Hey Everyone! I've been gone for quite a while. For the last few years I have been swamped with manuscripts to edit for my small publisher, but I hope to come back to some form of regularity. For those of you who followed along when I was blogging, we spent the better part of a … Continue reading I’m back! Beta Request and “The Publishing Process”
I will have an instructional post for you next week, please send me your questions. I see many of the same topics that I end up answering together. I need some new lines of direction. What haven't I covered, or what would you like me to go into more detail about? For this week, it's … Continue reading The Blood Match: Birth of a Novel (Series #2)
When I grew up I wanted to be Barbra Streisand--specifically as Fanny Brice--but that was never going to happen. Because I wasn't born Barbra Streisand. And you weren't born Stephen King. Which is a good thing, because he's not the best writer. He's ONE of the best writers, along with other household names--Dean Koontz, Nora … Continue reading Literary Q&A: I Just Published a Book, Now What? #Authorgoals (Series #8)
I did the Amazon ads the way you said with lots of ads and low bids. Now what? I did the keyword ads, but I don't know ACOS from pizza. How do I make it work better? Hi everyone! What the author of the question is asking is how to optimize your ads--to make them … Continue reading Literary Q&A: How Do I Know if my Keywords are Converting? [Or Optimizing Amazon Keyword Ads] (Series #7)
This week should be shorter, I have our weekly question, plus an announcement. I am almost done with my book, where should I publish it? This question has a roundabout answer. First of all, if you haven't finished your book, you are looking too far ahead, in my opinion. Not only do you have time … Continue reading Literary Q&A: Where Should I Publish My Unfinished Manuscript? (Series #6)
Good Sunday everyone. My calendar says, "When you can't find the sunshine, BE the sunshine." Love it. Great advice for everyone--especially writers. What do people mean when they say, "It's never too soon to start marketing?" I just released my first book and I haven't even started. So am I already losing because I don't … Continue reading Literary Q&A: What Do People Mean When They Say, “It’s Never Too Soon to Start Marketing”? (Series #5)
Question: I'm editing my book, but what do I do with tags? This week an author friend of mine expressed some confusion on the topic of tags in his novel. I asked, Is your issue with tag punctuation, the difference between action tags and dialogue tags, acceptable dialogue tags, or something else? I could go … Continue reading Literary Q&A: What Good Writers Know About Tags (Series #4)
Hello all! First, I have two promos to share with you. They are both on Bookfunnel. Click on the photos to jump to the sale. Today's post is a casting net. I need your input again authors. I'd like to do another question/answer series for the blog through October. First, I want to know all … Continue reading Journey to a Bestseller: Tell Me Everything YOU Need to be a Successful Writer (Series #46)
Hi everyone. Have you written your first draft, finally gotten it complete, only to realize you have 200,000 words? You are not alone. There are many reasons to "cut" or "trim" your writing. It makes things clearer, stronger, more concise, and streamlines the information that the reader needs to know. And of course, word counts--everyone … Continue reading Journey to a Bestseller: Cutting your Novel Down to Size (Series #45)
I've talked about "voice" before--even as recently as series #35. But what I want to talk about today isn't regarding the way you tell a story so much as it's a sentence-structure thing. In an active sentence, the subject is acting on the verb. It pulls the reader in close to the story. A passive … Continue reading Active vs. Passive Voice (Writing #4)
Hello friends and writers! You know, most of the time I sit down to write this blog about my writing journey, and have no idea what I want to say. I begin telling you about what's going on and fall into a helpful topic. This coming week I'm going to be plotting out my new … Continue reading Journey to a Bestseller: Researching For Your Fiction Novel (Series #41)
Hello everyone! Good weekend! Today I'm going to talk about composing your outline--which can easily be turned into a synopsis. This is difficult for most writers as they've spent hours and hours creatively writing their magnum opus and now they are being asked to condense the entire twisty-turny plot into a short description and don't … Continue reading Commaful Series: Writing a Killer Synopsis and Forming Your Outline (Writing #2)
Hi everyone! I'm going to be doing a series of teaching videos on a free writers' website called Commaful. Give it a visit! It's a colorful site full of great writing samples. The videos I'm making should be about ten minutes long, so I thought I'd write out my article for you here, as well. … Continue reading Commaful Series: Dynamic Fictional World-Building (Writing #1)
Good Sunday everyone! I am so frustrated with the AMS ads. I am a relatively smart person, so I read up on it, took a course--twice--testing at 100% both times. I thought I knew what I was doing. My first ad was accepted, but when I went the next day to look at its performance, … Continue reading Journey to a Bestseller: Amazon Ad Results.1 and Official Book Trailer (Series #33)
How to write a query letter,
I just realized that I changed the name of this series part way through it. But I think I like it the way it is, so it stays. Pthft. Besides, I already made my hashtag. #Journeytobestseller Lol. I put myself on another author marketing site this week called AllAuthors. They are pretty darn cool even … Continue reading The Journey to a Bestseller: Book Reviews!! (Series #19)
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Hey everybody! Sorry I'm late this week. I've been a busy bee. I recently made new covers for my books because they weren't selling well. And those buyers were not rejecting my book based on context, they don't even know what my book says. They were scrolling through the books, … Continue reading The Journey to a Bestseller: Essential Scenes in Every Story- Part Two- First Battle/Midpoint and New Covers (Series #14)
Happy weekend everybody! I just did the stupidest thing. I had some very important emails from a publisher, and they were getting lost in my overflowing email box. So I made a new folder. Then I put all my important emails from the publisher in them. THEN my email told me that the file couldn't … Continue reading The Journey to a Bestseller: Essential Scenes in Every Story- Part One- Start With Lack/Inciting Incident/Point of No Return (Series #13)
Photo by Rakicevic Nenad on Pexels.com Sorry about the weekend everyone! I was out of town for the week in small town Oklahoma and I had no reception at all. It was awesome. Fishing, and four wheelers, and fireworks, and paddle boats, and zip lines, and swimming, and hard lemonade... aah. Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric … Continue reading The Journey to Making a Bestseller: One-third Done and the Process of PreSales (Series #4)
Photo by Janko Ferlic on Pexels.com Hi everyone! This week I sat on a publishing panel for writers at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, which was the most impressive library I've ever seen. It's not only full of books and beautiful architecture, it has great conference rooms, a gift shop and a cafe... and … Continue reading Get Published: Questions from a publishing panel
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I spoke last week about an epiphany I had when I realized I was showing other authors how to get published and the things I have learned from working in the publishing business, but doing things my own way. I have decided to take my own advice and write my … Continue reading The Journey to Making a Bestseller: Designing a Concept and Planning Your Outline (Series #1)
Twitter question: Is it normal to be able to write a WIP happily for hours but to get major league writer's block when trying to write a summary/synopsis? Absolutely. Many of us struggle with this one. Authors think that they are moving from the creative task of writing a fictional work into a strange uninhabited … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Twenty-Four: Writing Summaries and Synopses (Twitter series #4)
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com How do I find the right agent? I was asked this question by several people and I wanted to spend some time on it. I was also asked the process of a manuscript from being written to getting published, so I plan to explain how to find the right agent … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Twenty-three: Finding the Right Agent/The Process of Publishing From A to Z (Twitter Series #3)
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com The first question for this post is: Why query at all? I must say, this one stumped me. I even googled it and found no articles explaining why we query. The simple fact is publishers use agents to filter readers like coffee grounds. I’m not saying it is a bad … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Twenty-two: Why Query at All/ Commercial vs. Literary (Twitter Series #2)
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I recently had a friend ask her Twitter followers what one question you would ask an agent if you could. I was surprised at the answers. I thought they might be akin to the blog posts I had been writing, but they centered around, "Why don't you love me?" and … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Twenty: How Do I Get Representation? And Five More Questions (Twitter Series #1)
"Keron found a small campsite nearby and gathered sticks together, having Fale light a fire. She felt powerful that night for some reason, standing on the mountain top, facing the moon and the endless ocean. She spread her arms out wide and let fire spray from her palms into the rock ring before her. She’d … Continue reading Introducing: The Queen’s Heart- Cover Reveal
Photo by Nick Demou on Pexels.com I overheard an author friend of mine the other day learn to take the word “that” out of his writing and I was surprised he hadn’t heard this before, as we’ve been in writing groups together for several years. So I thought I’d make this week’s blog about words … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Nineteen: 28 Words to Cut From Your Manuscript
The story arc, also called the narrative arc, is the journey of a story and its characters from one way of life to something completely different. It is defined as the change that takes place between one cover and the other. Arcs are stories with characters that make life changes that take them from weakness … Continue reading Agent Questions Volume Seventeen: What is a story arc and do I need one?
Hey guys, sorry, it's been awhile. I need more publishing questions to answer on this blog. So help me out writers, if you would, and please tell me your biggest questions. Or even your little ones. What could an insider tell you that you want to know? Got a new logo. What do you think? … Continue reading Help needed. Oh, and a contest. Yay.
Jennifer Haskin 