by Kristen Lamb
January 2014
The New Year is here, and the tough news is that The Digital Age Author is dead in the water without a viable online platform. Discoverability is a nightmare that will exponentially worsen as emerging markets open and increase competition. The Internet (and social media) is a lifeline to captivate and cultivate a fan following. But a lot of writers are wasting precious time and money with activities that yield dismal results.
Read Moreby Christina Katz
January 2014
A proposal is the equivalent of a business plan for your book, and if you want to be a traditional author someday, you need to start thinking of your book as a business first, and an artful inspiration later — after you sign the contract.
I know how writers resist this idea. Therefore I repeat: business proposal first, artful inspiration later.
Read Moreby Erin Brown
January 2014
As each year begins, some of us crazy people decide to make resolutions. Usually, they’re all about exercising, spending more time with the family, quitting smoking, or cutting down on those delicious mini Reese’s that come in the king-sized bag. I mean, can someone really give those up? They’re creamy and chocolaty and . . . but I digress.
Read Moreby Jason Black
January 2014
This article is part five in a series exploring the five stages of surprise, as a writer’s adaptation of the familiar “five stages of grief” emotional cycle. Last month dealt with bargaining. This month, we’ll look at depression.
Depression marks the beginnings of acceptance. The three prior stages—denial, anger, and bargaining—were all about rejecting the reality or the consequences of an unexpected event. When all of those forms of rejection fail, one is forced to accept the reality of a situation.
Read Moreby Devyani Borade
December 2013
'Know your target market!' is an oft-repeated piece of sage advice offered to novice freelance writers. Makes sense, really. You can't work for or with someone without knowing what kind of work they do and what they are trying to achieve.
Read Moreby Amanda L. Barbara
December 2013
The digital world has brought an onslaught of content directly to audiences, and savvy authors know that success is measured much differently than when bookstores were in their heyday.
While print is by no means obsolete, the introduction of digital publishing and social media has created new methods of reaching readers.
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
December 2013
The worst mistake you can make involving parentheses is to leave off the last one so that readers don't know when to stop whispering. Parentheses serve to interrupt the sentence or the paragraph to add something sotto voce to what you are writing, which can be as simple as one word to add clarification or a whole sentence. However, because you are interrupting with those parentheses, there are a few rules to consider.
Read Moreby Jennifer Paros
December 2013
The only journey is the one within.
~ Rainier Maria Rilke
When I was in labor with my first child, after many hours I felt a sense of panic. I sat in my room on the edge of the bed, my husband and sister in and out to check on me. Every sound was too loud, every motion abrasive. A pizza had been ordered (for the others) and I could not bear to smell it; it seemed to be asking the impossible of me.
Read Moreby Erin Brown
Decermber 2013
Self-editing is one of the hardest things for a writer to tackle because he or she is so close to the project and is-rightly so-attached to every word. That's why it's often a great idea to hire an editor; someone who can offer a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective, and can take out all of the unnecessary crap that you insist on keeping in there. Okay, okay, just a joke, but seriously, it's very tempting and common to overwrite a scene (or an entire novel), whether it's a case of an author that is too in love with their writing to see what they need to streamline; or one that does too much telling and showing; or an author that does not give the reader enough credit. I will give examples of these scenarios below so that you, the wordsmith, can better understand why some of the words you are "smithing" should be sacrificed for the greater good of effective storytelling.
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
November 2013
One of the first grammar articles to appear in Author was about the serial or Oxford comma, that little mark that comes before the and, or, or nor in a horizontal list of more than two items. Do you like dark, milk, or white chocolate? There is a new swell afoot to get rid of that comma by those who say it is unnecessary. Journalists are taught not to use it, which is why you sometimes have to re-read things in the paper to figure out what they mean.
Read Moreby Molly Best Tinsley
November 2013
Memoir has been the next new thing for at least twenty years, gobbling up the pie-share of sales that used to go to literary fiction. Speculation abounds as to the reason for the shift. Compared to a literary novel riddled with symbolism and ambiguity, maybe non-fiction seems to offer a clear, reality-based take-away. Memoir is the more practical choice, and we live in a practical age. Maybe memoir triggers our inner voyeur. Maybe readers have been hooked by the same packaging gimmick that draws viewers to the hyper-contrived worlds of "reality" TV.
Read Moreby Midge Raymond
November 2013
This article is excerpted from Everyday Book Marketing: Promotion Ideas to Fit Your Regularly Scheduled Life.
Virtual book tours are wonderful, especially if you're not able to do an extensive in-person tour. What is a "virtual book tour," exactly? It's simply another way to get out there and do what authors do-talk about your book, connect with readers, answer questions-only this way, you're doing it all virtually (on blogs, in interviews, and in virtual book club or classroom visits) instead of in person.
Read Moreby Jennifer Paros
November 2013
You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world. ~ Lucille Ball
At the start of this school year, my fourteen- year-old son declared his desire to write a book and to use some of our homeschooling class time to work on it each day. So we set to it. But as he sat before the computer, he'd often slump, push his hands through his hair, and claim exhaustion. Then, despite my objections, encouragement, counsel, and insisting, he would close the laptop, having written little or nothing. One day at the start of our time together, he said, "I don't want to do anything."
Read Moreby Erin Brown
November 2013
You've written an epic novel (The Sound and the Fury, Part Two: The Really Loud and the Really Mad), or the next great self-help book ( You: A Renter's Manual) and you figure, "That's it. Now this puppy will sell itself. Agents and editors will realize the gold mine they have on their desk and the rest is history!" Right? Wrong. You might well have the next best thing since sliced bread and your writing talent could be genuinely brilliant, but if you don't present yourself well to an agent (and an editor!), then you could very well shoot yourself in the foot.
Read Moreby Jason Black
November 2013
This article is part three in a series exploring the five stages of surprise as a writer's adaptation of the familiar five stages of grief emotional cycle. Last month, we dealt with denial. This month, we'll look at what happens next: frustration and the surface emotion of anger that comes with it. And while the frustration stage is never pleasant to experience, it can certainly be one of the most fun stages for authors to subject our characters to.
Read Moreby Cherie Tucker
October 2013
There are several verbs that people don't need to have trouble with, but for some reason they do. Regular verbs are made into past or future tenses by changing the ending: walk, walked, have walked, am walking. Easy as that. It is usually the irregular ones that make us crazy: lie, lay, have lain, am lying (remember those?).
Read Moreby Noelle Sterne
October 2013
Like most writers, I keep bumping up against articles on how to treat my writing more like a business. Like many writers, I rebel at this advice, always wanting more time for the writing itself. But in an infrequent browse through a business publication, I came upon an article that didn't give me administrative agita. Even immersed in creative bliss, a writer can hardly resist the title: "Ten Traits That Make You Filthy-Rich" by Jeffrey Strain (TheStreet.com, February 1, 2008).
Read Moreby Jennifer Paros
October 2013
If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people's opinions will rush in from all quarters.
~George Bernard Shaw
Recently, someone made comments about me that could easily be construed as unflattering. At first, I was able to steer my attention away from any troubled contemplation of the remarks. But soon, I returned to the comments and the more I returned to them, the more real they seemed - in terms of impact, and therefore real in terms of "truth." The more real they became, the more compelled I was to examine myself and the more miserable I felt.
Read Moreby Kristen Lamb
October 2013
There are few tools more powerful for creating a brand than a good author blog. The Digital Age is fast-paced, and information is fleeting. Many of us are struggling in a sea of 0s and 1s for something of substance to grasp onto.
Read Moreby Steven James
October 2013
A few years ago when my daughter was in sixth grade, she was studying for a spelling bee and one of the advanced words was agathokakological. It took us a while to track down the definition: "consisting of both good and evil." What a fabulous word: agathokakological. We humans have agathokakological hearts, motives, dreams, passions. The next day I told my youngest daughter to inform her first grade teacher that we are an agathokakological breed. I wish I could have seen her teacher's expression when she did.
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