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Planning Helps When Writing
Most successful writers follow the three stages of writing: planning, drafting, and revising. Each stage has its own steps. Here are the steps for planning your writing: Assess your writing situation....
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Create Your Writing Place
I’m sure most everyone’s heard about Ivan Pavlov (pictured) and his conditioning experiments with dogs. He rang a bell in conjunction with serving food to a dog. Before getting the food, the dog...
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It’s All Been Said–But Not By You!
I watched a television interview with Steven Spielberg last night. One of the things that comes up during most interviews is the promotion of the person’s latest offering, albeit a book, record, movie,...
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Authors: Here’s a Checklist of People Who Want Your Money
I received an email about a new marketing service for authors–a virtual book tour that puts information about your book in “selected” blogs for three to four weeks (only on weekdays) for a mere $1,500....
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The Blank Page Awaits
Everyone’s busy with the holidays and things that need doing at year-end. Still, this is the time to ruminate what you can do with your writing in the new year. The list below pertains primarily to...
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Pre-writing Your Book (or Article)
One stat somewhere says 80 percent of the population wants to write a book. Based on my many years of teaching, writing, editing, and publishing, that seems like a good stat. But before you jump into...
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Romance Writing Basics
When writing any genre fiction, it’s important to follow the rules. Genre readers have expectations, and your job as author is to entertain the reader and meet those expectations. Begin with the...
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Wanna Write? Then be Open to Change.
You say you want to write more. You dream of being published. Then you go about your daily routine and your writing gets put on hold. Sound familiar? If you wanna write, you need to be open to changing...
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Need to Organize Your Writing? Start with a List.
The older I get, the more I see the value in making lists. I swear that’s because I have so much crammed in my brain that it’s hard to keep everything straight unless I write things down. My friends...
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Article Ideas are Found Everywhere
One of the best ways to get published is by writing articles. But sometimes finding ideas is the hardest part of the writing process. See how many of these ways for finding article ideas work for you....
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It’s May, so Think Winter!
Magazine writers have a unique way of viewing the yearly calendar. It’s May and most people are thinking of Memorial Day, graduation, and summer. But magazine writers are thinking Christmas, New...
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Eight Steps to Becoming a Better Writer
It’s been said that more people talk about writing than actually write. Writing involves more than putting finger to keyboard or pen to paper. Consider these eight steps to becoming a better writer....
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Budget Basics
When I edit books, I ask the author about his or her publishing plans. Ninety percent plan to self-publish. Self-publishing requires investing in oneself, and it also means creating a publishing plan,...
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10 Things You Need to do to Successfully Self-publish
Most authors know to stay away from vanity presses–the ones that take your money and publish your book as is. But few authors think about self-publishing being the ultimate in vanity publishing....
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Build Your Home Office Library
Most writers keep a home office (even if it’s just a corner in the bedroom), but with today’s technology, most writers use the Internet as their research library. That’s fine, but I suggest you build a...
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Nine Rules for Making Your Book Look Good
I’ve edited books for authors for more than three decades, so I’m offering the disclaimer that I’m an editor, not a book designer. However, I’ve worked with many book designers and have learned nine...
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Now is the Time to Start Thinking about Next Year
I realize we’re between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but with the holidays so close together this year, the new year will be upon us before we’re ready–unless we start giving next year some thought now....
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You Have Choices about Your Writing
Because writing is a solitary activity, writers sometimes risk feeling guilty about writing–after all, they do it alone, which takes them away from friends and family. I encourage you to rethink the...
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Marketing Your Writing is a Journey, not a Sprint
I encourage you to increase your awareness of how many radio and television guests are pushing books. I also encourage you to be honest with yourself about how well you retain the book’s title,...
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Make Better Decisions
Writers constantly make decisions as they write. They decide what to include, when they’ve done enough research, who their characters are, what their characters do and when, etc. Perhaps the hardest...
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