Writing and Publishing News

When you write a story, how-to or self-help piece or something instructional, who do you write it for? Of course, you’re going to say that it’s for your audience. Right answer! But is it really? You may address your audience using “you” a lot in your nonfiction works. You might believe that you are providing [...]

I was one of three final judges in a memoir contest this week. That was an eye-opener. As I understand it, there were several dozen entries which were evaluated by a large group of volunteers. The final judging involved the ten best manuscripts.
Now I’ve judged several writing contests and I know a lot of [...]

Isn’t it grand when you learn something new? I received a manuscript for evaluation recently. I told the author that I thought the manuscript was in pretty good shape, but that he really needed to remove the extra space between sentences.
He told me that he was aware of the new one-space rule, but wasn’t [...]

I’ve been absent for a few days. I hope my useful, informative, insightful blog posts were missed. I haven’t felt much like working for several days. First, I had some sort of summer cold and was feeling more like crashing on the couch than blogging, editing or anything else pertaining to work. Ever feel like [...]

Authors often contact me asking my opinion about their editors’ advice. “Do I have to follow her suggestions?” “She’s trying to change my voice, what shall I do?”
Some of my own clients question my recommendations. And that’s okay. I always tell them, “It’s your manuscript. You make the final decision.” Of course, I explain the [...]

I recall a conversation I had with a hopeful author once at a writer’s conference. He sat on the edge of his seat, notebook open and pen poised in eager anticipation of my wise counsel. Upon receiving it, however, he slammed the book closed, tossed the pen on the table in front of him and [...]

If you are a freelance writer or an author with one or more books to promote and you’re darn serious about succeeding, you lead a busy life.
As a freelance writer, you are always in promotion mode. You face frequent deadlines. Either you work with editors or you serve clients; and their needs don’t always [...]

We all know that when the world around us begins to change, we must alter some of our plans, ideas and goals in order to conform or to fit in, so that our lives continue working.
You may notice that those who cling to their dreams rigidly, without any sort of flexibility, even in changing times, [...]

Speaking of schedules, as we sort of were for the last few days, what is your blogging schedule?
Do you have a blog through which you promote your writing business or your book? Do you visit other blog sites in your quest to continue learning about writing, publishing and/or book promotion? How do you manage your [...]

Writers generally have one of two dilemmas. They can’t find the time or inclination to work the number of hours they must in order to make a living or they can’t stop writing.
The former writer isn’t very well disciplined. He isn’t motivated to put in the time it takes to create success. Perhaps he [...]