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5 Marketing Strategies for Your Self-Published Book Launch

By Annmarie McQueen So you’ve edited your novel to perfection and you’re ready to self-publish it on Amazon and show it off to the world. You’ve decided on a launch date, but now what? Setting up a pre-launch marketing campaign is one of the biggest things determining the success of your book launch, and yet…

Issue Three Hundred Seventy Two Special Feature

Submission to Journals as a Form of Promotion

By Cait Moore These days there are a multitude of promotional tactics that authors can use to garner attention for their books. Words like blogging, book tours and personal appearances fall from the mouths of my author friends daily. I agree. They are useful and indeed a necessary part of promotion. However, the lawyer in…

Issue Three Hundred Seventy One Special Feature

9 Ways to Break Through Writer’s Block

By Chikodi Adeola Olasode When you hit writer’s block, you’ll sit for hours in frustration, fiddling with your pen, and no ideas will come through. I know how helpless I feel when my creative well hits an inspiration brick. But there are always ways through and around writer’s block to generate new ideas for short…

Issue Three Hundred Seventy Special Feature

Using Social Media to Promote Your Writing

By Heather Andrews Miller Social media can be extremely helpful in promoting your writing. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or any other platform, potential clients can find you easily. Make your site attractive, utilizing bold and attractive headlines. Have your contact information readily available. Images attract people to your pages, and there are…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Eight Special Issue

How Reading Out Loud Can Make You a Better Writer

Victoria Otto Franzese Study after study shows that reading aloud to children provides a multitude of benefits, including sharper focus and better comprehension. Many of these same advantages occur when you read your own writing out loud, which is why doing so can be an important tool for editing your work. Researchers who have found…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Seven Special Feature

Adventures in Publishing: The Small Press Edition

by: Samantha Bryant I didn’t think it would get as bad as it did. In fact, at the outset, I imagined myself the heroine of a fairy tale, the newly crowned princess–or, rather, published author. But fairy tales are seldom as simple as they seem, and “happily ever after” is sometimes quite short lived. When…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Six Special Feature

How the Coronavirus Turned My Puzzle Book Into an Amazon Bestseller

By Michael Wiesenberg Two years ago I assembled 105 Canadian-themed crossword puzzles that I published as an 8.5×11” soft cover book on Amazon’s self-publishing facility. The book did moderately well, until the coronavirus came along. A lot of people were finding themselves with a lot more time on their hands. In these times of self-isolating,…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Four Special Feature

Implementing Objective Correlative

By Sherry Shahan I recently helped facilitate a writing workshop focusing on revision. Most of the participants had agents and were widely published. Yet brows furrowed when I mentioned the literary device Objective Correlative. Simply put, an objective correlative is an object in a story with a symbolic purpose. It can be an everyday item…

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5 Ways to Find Time to Write When You Work Full Time

By Brandie June Whenever I hear writers complaining that they can never find the time to write, I have to wonder how hard they are trying to find that precious time. And I get it. I wish I had all the time in the world and could sit in front of my computer all day…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Three Special Feature

What I Learned Attempting the 100 Rejection Challenge

By Nicole Pyles The last couple of years have been an interesting writing journey for me. I transformed from being a writer who lamented over being unable to finish stories to finding joy in the revision process. To tell you the truth, I never thought about intentionally aiming for 100 rejections. It didn’t cross my…

Issue Three Hundred Sixty Special Feature

The Importance of Research: Post-Mortem Publishing Rights

By Ted Parrish As a writer for decades now, I have been recently confronted and perplexed with a legal issue worthy of extensive research. Not doing so could have resulted in a legal lawsuit for liability, which I prefer not to get into, so it was time well invested. This issue is post-mortem publishing rights….

Issue Three Hundred Fifty Nine Special Feature

Tips for Being a Writer During the Health Crisis

By Brandie June I won’t lie, the world is a bit of a scary place right now. Anytime I turn on the news or go to the store, I’m reminded that there is a big health crisis that we all have to deal with right now, and it means a lot of changes. Over just…

Issue Three Hundred Fifty Seven Special Feature

How to Get Review Quotes for Your Book

By Ben Graff When I had finished writing my first book, a more experienced author told me the hard work started now. She highlighted that all writers face a crowded marketplace. That no matter how beautiful the language or however moving the story, very few novels sell themselves. We all want our work to connect…

Issue Three Hundred Fifty Four Special Feature

How to Work with an Artist to Design Your Book’s Cover

By Ben Graff As writers, we strive to make every word we place on the page work perfectly. However, readers frequently make judgments and buying choices without reading any of what we have written. Our cover designs are often the gateway to our work, and it is all too easy to undermine a great book…

Issue Three Hundred Fifty Three Special Feature

How to Know When Your Work is Ready to Submit

By Adele Annesi Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, short pieces or books, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is submitting your work too soon. This holds true no matter how long you’ve been writing or what project you’re working on. Wherever you are in your writing career, there are guidelines to follow…

Issue Three Hundred Fifty Five Special Feature

Articles by A Guest Author