By Tomi Leslie I questioned within. Me, take a line-dancing lesson? But I do love Country music. And so, I decided to try it. Then, I shopped for the perfect boots. Soon, I entered a resale store and on the shoe rack, I glanced at pumps, flats, sandals, and high-heeled shoes. I eventually asked the middle-aged saleswoman. “Do you have …
World Creating for the Earth-bound
By Lee Carver Fellow authors, I’d like to share with you a thought which has helped me visualize and therefore write my fiction. Fantasy and sci-fi writers are accustomed to creating worlds, defining them well enough that the reader “sees” the setting, right? Doing that without an “information dump” is part of the challenge. It has only recently occurred to …
Unpublished and on Social Media as an Author? Why?
By Tamela Hancock Murray It’s hard to get through a week without seeing at least one article on platform. Well, here’s yours for the week! We agents ask authors for a platform, but I have found that unpublished authors wonder how and why they should show a professional presence on social media. That question is understandable. Without a book, what …
Reviewing the Mindset of Reviews
By C. Kevin Thompson As many authors know, good, critical, honest reviews are important. Future readers often base their purchases on them. Therefore, reviews are gold when talking bottom lines. Because Amazon uses the review system as one of its major marketing arms, keeping reviews as pure as possible is paramount to good customer service. To prevent others from manipulating …
Taming the Revisions Beast
By Andrea Boeshaar Recently I received revisions for a novel slated to release next year. I gasped, as I usually do, when I opened the document and saw more red on the page than black (the red being my editor’s remarks and corrections and the black, my writing.) It’s amazing how good I feel about a manuscript when I turn …
Ten Tweet-worthy Ideas for Authors
by Christa Kinde When I meet writers who struggle with social media, it’s usually for lack of courage, consistency, or creativity. Fear not! You can do this. After all, writers are creative people. Twitter is my happy place–because I like to keep things short and sweet–so I thought I’d offer practical suggestions on what authors can tweet about. I’ve included …
Four Tips for Throwing a Fab Author Facebook Party
By Melissa Tagg I recently participated in one of the most fun author Facebook parties ever! Like, I was sick, people–we’re talking Kleenex, cough medicine and pajamas for days–and I still had a blast participating in the party. The event was made up of seven contemporary romance authors. We had an amazing turnout and a fabulous time. (And I can’t …
Draw Me Nearer
By Cynthia Ruchti One of the topics I most enjoy teaching at writers’ conferences is “Deepening the Emotional Connection.” The more connected readers feel to our stories, the more likely they’ll read past the first page, the first chapter, all the way to the end. And then keeping thinking about those characters and their plight days or weeks later. Consider …
Writing in the Valley of Discouragement
By Connilyn Cossette Writing a second book, under contract, and after you’ve actually written most of the third is a daunting prospect. But that is what I was faced with when delving into Shadow of the Storm, the second book of the Out from Egypt series. I spent weeks writing things and deleting them. I spent weeks asking myself if …
Keeping the Writing Going When Your Life is in Chaos
By Allie Pleiter As I’ve been finishing my 2017 non-fiction How to WRITE When Everything Goes WRONG, I’ve been talking with a lot of authors about how they tackle the challenge of meeting a deadline under far less than ideal circumstances. The answer, as you might think, is as individual as every writer, but there have been some universal tactics …