Predicting 2018

Down Under the turn of the numbers to a New Year is clouded by the fact that we are all on our Summer holidays and we don’t want to think about work... let alone make goals for the year. However Back To School sales in stationery stores get the writer brain ticking. How can I justify getting that shiny new journal? 2018 Goals... that’s how!

So now you have the shiny journal, the cool pen and you’ve eaten all your Christmas chocolate. Time to make some goals. Jo Eberhardt over at Writer Unboxed has a great article on making SMART goals. This is the advice you need for making goals that are achievable. A must read.

My Twitter feed has been filling up with crystal ball gazing for the coming publishing year. Along with pleas for submissions to stop as Agents and Editors get the NaNoWriMo onslaught of manuscripts that January always brings.

To start planning for 2018 it is wise to look back at 2017 and see what worked and make plans for more of the same. Kris Rusch has a great wrap up article on what the big five publishers did last year and how this will impact publishing going forward. This is well worth a read and a think about especially if you are or have been Traditionally published.

Mark Coker has compiled his list of what he thinks will happen in 2018... more of 2017. However he does make a few points that seem to be echoed everywhere. Audio still hasn’t hit its limit.... It is the fastest growing format and now there are some real competitors in this market. Audible, who did a lot to grow the market by hooking listeners into hearing free audio books, may need to change their T.O.S to remain top of the heap. (If you think that last sentence sounded familiar think Kindle and free eBooks and that Amazon owns Audible.) Mark has plenty of other nuggets to get you thinking.I’ve finally checked out his new podcast- Smart Author- and its chock full of great information.

Written Word Media have written a very full article on what they see coming in 2018 and how writers should be positioning themselves to take advantage of it.

Orna Ross from the Alliance of Independent Authors has been crystal ball gazing as well. Orna has turned her focus on how technically savvy authors are going to have to be to take advantage of new technologies and trends if they want a career that sustains them in the long haul.

These are the best of the roundups that I have seen in the last two weeks so grab a cool drink and think about new things to learn or new goals to make.

Joanna Penn has a great blog on productivity tips that can give you a few new tools to try in 2018. These are all common sense goals but maybe they can help you stop procrastinating and get those words down.

Anne R Allen has started the new year with a great post on 8 things more important than writing talent. This started a great conversation in her blog comments. It is not enough to want to be a writer... you have to do the work!

In The Craft Section,

4 reasons readers stop caring about your story- Janice Hardy

Best free resources roundup for writing-Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

Why we shouldn’t shield children from darkness in our writing- Time

100 best websites for writers- Writelife

How to present literary themes in book series- Sara Letourneau- Bookmark

Creating interesting subplots to move the story forward.

Secrets of good storytelling- K M Weiland- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

Why Facebook is still important for authors in 2018

Publishing wide and how to do it from your website- Joanna Penn

Selling truckloads of books - Penny Sansevieri-Bookmark

The best book marketing advice from 2017- Jane Friedman

Embedding social media in your posts- The Book Designer- Bookmark

Street teams and how to use them- Draft2Digital-Bookmark

Shameless Book Promotion- Writelife

To Finish,

Setting goals can sometimes create stress. There is the immediate self doubt stress... along with the-big-obstacle-course-that- life-likes-to-throw-at-you-when-you-thought-it-was-going-to-be-a-smooth-path stress.

Sacha Black has some tips for making goals that don’t stress you out trying to keep to them.

As you start into the New Year you need some inspiration along with all the goal setting. Orna Ross talks about creativity with Joanna Penn. Are you filling yourself up on creative projects that don’t feel like work?

Here’s to a fabulous start to the writing year...

Maureen

@craicer

In my monthly newsletter, coming soon, I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. If you want to shout me a coffee just hit the hit the coffee button. Thanks.
 

Pic: 

Present and Future Plans

We are rapidly coming to the end of the year. Thoughts turn to finishing up projects before Christmas, the ideal Christmas presents and what projects to start 2018 with.

In the publishing blogosphere Patreon decided this week that increasing charges to people who were only paying a small sum to artists was the way to position themselves for the coming year. They could not have got it more wrong. Artists value their Patrons. Most creative’s have a lot of small donor patrons. These people often support many artists by sharing a couple of dollars a month around a lot of people. It all adds up. The backlash was swift. Patreon realised its blunder today. However the whole experience has left a sour taste in many peoples mouths.

Mark Coker of Smashwords has begun a podcast. He has launched with a few episodes that everyone is talking favorably about. If you listen to podcasts about the writing business you should check it out.

Rachel Thompson has a post about the end of year clean up of your Social Media. Just what does this kind of clean up entail? Rachel lists all the things you should be thinking about with the different social media accounts.

Publishers Weekly reported on the Global Kids Connect panelheld in New York last week. What is selling globally at the moment? Trends were discussed and predictions made...

Orna Ross examines the role of the entrepreneur and discovers that being an author ticks all the boxes. However there are some mindset adjustments for authors. Do you believe in yourself?

Kris Rusch has a great blog post on Sustainability. Are you prepared for it? Do you know what it looks like to sustain a career over the long haul? This is a must read post.

Joanna Penn has a great interview with Andy Bromley on selling print books through Ingram and why what they do is so interesting. (P.S. You can always find a discount code to use so it won’t cost you anything.)

The wonderful Tara Sparling has a great post on the 12 days of Christmas for writers except that hers deals with the 12 writing cliches. This is a read and must share with your writing buddies.

Christmas presents for authors... I go into my local stationery shop and spend ages in the journal and pens section... filing boxes are so pretty... Can I justify a new desk... Dream about an office... Build Book Buzz has a list of gifts for readers and writers... and check out thisgift guide from the Millions website... of course you need book wallpaper.

Some bright spark has compiled all of J K Rowling’s writing advice. It's good advice too

In The Craft Section,

Story Immersion – Improve your reader’s experience- Jefferson Smith- Bookmark

Q & A on Coming of Age stories- Michael Hauge- Bookmark

Mastering Showing vs Telling- Meg Latorre Snyder Bookmark

The power of writing groups- Writer Unboxed- Bookmark

Piller 2 for the writer – Mentoring- Art Holcomb- Bookmark

Adapting a novel into a screenplay- Alex Bloom- Bookmark

Digging Into Deep Revision- Beth Camp- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section,

640 killer Book Marketing ideas... Bookmark

How to find your ideal audience- Kimberley Grabas

Creative ways to boost reader engagement- Bookbub- Bookmark

How to sell more paperbacks in December- Selfpublishing Advice blog

36 best blogs on the business of writing- The Digital Reader

eBook distribution- Reedsy

10 major areas Authors must focus on- BookMarketing Buzz- Bookmark

To Finish,

Book Covers... They make or break your book. I always try to drop into Joel Friedlander’s Book Cover Monthly Design Awards

Lindsey Vontz from 99 designs has a look at the Top trends in Book Covers for 2018. Typography is the in thing... Lets go crazy with font...

And while we are playing with letters... Take a look at this Fantasy Pseudonym Name Generator...

You could plan a whole writing career for a pseudonym over the Christmas break....

Maureen

@craicer

I round up the best of the bookmarked craft and marketing links as well as some other bits and pieces every month. When you subscribe you will also get a nifty book crammed full with marketing notes. My last newsletter for the year is coming soon. It’s Christmas lucky dip time!

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons Just Album

https://www.flickr.com/photos/justdigital/13984474798/in/photolist-niL69s-7MG5UL-

Fair Learning

This week is all about the London Book Fair. (It is still Book Fair season.)

The Alliance of Independent Authors hosted a packed online conference at the London Book Fair. They had some wonderful speakers and have put blogposts up on their website with all sorts of juicy information and learning. This is well worth spending some quiet time trawling through.

One of the standout events was a panel discussion on selling more formats into more countries.

Publishing Perspectives has their eye on the fair and the interesting ideas to come out of it and Lithub finds out how easy it is to get lost but then you find other things at the fair.

Sukhi Jutla has a great blog post on lessons learned at the London Book Fair.  This is of special relevance to independent authors or those thinking of the hybrid author model.

Joanna Penn has another great podcast, this week, on building your author business. This is an interesting subject because even if you follow the traditional approach to publishing you are still in the author business.

Mark Coker has released his 2016 survey on insights and habits of the bestselling authors on Smashwords. This is a comprehensive look at pricing sweet spots, box sets, etc. etc.

This week Passive Guy pointed out an interesting article in the WSJ about the new selling footprint of famous independent bookstore Shakespeare and Co. The new owner has turned it on its head. Is this the bookstore of the future?

In the Craft Section,

Why it helps to construct your novels in scenes- Roz Morris –Bookmark

How to deal with procrastination- Janice Hardy

Character likeability and subtext- Jami Gold-Bookmark

Hidden emotion – how to tell readers what characters don’twant to 

show- Angela Ackerman-Bookmark

Understanding exactly what a quest is

3 surefire ways to generate book ideas- Jody Hedlund

Top 4 editing tricks for narrative flow- KM Weiland- Bookmark

7 step guide to big picture revision

In the Marketing Section,

11 tips for building an online community- Anne R Allen- Bookmark

Using video marketing effectively for authors- Joanna Penn- Bookmark

Online marketing tips for kids publishing.

Why school librarians are your best resource- Middle Grade Ninja- 

Bookmark

Making changes to a published book- Elizabeth S Craig

How to increase traffic at your author website

To Finish,

After spending so much time Book Fair related it is time to take a break. Bustle has an article on why authors should take a reading break every now and then. This is a funny post about the need to step away from books in order to write them.

Maureen

@craicer

Thanks for all the kind messages about Craicer's 8^th Blogoversary throughout the last week.

Pic from Flickr Creative Commons- Kirt Edblom

Premature Babbling

This morning my Twitter feed filled up with reaction to a new kid on the YA publishing block and his attitude. Normally a new kid on the block would be welcomed and included but when the new kid talks down about the very genre they are writing in and then writes some dubious blog posts, the YA community will not ignore you. Chuck explains it best with his witty no-holds-barred post on not spitting on the legacy of the writers that have gone before you.

The Guardian also has a pertinent article on literature writers who deny that their work is actually genre... they wouldn’t lower themselves. SIGH! Read it and cheer.

This week there have been a few posts celebrating pre orders and warnings about pre orders.

Publishers Weekly has an interesting article by Mark Coker of Smashwords on using pre orders to ramp up your first day sales. You need to have preorders across the bookselling sites to get on the bestseller lists.

Then Mindy Klasky detailed how a preorder went horribly wrong for an anthology on Amazon.

If you are contemplating using pre orders in your marketing strategy, Carefully reading both these articles will give you the full picture.

November looks like the month I mention Asia every week. Mark Williams has a very detailed post looking at the global publishing industry using mobile phones. If you are looking into the future of publishing, check out what he has to say... grab a beverage of your choice, as it will take a while but it is worth it. Time to think GLOBAL!

Anne R Allen has a blog post that is being mentioned a lot around Twitter. If you are still trying to get your head around the changes in Amazon’s review policy, Anne has carefully laid all the do’s and don’t out for you.

Joann Penn has a very interesting interview up with LiteraryEstate lawyer, Kathryn Goldman. There are lots of things to think about in this interview. If you haven’t given a thought to what might happen to your Intellectual Property in the future... you need to read or listen to this interview.

Future Book has a section on Future Book Tech.  As we are in the middle of exam season here this post caught my eye. Here is a profile of a young man who saw a need to provide mobile exam preparation courses. He is now partnering with some of the worlds biggest educational publishers.

In the Craft Section,

How to learn fiction writing techniques- Jody Hedlund- Bookmark!

How to write multiple antagonists – K M Weiland

What is bad writing and how can we fix it - and Adding Conflict to Your Scenes-Janice Hardy Bookmark Both!

When back story kills your plot- C S Lakin

Expand deepen and create – September Fawkes Bookmark!

What is narrative thrust?- Jane Friedman

In the Marketing Section,

Making picture quotes easy

Rachel Thompsons book marketing tips part two (Part one was in last weeks blog)

How to create a book that sells - Penny Sansevieri – there is also a video of Penny with some great 

marketing tips.

How to keep your fans raving for your books- Author Basics

Marketing plans- Jessica West

To Finish,

Last week I had Kristine Rusch as my website of the week. This week she wrote a great post on the journey of one writer, Marie Force. Often we hear we should write to the market... or we shouldn’t write to the market or we should write contemporary or we should write genre.... Read Kris- (take it to heart) and Write what you love!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic from Flick Creative Commons / Werwin 15

Market Your Name

This week one of my friends posted an interesting article from Sarah McIntyre about crediting illustrators. Illustrators are often overlooked by authors and award judges when it comes to promotion. It is time that we remembered that a great picture book has an author and an illustrator working in collaboration and so they both should be equally credited when it comes to promotion. Sarah came up with the #picturesmeanbusiness campaign.

Darcy Pattison has a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog about the promotion of children’s books and how she is using Pinterest as an experiment because children’s books are about the visual. 

Anne R Allen has a great resource blog for writers. This week she writes about the care and feeding of THE MUSE for writers. There is lots of great advice in here.

Going to conferences can inspire you to new projects. Joanna Penn talks about attending the ThrillerFest conference and what she learned there. This is a really fascinating article as Joanna is exploring the hybrid author position here. She also has a great interview with a publishing futurist…what might be around the corner and coming soon to an author near you... 

Following along on this theme is Porter’s think piece - finding and building fans of books is the most important thing an author can do ... here he reports on some big thinkers in the publishing game on this kind of marketing.

Jane Friedman has been getting serious of late with email marketing. She has written two excellent blog posts on email newsletters for authors and how to improve the newsletter to make it relevant. I’m interested in exploring this from a children’s writer point of view. Who do we send newsletters to...

I don’t subscribe to many newsletters but one I do and try to read frequently is Larry Brooks. His Storyfix website is great. His newsletters are direct and punchy on the craft of writing. Larry recently had a melt down moment which is worth reading. Writers you need to study your craft... figure out some stuff then apply it. If you write then you should read this.

Four important questions that agents ask writers in the pitch session... and yes you should be able to answer them...

In the Craft section,

Goals Conflict Stakes- Janice Hardy (Bookmark)

Copyediting –it’s not rocket surgery- The Book Designer (Bookmark)

Writing Terrible first drafts

Fishing out your manuscript hook- Kate Moretti (Bookmark)

How to write a synopsis- sorta- Ava Jae (Bookmark)

9 ways to use point of view to strengthen characters

4 Revision Goals- Darcy Pattison (Bookmark!)

In the Marketing section,

Does it pay to do a print book- Molly Greene

The unexpected effect of perma free- M Louisa Locke- Bookmark

Marketing Books as an Indie author

12 secrets to selling books

10 mistakes authors make that cost them a fortune

Cleaning up your Amazon Central Book Page- Elizabeth S Craig

How to sell more copies of a book you published years ago- Bookmark

Offering free ebooks to subscribers- Elizabeth S Craig 

Website of The Week

Every now and then you come across a web comic that exactly illustrates the writing life. Chances are you have seen an Inkygirl comic. So you really need to check out her awesome website where she has other great helpful tips. Inkygirl is also promoting the #picturesmeanbusiness campaign to recognise picture book illustrators on metadata and awards.

To Finish,

Mark Coker of Smashwords recently put up his Slideshare deck ... 6 hours of concentrated workshopping on publishing ebooks. You don’t have to wade through all of it. Just look at the transcript and scroll down to the section that interests you. This is like a Master class in eBook marketing.

Maureen

@craicer

Pics From the fabulous Inkygirl

A Week Of It

Such a busy week, Monday started with the  NZ National Librarians Children’s Book Awards. A great night with some expected and unexpected wins. The Hells Pizza chain committed to another year of sponsorship. These are the only book awards left in NZ with sponsorship.

Then Tuesday night our Tinderbox conference opened for registrations. The team gathered to toast the opening and watch the screen fill up. Some workshops are close to full already less than 48 hours later. It looks like we got the mix right with hands on workshops on writing and illustrating, marketing, tax, contracts, editing, presenting, school visits, self publishing, copyright and translation. Phew. After adding in various dinner and wine events, we all needed a lie down before we opened for registrations. Don’t leave it too late to register we might be fully subscribed in less than a week.   

This week Amazon changed their Kindle Unlimited pay per borrow rules. Now it is pay per page read... The sky is falling ran the comments on Social Media. Hugh Howey shook his head and launched into finger waving as he called out the worst nay sayers. Hugh doesn’t think there is a problem at all. Porter took a more measured approach with comment from lots of sources... Do you want one entity to know so much about your reading habits?

This week the Authors Guild launched their fair contracts for writers campaign. Its time to let the public know just what can be stuffed into a writers contract. Porter talks to the new guild president and finds out why they are calling on readers to back the authors. Frankly the increasing prevalence of harsh non compete clauses deserve to be exposed as unethical and unreasonable bullying.

The lovely Janice Hardy has a great post on can we know too much about the publishing industry. here she outlines three mindsets and encourages everyone to find what inspired them most to start writing. Sometimes you need to block out the publishing world.

Today Smashwords launched a nifty addition- pre orders across the board to all their outlets... and you don’t need the product ready.  You can use your pre order date as your writing deadline. Mark Coker explains all in his blog today.

In the Craft Section,

Tiffany Reisz on dialogue - Great Post

K M Weiland on Character goals

Different Story Starters

The Seven Sins of World Building

10 Simple keys to Story Structure- (Bookmark)

Complex Book Plotting – Great Post

Creating Menacing Antagonists

Writers Block – ways to combat this.

Joanna Penn interviews Jen Blood on Editing (Bookmark)

In the Marketing Section,

How to get readers hooked from your e-book sample

How to Design a great e-book without design skills

Anne R Allen on dos and don’t for author bloggers

E tools for freelancers (comprehensive list)

Free Marketing tools.

Website of The Week

Writers In The Storm have a great website with interesting resources and articles. This article by Susan Spann is from earlier in the year on protecting your copyrights online.  Always relevant!

To Finish,

Joanna Penn interviews Nathan Meunier about gaming and writing and some very exciting software that allows you to write a choose your own adventure book and turn it into a game...

And the week isn’t finished yet!

Maureen

@craicer

Pic Flickr /Creative Commons/ photosteve101

Scrubbing Up

This morning parts of New Zealand were declared officially in drought. (finally…)

The kids have gone back to school. 

The floor still needs scrubbing. 

I’m still trying to find my desk under the summer onslaught of papers, Christmas wrappings and other detritus that has to be put away. 

Business as usual.

I need to change my mindset.

Scott Berkun has descriptions of 3 writer mindsets that he switches through.

I need to revisit the story that makes me have nightmares.

Mark Wisniewski has 3 pieces of advice that he should have given when he taught writing.

I need to understand my history as a writer and view my books as an annuity.

Seth Godin on The truth about Sunk Costs and Mark Coker on treating your ebooks as annuity earnings.

I need to relook at my print book project.

Elisabeth Spann Craig on why we still need print copies of our books.

Conference planning is underway with my great team. News will be coming soon. If you found yourself instantly linking to some of the above for a different way of looking at your career ... you may want to keep October 2-5^th free and come to Wellington.

In the Craft Section,

Every one of these is a bookmark post...

How to place turning points on a beat sheet

What your first 250 words is telling your reader

11 secrets to character description

The art of story - when telling trumps showing- Angela Ackerman

4 ways to think about narrative architecture- (Warning-ChuckWendig)

What are the needs and goals of your character- Jami Gold

What it means when they say the story is didactic.

In the Marketing section,

40 questions to ask an agent

The one page synopsis- Killzone

Giving the people what they want

12 book marketing tips

How to send review copies

How to use Facebook to help other authors

Tools for writers.

To Finish,

Joanna Penn revisits her favourite craft books for writers... and I’m nodding my head as I own about half of her list... Now do I dive into a craft book or scrub the floor…(save the water…)

maureen

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons- Nick Perez

Gazing into 2015

The sun has been beating down and we have been traveling through the North Island on our annual family pilgrimage. I tried hard not to think of all the projects I wanted to start/complete this year (they are all from last years Annus Interrumpi.) My family thought I was taking a complete wellness break... I was sleeping ... honestly! So now I’m back with first post of the year.

As 2015 rolls in... writers take stock of where they are and where they want to be next year and what the publishing world is going to throw at them. Everyone who has spent any time in this business knows that change is constant!

Over the last five years I have read Bob Mayer’s New Year predictions and he usually is on the money. So here is his take for 2015.

Mark Coker of Smashwords is taking a similar line and getting quoted all over the place in the last week.

With book publishing stats for last year being digested and comments about the drop in e-book sales from publishers... does this spell the beginning of the end of the e-book phenomenon. NO. Killzone notes the sky is not falling and Hugh Howey is busy gazing into the sky of 2015.

Chuck Wendig takes his usual hilarious (profane) ramble on 2015 writing resolutions and what he would like to see happening in publishing in 2015. Chuck cautions everyone about subscription models like Kindle Unlimited. It might be good for the reader...but.

This week Oyster enrolled the Macmillan group into their model, which means they have a significant number of the top ten publishers. Subscription wars may be about to start.

The Digital Book World conference is happening as I write. (#DBW15) They kicked off the conference looking at Children’s Publishing. Jane Friedman has links to all the slide presentations and a nifty infographic about the demands on children’s reading time. Porter Anderson looks at Children’s Publishing figures... 25% of all print publishing and the growing take up of e- books in this sector. Where to next?

Writer Beware takes a close look at Publishing contracts- Are you sabotaging yourself?

Are we all over crowdfunding publishing or is there a better way… Futurebook chat roundup makes interesting reading.

If you need a lie down after all those resolutions Writer Unboxed has a post on Tolerating Uncertainty.

In the Craft Section,

5 ways to reveal backstory

Working with multiple POV’s and timelines- Janice Hardy

6 ways to make characters stand out- Jody Hedlund

Painting characters into corners

Writing poverty in YA

When the narrator knows as much as God

Most common writing mistakes- K M Weiland

The Smelling Post- or writing about this sense...

Graphic post on whether your main character can survivemultiple assailants (definitely for thriller writers!)

Bob Mayer’s video on conflict lock

Hooks, Lines and Stinkers

In the Marketing Section

3 simple ebook marketing tips.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization-  (SEO)

27 royalty free stock image sites

Planning marketing with a content calendar

Finding the right critique partners

Website of the Week

Agent Janet Reid has a great site where she answers authors questions about agents... here she looks at what happens when an agent quits the business but still wants to rep you.

To Finish,

If you have teenagers in the house... chances are you have heard a lot of Taylor Swift. Have you ever noticed how her songs are plots of YA novels....

Maureen

Pic from Flickr/Creative Commons Su Bo An

Thou Shalt...

It has been a funny old fortnight (do you still use that word in daily speech?) I had to take a break from my regular weekly blog due to the recovery dance going backwards.

In the publishing blogosphere it is Frankfurt time! Frankfurt is one of the worlds biggest book trade fairs. This year Frankfurt nodded towards self-publishing with a who’s who line up of speakers for a dedicated two day conference tacked onto the main event.  Along with the many book deals being done at Frankfurt there is lots of discussion about industry trends. ISBN’s are in the spotlight. Porter has been looking at the increasing dissatisfaction with ISBN’s. Are they necessary? (N.B. NZ provides free ISBN’s through the National Library for NZers.)

Just when you thought bookstores were on their way out... Faber (Lit publishers) decide to operate a pop up store selling Faber titles. Other publishers are watching that space.

Amazon announced this morning that they were going to have a store in Manhattan... So the store idea is not dead.

In a little rumble that may herald an earthquake is on the way... Adobe has been identified as scanning people’s digital bookshelves without their consent... this may be the straw that breaks DRM. Publishers may feel that DRM won’t be worth the lawsuits...

Futurebook has an interesting article on Bookbridgr. This is a site that teams up book bloggers with publishers. With the increasing loss of book review pages in print this looks like an interesting option. (Could be room for a NZ option...)

I’ve always thought India was a market to watch... 1billion people... many who speak English... EBooks India has just interviewed Mark Coker on what it takes to self publish there.

Writer Beware has an interesting post on how to ask publishers about rights reversion. This is an important clause in your contract...

Karen Inglis walks her readers through converting a Picture Book to an ‘Enhanced eBook’ through iBooks.

In the Craft Section,

Two great links from Ava Jae. How to write effective betrayal and How to make up your own language for your WIP.

How to write a page turner.

Screenwriting tips for novels, 3 act 8 sequence.

Showing or Telling

Anne R Allen - Are your dreams getting in the way of your writing goals?

Creating characters readers care about.

Multi - coloured heroes... diversity in your characters.

How to destroy your initial idea to make it better.

Chuck - what you need to know about your second draft. (Great article! Usual Chuck warnings)

In the Marketing Section,

Neil Gaiman's clever bookclub trick

Jane Friedman interviewed Bella Andre... and learned 5 tips for success.

Using Goodreads to its best advantage for Authors

10 book marketing mistakes

Killzone- ten tips to self promote like a marketer.

If you are interesting in the self-publishing revolution, Lateral Action interviewed Joanna Penn about her new book Business for Authors.

Writer Unboxed has 5 tips from Joanna to consider when you look at your author business.

15 terms every Indie author should know

To Finish,

The ongoing battle of should you/ shouldn’t you over author blogging is always a weighty tussle.

Here it takes another twist with a guest article on The Book Designer website... Thou shalt blog.

Of course I don’t follow the proscribed rule... in my weekly (ahem) blog but if you want to click on the book covers in the side bar you can get a taster of my writing.

maureen