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 …
Lessons I Learn While Watching Television Shows
By Kariss Lynch I am an avid reader. I am also an avid television consumer. Why? Because ultimately I am a story lover. I still firmly believe that the book is ALWAYS better than the movie, but there are times when I love to shut the book, turn off the computer, and watch a story unfold on screen. My roommate …
3 Writing Cues from The Flash
By Beth K. Vogt “The Flash” is must-watch TV in the Vogt household. On Tuesday nights, my husband, teen daughter, and I hunker down in the family room eager to see what’s going to happen in Central City, home to Barry Gordon, a.k.a. The Flash, as well as his friends and enemies. I walk away from every episode thinking, “I …
Rewrites…
By Katherine Reay We like to call them edits. Or perhaps macro-edits, if we want to sound crafty. But sometimes, they are simply re-writes – a ponderous process to push the story where it should have already been. I’ve just been through a bout of these and it was a humbling experience. I tried to push myself and attempt/accomplish new …