Writing and Publishing News

Sometimes my clients fret and fuss over the fact that their stories are not conforming to their original plans. They tell me, “It’s taking on a life of its own and I don’t know how to stop it.” This week, a client said that she feels she is losing her sense of self as she [...]

I am so proud of myself. While I try to practice what I preach, I don’t always succeed. But this time I did it! Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been quiet for a couple of days. That’s because I’ve been spending every free moment updating my website.
Do you recall my rant in the last blog [...]

Oh my gosh, am I ever disappointed and pretty discouraged, too. Yesterday, I spent hours and hours doing the type of research I am always nagging at you authors to do. I did numerous Google searches in an attempt to locate cat-related sites that welcome story/article submissions from others, review books on cats and/or have [...]

In a recent post, I told you about my list of writing/publishing sites and newsletters and why I keep such a list. It occurred to me that maybe you’d like to know about some of the sites and publications on my list. So this post is dedicated to resources for writers and authors. Most [...]

Many of you reading this blog want, more than anything else, to succeed as a writer. You may dream of writing every single day. You want to make enough money at it to justify your time spent writing. And you fear, more than anything else, failure.
Who is most likely to fail in this field?
• Those of [...]

Over the weekend, I spent a good part of a day updating my “Writing Magazines/Newsletters List” That is, my list of magazines and newsletters related to writing and publishing. I keep this list in a binder along with lists of the articles I’ve submitted to each of them. Whenever I get a spare moment or [...]

I’ve covered a lot of topics, issues, scenarios, examples, experiences, processes and ideas in the last nearly 450 blog posts. I’ve attempted to educate, inform and entertain you with each and every post.
While some of my posts are inspired by the comments, experiences, questions, mistakes and successes of you, my clients, my colleagues and my [...]

Do you have a platform you can stand on when it comes to promoting and selling your book? Some of you might have a big question mark over your head when faced with this question. What is a platform, anyway?
• It’s your following.
• It’s your way of attracting readers.
• It’s your connections.
We all have platforms; some are just [...]

What are the chances that your author annals will be empty?
Odessa, Texas came up in conversation yesterday and I remembered that I had a great aunt, whom I never met, named Clara Odessa Robison Davenport. She was one of five sisters—my great grandmother, Julia, being one of them. They were all involved in things that [...]

I often get questions about author’s agents. Hopeful authors will ask me, “Should I start looking for an agent?” “When do I need an agent?” “What role does an agent play?” “How do I go about finding an agent?”
The fact is that not every author will need an agent for every book project. You [...]