Writing and Publishing News

My new book is out!! I don’t think that an author ever gets so blasé as to not feel excited when she sees her new book for the first time. And I got to be excited this week. Wednesday morning at 10:30, we got the call from the business center where I pick up my [...]

Exercising Your Author’s Voice Promotion can be a silent and lonely activity. As an author with a book to sell, you spend quite a bit of time each day/week trying to find readers. (If you aren’t doing this, you should be.) You are building mailing and emailing lists; writing and rewriting press releases and other [...]

As we close in on Christmas and I think about all of the last minute tasks I must finish, it reminds me of writing deadlines. Have you noticed that most writing projects come with deadlines? Sometimes the deadlines are dictated by a client, editor or publisher, but most often they’re self-imposed. How do you approach [...]

It’s only 5 days until Christmas. I hope you’re giving yourself permission to NOT write. At least for one day or a few hours each day, take a holiday break. If you don’t, the season will pass without your feeling as though you were ever a part of it. The shopping you did in a [...]

It’s less than a week until Christmas and I’m right on schedule with my tasks and activities. Isn’t it amazing how something that seems so overwhelming can come together so flawlessly? But I’ve learned through years of writing for a living that in order to achieve success on a project, one must consistently move in [...]

What does a writer do when she comes to the end of a project? Many of us panic. We feel pangs of fear and we wonder, “Will I ever have another writing job?” “Will I be inspired again?” “Has the well run dry?” “Am I washed up as a writer?” What is a writer to [...]

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. Our Christmas cards are sent, the house is decorated, ¾ of our gifts are wrapped, the shopping is DONE and my Christmas day menu is set. Remember my plan—to do a little something pertaining to Christmas each day? It’s working. We’ll decorate our tree later [...]

Question: When is it the right time to start promoting your book? Answer: The minute you commit to writing it. It’s true! Promotion starts way before you actually have a book to sell. You might ask, “How can I sell a book that I don’t even have?” Well, you probably can’t, but you can certainly [...]

Do you ever pay to advertise your book? In my book, Over 75 Good Ideas for Promoting Your Book and in my newest book, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book, I provide many, many no and low cost ideas for promoting your book. In fact, I steer authors away from paid [...]

Do you take advantage of book promotion or writing opportunities when they present themselves or do you wait to think them over and eventually forget to take action? There’s a third alternative to either acting too quickly or never getting a “round tuit.” When I’m presented with a book promotion or publishing opportunity that sounds [...]