Word magic.
If you’re a fiction author, you know that short stories sell. They’re useful as promotional tools, and if you’re beginning, they’re a fun way to learn storytelling skills. Recently, a coaching student told me that one of her little ebooks outsells everything else she’s written. “It’s become the foundation of my self-publishing business,” she said. “This story introduces my readers … Read more
Recently, a local authors’ group asked me to chat with them about self-publishing. It was a fun evening with a mix of traditionally published folk and self-publishers. After a brief presentation, the authors asked questions—with many questions about marketing, as well as failures, books that just won’t sell. Everyone has duds, but there’s always something you can do. We’ll look … Read more
Today, self-publishing is big business. With many millions of books available, how do you write fiction that stands out? It can be a struggle. Not only do authors compete with other self-publishers, they also compete with: Traditional publishers. Literary agents. Amazon’s powerful imprints. Traditional publishers are relaunching authors’ backlists. Literary agents survey the battlefield, ready to pounce on new authors … Read more
Want to sell your fiction? I receive questions about fiction sales a couple of times a week—often from baby authors, who haven’t yet started writing. These embryo authors want guarantees that their writing will sell, before they invest time and energy. Sadly, writing comes first. Please, write consistently, and effortlessly. If you’re forcing yourself to write, it will always be … Read more
How do you plan your novel? Do you create an outline, or forget plotting and just write? In a recent fiction writing class, we discussing planning fiction, and how much planning is necessary. I’m a big fan of fast plotting. In this post on plotting fiction, we discussed plotting in an hour or less: Plotting fiction in an hour (or … Read more