting a photo of her lost dog, twelve-year-old Kimmy embarks on a wild road trip to bring him home with her pink-haired, adventure-hungry aunt who makes some unexpected detours. (Children’s/Middle Grade/Chapter Books …
When Dreams Age
By Tanara McCauley @TanaraMcCauley I attended my first writer’s conference over a decade ago. I don’t know how I learned writer’s conferences were even a thing, but I remember packing up my work-in-progress and flying to Denver with a mini entourage of husband, young kids, and in-laws all cheering me on. Although already in my mid-thirties at the time, I …
Writing a Character with a Disability
by Kathy Maresca @so_tweet Lieutenant Dan. Would Forrest Gump have become an iconic movie without this fictional character? Because I am a rehabilitation counselor and a veteran, it is easy for me to understand why Lieutenant Dan has resonated with millions. Including a character who has a disability might make our novels even more relatable. When one out of five …