Word Magic
Are you a new fiction author? You may be concerned about choosing a genre for your fiction. And rightfully so. I’ve coached authors who went from zero sales to 100 sales a day when they switched genres. Let’s start with what “genre” means: essentially, it’s a style, or category, of art, music, or literature. You may be wondering why that’s … Read more
The self-publishing author told me: “I hate book marketing. At least if I get a publisher, I can forget about that. I just want to write…” Experience is always the best teacher, so I swallowed hard and suppressed my giggles, then responded calmly: “Yes… most authors prefer writing to marketing.” Why do authors (whether self-publishing or not) hate marketing? My … Read more
If you’re writing fiction, you’re writing in a genre. Literary agents expect you to tell them your novel’s genre if you want them to represent you, and if you’re self-publishing, Amazon will expect you to choose a genre too. (“Browse categories” in Amazon’s terms.) Many authors chafe at this: “I’ll decide on the genre later. It’s not important, is it?” … Read more
“Is a writing blog still important?” I receive a version of this question frequently. It might be phrased as: “(Someone or other) said that blogs don’t work.” Or “How can my blog help me to: get more clients/ sell more books/ build my platform…?” Blogging has changed enormously since I started my first blogs in the late 1990s, but the … Read more
If you’ve got a blog and wish that your blog could be more successful, it’s time to build your blog. Over the past few weeks, while I’ve been setting up this new version of the blog, I’ve received lots of questions. Many of the questions had a subtext of how long does it take? “It” could be anything — make … Read more