by Ane Mulligan In the court of publishing, if story is king, platform is queen. There are a lot of good novels so how do you stand out? By having a ready-made readership before you’re published. Editors look for Internet presence. When they Google your name, what do they find? I’ve spent a few years building my web presence. Google …
Is Your Blog Secure?
by Michael Lee Joshua There have been so many incidents of hacking email accountss, but we sometimes don’t take the proper care to secure our blogs. Having built a number of blogs or websites on the WordPress platform in the past year for clients has made it obvious to me that our blogs must be secured too. You might wonder …
Words, Camera…and Action!
by Bonnie Calhoun What comes mind when I say those words? Typically someone would think of a movie set in the oldun’ days. Someone had a tripod camera and a megaphone and a snappy board with numbers on it. I want you to try this when you’re writing an action scene. The idea is to get you to look at …
Writing Older Characters
by Lisa J Lickel It’s my birthday today! I’m fifty-one. Made it-yippee. I know, thank you, I don’t look it. But of course I can’t help thinking about age, my family, my friends, and my characters. Commercial and pop fiction isn’t only about sweet early twenty-somethings. The later thirties are not very interesting because we’re too busy with normal life. …
The Bridge-Using Symbolism to Connect
by Sarah Sundin In high school English, I disliked questions about story symbolism. Ironically, finding and using symbolism in my own novels is one of my favorite parts of the writing process. Symbolism connects the reader to the deeper meaning in your story. Finding Symbolism Symbolism is best discovered rather than imposed. Often symbols arise from the character-who she is …
Why Do First Manuscripts So Often Get Rejected?
by Nikki Arana The biggest reason that new writers receive rejections is because they send out their manuscripts before they’re ready. Quite often emerging writers think when they finish their first ms that they have a book that is ready for the marketplace. In almost all cases, that isn’t true. If it has been written with the guidance of a …
Elevating Your Elevator Pitch
by Janice Hanna Thompson You’re wrapping up the best book you’ve ever written. It’s all you can think about. You can’t wait to go to that next conference to meet with an editor or agent. However, you realize that your face time will be brief. How will you pitch your novel in a way that will garner the attention it …
Marketing 101: Allowing for God’s Plan
by Kathy Harris As the old saying goes, ‘fifty percent of advertising works and fifty percent doesn’t. The problem is in determining which is which.’ The same goes for marketing. In putting together a marketing plan, there’s only one thing to remember: You can control everything except the things you can’t control, which is pretty much everything. The good news …
“Pantsing” the Pre-Book Synopsis
by Anne Mateer I’m a pantser. I thrill at the thought of starting a story with just a character or a situation, only a hazy destination in mind. I love discovering new twists and turns and characters along the way. But there is a peril to pantsing that I didn’t realize until publication: the synopsis before the story. As a …
Ridin’ the Beach Ain’t Ridin’ the Range
Janet Chester Bly Copyright©2012 In writing fiction, sometimes you’ve got to know your animals. My sons and I had to do some study on horse behavior when we worked on author Stephen Bly’s last novel. In Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot, Brannon leaves the comfort and security of his Arizona ranch to head to Oregon to find his missing U.S. Marshal …