Welcome to the Coach's Corner! Recently one of our authors shared the twentieth rendition of a query letter he had prepared to send to an agent. His is an epic novel; a real piece of literature. I was reminded how difficult it is to summarize a story—any story—in just a few lines. The author shared his frustration at the process and how … [Read more...]
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...]
I just received an email from Ron Pramschufer at www.selfpublishing.com regarding a new player in the Self Publishing business called Kbuuk. Seems that they have developed apps that will enable you to design a cover for your book, upload your file and have it converted to an epub. They also have other tools for marketing but you have to subscribe … [Read more...]
One of the services that Self Publishing, Inc. provides to its book printing customers is a Pre-Flight check of printer-ready PDF files that have been provided to print book covers and interiors. What exactly is a Pre-Flight check? Any pilots out there? Whether you think of your book as a Boeing 777, ready to go out and take the world by storm, … [Read more...]
Welcome to the Coach’s Corner! How long will it take you to realize your dream, complete your manuscript, have it professionally edited, designed, printed and published? “As long as it takes.” This is November, “National Novel Writing Month,” when authors and writers sometimes challenge themselves to join the NaNoWriMo bandwagon and … [Read more...]
A number of authors have asked us if we can produce children’s books for the eBook market. The answer to that is yes we can but there are a few things would be authors need to know. First of all, what is considered to be a children’s book? A children’s book usually consists of pages of colorful illustrations with text. The text will often … [Read more...]
There’s a line from one of my favorite movies, “The Usual Suspects,” that goes, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” Well, the greatest trick that vanity press publishers try to pull off every day is claiming that vanity press publishing is self publishing. Now that Author Solutions … [Read more...]
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