May 21, 2013

Compelling Covers

engineer plans

Before entering publishing full time, it was my pleasure to work for many years in advertising and marketing. A delightful career, the ad biz was frenetic and madcap, joyful and rewarding, highly creative and incredibly educational. Writing, designing, and producing a broad variety of printed items exposed me to new concepts, new technologies, new … [Read more...]

Personality Sells Books

networking

Yes, I’m going to say it again—personality sells books. If you doubt it, begin a campaign to engage more people in conversation about your book and see what happens. Talk to people at a bus stop about it, show it to folks who are waiting in line at the grocery store, bring it up at business meetings and social events where appropriate, share it … [Read more...]

The Best Advice I’ve Learned On Story Structure: Part 2 — Plot Point 1

editingpen

A quick re-cap: Larry Brooks' fantastic resource, STORY ENGINEERING, defines 6 Core Competencies for novelists and screenwriters. Those are: Concept Character Theme Structure (Setup) Scene Execution Writing Voice Today, I’m going through two main definitions: PP1 First Pinch Point FOUR-PART STORY STRUCTURE / THREE-ACT … [Read more...]

Write Your Profitable Book Now! Don’t Believe the Myths!

laptopbest

You want to make a difference in people's live, you are researching a topic and becoming an expert. You want to give your audience answers to their questions on your topic. You want to attract new clients, brand yourself or business, or maybe you want to write a novel to educate and entertain. You resist! You have doubts. It takes too long. You … [Read more...]

Creating Your Platform and Promoting Yourself

laptopbest

Since platform and promotion has become so important today for selling books or getting a book deal with a publisher, the big question that many writers have is how do you do this?  How do you gain that visibility in a time when there is so much clutter from millions of self-published books and celebrity has become the coin of the realm? Here … [Read more...]

Content Marketing Assures Building Your Niche Authority

laptopbest

Are you unsure of how to make yourself and your service well known, liked and trusted? Have you tried social media conversations without getting a bite or sales yet? If you are perplexed as to why what you're doing is not working, there's a reason – maybe several reasons. My 13 years online have taught me one thing. That books and blog posts … [Read more...]

Authors Supporting Authors; How to Get the Help You Need

stack-of-books

How do you support your fellow authors? It seems that we don’t have enough time and energy these days to do all that we feel we must, let alone be able to offer anything much to others. I think that busy authors are especially lacking in the support department. Authorship is so all-consuming that we find ourselves overwhelmed by our own … [Read more...]