No one wants to talk about failure. Writing bloggers and how-to authors everywhere make their livings by promising success — follow this strategy, take these classes, Tweet this many times/day, Facebook with your fans…and you’ll sell thousands of books and readers will love you. The strategies are as numerous as there are bloggers…or would-be writers. …
Tag: self-publishing
Nov 06
Formatting Your Print Manuscript
Well, here we are…almost a week into NaNoWriMo…and I have zero words on my NaNo novel. At this point, it’s a NO novel. Ha. But it’s for a good reason. I’ve been getting The Lords of Askalon all ready to go to press. Formatting, my friends, formatting. And that’s our topic for today. I’ll lay …
Oct 25
How to Make a Book Trailer
As promised, here’s my post on how to make a book trailer! I hope you’ve had a chance to view my Lords of Askalon trailer on the SisterMuses YouTube channel, but if not, here it is again… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdUypj4Cagg] So, now that you’ve finished watching it, I’ll explain how I put this trailer together so …
Oct 17
Editing Focus 4: Syllabic Editing
Okay. So. Long overdue editing blog post: check. This is the last Editing Focus blog post we’ll have for our Fall Blog Fest…so…hope you enjoy it! It’s my personal favorite, as far as annoying things like editing are concerned. 😉 Syllabic editing isn’t something you’ll hear talked about a whole lot. I first heard about …
Oct 10
How to Listen to Your Beta Reader
Both J. Leigh and I have had two insanely busy weeks — doesn’t that always seem to happen right in the middle of huge and important projects? And it’s obvious that I “missed” my self-imposed publication deadline of October 4 for the release of Lords of Askalon. Part of that is life getting busy — …
Sep 17
Editing Focus 1: The Big Picture
J. Leigh laid out our editing map very nicely last week. Today, we’re going to consider Focus 1, what I call the “big picture” edit. There are three levels present in Focus 1 — character, plot, and setting. Character Editing As we step back and look at the Big Picture, we need to consider how …
Sep 13
Preparing to Publish: Editing
As S.K. said in her last blog post, we’re celebrating the month of September with an in-depth look at the publication process. Now, I’m going to assume that you have a finished manuscript. Your story is complete. Your characters are well-rounded and you’ve inflicted on them all necessary challenges and sufferings for growth and all …
Sep 10
September Blog Fest: Preparing to Publish
J. Leigh got us started with a bang yesterday with her fantastically funny (but sadly all-too-accurate) post on creating a YA cover for your novel. If you haven’t read it yet, do. Hopefully it will make you smile! All this month, J. Leigh and I will be writing about the process of getting your manuscript …
Sep 09
How to make a YA book cover in 4 easy steps!
Okay guys, this is totally a spoof entry. But after seeing about 10 YA PNR books in a row that looked like near-identical copies of each other, I decided to tell you how you, too, can create a bestselling YA book cover! Step 1 Find a great background. This should preferably be something gothic …
Aug 11
The Essential Checklist for the Self-Published Author
It’s an unfortunate thing that there’s a stigma associated with self-publishing. I don’t think most people look at a self-employed plumber and say, with a shake of their heads, “Gosh. I guess he must not be good enough to cut it at a big plumbing company.” Most of us, I think, are happy to support …
- 1
- 2