How to Write a Great Story: A Roundup of Best Advice
A round-up of the best and most popular advice on writing craft and technique I’ve featured since 2010.
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How to Attract a Readership Based on Concept Alone
Ultimately, concept is far less important than character when it comes to determining the overall quality of your story, but your audience is attracted to your story based on your concept alone. Does your concept have what it takes to draw people in?
Marketing and Publishing Checklists for Writers
When embarking on a process that is new or unfamiliar, often you don’t know what you don’t know. A checklist helps you recognize what you don’t know, so that many months later, you’re not beating yourself up for complete ignorance. Without further ado, here are some of my most favored checklists, from sources I trust.
Gifts for Writers: Tech Savvy and Traditional Options
Before you buy another pen-and-pencil set for that writer in your life, consider some gift options that take their digital lives into consideration.
Using Multiple Points of View: When and How Is It Most Effective?
Some stories require greater scope, more voices, or a different context than can be delivered through the eyes of one protagonist. When you find this to be the case, consider using multiple viewpoints. However, you must think about several factors before launching into this greater undertaking.
Should You Hire a Professional Editor?
But being able to truly see if you’ve been successful in writing a compelling work requires objectivity and distance than can be hard to achieve on your own—and this is where a professional editor comes in.
Choosing Between Traditional and Indie Publishing
This week, I was a guest on the Create If Writing podcast, discussing traditional and independent publishing.
Do You Have Intention? How to Set Achievable and Meaningful Goals
The most successful people in every industry use goals as road maps to help them reach their desired destination. It’s no different for writers.
How to Get 10,000 Visits to Your Blog in One Day with No Platform
Getting traction for your online presence—especially a new blog—can feel like an impossible task when you’re an unknown writer. But it can be done.
What Early Experiences Inform Your Fiction?
Author Kurt Rheinheimer discusses how the most precious vein for material is from just before he knew who he was and what was going on.
A Key to Great Writing: Make Every Word Count
If I could teach only one key to great writing, it would be this: Make every word count. Recognize the power of a single, well-chosen word. Trust it to do its work. As a rule, the more economically you use language, the more powerfully you will deliver your message.
Have Trouble Getting That Book Done? Try Doing Less.
There are countless ways to defeat ourselves, but the biggest and worst is to make the task too big and then feel daunted before we ever start
Balancing the Art of Writing with the Business of Publishing
Watch my 30-minute talk on how to bring together the art and business sides of your career in a way that doesn’t feel like a bad marriage.
3 Things Your Traditional Publisher Is Unlikely to Do
The No. 1 disappointment of published authors is the lack of marketing support from their publisher. Here’s how to prepare for what will—and won’t—happen.
Building a Believable Chain of Events in Your Novel
Every action in your novel should be justified by the intersection of setting, context, pursuit, and characterization. They all need to make sense. They all need to fit. If you have to explain why something just happened, you’re telling the story backward.
How to Network Effectively (Even If You Hate Networking): Start Close to Home
If you want to sell books and have people read them, you have to meet other people and tell them about it. Learn the best networking strategies for people who hate networking.
How to Use Reddit to Market Your Books (Carefully)
Reddit is an online community where you can get your book in front of hundreds of thousands of readers for free. That is, if you have the right strategy.
How to Run Short-Term Social Media Campaigns
A short-term marketing campaign is a series of strategies designed to reach a goal in a defined period of time, and include projects such as book launches. A short-term campaign has four definite phases: planning, pre-launch, launch, and follow-through.
9 Tips to Building the Book Cover Design You Always Wanted
Book cover designer Joshua Jadon offers nine tips for creating a visually intriguing book cover.
How to Make Money from Your Website or Blog
I’m proud to have a feature in Writer’s Digest magazine on how to monetize your website and blog. I detail eight methods.
Thinking of Running a Facebook Ad? Proceed with Caution
Author Martha Conway discusses optimizing Facebook ad settings to ensure a realistic click-through rate, and her overall results with Facebook ads.
When Should You Write for Exposure? 5 Questions to Ask
When deciding whether to write for free—or for exposure—here are 5 questions writers should ask.
A Round-Up of My Columns for Publishers Weekly
Last year, I began regularly contributing to Publishers Weekly on the topic of independent authorship and publishing. Here’s a list of all my columns so far:
What Writers Too Often Overlook: Having a Call to Action
Just about every writer would love to have more readers—more readers of their books, their blog, their articles, or whatever creative work they’re producing. But few writers have given much thought to having a call to action that’s associated with their work.
Are You a Push Marketer or a Pull Marketer?
If you want to be successful at selling today, you need to quit pushing your needs (please buy my book) and messages at potential readers and concentrate on figuring out how to pull them in by putting their needs above yours. Give them something valuable.
When the Writing Life Isn’t About Talent, Discipline, or Stubbornness
Author Melissa Yancy shines a new light on what failure brings to the writing life—and it isn’t the usual reflection on rejection.
5 On: Caroline Leavitt
Author Caroline Leavitt reveals the fears behind her middle-of-the-night writer anxieties, the contents of her colored book tour folders, her reaction to the praise her latest novel is receiving, and more in this 5 On interview.
The Publishing Industry in 2016: A Status Update
Traditional publishers are experiencing a slump, and the decline of Barnes & Noble isn’t helping. A look at news and trends in book publishing in 2016.
Getting Ready to Launch a Book? Start with These 5 Questions
Social media and marketing expert Andrea Dunlop lists five questions you should ask yourself when starting to plan your book launch.
How to Leverage the Power of Someone Else’s Platform (Without Being Smarmy)
Kirsten Oliphant explains how to reach out to others who can help you build your author platform and how to generate a great pitch for collaboration.
The Power of Pods: Ask Your Friends to Lead a Mini-Brigade on Your Behalf
Author Robert Wilder explains the concept of pods (spheres of influence) and how to use them to help promote your book.
Not Sure How to Approach Social Media? CARE about Your Readers
Author and social media expert Frances Caballo discusses the CARE acronym and how to use it to guide your interactions with readers on social media.
Using Twitter to Make Powerful Connections as a Creative Professional
Author Daniel Parsons offers five tips for improving your Twitter interactions as a creative professional.
Making Peace with Your Ghosts
When writers talk about where their ideas come from, the answers are as varied as wildflowers
What It Means to Be Fierce on the Page
The way we write can define (and transform) the way we live. Author Sage Cohen believes ferocity is our best compass for finding our true way forward.
A Simple Tip to Feel More Empowered in the Business of Writing
You can find depths of meaning in the shared language and goals you’ve developed with the writers around you.
How to Be Active on Social Media without Losing Your Mind
Author and social media expert Kirsten Oliphant explains how to manage your platform-building activities on social media sites.
My Pop-Up Strategy, Part 2: The Autoresponder Series
How do you treat subscribers after they sign up for your email newsletter? An autoresponder can usefully and effectively welcome people to the community.
6 Ways to Vet Freelance Editors
Author and freelance editor Maya Rock offers six pointers for vetting a freelance editor.
How to Get More Speaking Gigs (Even If You Don’t Have a Lot of Speaking Experience)
Author and speaker Dorit Sasson offers tips on how to build author platform through local speaking engagements.
Why I Started Using Pop-Ups on My Website
Pop-ups have long been despited by the Internet world, but the difficulty is: They work. Here’s how to implement them in a way that won’t annoy visitors.
Literary Agents and the Hybrid Author: A Conversation with Bob Mecoy and Kristin Nelson
Sangeeta Mehta interviews agents Bob Mecoy and Kristin Nelson about how agents can assist the hybrid author.
How to Find and Reach Influencers to Help Promote Your Book
Writing coach Angela Ackerman discusses how influencers can help you market your book, how to identify potential influencers, and how to reach them.
How Much of Themselves Do Authors Put in Their Fiction?
Why are we so curious about authors’ own lives in relation to their books, and the ways that they do (or don’t) bring their own stories into their work? Why do we wonder what’s “true”?
2 Keys to Unlock Your Momentum
Before you can take someone else’s advice, you have to develop a realistic picture of who you are, what your tendencies are, and what you’re willing and able to change.
5 Ways to Keep Writing When Life Intervenes
Author and editor Jessica Strawser offers guidance on how to write through illness, grief, and other major life events.
A Definition of Author Platform
Author platform is one of the most difficult concepts to explain, partly because everyone defines it a little differently. Here’s what agents and editors mean by platform, plus a clear definition of what platform is NOT.
How to Grow Your Email List
Kirsten Oliphant discusses various ways to grow your email subscriber list.
3 Myths About the MFA in Creative Writing
Most writers want an MFA for one of three reasons: They want to teach writing, they want to get published, or they want to make room in their life for writing. It turns out these reasons for doing an MFA are actually based on myths.