Maintaining A Positive Face

This week I have been thinking about all sorts of eclectic things to do with the life of an author.

Headshots... This is an awful necessity when you write... at some point some one is going to ask for a headshot. Writer Unboxed has a great article on this. I have heard of conferences arranging photographers who specialise in this... (hmmm must explore this.)

Being a nicer person because I am a writer. Book Trib had an interesting article on this.

Jody Hedlund looks at the other side of niceness when you feel you are the worst writer in the world... How can you dig yourself out of the hole?

Keeping a positive attitude helps when you are visualising your goals. If you are Indie Publishing 5 tips on how you can measure success.

This week Publishers Weekly had a column from Kristan Higgins asking the literary world to grow up when it comes to Romance writing.They are among the savviest writers I know and Kristan has a point. Read the Genre before you criticise it.

The New York Times has changed the way they will be reporting Children’s Best Sellers... There was jubilation all over my Twitter Feed. Now finally we will find out the best selling junior fiction books... When the list jumped from Picture Book to Young Adult best sellers... something had to give.

Sticking with big companies making changes… HarperCollins is shutting down Authonomy, their website where aspiring authors could post stories. It was an interesting experiment.

Joanna Penn has answered a bunch of questions about her writing business. She is a postive force when it comes to finding out about marketing. Here she has lots of tips.

In the Craft Section,

Killing your darlings – 5 writers talk about the cutting room floor

Using beta readers to help you write- C S Lakin

6 easy ways to achieve a perfect ending

6 things writers should know about MB Thinking vs. Feeling

5 writing challenges all writers face

How to find an editor – Jane Friedman

Creativity tips for the stuck- Nathan Bransford

In the Marketing Section,

Mastering Radio Interviews - Anne R Allen (Bookmark)

What do you do when your Amazon reviews disappear?

Ebook formatting using MS Word- Molly Greene

How to make 3D cover generators

6 types of Copyright disclaimers – The Book Designer (Bookmark)

What makes your story unique –The Art of the Blurb – Jami Gold

Creating Author Business Plans- Janice Hardy

Easy ways to build an email list

Website of the Week

Writers in the Storm have a great website with all sorts of great craft and marketing tips. Here are two recent Bookmark posts, 5 easy SEO techniques and How actions determine character arc. There are four writers contributing and they manage to cover all facets of the business. A great Go To Website

To Finish,

Chuck Wendig has a new book out soon. It is his 13^th and by now he should be used to the feelings of gut wrenching fear, nervousness and excitement... It only gets worse… He tries to maintain a positive face… (Positive warnings on language apply.)

Maureen

@craicer

Pic is from Flickr/ Creative  Commons - Wonderlane

Writing Costs

This week two critiques of James Patterson’s Master class in writing bounced around my Twitter feed. One was from The Observer and the other from Writer Unboxed.

James Patterson is a prolific bestseller who has a team at his publishers devoted only to his work. This year he started a fund for booksellers to encourage reading. Our local children’s bookseller was a lucky recipient. So a master class from him was always going to be interesting. It’s a huge bang for your buck. ($90US) I can’t help thinking that other writing craft gurus will have to lift their game.

The other topic to get bounced around this week was the cost of publishing.

Joanna Penn has a critical analysis of her own writing business and six figure income. Kate Flora has a critical analysis of how much it costs to write traditionally. (i.e. with a Trade publisher.)

Nick Stephenson is also talking about the cost of self publishing but he sees it as a value....

Last week I linked to Steve Hamilton's fight with St Martin's press Kristine Rusch has an excellent post on this and the fact that had he done it in 2005 his career would be over… but authors who have done it have some tricks up their sleeves…. 

Porter Anderson takes a look at balancing Trad and Indie publishing interests. Whether you come in on one side or the other or are firmly hybrid, there is a lot of discussion in what way a writing career can go now. Porter mentions Deborah Cooke’s recent essay, What I miss about Traditional publishing, (very interesting) as he compares the two camps. Jaye Manus takes issue with some of Deborah’s ideas especially where she says that Indie publishers need someone to say NO that is not a good idea.

Elizabeth S Craig has a great post on publishing podcasts... She talks about her favourites and finds a few more from her readers.

Anne R Allen has an excellent post on social media... she is not a fan of email newsletters. She talks about the best way you can promote.

Have you heard about ageism in YA? A young writer points out that teens aren't being listened to...

In the Craft Section,

What 4 agents are looking for in memoir- Alan Rinzler

Why your characters are boring

Character psychology- 9 common errors- Kassandra Lamb

5 reasons internal dialogue is essential

Revision techniques- Janet Fox (Bookmark)

Plotting essentials checklist

Planning your plotting – Janice Hardy

In the Marketing Section,

13 reasons why your novel query was rejected- Anne R Allen

Looking good on a web cam – Rachelle Gardner

How to market your books when you have a pen name.

Writers- using a project management approach.

Molly Greene has two great posts- 45 ways to sabotage your social media success and

Why readers download books-(Bookmark)

To Finish,

Whether you are Trad or Indie inclined you still need to write a ripping good yarn. So here is the word from Bob Mayer – Finding the shiver effect!

maureen
Pic From The Fabulous InkyElbows