By Loretta Eidson Recently, I posted this quote by Mark Twain on Hootsuite: Great people can make you feel that, you too, can become great. I’ve heard numerous times throughout my life that if we want to be smart we should hang out with smart people. It stands to reason the same is true for greatness. But, who do we …
Top Blogging Mistakes Made by Authors Online
By Edie Melson Blogging is a great way to connect with our online audience. And while there are a lot more people out there doing it well, I still see some common mistakes. These things affect a blog, making readers click away before we have time to connect. Today I’m going to point out some of the specific things we …
Have You Overlooked a Good Resource?
by Patricia Bradley One of the best kept secrets resources at ACFW is this blog. I mean, where else can you go and find blogs on just about every aspect of writing and all in one place? Or go to be encouraged? Just this May, I was feeling very discouraged. My sales on a general market book weren’t what I’d …
A Good Reading Chair
By Cynthia Ruchti How many of us live quiet lives in quiet homes with a comfortable reading chair we use strictly for our quiet post-dinner hour reading sessions? A few of us. Most read on planes, in waiting rooms, before falling asleep at night, during kids’ soccer or gymnastics practices, while watching television or waiting for the potatoes to boil. …
Target Your Marketing
by Ane Mulligan As we have to do more promotion for our books, whom should we be trying to reach? Readers, of course. Okay, but exactly who are these readers? Writers. They’re voracious readers. Book club members. Senior citizens; they have more time now. Women buy 80% of all books Where do we find these people? I use the Big …
One True Fan
By Sara Ella Target audience. That’s a phrase we hear a lot in this biz, isn’t it? We’re supposed to find our target readers. Gain them as followers. Get their emails so we can add them to the list. Check, check, and check. As if writing a novel wasn’t work enough. I’ve spent hours building platform, ready to pull my …
Rules of Writing Encourage or Discourage
By Linda Robinson After I joined a large critique group a few years ago, I was terrified to press Send for my first 2,000-word submission. How intimidating to put my work out there, knowing it was open for target practice. I wasn’t worried about grammar and punctuation, but about the story itself. Nail-biting nervous, I waited for the first critique …
Do Unto Others
By Tamara D. Fickas Do unto others. That was the devotional given by Beth Vogt one Saturday morning in our local ACFW meeting. She talked about what this looks like for writers. How if we want a mentor, we should be open to mentoring someone. And if we want to grow in our writing, we should be willing to help …
Three Writing Challenges That No Longer Scare Me
By Kathleen Y’Barbo This year, I celebrate fifteen years in as a published author and ten years with my fabulous agent, Wendy Lawton of Books & Such Literary Agency. Next year, in 2016, I will celebrate twenty years as a writer. I am closing in on sixty books published and two million books in print, and in a few days …
Can You Make It to the End?
by Kathy Harris A few weeks ago, award-winning Hollywood director Alejandro Monteverde stood in front of a small gathering in Nashville, Tennessee to celebrate an advance screening of his film “Little Boy.” Monteverde told the audience that he had initially expected to complete his screenplay in three months. But, he confided, since the birth of the project he and his …