Book reviews are one of many marketing tools available to authors and publishers. A glowing review from a recognized source can really work wonders for your book’s reputation, while a well-circulated negative review can just about ruin your chances of success. But regardless of whether a review is positive, negative, or somewhere in between, there are several ways you as an author can utilize them to maximum benefit.Continue reading “Marketing Matters: Book Reviews”
Plans for March
February was a very full month, and though I did not quite finish all I had hoped due to some unavoidable delays, I nevertheless did finish some and got very close to the rest. I cannot complain in the least.
March could prove a very hectic month indeed as I work towards other goals as well as writing and publishing. I have some manuscripts to look over, another to type up, and more work on my translations to do. In addition, I may finally see fit to resume my rough drafting of new material after two months of producing nothing new save for a couple more magazine articles. So, with this in mind, I carry on, and hope it proves a productive month for you all as well as for myself. At the very least, we’ve got 3 more days to work with than last month.
Writing Readable Nonfiction
Writing nonfiction is an art form unto itself, as I mentioned in a previous post on the subject, However, while that post was concerned primarily with the fundamentals of writing nonfiction, this one is concerned with another important aspect: making sure that the nonfiction you write is actually readable.Continue reading “Writing Readable Nonfiction”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
This one’s never been my favorite, but to all you romantics out there, have a positively lovely day!
Writing Professionally
The business side of things is an aspect that many creative types like to ignore or minimize as much as possible. And this is fine if you just want to write as a sideline or a hobby and aren’t at all interested in making a full-time career of it. But what if writing as a profession is your goal? How do you make a creative career your mainstay when the market is so crowded and highly subjective?
In truth, there is no easy way to go about it, and there is no magic formula to becoming an overnight bestseller. But there are nevertheless many things you as the independent creative writer (or creative anything, for that matter) can do to give yourself a bit of an edge over the less business-minded competition.
Translating Your Work
One way to potentially expand your audience is to offer your work in more than one language. This is especially true if you have extensive distribution networks in countries and regions where a given foreign language predominates. I made a post on translating some time ago, but the emphasis of this post is how to go about having your own work translated, and what to do once you’ve got it.Continue reading “Translating Your Work”
Plans for February
January was a pretty good month. Though not every goal was met, progress was nevertheless made across all fronts.
For February, things should continue apace. I would like to continue my translation work, make some much-needed additions and corrections to this year’s Knights of Aralia books, and resume work on my long overdue rough draft of Sauragia 3! Some illustrating may also take place, though if other plans of mine come to fruition, I may not have much time for it.
How to Look Professional as a Self-Published Author
Self-publishing still has quite a stigma attached to it, and not without reason. After all, it can be done by anyone who has the means and the time to put his or her work out there with a relative minimum of technical skill required. Hence, self-published books can and often do still turn out looking half-finished, and with all kinds of obvious formatting errors that would send the staunchest of professional typesetters into apoplectic fits.
So, how can these many potential pitfalls be avoided in your own self-publishing endeavor, should you decide to pursue that route? And how can you overcome the stigma of being self-published so that your books might have a shot at becoming true successes? Well, I shall do my best to answer these questions and more in this week’s post.Continue reading “How to Look Professional as a Self-Published Author”
Editors and Beta Readers
We all know how helpful it can be to get someone else’s opinion on our work. Sometimes our own inner eye simply isn’t enough to catch all the problems with a manuscript, be they with the story, the grammar, or something else entirely. Hence, a good editor or beta reader can be worth his weight in gold if the insight offered results in a greatly improved end product. And that is, after all, what every author wants.Continue reading “Editors and Beta Readers”
YA or NA?
One of the questions I’ve found myself asking in the past is what’s the difference between young adult and new adult when it comes to writing fiction (or even nonfiction)? Where is the all important line of separation between these supposedly distinct age ranges? Well, though I tried to answer this to some degree in my post about age ranges, today I’m going to do my best to more clearly define what makes the two distinct.Continue reading “YA or NA?”